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BeamNG.drive install guide

How to Install a Custom Skin in BeamNG.drive

Design a custom BeamNG.drive skin with AI, then get it in the game: take the template out of the vehicle’s ZIP, name it for the vehicle, and drop the exported mod ZIP in your mods folder.

Design one with AI Back to BeamNG.drive page
Before you start

What you’ll need

Step by step

Install a custom skin in BeamNG.drive

  1. 1

    Take the template out of the vehicle ZIP

    Open the vehicle’s own ZIP in the game folder and find the PNG whose name contains skin_UVs. That is the UV layout — the map of which part of the vehicle each patch of the image lands on.

  2. 2

    Name it for the vehicle

    Save it as the vehicle’s internal name, an underscore, then any name you like. This is the step that decides everything: BeamNG keys the mod folder, both filenames inside it and the material on that one name.

    File name
    pickup_myskin.png
  3. 3

    Design it

    Upload that file to Ailivery, describe the livery you want, and refine it until it is right. The vehicle name travels with it.

  4. 4

    Download the mod ZIP

    Export the skin. Ailivery builds the whole mod around your vehicle — a jbeam that adds the paint, a material that points at the artwork, and the painted PNG — and hands it to you as one ZIP.

  5. 5

    Drop it in your mods folder

    Put the ZIP in the mods folder of your BeamNG user folder. That folder is not in the Steam install: open the game launcher, choose Manage User Folder, then open it in Explorer. Start the game and the paint is in the vehicle’s colour picker.

    Mods folder
    ...\BeamNG.drive\current\mods
Troubleshooting

If the paint doesn’t show up

The vehicle name is wrong

This is almost always it. The name before the underscore has to be the vehicle’s internal name — the folder name, not the showroom title. Pickup Truck_myskin.png binds to nothing.

Wrong folder

Mods go in the user folder’s mods, not in the Steam install. The launcher’s Manage User Folder button is the reliable way to find it.

The vehicle names its body material differently

The mod binds to a vehicle whose body material carries the vehicle’s own name, which is how the official vehicles are built. A mod vehicle that names its body material something else will take the ZIP and still not show the paint.

Get started

Design one with AI

Create original artwork in Ailivery and download the mod ZIP, ready for your mods folder.

Create your account BeamNG.drive overview