Using Paint Builder’s Sim Preview feature
You can see your Paint Builder project come to life in iRacing’s 3D car viewer when you use Paint Builder’s Sim Preview feature.
You’ll need Trading Paints Downloader installed and running on your computer, as well as iRacing.
Open iRacing’s 3D car model viewer
iRacing includes a 3D viewer for car models of content you’ve purchased.
First, open the iRacing UI and look for the sidebar menu.
Navigate to either the Paint Shop (My Content -> Paint Shop -> Vehicle) or Car Model screen (My Content -> Cars -> Vehicle -> Car Model tab) for the vehicle matching your Paint Builder project.
The Paint Shop screen is useful if you want to see how different number styles and wheel options look while you’re painting, while the Car Model screen is more useful if you want a bigger preview window.
Sending a Sim Preview command from Paint Builder
Switching back to Paint Builder, open your project and look for the Sim Preview button at the bottom of the screen.
Press Sim Preview and you’ll be presented with some basic instructions, an indicator for Trading Paints Downloader and iRacing UI status, and options for whether you want to preview your project as a Sim-Stamped Number paint or Custom Number paint. When you select Apply, your project will be sent to iRacing via the Trading Paints Downloader and you should see the car’s custom paint update in the iRacing UI.
You can repeat this process as you update your project in Paint Builder to see changes update live. You can press the P key shortcut in Paint Builder to continue updating the project.