Introducing the new Paint Builder — our biggest update yet

Steve Luvender

Steve Luvender

— 2 min read

Today, we’re excited to release the biggest update to Paint Builder since its initial launch nine years ago.

There’s too much to cover in a simple blog post, so here are the highlights:

  • A faster, more responsive experience
  • Support for 2048×2048 paints
  • iRacing’s full library of Base Paint patterns on all cars
  • Over 400 original, exclusive vector graphics and illustrations that you can insert and customize on your projects
  • Hundreds of logos for (mostly) original fictional brands
  • Support for your own imported logos and layers in more file formats (PNG, JPG, SVG)
  • A rotatable canvas view so you can more easily work on different car panels
  • A “sticker mode” where you can easily add a color-filled background rectangle behind a logo
  • New drawing and shape tools, including lines, polygons, and a freehand brush
  • Zoom and undo/redo tools
  • Customizable painting guides. Configure wireframes, sponsor blocks, and number blocks to only appear when you’re actively making changes.
  • Layer effects that now include skew and shadow, as well as color fill, background fill, and blend modes for some layer types
  • Sim Preview that is now compatible with iRacing’s 3D car model viewer — see your changes in real time
  • More options for racing your paint, including assigning your project as a Custom Number paint and a team paint if you’re a team owner
  • Sharing features: share your project with another Trading Paints Pro user to collaborate in real time
  • Basic support for spec maps — when you turn on the feature in project settings, select a Finish option for each layer on your project (we’re considering this a beta feature until it’s easier to generate iRacing-compatible MIP files)

This project has been a labor of love for two and a half years. We’re passionate about providing the iRacing painting community with the greatest tools possible (like our recently-launched Number Builder, which we hope to integrate soon into Paint Builder), and we believe this upgrade to Paint Builder will make painting accessible to more people, and provide a more powerful medium for those who already know their way around a template.

If you’re a regular Paint Builder user, you’ll find the interface familiar — but a lot more flexible and easier to use.

Projects created in the old version of Paint Builder — projects marked with a Legacy tag — can be opened and modified in the modern version of Paint Builder, but there are limitations:

  • Legacy projects remain in their original 1024×1024 size.
  • Legacy projects have a limited number of Base Paint patterns.
  • Layers on legacy projects sample the exact instance of their layer in the old Paint Builder, so if you try to manipulate an existing layer, it will probably look pixelated and skewed. (Try inserting a new instance of the logo.)
  • Legacy projects cannot be cloned.

We highly recommend creating new versions of your projects so you can take advantage of all the new features Paint Builder offers.

We’ve created some Help guides for getting started with Paint Builder, but we think you’ll pick it up pretty quickly with a bit of experimenting on your own.

These updates are long overdue, and we’re grateful to our Trading Paints Pro members who continue to power what our tiny team can do!

Starting today, Trading Paints Pro members will begin to gain access to Paint Builder. Please be patient while we work out the initial kinks and growing pains of an entirely new app—we’re just as excited as you!

We hope you enjoy Paint Builder!

– Steve, Shawn, and Patrick

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