shaders? are they essential

Yes, shaders describe what the car materials look like.

It'll run without them but it won't look right (default lighting or something)

At the most basic, in recent versions, you write something like this

Code:

vf_standard
  vertex_shader
  {
    file=dyn_standard_v.cg
  }
  fragment_shader
  {
    file=standard_f.cg
  }
}

; then repeat this part for each material
shader_[color=red]material[/color]~vf_standard
{
  layer0
  {
    map=[color=red]texture.tga[/color]
  }
}

Repeat the second part for every material name on the car's objects (body, wheels, etc.) and textures for them, replacing the bits marked red.

This just gives a basic matte material, though. If you want reflections and stuff you'll have to look into how other cars do them - essentially you need to change the vertex/fragment shaders to ones constructed for reflections, and add a layer1{ map=$trackenvmap }.

 

There is a no cg version available.

 

Non-CG still uses a shader file, that in many ways might be more complicated to use.

Every game today, or even in the past, needed some kind of system to set up shaders. I remember setting up shaders before my M3 release and that was umm, 6 years ago now... so it's not a 'new' thing to have to do.

Before that in Racer you would set up shaders in essence, via the DOF properties in Modeller.exe, by setting ambient/diffuse/specular/reflect properties etc... so once again there was some work to do it well.


In theory, the new CG shaders, once matured a bit more, should make content creation much easier than it has been for a long time considering the quality you get back!

Dave

 

Best bet is probably to read the documentation. Basic docs are available here.

And here The shader reference page (old style)
And here GPU Shader Tutorial (modern style)

 

The shaders will be the least hard thing to do compared to good modelling and texturing to start with!

The shaders are 95% copy/paste, ever car is pretty much the same kinda data just with different path names for your textures, or material names. What you name those is up to your good logic


If you can model and texture a good car, then shaders are easy easy peasy in comparison!

Dave

 

autobahn from WR2 would be tasty in racer !!

 

Agreed!

 

How do you make a shader double sided? AMG Fan did my shader but It has some holes in the mesh that were not there. I know that simply making the shader reflect light on both sides will fix this problem.


Also, my dash is flat shaded. How do I remove this?

 

Mapping it with baked dash texture.

 

No it's flat shaded as in, each face is visible, including the edges.

 

screen please

 

The best way is to unite the vertices

 

^^


Try 0.88. It's a lot more stable.

 

Indeed... if it's "crash happy".. then there's a reason. Care to give us a clue? lol

 

Cull = none, means that the back-face of polygons are rendered.

It is no ideal to do this except in special cases though (ie, wire fences, fences and such)


Dave