Assistance in the paint booth

Links in bold red font are hot; they're download links. Click and you'll be prompted to save the file, though cancelling is also an option.

Have you ever found a digital picture of a car livery you'd like to recreate in Forza? I have and I can't be the only one. Thankfully there are tools to help us achieve noticeable extra precision. I don't mean tools to recreate a specific logo though we can achieve that to some extent. I mean tools to help assemble a complete livery.

• How wide are roof stripes in relation to the roof width and how far apart are the stripes from each other?
  
• Where do the boundaries of this logo lay in relation to the door jamb / rocker panel / …?
  
• How many of these stickers would fit over a known area?

These questions and more can be answered with a screen ruler and real images of your target livery.

There are many clever ways to use a ruler program to slowly transpose a real livery into Forza's paint booth. You'll find that once you've successfully placed or sized one logo, using that logo in conjunction with a ruler can help you gauge distances and other sizes on your Forza car canvas.

A Ruler For Windows is one such free program. Their page also has a link to Iconico, makers of Screen Calipers and other measuring software. Generally, Iconico's programs are free to download but contain limitations until you purchase a license.

Screen Ruler is another option. I linked to the previous version which is now unsupported but is free. They've released a new version but you'll need to purchase a license to unlock all of the goodies. The good thing about this ruler is it can be sized to become two rulers in one, spanning the x and y axis in one fell swoop. Here is their home page.

The program Screen Calipers looks amazing as they allow the user to rotate the calipers though you must buy the software to wholly enjoy that feature. The other named ruler programs work purely on the horizontal and vertical planes.

Because these rulers mostly work horizontally and vertically, having your desired subject exactly perpendicular to you is a huge help. It's best to find images of your desired vehicle where you're looking flat at one of the five vinyl-legit surfaces.

There is a way you may measure on an angle without paying for Screen Calipers. Remember Trigonometry? Remember SOHCAHTOA and the arc function? Thought you'd never use that again, didn't you? Opening two instances of A Ruler For Windows or one instance of Screen Ruler you can effectively create a hypotenuse of a known angle and distance. This will be needed if your picture isn't exactly perpendicular to your plane of vision.

Okay, now I'll come to the negative. Screen ruler programs measure in pixels whereas Forza's livery creator has its own measurement system. Never fear, we can still extrapolate a ratio in pixels and translate that ratio to Forza.
Example: A logo measures 180 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall on your computer screen. This is an 18:10 ratio or simplified as 9:5. In Forza, for every nine clicks of width, click five of height.

Now leave! Grab (a / both) program(s) and start saving race car pictures so you too may bring accurate works to your collection.

If you have any questions or comments, leave them below.

You can always lay a grid over the image and work that way - it's not as precise though. All of my vinyls have been eyeballed. (On some, that's not saying much - but on some of the others, well I'm impressed...