I'm still finishing up the area between the dottinger hohe and the gp overlap. I remember last time, it was one of the toughest and most time consuming part of the track. The karussel area ain't piece of cake either.
Here is how the mesh looks at the moment for the area I have worked on:
There is an awlful number of verts floating and not connected to the terrain. Such as in the curbs (curbs floating in the air not connected to the grass behind it, often the grass goes under it. Stuff like that. Might have been a way to save polys or simply lazy work, I dunno, but I'm fixing these :) You can see this near the gp overlap before t13, and in hohenrain, the curb that goes toward the old pit. Not sure how it will be for the remaining of the track...
Good news tho, I can now preview my work with AC, while I'm working on a merged terrain. This wasn't possible in rF2, as I tried to load the terrain merged all together, and the game crashed upon reaching 100%.
So I was able to have an idea of how the new drains would look like in game... and they are looking pretty good actually!
I'm also raising the curbs as I go. I have two videos ready to play in my browser (the michael S onboard bumpercam, and another, plus my reference pictures), so they should be a lot closer to what you would find normally on the track.
Last night, as a way of taking a break, I started to experience with the tree textures and see if I could improve the look by improving the alpha channel, and they indeed look better, a bit less fuzzy and blurry. Those that suffered the problem, some don't. Mostly the 3d branch trees that suffers.
I have also found a way to use my own trees with the Y shape mesh, and get them to lit up with a sphere normal.
It turns out there is a little tool that comes with the plugin and I can break up the forest objects into separate trees. So importing them into the AC editor generates the proper normal. Now... I'm not sure what I'll do with these trees. The 3d trees certainly adds a whole damn lot... we need them. I have a few model of branches I got from gametextures, not sure if I'll find some suitable one, but if I ever subscribe for another month to their website, I'll be requesting some high quality tree branches. This is gonna be worth it.
As you can see in the mesh screenshot, the hills will be a bit better as well since I'm turning them to quads (those close to track, not the scenery, not worth it). The hill next to the bilstein bridge looks better now.
Good report, seems thing are getting along well :)
ReplyDeleteThese kerbs look good indeed.
Are the trees in the preview pictures already adjusted as you described? They seem looking better than how I see them in-game, but I guess it may depend on the graphics quality used too.
If you bring better quality trees to AC.it would be good, as long as they stay true to the looks and position on the actual track.
Thanks.
Yes, the 3d trees have better branches a bit in these screenshots.
ReplyDeleteIf I can manage to get a sub to gametexture, what I would do is request branches to replace all the 3d trees existing branches, leaves and pine trees, and I would use my own collection to replace the X style shape trees, and replace them with Y meshes.
So this would keep the base of the forest intact, as I would only replace the textures and some models in the exact spot they are in.
I would then use my forest plugin to fill up the empty areas where there should have trees, according to the type of trees we find in the area. These, of course, would be all Y meshes.
This would be the ultimate plan for the forest.
Then add more bushes, and if performance still allows it, 3d grass all around track :)
Very cool, the approach makes sense to me, although don't know the lingo (Y meshes ?! :) My only concern with this is the performance, now the track runs butter smooth.
ReplyDeleteI don't know man, every time I ride this track, I wonder how much better it can get, cause I already enjoy it immensely the way it is.
All the goodies that will come along are bonus.
hello here ;)
ReplyDeleteNo news ?
Bonne continuation !!