New city track question

sadistiko · Nov 23, 2010

Hi to all BTB lovers!
I'm new to this forum.
I'm now also proud BTB licence owner (from yesterday)

I'm building new city track for rFactor. There will be around 150-200 buldings and I want make every of them. Thats only what are close to track.
I'm wondering how much I can go with textures? Can I use 2 x 1024x1024px + 3 x 512x512px per house. Some of them have more, some only 3 texuters. I don't want to have low quality textures. I will make optimisation in BTB and use some roof textures in more than one building.
Also, buildings are low poly, from 30 to 300 poligons. I think most of them will have around 40 polis.
Will this work well in modern computers (Dual CPU + 2GB RAM + decent GPU)?

Thanks in advance

martinez · Nov 23, 2010

Is that mean you are going to make 300 textures x 1024 and 600 x 512? You will probably need Silicone Graphics to calculate them

This is way too much. Is the route going to be in e.g downtown? Than you don't have to build back walls for buildings. If you are not going to play the track in insane resolutions, you can use much smaller textures, good thing would be also to make textures sheets containing parts of many buildings - besides saving place you will have less materials, which will help the machine's performance.
I think I understand that you would like to make almost real track, meaning the environment. IMHO it's not possible, since the real life is too detailed to even get close to it in the game. Remember that you are going to race and not sigthseeing

At the racing speed you will not recognise details you are thinking about.

asasinuxp · Nov 23, 2010

I build a city track in BTB for Racer,and for optimization I use for SOME building only 2 models that are repeating.In total I have ~20 building(and some of them are repeating,like I said).I make the map for Racer(it was the only game which doesn't crash when I load the map),and it include a city(search for Mioveni,Romania),3 villages,3 ingame race tracks,a mountain(with a village on top) and many more.I will finish the map next year,on May.
So,try to use maximum 30 building,and repeat some of that.

sadistiko · Nov 23, 2010

OK. So what is max resolution you recomend guys? I can reduce poligons if I delete back of houses that can't be seen from other part of track. But not sure how to use same material on few buldings and on every is their texure part. Is there some instructions how to do it?
Thank you for your fast answers.

martinez · Nov 23, 2010

This is a texture sheet (1024x1024) for buildings I use for my RBR rally tracks. I've put there couple roofs, walls and enough details - windows, doors etc. and I can make almost any building I want to suit my needs. Some of the details come from original RBR textures. For now, I have 10 houses and 10 barns/barracks and plan to make much more in the future. It's just the matter of time and imagination.
So, this is the way how to make one material for all of them. If you add new objects to the XPack, they will produce new materials (for each of them). Then you just have to merge all these materials into one. If you don't know how to do that, PM me and I'll send you my xpack tutorial I'm still working on.
Of course they are completely different image parts than you need, I just want to show the idea how it could be done.
I think if you plan wisely, you can make unlimited number of buildings for your track from just 3-4 textures 2048x2048

sadistiko · Nov 23, 2010

I don't know how to merge materials. I started to work last week. So, I'm totaly noob to SkechUp, Xpacker and BTB. But I know from past how to use UV maps and so on in Lightwave, also, I'm painter for rfactor, so I have some experience in this stuff.
I make my buldings in shechup. It's realy nice and easy program for making low poly without fancy features from LW and 3DSMax. I also paint my objects in SketcUp with textures and then only convert them to 3DS. Import them into xpacker and it's done. So. It look it wouldn't be that easy

I will send you PM.

sadistiko · Nov 25, 2010

OK, I'm starting to convert my finished buldings to this new way (new for me

) of texturing. But I still have questions. I can paste parts like specific walls, doors and windows from texture sheets but what about parts of wall that use seamless textures, I can't use sheets, because I need texture that will continue over and over, and I can't do it with sheets. It's only one extra material per building, but I'm wondering if there is some other solution for this way of texturing?

mianiak · Nov 25, 2010

Limit the materials you use but don't be afraid to use more.
It' just a discipline to follow, think of it this way,,,
The more materials you merge, the more materials you can use, but at the same time discipline yourself and don't go overboard with materials.

Here are some data reports from default isi tracks *Note, Sardian Heights (S_HEIGHTS_LONG.SCN) is a city track and it uses less mat's compared to some of the others.

Report for Brianza_Full.SCN

Objects Referenced = 779
Total Materials = 185
Total Points = 473623
Total Faces = 387562

Report for ESSINGTON_LONG.SCN

Objects Referenced = 592
Total Materials = 120
Total Points = 479323
Total Faces = 293814

Report for Jacksonville500.SCN

Objects Referenced = 379
Total Materials = 171
Total Points = 640099
Total Faces = 257489

Report for Chinese_GP.SCN

Objects Referenced = 247
Total Materials = 78
Total Points = 212410
Total Faces = 104927

Report for Joesville_Speedway.scn

Objects Referenced = 105
Total Materials = 76
Total Points = 100603
Total Faces = 58286

Report for Lienz_24H.SCN

Objects Referenced = 725
Total Materials = 143
Total Points = 559286
Total Faces = 449302

Report for MILLS_LONG.SCN

Objects Referenced = 374
Total Materials = 113
Total Points = 293819
Total Faces = 176892

Report for MONTREAL_GP.SCN

Objects Referenced = 206
Total Materials = 106
Total Points = 230276
Total Faces = 109923

Report for NAS_BritishGP.SCN

Objects Referenced = 674
Total Materials = 155
Total Points = 570342
Total Faces = 452145

Report for Nuer_EuropeanGP.SCN

Objects Referenced = 679
Total Materials = 170
Total Points = 765986

Report for Orchard_Lake_Oval.SCN

Objects Referenced = 275
Total Materials = 146
Total Points = 314963
Total Faces = 169991

Report for S_HEIGHTS_LONG.SCN

Objects Referenced = 360
Total Materials = 109
Total Points = 386062
Total Faces = 182659

Report for TOBAN_LONG.SCN

Objects Referenced = 610
Total Materials = 143
Total Points = 464008
Total Faces = 254441