Cars Formula RSS 4 by Race Sim Studio

Hi all, hoping someone can help me with a skin creation question.

I come from skinning for Grand Prix 4, where the specularity/reflectivity of each part of a model's texture is controlled by a greyscale Alpha Channel for the texture file in question; A Simple 100% white = Mirror finish, graduating down to 100% Black = Matte (Flat) finish.

What I'm wondering is how to, if it's possible, go about having similar control for a texture for this car. i.e If I have some areas that I want to have a particular level of reflectivity (say a Chrome decal or area of paint), and areas that I want to have another level of reflectivity (say a low-gloss black area), how would I go about that?

Regards,
Doug.

P.S: Fantastic work as always team, really setting the gold standard here.
 
That's in the "map" file (may not be specifically named 'map' on every car but usually you'd have something like main_body_diffuse.dds and main_body_maps.dds), the rgb channels control reflectivity, specular sharpness and specular brightness. Typically to go from glossy to matte you'd have lower reflectivity, lower sharpness, somewhat lower brightness so you can pretty much just brighten/darken it depending on what the default is. Usually the base map texture will be some mid hued copy of the AO map because that sets a default with flexibility (you can go brighter or darker). When you make your own you may want to take the AO layer from the base skin and multiply it onto your control version so you have the highest starting quality again. (AO in the maps reflectivity stops dark crevices from being too shiny)
 
Hi all, hoping someone can help me with a skin creation question.

I come from skinning for Grand Prix 4, where the specularity/reflectivity of each part of a model's texture is controlled by a greyscale Alpha Channel for the texture file in question; A Simple 100% white = Mirror finish, graduating down to 100% Black = Matte (Flat) finish.

What I'm wondering is how to, if it's possible, go about having similar control for a texture for this car. i.e If I have some areas that I want to have a particular level of reflectivity (say a Chrome decal or area of paint), and areas that I want to have another level of reflectivity (say a low-gloss black area), how would I go about that?

Regards,
Doug.

P.S: Fantastic work as always team, really setting the gold standard here.

That's in the "map" file (may not be specifically named 'map' on every car but usually you'd have something like main_body_diffuse.dds and main_body_maps.dds), the rgb channels control reflectivity, specular sharpness and specular brightness. Typically to go from glossy to matte you'd have lower reflectivity, lower sharpness, somewhat lower brightness so you can pretty much just brighten/darken it depending on what the default is. Usually the base map texture will be some mid hued copy of the AO map because that sets a default with flexibility (you can go brighter or darker). When you make your own you may want to take the AO layer from the base skin and multiply it onto your control version so you have the highest starting quality again. (AO in the maps reflectivity stops dark crevices from being too shiny)

Yeah its called RSS4_Chassis_D_map
595ee8cc66711f8f0de77fe666db1cf4.png

If you use the CM software at all and download the plugins for the paintshop which is a addon plugin ,
you can actually change the reflection properties of a car from full gloss to matt inside CM ,
get the colours from this open the textures within CS6 and if you require a paint job with logos for example you can overlay the logos and cut off the matt and gloss areas as you require I know all the colors anyways when I am making livery so make them by hand , but this software generates them for you :)
 
Hi all, hoping someone can help me with a skin creation question.

I come from skinning for Grand Prix 4, where the specularity/reflectivity of each part of a model's texture is controlled by a greyscale Alpha Channel for the texture file in question; A Simple 100% white = Mirror finish, graduating down to 100% Black = Matte (Flat) finish.

What I'm wondering is how to, if it's possible, go about having similar control for a texture for this car. i.e If I have some areas that I want to have a particular level of reflectivity (say a Chrome decal or area of paint), and areas that I want to have another level of reflectivity (say a low-gloss black area), how would I go about that?

Regards,
Doug.

P.S: Fantastic work as always team, really setting the gold standard here.

Supplementary to the above posts, there is a great post by Val_N on the official forums (from way back in the Tech Demo days) of how the system works.

It's quite a nifty system, really. I don't think a good, proper chrome is possible with the default Kunos cars anymore, but you can get metallic finishes, gloss, matte, satin and the like with it. AFAIK the body paint shader used by RSS uses roughly the same settings as the one used by Kunos.

One big chagrin is that the official Kunos content do not follow a specific naming convention, so you'll have to root around to find the texture name you need. This is made really easy with the AC Content Manager (which I highly recommend getting if you don't already have it), as in it's built-in viewer you can click on a part of the car and it will display every single texture name being used on the material for that part.
 
Awesome, thanks for all the helpful responses guys!
NP Man good look with the skinning , like a green like my picture will give some nice reflections , anything from blue to gold will give some nice matt but depends on the base texture which will look best they all vary slightly ,
like I say CM is best if you want custom matt produces nice finishes without wasting your life on it :)
 
I don't know, I'm asking :D
Not sure if any racing cars have powered steering , sounds pretty odd to me , from memory cant think of any , well formula cars , maybe some earlier V10,s maybe played around with it not sure , but I am often wrong at best and dont do physics :D:D
 
Not sure if any racing cars have powered steering , sounds pretty odd to me , from memory cant think of any , well formula cars , maybe some earlier V10,s maybe played around with it not sure , but I am often wrong at best and dont do physics :D:D

I was under the impression power steering was quite common in modern race cars.

I know it started to see use in the early 90s
 
I was under the impression power steering was quite common in modern race cars.

I know it started to see use in the early 90s
Yeah maybe road cars like GT ect , like I say im certainly no expert with physics have zero to do with them at all , I am sure formula cars have zero power steering , its classed as an assist , its helping the driver , kind of like traction control and ABS
 
I was under the impression power steering was quite common in modern race cars.

I know it started to see use in the early 90s
Says here in the F1 regs that power steering is allowed but must not be controlled or powered ect
so odd , so I imagine if a car has power steering but with no power on the steering rack assisting it , maybe the advantage of it would be say 20% compared to a full power assisted road car god knows :D
0f35205db9de0e6cce86e000c1ff0c5e.png
 
F1 cars have power steering since a long time. The cars downforce and wide tyres make steering so hard that it's too straining on the drivers without it.
I remember a couple of drivers having a failed power steering and complain on the pit radio about it the last couple of years.

I don't know about lower classes, but I wouldn't be surprised if GP2 also has power steering.

Edit:
Just googled a bit, apparently even in the early 1990's there were already cars with power steering.
 
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I know that Formula 2 and Formula Renault V8 they haven't power steering (by information on the internet or said by the drivers), but a Formula 3 or Formula 4 I don't know exactly.
 
IIRC The Chevy Intrepid was the first prototype to have power steering (or, one of the first, anyways?) and that was in the early 90s.

I know in '97 Trans-Am had power steering, because it failed on Tommy Kendall's car in one of the later season races on a street course, costing him the victory - one of only two races that season he didn't win.

As mentioned, I'm sure most cars with a high level of downforce has power steering there days.
 
Hey guys, I'm new here, I do a bit of Solidworks design for an F4 team here in Australia. I am designing a car transporter at the moment and was wondering if anyone has any F4 car 3D model files available that would open in Solidworks? Any help would be greatly appreciated, would be a nice finishing touch on my design if I could have the cars sitting on the transporter! :)
 
Hey guys, I'm new here, I do a bit of Solidworks design for an F4 team here in Australia. I am designing a car transporter at the moment and was wondering if anyone has any F4 car 3D model files available that would open in Solidworks? Any help would be greatly appreciated, would be a nice finishing touch on my design if I could have the cars sitting on the transporter! :)
Sena a PM to chargingcar ( now his forumname is just CC ) and ask him about it.
 
Hey guys, I'm new here, I do a bit of Solidworks design for an F4 team here in Australia. I am designing a car transporter at the moment and was wondering if anyone has any F4 car 3D model files available that would open in Solidworks? Any help would be greatly appreciated, would be a nice finishing touch on my design if I could have the cars sitting on the transporter! :)

First up, that sounds like quite an awesome job! Colour me jealous.

In my experience, polygon models always look pants in Solidworks. I'd recommend using a third party rendering software (like Keyshot) to pull in the various models. It will also allow you to use a proper UV map, which Solidworks doesn't use; so the cars could actually have a proper livery on them.

Solidworks is a great tool, just... has a few limitations when it comes to this type of thing. :)
 
First up, that sounds like quite an awesome job! Colour me jealous.

In my experience, polygon models always look pants in Solidworks. I'd recommend using a third party rendering software (like Keyshot) to pull in the various models. It will also allow you to use a proper UV map, which Solidworks doesn't use; so the cars could actually have a proper livery on them.

Solidworks is a great tool, just... has a few limitations when it comes to this type of thing. :)

It's a fairly challenging project with a tight timeframe, don't be jealous! :D

The rendering and all of this stuff is fairly new to me as I only work within Solidworks. To be honest I'm not too worried about how good it looks or the livery. Even just a basic outline of the car would do the job. I can get my hands on an older F4 car model but it's a bit of a different shape. If I could get hold of the latest model F4 car without the front nose cone and the rear brakelight cone that would be ideal as we remove them for transporting.
 

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