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SCREEN SHOTS Here is all you need to know on how to capture 'screen shots' from Nascar Racing, IndyCar II, Nascar Racing 2 and turn these captures into wonderful and unique pieces of art. SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS You will need the following software... either Nascar Racing by Papyrus, IndyCar II by Papyrus or Nascar Racing 2 by Papyrus plus a graphics editor such as Paint Shop Pro (you do have PSP don't you?) CAPTURING YOUR IMAGES Load the sim from where you want to capture your 'screen shots'. Load the car set and track and if you wish to capture an image that includes your own race car, then make sure it is included as the 'player' car in the car set you have loaded. Go racin'. When you have had enough 'action', then press the Esc key. Select replay mode. Return to where you started by clicking the left most arrow.  Select the TV1 camera as this
will give you a good overall view of the action. If you
see something that looks good then click stop, followed
by rewind. This will take you back to what you saw. Now
the fun starts... you can now select any of the many
camera angles available from any of the cars. If you want
the shot to feature your car, you can chose a view from
say, another car that is alongside yours. The camera
angles are endless. When you have perfected your shot
don't forget to add the track surface, horizon detail or
the crowd in the grandstands by using the 1-9 number keys
on your keyboard. When you finally 'have it' then go ahead and take that snap... How? ...simply push the 'Print Screen' key and hold for a couple of seconds (that's the third key in from the right on the top row of your keyboard), you will see your hard drive LED blink confirming you have saved the screen. Congratulations, you have just taken your first 'screen shot'. While you are at it , why not take a few more shots. NOTE: If you are capturing from Nascar Racing 2, to print screen in N2 use the \ (backslash) key and not the 'Print Screen' key. To see your results we quit the sim. and go into Windows. Tip... capturing ‘screenshots’ from CPR by Jim Getzen. “...it seems to depend on the video card. For most cards, I believe ‘Shift - Print Screen’ does the trick. For some cards simply ‘Print Screen’ works. Both of these options put a copy of the screen on the clipboard for pasting into a graphics program. For my 3DFX card, neither of these methods work. I have to use a separate utility called ‘SuperGrab’ and it’s not particularly user friendly. It generates a graphic file.” (thanks Jim... hopefully this has been a help to you ‘Outsider’ guys and be sure to visit Jims ‘Unofficial CART Precision Racing HQ’ at http://members.home.net/Getzen/ -the Curator) PREPARING YOUR FILES Get into your file manager and open your Nascar (or IndyCar II or N2) directory (folder). eg: C:\NASCAR. You will see a file 'nascar01.pcx', this will be the first snap you took. Any others you took will be 'nascar02.pcx', nascar03.pcx' and so on. Here I would suggest that you create another folder, eg: C:\SNAPS and move these files into this working folder, taking care NOT to remove any other files from the NASCAR directory. FROM HERE ON THINGS GET A BIT TOUGH. For those of you that are without the computing skill required to to get around the complexities of a paint program such as Paint Shop Pro then take a left here, down Easy Street. For those who really want to get into the serious art of race simulation then skip on down to - Making your art ‘work’. EASY STREET Great, now you have a screen capture of the action you would like to see exhibited in the Sim Gallery. If your ‘screenshot’ arrives at the ‘Gallery and the ‘Gallery artists thinks your has potential the they will do all the fiddly graphic stuff for you and finish your work to the required stage suitable for exhibiting. However your work is not quite finished yet. You will have to gather up your ‘screenshots’ into a zip file. This will require you to create a zip file containing your .pcx files using a program such as ‘WinZip’. As file size is most important to my mail server, lets make it a limit of just 3 .pcx’s per zip file. (How many was that??? THREE - the Curator) Naming your .zip file... If you name your .zip file the same name as you sign your email ie: fred.zip, then there is a better chance that your file will not to go missing. Well that certainly makes things easier dosen’t it. Now just skip on down to ‘Important’ for the really easy stuff. MAKING YOUR ART 'WORK' Load up your favorite graphics editing program (you do have Paint Shop Pro don't you?) and open the file 'nascar01.pcx' and there is that great first picture. Now it's time to make your 'screen shot' really come alive by using all the tools your graphics program has to offer. You will be amazed at how great these images come up after you have put in a little creative work . For the best results, follow these easy steps... Make sure your video display card is set to 16 million colours (24bit) Open your 'screen shot' .pcx file in your favorite graphics editor. Convert your image to 16 million colours (24bit). Crop and resample (better than resizing) your image. Remember that your finished image should be 400 x 230 pixels in either landscape or portrait. Tip... when you first crop your master image and you want your finished 'screen shot' to be landscape (sideways) then crop the width of the image to what you want to see in your finished work, regardless of the actual (pixels) width. Then make the croping marque taller than what you will require. The height of your 'screen shot' can be adjusted after you have resized your image. Resizing your image... select 'resample' and set your required width to 400p making sure to check the box to maintain the scale. Your image will now be 400p wide by whatever?? Now re-crop your image to 400 x 230 and you have the correct 'screen shot' size. It's now time to bring your image to 'life'. You may wish to sharpen or alter the colour balance... go for it. When you decide you 'have it', save this master image as a BMP file. Things can become somewhat confusing so keep this 'master' in a safe place. Now comes the fun of compressing your image to a JPEG file suitable for use on the net. This really is a try and see thing as some images will compress better than others. If you are using PSP (doesn't everybody?) select 'save as', select .jpg, select options, set DPI to 72 and try a compression ratio of 15 as a starting point. PSP offer us two types of compression, Standard and Progressive. This determines how the image will load into your browser. Standard loads line by line from the top down and Progressive loads as a blurr and progressivly becomes clearer. It's your artistic freedom, either way is fine by me. Save, then open your newly saved .jpg file and see how it looks compared to your original .bmp master. Just keep in mind your goal is a compressed file size of between 20 and 30k. If confused, check your compressed file size in Windows Explorer. Your image MUST be in the .jpg format. The size of your image MUST be 400 x 230 (or 230 x 400) pixels. The compressed size of your file should be around 25k. 'PORTRAITS'. A special note on capturing portraits... Portraits must follow the above guidelines and have a finished size of 400 x 230 (or 230 x 400) pixels. Portraits MUST be captured from the 'drivers' screen, not from an 'on track' capture from within the game play, however you can present your 'portrait' with any special effect, text and boarder you wish. IMPORTANT For your images to be accepted for exhibition (here's a tough one)... I (the Curator) have to like it. So if your work isn't 'shown' please don't be offended as it maybe displayed at a later time. ONLY screen captures from Nascar, IndyCar II and Nascar Racing 2 and other RACE SIMULATION software will be accepted. Sorry NFS fans. COPYRIGHT NASTYS Sim Gallery would be only to pleased to display your work in the gallery. However there are a couple of things you should know... Firstly, there will be NO payment made to you from Sim Gallery for any works submitted. Secondly, Sim Gallery can and may use your work in any way they wish. Of course you will be credited as the artist. Thirdly, Sim Gallery take no responsibility for any work 'stolen' from the Sim Gallery site and used in an unauthorized manner. By submitting your work, it is presumed that you accept these terms. Also, Sim Gallery has no affiliation with Papyrus/Sierra or any other racing simulator software producers. EMAIL INSTRUCTIONS In the Subject heading of your email write 'screen shot'. Attach your .jpg file. (or .zip file for you EASY guys) In the body of your email write a few lines describing your 'screen shot' and what you would like as a caption. Sign it 'your name' or 'your alias name', the name you would like displayed with your 'screen shot'. Send off your mail and attached 'screen shot' to... [email protected] So that's all there is to it. Have fun.... the Curator
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