A huge step forward with paint schemes will arrive in next week’s new iRacing build that will change the way we download paint schemes forever.
Trading Paints is a service that allows iRacing members to upload and download paint schemes for iRacing. Drivers can upload all of their different paint schemes for any/all of their cars, and other drivers can use the Trading Paints Downloader to download all of those schemes so they can see them during races.
In upcoming iRacing build, a car texture refreshing feature will be added. Trading Paints will also be releasing new software. Instead of members having to download every paint job or choosing individual paints from the list of 50,000+ schemes for each car, the new Trading Paints software will run whenever iRacing is launched. The new downloader will download the paint schemes for only the cars that are in that session, and with a simple texture refresh, members will be able to see every new paint scheme in that session.
Links: Forum Post | Trading Paints | New Build Updates Page
This new feature and software will eliminate the need to download every single paint scheme and to keep updating them over time. Most members never race with thousands of the other members paint schemes they have. This will save most members a ton of disk space.
Another great feature coming with the car texture refreshing comes to the painters. A new hotkey will be added that will force all car textures in the session to reload. Since car painting came to iRacing, painters must launch iRacing to see the scheme, then leave the session and relaunch for any adjustment made to the paint scheme, however small it was. Now painters will be able to minimize the sim, drop the new paint into the folder, then “Shift-R” to refresh the scheme.
Trading Paints founder Steve Luvender has been the big motivation behind these updates. David Tucker wrote, “They were relentless in asking for this feature. I’m sure it will help everyone by using much less bandwidth and storage space. But I think the painters will benefit just as much. Anything that makes the iterations faster will help with the quality of paint jobs.”
Steve Luvender also hinted that the service also has a surprise in store for its members, but could not reveal yet.