How to create shadows?

[avioni]

can someone explain to me in very good detail how to make shadows? or if someone has some shadow xpack please link.

 

[Pangaea]

Hi, do you mean real shadows? or emulated shadows.. I can make emulated shadows using alpha tranparency maps and color gradients mapped onto either walls (used as a modelling tool) or an imported object. This also kinda of works for making a shaft of light (for dark areas) if you use add a multiply., also they are flat not volumetric in anyway, so ull have to place them cleverly. I dont know much about how to make real shadows, or proper shadow maps, but if your interested in what i just said, give me a day or two and I will make up some instructions with a screenshot or 2

 

[avioni]

yes what you bring up is just what i want. i dont think real sha shadows are possible. but i just want some way to make shadows. give me a private message when yo got that guide ready.

off topic a little bit. I just drove on Troyton raceway and WOW. best graphics ive seen in rfactor yet. how did the creator do it. the road has reflection, the textures are amazing, the detail, objects of superb quality.

here is my track WIP. http://rapidshare.com/files/443093856/Eltuqueponce.rar
its a real track located in puerto rico, I used google for measurements and videos for track objects and details.

this is the track in reality.

and here a video a friend made of an earlier version than the one i linked above.

I wish some of you gave me some feedback on what could be done to improve the visuals.

things i dont know how to do:
0.how to raise or widen rumbletrips.
1.make a cement patch on the road or any other type of object on the road like man holes etc...
2.shadows.
3.proper lighting environment and special effects.
4.how to make different routes. like the same location but short track and long track.
5.i dont understand what lod settings affect. why is there 2 lod settings (in and out)
6.i dont understand what "specular" is and what it does.
7.how to make a different back ground image.
8.how to make objects animate ( i seen on troyton track boats moving very neatly and tv screens showing stuff)

im sure some of you can help me out with some of this stuff on the list. and or some other nice stuff you might know and want to share

 

[Pangaea]

1. not sure if your using s.object for rumble strips, but as far as i know u cant edit them much, certainly not the shape of the base object. You can of course use the wall tool, to create a strip then u make as much shape changes to it as you like, then simply apply the material from the s.object rumble strip or make your own using xpacker (but make sure to give the texture a rumble physics)

2. not sure what you mean, but you can give the road surface different textures in different sections by making creating crosss sections then applying a different texture onto it. or again using the wall tool mold a road patch.

3. not in rbr at the moment, brb or the makers of the rbx plugin dont support those things (hopfuly "yet"),, however you can do lighting tricks using alpha / luminescence / add & multiply textures. I will be doing a tutorial in the future on some lighting tricks for rbr.

4. you can merge tracks, or create road sections using the wall tool. However im not sure how you will adjust the race line or timing gates so its drivable as a "race" ... you can of course make your project then create a few versions of it using different routes.

5. lod settings are is basicly a setting to tell the game not to "draw" this object untill you reach a certain distance. Regarding the 2 lod settings, ive no idea why the "out" .. all ive ever had to use was in. er or the other way round.. i forget now

6. specular is how light is reflected.. a spec map is basicly a texture that will reflect light in a certain way combined with a normal texture. So for example a tarmac surface will have a "sheen" to it.. that is specular at work.. also if you combine bump maps with spec you can get better results.

7. As it happens ive just learn how to do that myself.. please follow this thread:
http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-track-builder/30556-changing-default-sky-rbr.html
Although this is a method for "skies" you can also map backround terrain onto it lowerdown.

8. animated objects and textures is a no go in rbr with current btb / rbx plugin support tragic i know



EDIT.. the lighting effects and animation part is in context to rbr.. er.. didnt relise your using rfactor? i think there is shadow support and animation for rfactor, dunno

EDIT.. perhaps the lod "out" setting is for rear view mirrors.... ie so you can set the game to stop drawing something as soon as you pass it.. not sure

regards
pan

 

[avioni]

thank you for your response pangaea, i found out how the rumblestrips in sobjects are edited. have to clik on scale then 3 boxes appear. middle one will raise them and last one will widen them.

-i had not tought about using the wall tool to make shapes on the road as patches. good idea. i will try that.

-I have created the track completly by merging tracks ,but the race line i dont know how to modify it. if possible to go thru different sections of the track depending on user selection. since every extension of the track is in fact a new track. unless i could somehow merge all the pieces so that it doesnt show as 3 different tracks but only as one track. then i could make different versions of the track and name them as short/long/chicane ect....

-the LOD settings for (out) what does (out) refer to? if its set to 1000 and i change to 200 what effect will it have?

SPECULAR. so if I want to add that shine simulating sun reflection to the track roads how would i set specular?? i see there is two boxes with different colors in them and a power variable.

 

[Pangaea]

ah didnt know you could edit the base objects from s.objects

yes the wall tool is quite a handy thing to have.. you can make all sorts of things with it. The name "create wall" when hovering over the icon is underselling itself should have been called Create Shape tool"

regarding the routes you have in your track, again im not sure how you would make the drive line do that.. but as you said , might be best just to make separate tracks for each route.. so people can download and play them as "stand alone" routes.

lod.. in and out settings are simple to understand.. if you have an object that has a lod setting of 500 in, then when you race you wont see that object appear till you are at 500 or less away from the object (im not sure what lod measurments are.. meters?) .. anyway .. the whole reason for this is that if you have object that are so very far away you can set them not to draw and will usualy speed up the performance of whatever game your playing. .. the out setting im not sure about.. tho its probably for rearview mirrors.. you would set a shorter lod setting for this for certain object since you dont want the game to be continually drawing objects that are very far away behind you (while looking in the rear view mirror). Use lod on things to make your game more efficient, in terms of on screen loading and frame rates.. otherwise you dont need to mess about with it too much. for objects you want always viewed (even far far in the distance) use the "always render" setting.

you can use default spec (i think) on normal maps. but it will be a somewhat "matt" flat look. For spec effects you should be making a separate texture image to layer over your normal texture. I will be making a tutorial on how to make spec, bump, alpha transparency, add and multiply textures ( in specific context to rbr, but same methods can be used with other games) as soon as I get some more times on my hands, Right now im up to my eye balls with work and also I am working on a btb project that i want to completely finish before I start doing any tutorials, but I think some other folks have done spec and bump tutorials on this forum..


btw your track is looking fantastic so far well done and keep up the good work


EDIT: just one thing to be aware of when using the wall as a modelling tool, if your using whatever your making as an object with collision, always remember the collision on your shape will only be on one side of the faces... so when drawing out your object/shape make sure you have the collision on the inside for things like tunnels..etc and outside for objects. walls..etc .. After creating many shape cross sections and taking time moulding an object there has been many times ive had to completely start over because i forgot to "flip" the face to a collision side or vise versa