I played the demo for this game a while back, didn't like it much and moved on (not surprising cause it's just not my type of game- racing sim).

But there is one thing that keeps bringing this game back to my attention: the custom paintjobs. Can any of you who own or have played the game explain to me how it works? Mainly I have the following questions, but feel free to add more info you think I should know:

1. How are all these people making such great looking cars with perfect drawings of so many different things? It seems the custom paintjobs in this game are insanely detailed beyond any customization I've seen in car games before. Is it easy to make a good paint job? Can you upload pics into the game or something and that's how I'm seeing awesome cars with all sorts of gaming and non gaming stuff on cars?

2. Can you just customize paint jobs right away in the game or do you need to win races to make money to be able to do so?

3. Any of you have had lots of experience with the feature and can give me a thorough explanation of sorts?

It seems ridiculous that I am interested in a game for the customization features only, but really this game basically makes you cars as empty canvases to put any cool  thing you want on it (besides the obscene or offensive) and I really wanna try it for that reason.

Who knows, maybe if I bought the game I'll start trying it out more and it will become the first racing sim I get into. I just wanna know if I can jump in and just make cars right away with crazy stuff on them like I've been seeing online. On this neogaf thread for example:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160833

1. Lots and lots of layers. In FM2, you are allowed 1000 layers per car. That's basically enough to create any masterpiece you can fathom.

2. You can do them right away. You just need to buy a car (which you get $20,000 to buy a car with at the beginning). From there, the paint is free. However, the "extras" cost like wheel rims, wheel sizes/compositions, various ground kits and spoilers, and such. Nevertheless, the paint is all free.

3. I'm nowhere near as good as ANYONE that's made a great car. However, within 10-15 minutes, you can usually make a pretty sweet (but basic design not really resembling anything).

To create what they do with.......Something from a Manga, takes a few hours. The Gears of War car might of taken an hour or two. But it's not really bad.

The sad part? The car tuning is just as crazy - there are dozens of things you can do to your car to tune it to real life standards - the telemetry (the various real-time car facts are crazier than the paint job editor).

Overall, even if you don't like racing, the paint jobs, tunings, and such are just as engrossing, and fun. The realtime racing shots via photo mode are just ungodly.

The best part? All paint jobs are savable and transferrable to ANY of the 300+ cars in the game. That paint job you start on your 1987 Toyota Turino Sport can go on your 2007 Crystler ME 12.

Thanks a lot for the info.

I can see myself just getting this game based on the look customization frankly. I can probably spend hours trying to make something really cool.

I might not eve race, but I might want to get some add ons to make a car look better with the paintjob.

Anyway, I'm gonna rent this soon and try it out and if I like what I see in the painting options, I'm gonna buy it :)

Yeah, I bought Top Gear Rally on N64 just for the custom paint jobs. If I had a 360, I'd be all over this.

ckmlb -

Regardless if you buy/rent Forza, make sure you get the patch available online - MS/Turn 10 released a patch very shortly into the lifespan of FM2, as they added a few extra features to the editor (gradients, and a few other things). It makes for ALOT more advanced features (see the 300 car for reasons why).

I think these two screens show you what kind of cool stuff you can make with the paint editor :)