So, what do you think? I'm currently doing something I wanted to do for a while, and I had started on the rF2 version, but never finiished it up as it might have been too much. But I still have a lot of room for additional stuff in this version, and the AC engine might cope better with heavier track, I dunno.
EDIT: I got grass outside guardrails from the paddock to quiddelbacher-hohe, not inclusively. It really looks stunningly beautiful and render the track almost photorealistic.
This grass is one of the texture I got from gametextures btw. It is an amazing piece of grass with retarded normals.
Just imagine if I could get them to do the trees we so need, plus some other textures.... aynone willing to donate to let me subscribe for 2-3 months? Well, we would start with 1, but I doubt they can get (and would) do all these requests within 1 month.
Please, it would be nice if you could voice your opinion on the matter, if you would be interested or not. I'm not trying to make a profit, and if you have followed me during the rf2 days, you know that everything went right back into the track. So I would let you know when I have the amount reached, and it's up to you if you want to make a donation past that point.
Hmmm, that's odd. Well it somehow makes a bit of sense, but it turns out I cannot use a simple normal map to shade the treeline darker at the bottom, and lighter at the top. When the sun is in front or behind the tree, the lighting effect is inversed, depending on the Y axis setup of the normal map. So even if I flip the Y axis, it fixes the treelines for a given sun position, either front or behind, but when the sun gets to the other position, they screw up.
So I could either tune them to look alright for the morning or for the afternoon, but it seems I cannot have both.
Seems like I will have to split all those treelines, and edit their normals manually. Lots of work ahead, but I feel it's going to be much easier than the tree were... so it doesn't scare me as much as it initially did when I made the normal maps.
So, upcoming is the treelines, and I'll work at improving the AI, since I got quite a bit better with this layout since I did the AI, I should be able to improve it a bit.
Just to let you know the v0.25 has been moved to the BTSync share, and I've finished uploading the full replay video with the new cameras. I have also removed a few of the previous versions from the share. If you are running default settings of BTSync, you still have the archive in a sub folder, just look around if you prefer an older version for whatever reasons.
Let me know your thoughts on how it looks!
Since I already pretty much summed it up on youtube already, here is a cut and paste version of what's new:
New! Full replay capability! I have carefully positioned each to maximize the view of the track at that particular spot, and made sure all odd things, sharp angle, etc is kept to the absolute minimum, so it depicts the track really well. All rough edges are mostly hidden, and the camera are rather optimized, using as little as I could, using the zooming at appropriate time, or to create easy screenshots location.
All that while taking great care to position the camera so every apex is easily visible, as well as entry and exit point...
I have also finished up adjusting brightness level on the distant objects I skipped when I recorded the v0.24 video. Stuff in the GP, village, paddock, gas station on the dottinger hohe, etc..
I have also replaced the grass building near the village, I looked in the gtr evo original track, and it was the same, a grass building, wall and roof. Since it has no mapping and no texture, and is barely visible unless you look for it, I have assigned it a plain concrete texture from somewhere else in the track.
The replay is the same as v0.24, but now you will get to see it from a different angle.
I have watched it all day while tuning up the cameras, I have used this particular replay because it's a very good lap, and the car jumped at every point it could.... and since it doesnt happen very often, I thought it would be great to tune the cameras to show the jumps as well :)
I believe it is my cleanest lap around the track so far. I look at it, and I wish I could extract the fast path spline from it, cause I'm sure that lap would make a great AI :)
I've been lapping around with the Pagani Huayra to do my testing around the track, first because it was challenging and lots of fun to drive. I've come rather comfortable with it, and done a pretty good lap when I wanted to record my lap video showing the latest modifications.
The video is recorded at 5pm. I started it with the 4 replay cameras in, and I switched to cockpit for the remaining of the lap.
The lap time is 7:07.
This car is so awesome! I tried the mclaren a bit as well, and I much rather like the pagani.
Here is the video:
Watch it fully if you can, it's a pretty good lap :)
Well, I wasn't quite satisfied with the trees, etc, I just finished what I think is the final pass now.
I have opened up the nurb track in 3dsimed to have an idea of the values used by Kunos, and it turns out I wasn't that far off, but was missing some diffuse lighting as I thought. It was too subtle, and in low sun position, the trees had virtually no shine on them.
I have re-edited all trees textures, and made them with similar brightness/saturation values as those used by Kunos. Basically, I lowered brightness a good deal, and raised/lowered saturation in some cases, changed the hue a little here and there, and I got something rather solid now.
I re-did the tree lines normal map, they were inverted in some case, with the top being darker when it should be lighter.
I had started to do the replay camera, but I was thinking that the track should look better if we are to scrutinize it during replays :)
Here how it looks at all time of day, in 1hr interval, taken from both cockpit and the first replay camera as well, to show a back and different view.
8h00
9h00
10h00
11h00
12h00
13h00
14h00
15h00
16h00
17h00
18h00
If you guys like this, I could release an update tonight or tomorrow with the track as it is now, with the 4 first replay camera, and I will finish them up for the week end.
