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Issue 54, 28. October 2010

In this issue
*In the News
*In the Spotlight
*Wallpaper Art
*Blast from the Past
*This Issue's Underrated
*Interview
*Tuner Tips


In the News

World Challenge



The first NFS WORLD Showroom Challenge here on NFSUnlimited.net is currently running and you still have time to upload your best looking ride and win a t-shirt! There is no certain theme on this challenge so you can create any kind of desing you want. To read all the rules and to sign up for the challenge, head to the Challenge Page.

Remeber to check out our Tuner Tips on this issue to get the best possible pictures of your challenge entry ;)

Leaderboard News

Over the past few weeks we've seen a lot of new features added to the World leaderboards here on NFSUnlimited, the newest and most interesting being the team pages. You can join your respective teams here or create your own, and each team will have their own page with a member list, shoutbox, team leaderboards and private discussion page. To get involved, all you have to do is head over to the World Leaderboards!

We already have numerous strong teams holding fort on the site, including the official NFSUnlimited World Racing Crew. It's run by myself (Dr H.) and Bojan, and it's an open team for everyone on the site, so readers, head over to the team page here and sign up!


Djiel's Tutorial Pack #3

Well there's been a rumour going around the site for quite a while now about a so-called "Djiel Tuts #3". Good news for you NFSUnlimited is that the project is underway. The bad news is that a few of the usual writers are unable to do so this time round.

So the SRI Team, the Djiel Pack team and myself (TW1ST3R) are putting out a call to you, NFSUnlimited, and in particular; the Art Guys Team. If you know any cool or useful Photoshop techniques/tips that havent been featured in Pack 1 or Pack 2 feel free to create a tutorial (see the packs for ideas on presentation) as a Microsoft Word 2003 document and PM it to YaelDjiel.


In the Spotlight

JUN'd Niss by veresis


Well here we are after approximately half a year of work. Veresis has pulled off one heck of a car here. Employing the use of his signature CF (the tutorial you can find here) veresis has created the ultimate racing GTR. Works Converted, for that hardcore racing feel with a set of Volk Racing rims for that added effect. Purple and CF are always a brilliant combination and this masterpiece doesnt drop the ball at all. Combined with grey, white and black outlines that flow perfectly with the lines of the car, this "Niss" becomes something else entirely. As with any racer, veresis has adorned this GTR with decals perfectly remade and placed for ultimate appeal. This is veresis' last SHIFT car until, as he calls it; a "stable/final WORLD release or the newest HotPursuit" arrives; so be sure to head over there and check it out!

-[ Hi-Tech ]- by JokerGG


This one's an entry from the WORLD Showroom by JokerGG. It is as Joker says: "a techno style car". True to his word, Joker has created one modern techy monster of a Z. The green and black and white colour combo looks really fresh here with the major lines of the vinyls mirroring the car's lines, and the thinner, "special touch" vinyls make it look like a silicon chip that's exploded out of a computer! Modern Styled Vinyls are one of the most effective types of vinyls used in the showroom today and this car is one shining example of how this can be achieved in the WORLD tuning system.

cyan drift s15 by m27


Flowing vinyls, beautiful colour combo, sporty bodywork - m27 has delivered the complete package here. Originally meant for this issue's underrated section, I felt that this ride was simply way to be good to be popped in down there, so here it is in its full glory - here In The Spotlight. Right from the first look, this car is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The aqua base-paint with high-contrasting orange is simply stunning. Throw in a few darker shades of blue and some white highlights and we have something spectacular. m27 certainly has an eye for placing decals on a car, and this one is no exception - they flow not only with the shape of the stunning silvia widebodykit, but also with those amazing floral vinyls. But vinyls and decals arent the only aspects of a drifter that must be attended to with detail - choice of rims are vital to this. These [WORK Emotion] XT7's are a perfect way to round off a perfect car.


Wallpaper Art

Wings Of Streets (feat. Zip) by kostovmilica9


Kostovmilica9 has quickly become a cornerstone to the NFSU Showroom community, amazing others with his creative and edgy designs. This eye for style carries over into his stunning presentation skills, as evidented here by his new Golf GTi.
A collaboration with fellow user Zip_mdd, the Volkswagon is a very artistic car, with some unique vinyls illustrating a pair of wings on either side and complementing aggressive bodywork, as well as some great decal placement.
Working with a UG1 car is one of the hardest challenges a photoshopper shall undertake; the most dated graphics engine and picture quality out of active tuners' NFS collections, the time effort required to work on the car itself can be quite the task. When you pull it off to the level that Milosh has done here though, it's something to behold. The rebrush of the car crispens the lines, ups the detail and brightens the contrast to the once dull GTi. Detailed reflections and shadows as well as a sexy pearlescent paint finish off the car, and a colourful skyline makes the scene.

:::Balos touch::: (ft. RO|SMOKE) by kostovmilica9


This time the car's from kostovmilica9, a fish-inspired 350Z. The use of very unique and crazy bodywork here creates one very special ride.
Our man RO|SMOKE's done the presentation today, and, sticking with the wacky theme, we've got this Z hanging out on the beach. Believe it or not, the picturesque scenes of the blue waters are superseded by one heck of a car, and RO|SMOKE'S done his best possible efforts to make you feel as if you, and the car, are right there chilling out with a coconut milkshake. The reflections on the chassis of the Nissan blend the car into its surroundings perfectly, as well as create a sense of realism.


Blast from the Past

> Zagreb < by SpeedC


Zagreb, the capital of the Republic of Croatia. You might wonder why a 350Z is named after a city in South-Eastern Europe if you don't know that this mean machine is dedicated to TS-X who happens to live in Croatia. This Nissan, which looks a bit like a collision of a robot spider and a spacecraft, was done back in 2007 by SpeedC and it still looks unique and vicious. Using a carbon hood on a black car generally doesn't look good in most cases, but here the fit is better than perfect and with the cf trunk, it adds that aggressive look for the car. And speaking of aggressiveness, the wide bodykit is practically roaring for a battle and these Make Model show-styled deep dish rims fit the body like a glove. As the vinyl design is simple it's also extremely stylish and using cyan and silver colours give the car more fresh outfit. SpeedC has also done a very classy presentation which suit the car perfectly. That's one thing new users should remember when making presentations, make the pres fit the car and not making a car that you can easily use in some ready background.


This Issue's Underrated

Kitti by Kovgan-OFF


I know what you're thinking: "This ride has 60*. Isn't the maximum requirement for This Issue's Underrated 50*?

True, but it's pure perfection makes it more than worthy for This Issue's Underrated, and the majority of its pure perfection comes with an idea NOBODY would expect someone to implelemt: Hello Kitty. And the best part of it is that it can only come from somebody as skilled as the creator, Kovgan-OFF. The kit is drifter quality and suits every single aspect of the car well. Note, however, that most of the work is focused on the vinyl work, which is about as messy as a kindergartner's room, as crazy as a dog with rabies, but is twice as cool as any other Silvia ever made in SHIFT (with a few exceptions). And while you might expect me to criticize the two-wheels method - one style in the front, another in the back -, I actually don't mind it here. If anything, this car, with all of its excellence and hard work put into it, deserves nothing less than five stars and favorites from now until forever.


Interview

This time we've got an oldschool tuner, who still creates new rides every now and then, to answer our challenging and thoughtful questions. He has a very distinctive style what comes to creating both cars and presentations and he is one of those tuners who never ceases to amaze. Formely he was known as Nismo-Skyline, now we know him as jDM_TuNerX.

Question 1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Well my name is Paul, I'm 19 years old, I'm from the Netherlands and I study IT Management.
In my free I mostly hang out in the gym, other than that I play guitar, make dubstep mixes and go out every now and then.

Q 2. How is it that you've become a fan of the NFS franchise?
Well when I was about 8 years old I started playing NFS High Stakes, after that I pretty much stopped, since I still was to noob to even finish the game, but I really started playing more NFS games after NFS Underground, played pretty much every NFS game released after that.
It just became an addiction, especially after NFS Underground.

Q 3. When and why did you join NFSUnlimited.net?
I joined in April 2006 as Nismo-Skyline. I was a member of a dutch NFS Forum and there I came in contact with Rienkie, Rienkie93 back then. After showing some rides on that forum, he told me about NFSUnlimited, and not long after that I joined here. After that I switched many times of account, first I went over to Nismo D1, then Nevertrust (which I never really used) and now then JDM_TunerX.

Q 4. What do you think about the current situation in the Showroom?
Since I became a member, after about 2 years it started to get more worse, old school tuners started to leave and more new members came, that couldn't accept criticism (one even started to steal my garage pics :P). There are a lot of lazy ppl out there (comment wise), I haven't been active lately so been a bit lazy myself with the rides :P. I rarely see a good comment on a ride, most just say 'I like it, 5* fav' and that's it. It's hard to become a better tuner if the comments aren't good. People really have to start saying what they really think of a ride, what they dislike and what would improve it IMO.
A good thing is that there are also a lot of members who have started to give proper comments.

Q 5. If you'd improve something about the Showroom, what would that be?
Hard to say, I personally preferred the old rating system, but because of a few down voters it got wrecked. Rest just looks fine, nothing to improve imo.

Q 6. What motivates you to make cars, what's your inspiration?
Nothing really, I just wanted to share my creations with the world, good or bad, I want to improve them and become a better tuner.

Q 7. Which car, from the ones you've made, you like the most? What about the ones in the Showroom?
Hmm well currently I don't have anything I especially like in my garage, but if I have to choose, I go for SuNSEt. Just some simplicity, although I have said it isn't special. In the showroom in total, well hard to say, there are a lot of cars that really stand out, but I'd have to go with >- Flaming Blade -< from Rienkie. It's just perfection imo, so simple, yet so effective.

Q 8. If there's a person on the site you'd like to thank, who would that be and why?
Well there are multiple people I would like to thank (if you don't mind :P).
First of Rienkie of course for introducing me to this site, Kostov, for giving fair and well build comments on my rides and others, and SpeedC, -BeliarPL-, Amda1, Nasko and Rienkie again for giving well build comments on my past rides, which made me a better tuner.

Q 9. What is your opinion about the newest NFS games?
Shift isn't really my kind of game, I prefer the free roaming aspects of the older NFS games, and the vinyl system is just off. World, I really like, it's still a bit boring: IMO it's still a beta for the mass.
Hot Pursuit looks really great, really gone give that a try :).

Q 10. Last but not least, what would you advise the future users of this community
Just be yourself, experiment with different styles and give proper, well built comments on other rides, listen to what others have to say, and follow these tips, and don't be scared, most members here don't revenge rate (at least I don't), so just tell the truth.

Q 11. Your tuning style, especially in games such as NFS Prostreet, is best described as a 'structured mess'. How would you define the line between an ugly mish-mash of a vinyl design and a messy masterpiece, and what tips would you give to tuners experimenting with this technique?
Haha, well hard to tell, well if the vinyls are placed in just the right place and work together as one, so if they flow in to each other I would call it a 'Structured Mess', but a big mess thats not so structured isn't necessarily bad imo. Just experiment, mess around with vinyls, start with 1 basic vinyl, for instance a 'team vinyl' or something else and work around that.

Q 12. As you mentioned, you started your time on the site as Nismo-Skyline, what was the reasoning for creating a new profile? Did you find that people treated you and your opinions with a different level of respect after switching to the new alias?
The main reason that I switched was, the Nismo-Skyline account wasn't used for a long time, so I decided to go with a new start, but the names where to close alike, Nismo D1 isn't much of a change, so most people already started to ask if I was Nismo-Skyline. After a while I went off for about a half year a revived my Nismo-Skyline account again, which I eventually left behind again and I started this account. The biggest difference I noticed was when I went to this account, I kept my messy designs, but many ppl still saw me as a new member, a noob that still needed to gain experience. Not long after my first upload (which I already deleted) I uploaded a car that I uploaded to my Nismo-Skyline account (which also is deleted, the car aswell this account :P). Some people after that recognized it, for some people I was a total stranger. So it had a different impact, some people saw me as a older member, some thought of me as a noob member. I didn't really notice any difference in the acceptation of the comments, some got a bit angered if they didn't like my comment, but I had the same on my Nismo-Skyline, not that my comments are negative all the time (at rare moments they are yes :P).

Q 13. As you might have noticed NFS Hot Pursuit is going to be released soon. What do you think about the game so far and are you planning to buy it?
The graphics, just wow. Excellent looking game, I'm just a bit annoyed that there is no demo for the pc, and since I haven't watched any good gameplay videos I'm not sure yet if I'm going to buy the game, but I like it that EA went for old school NFS style and still keeps coming with tuner games.

Q 14. As we found out in the first question you are interested in music. If you had the chance to pick 3 songs to put in Hot Pursuit's soundtrack, what would they be and why?
Datsik - Jenova Project
Just one hell of a sweet dubstep, can imagine seeing myself drive around with that song on the background :P
Killswitch Engaged - Break the Silence
Just some good old fashion metal, for the peddle to the metal experience.
Feed Me - Jodie
And finally some nice Electro, for short burst of speed.

Q 15. If you were given the chance to buy and customise any car you wanted, which car would you choose, and what modifications would you choose to make to it?
Definitely a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-Spec, not to much changes, small engine tweaks, new turbo kit, new exhaust and maybe some chip tuning, maybe a small skirt on the fb, but no heavy changes to the design itself.


Tuner Tips

This time in our Tuner Tips we have a guide of how take take good quality screenshots in Need for Speed WORLD. Some of the hints we give you here work also in other NFS games, so if you are a new user and you're interested in uploading pictures of your cars from any NFS game to the Showroom, here are some easy tricks of getting nice looking shots of your ride.

First thing to do when you want to take pictures of your car is to set the graphics high as possible. (Remember to get the resolution right, you don't want your car to look stretched or squashed) Here we have an example picture, the picture above is with the graphics I usually play the game and the lower pictures is taken with max graphics.



As you can see this makes difference and the car on the lower pic looks cleaner, sharper and nicer.

When taking screenshots by pressing Print Screen button the pictures usually become darker and lose quality compared to what you see on your screen in the game. That's why I like to use some screen capture software such as Fraps when I take pictures. You can dowload Fraps free but you can only take .bmp pictures with the free version. That means you have to change them to .jpg with another program so that you can upload them in to the Showroom.

In WORLD, there is no free view possibility in the Safehouse without having some menu over your car.



But when you change between menus you have about 0.5 - 1 second of time without anything covering your car, press your screen capture hotkey on right time and you should get a clean view of your ride. It doesn't matter do you select one menu or press Esc in another, you'll always get your chance to take a good shot. (HINT: This 0.5 - 1 second of time is also present in SHIFT. For an example go here)



Looking better already but still looks a bit dull. You can give the picture a bit more kick with adjusting the contrast, colors and lightness of the picture. (You can do this with programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Irfanview, Microsoft Office Picture Manager etc.) Another easy way to give more effective look is cropping the picture: a simple thing, but it does makes difference.



You should take more than just one picture of your car and take shots from different angles. It's easier for other users to give their opinions of your car when they have more views of it.

The safehouse isn't the only place where you can take screenshots of your car in WORLD. When you open your map by pressing the M key (or clicking the symbol marked with red circle in the picture below) you should see a green camera symbol in the map. Click join and select Single Player.



Now you can take screenshots of your car at the stadium, just switch to camera mode and take some nice pics of your ride. If you want to take your stadium pics with some screencapturing software you need to pres Alt+Z. That hides all unnecessary display and you get clean shots. This also hides the HUD when you are racing or cruising around the World.



You can also improve the lightness and contrast of pictures you take at the stadium.



When you have enough views of your car it's time to upload them to the showroom. One thing you should remeber before you upload the pictures is that when you take screenshots with max graphics the size of the picture becomes huge. So before you upload your pictures set the picture size smaller, for example I take the screenshots with resolution 1680x1050 but before I upload my car I change the pixel dimensions to 1440x900. It's easier for users to observe your ride when the picture isn't so huge and you won't go over the max filesize (750 kB) so easily. (Note that uploading wallpapers is another thing)

Click the Upload button (you can find the button in any Showroom page, in your Showroom profile, from your Showroom Home and you can also upload cars by going to your garages)



Then select the game wherein you've done your car and then click 'Image' button. Now you should see a form like in the picture below. Fill it and click Upload.



Click 'View your cars' and select the car you just uploaded. Now you should see a button below the main view of your car which says 'Add additional views'. Browse for other views of your car and add the best pictures you have.



Now other users can admire your work of art and they can see all the details and colors clearly now that You know how to take good quality screenshots :)


News - Rizur, Dr Houbenheimer & TW1ST3R
In the Spotlight - TW1ST3R
Wallpaper Art - Dr Houbenheimer
Blast from the Past - Rizur
This Issue's Underrated - KammyworldRacerGT4
Interview - Rizur, Dr Houbenheimer & TW1ST3R
Tuner Tips - Rizur with help of TW1ST3R
Editors - Rizur, TW1ST3R & Dr Houbenheimer

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