AC Modding Questions Thread

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Sorry for another stupid question.
What kind of limit is there on number of y x tree's? For performance reasons.
In dense populated forest around track, can I just shove tons of treeline 1 face clumps and add 100 trees in front to blend/fake it.

@LilSki
I been F7'ing that stunning Bridgehampton circuit whole weekend.
Best tree's I have seen in any track.

 

[LilSki]

Sorry for another stupid question.
What kind of limit is there on number of y x tree's? For performance reasons.
In dense populated forest around track, can I just shove tons of treeline 1 face clumps and add 100 trees in front to blend/fake it.

@LilSki
I been F7'ing that stunning Bridgehampton circuit whole weekend.
Best tree's I have seen in any track.

It will look better when I update it with the trees from Watkins...

As for limits really you just have to try it to see how bad the frames are. I usually do two or three rows of Y trees until I get to a tree wall. As you can tell from Bridge is I used a lattice type setup with the tree walls that I learned from Fat-Alfie and Thomson Rd.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

For the type of environments I like to recreate, I have found that 1000s of low-poly X-shaped trees in the distance give me better visual results than tree walls (especially for tracks with very undulating terrain). Feldbergring used around 40,000 low-poly trees, each with its own ground shading baked onto the terrain. Battenbergring uses around 64,000

For a flat track I would go the same route as Lilski described above - tree wall with 3-4 rows of Y-shaped trees.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

wow that's insane amount of trees David

Thanks guys for help.

Question on placing tons of trees and grass.

Is there any addon for blender to speed up process?

Its such pain in the...

edit: Woah
There is insane tool called
Asset Sketcher for blender.
https://blendermarket.com/products/asset-sketcher-v1?ref=2

can paint trees instantly.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

I have question about ksMultilayer_fresnel_nm

If I want to mix grass/sand/ground texture.

What color is the txDiffuse painted and does it require alpha (white or black)?

Should I be painting the txDiffuse similar color to the TxMask color ie grass being green, ground (brownish), sand yellowish?

Lets say my TxMask is this.

Than using 3 textures (grass/sand/ground)
I get this overexposed image.

Sorry I am new to this shader thing.

I have read and stalked all of @LilSki old posts
Read this thread.
https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/track-materials-shaders.10174/
Haven't run into solution yet.

 

[LilSki]

Couple ways to do it. But first the alpha channel on diffuse and detail textures control specular levels. The darker the alpha the less specular.

Diffuse can be either a grey color with the detail textures giving the colors. Or the diffuse has the color and the detail textures should be in greyscale.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Couple ways to do it. But first the alpha channel on diffuse and detail textures control specular levels. The darker the alpha the less specular.

Diffuse can be either a grey color with the detail textures giving the colors. Or the diffuse has the color and the detail textures should be in greyscale.

Ah!
Thanks!!!
So I did this.

it seems to work.

edit: follow up.
so for road edge that has ground/grass/asphalt. mix i will use multilayer_fresnel_nm

for the surrounding land I want to use ksMultilayer.

how would match up the colors between road edge and surrounding grass.
yes, i used the same grass texture but the brightness and spec is not same.
I used same numbers for ambient diffuse etc.

 

[LilSki]

Ah!
Thanks!!!
So I did this.

it seems to work.

edit: follow up.
so for road edge that has ground/grass/asphalt. mix i will use multilayer_fresnel_nm

for the surrounding land I want to use ksMultilayer.

how would match up the colors between road edge and surrounding grass.
yes, i used the same grass texture but the brightness and spec is not same.
I used same numbers for ambient diffuse etc.

Use fresnel for land too.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Use fresnel for land too.

Attempt 2.
Created 3 simple planes.
The breaks in mesh give it away lol.
All with fresnel_nm, same grass texture, same asphalt texture, null texture etc.
Same shader settings and than few hours last night of playing with every single setting in shader to try and match the colors.
Still can't figure it out

Really sorry lilski you're probably fed up of my noob questions.

 

[AccAkut]

No he is not ..(I want to learn this as well )

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Updating my own post.

After tons of back and forth with textures 99% was spent making textures ,

think I understand how to mask off and mix different textures so they blend seamless. Took me 2 days to figure it out .
There is 3 different objects there.

The little red arrow is UV tiling issue I think?
Also ignore the road I didn't even care for UV unwrap just wanted to understand how mixing works with fresnal_nm.

I am guessing everyone just masks off the whole track with green/red/blue for gravel/grass etc..?
Even on the surrounding google earth satellite photo?

 

[Ghoults]

Depending how you have set it up there could be many different reasons. If you set the road edge with multiplayer_fresnel then different shader settings or specular maps could create that effect. Exact same settings also do not crea exact same result if your mask (or the diffuse) texture aspect ratios are different in each material. If you have uvmapped the edge too close to the edge of the texture (near black border) some of it will bleed through as you zoom out. Always leave extra space near uv islands. It could also be vertex normals issue. If the edge piece surface is tilted away from the main track then the change will create a visual seam. Making sure the vertex normals match fixes this. Normal map could be different as well. Or all is well but the uvmaps just don't align perfectly which causes mismatched texturing at the seam. I think you are very close already tho.

Your ks_alpharef is -193? Not that it makes a difference here. That controls the (strength of?) shadows of alphamasked transparent objects. It is somewhere 0 and 1.

 

[Stereo]

Your ks_alpharef is -193? Not that it makes a difference here. That controls the (strength of?) shadows of alphamasked transparent objects. It is somewhere 0 and 1.

It sets the alpha level that casts shadows (so 0 would be everything casts a shadow, 1 is nothing, 0.5 is anything more than half transparent) -193 is a special value though for non-transparent objects that sets other properties active.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

It sets the alpha level that casts shadows (so 0 would be everything casts a shadow, 1 is nothing, 0.5 is anything more than half transparent) -193 is a special value though for non-transparent objects that sets other properties active.

I applied -193 due to custom shader patch.
Found it here.

Also I fixed that issue above too.
Just uv map edge issue. Need to leave 2-3 pixels away from end. Silly mistake when unwrapped.

Now I am thinking of trying to make fantasy track.

Too afraid to do any real life track.

Masking everything seems to be way to go.

 

[Nedddo]

Hello everybody! Is using models from other games as blueprints, considered ripping? Making screenshots from front, side, top, rear and so on of models as a reference; and then using those screenshots as BPs?

 

[Ben O'Bro]

Hello everybody! Is using models from other games as blueprints, considered ripping? Making screenshots from front, side, top, rear and so on of models as a reference; and then using those screenshots as BPs?

it's like using a blueprint after all, you might take the errors of the model with it, that's the risk, other than that
as long as you don't match vertex by vertex

 

[mantasisg]

Thats good question. I think using screenshots as references from other games is not bad. If you think that in game it has been done well, and you can get good reference images which you feel not being available from actual real car pictures, then why not.

I know there are some modelers who would use entire meshes as references, that IMO already is stealing.

 

[Nedddo]

Now, what about models from games that dont have photo mode? Is taking/converting a model from a game (in posession or not) to make it openable in some program, and then using it solely for blueprint images, ripping? Also, can that be said for scratch mod models of any game?

 

[Johnr777]

Grey area really... IMO use whatever you need but as long as the final product itself is your own work, like Ben said, your vertices, your quads and your materials.

 

[Ghoults]

I'd be careful with games from other models though. You can never be quite sure how accurate a model made by other person is and chances are you'll be copying all his mistakes and misinterpretations if you use their model as source. Good reference material is sometimes really hard to find and if you struggle with finding good materials then chances are the person who made the model had the same problem.

Looking at models made by other people can be good for learning how to do different things efficiently or how to do something at all. How the seams are placed, how the parts are divided to uv islands and how the topology is in certain difficult places. Even if using someone's model or part of it for reference I'd still check as many things from photos and videos as possible.

Also like said by others your final product should be your own creation and not a vertex accurate of copy or retopoligized version of the original. Or an "improved version". All your textures should be your own as well.