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VELOCIPEDE

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pleclair ci aggiorna:

Hey guys!
Time for another morning status update!
I'll just pretend I didnt read INTEL48 comment and just do as if it doesnt exist.
So, I made nice progress yesterday!
I got the gmaterial almost figured in 3dsmax. Since I do not have 3dsimed until the 26th of august, I have spent a good part of the day, yesterday, figuring out the materials in 3dsmax.
I have updated the mats properties on all the track itself, and it immediate surroundings. Those familiar with the gmts, mainly the road????.gmt objects from the original track.
Still have a few kinks to iron out, like some strip of sands somewhere that is appearing way too much dark, and few spots like this here and there, but for those I swapped, around 90% of it all worked as expected.
The tarmac and curbs now look very good!
Here is a little screenshot showing the current stage of it:

jCXbnMa7WwMis_xs.jpg

As you can see, the tarmac now looks much better, so does the grass, and more specially the grass close to track.
The trees and everything else is still from the 0.91 version released.
Still a lot of work to do, must redo all trees, swap all other scenes mats (got about 1/4 or 1/5 done).
So if all goes well, I think we should be seeing an update within 2 weeks or so.
Regarding the donations, I have been able to purchase 3dsimed v3 and Mario's tools, along with the combo suggested by Hermmie. Should get it between the 28th of august and 2nd of sept.
Thank you very much all, it will most certainly help. Since I tessellated the track mesh, the max file is now much heavier for my comp, and started crashing again rather often. The layers did helped a lot tho, but I've reached my limit once again!

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pleclair ci aggiorna:

Can almost say long time no see, by my standards smile.png
Well, a lot have happened here since I last posted an update.
I've spent the last two days working on the trees, and I got every single one of them right this time. Can't be 100% sure, but after a few laps, I can say I've seen no weird behavior from any.
So that means, no trees shy away anymore in cockpit view, or any view. The shadows of the trees are no longer rotating on the ground.
It looks perfect now!
The skids are working on the curbs and concrete extensions to the curbs.
The new road is now a bit smoother, and I havent seen the AI glitch like it was happening sometimes in the previous versions. I havent had the time to check out the AI lap times, but they may be better overall now. I'd be curious to compare.
Let just say that its coming along nicely and a lot faster than I originally thought. Everything has been redone from scratch!
If all goes well tomorrow, we might be lucky and see a 0.95 or so version this week end,prior to the 1.0 release coming soon, with hopefully most of rf2 features in.

Well, I'm looking for:
-Wet reflections
-More TDF variations for the many different tarmac. Now it's under 2-3 category, I'll do a tdf def for each kind of tarmac.
-Optimized shadows and track details settings, enable the trees and stuff close to track, and disable the distant stuff, etc.
-And probably forgetting stuff... its nearly 3h30am, and worked all day!

I've ran a few laps in the Formula ISI 2012, and damn.... its like the ultimate sensation! Reaching top speed in some areas is incredibly quick!
Can't wait to hear what you will have to say about the next update!

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pleclair ci aggiorna:

I see plenty of people sending HDR screenshots with overblown contrast. While it may look better in replays and screenshots, to actually play, I prefer with no HDR. Plus, what you are seeing in the video is the Fall version. I will convert this one as well, as the winter, and the 24h layout. Also plan on adding foggy versions.
One thing, there is so many trees, and yet the road have no shadows smile.png I actually prefer rf2 version right now to be honest.
And I'm not defending my version over the other, really. I can tell when something looks better, no matter who is behind. But again, its all a matter of opinions smile.png
The road now looks more like this in the video, tho real road makes it a bit darker, but not that much now. It looks a lot more like old pavement than the new look the previous versions had.
But for an rf1 track, it looks pretty good, must have been awesome back then!
Another thing, in the screenshot I sent earlier about the upcoming update, the grass on the side is messed up a bit. I tried to do the same materials in 3dsmax as I did in 3dsimed, but since my demo is out and I'm waiting until the guy comes back from holiday to get my license, and I'll be able to fix it. I hope to figure out why it wasnt the same in 3dsmax than in 3dsimed, but if I don't, I'll simply fix it up for now with 3dsimed.
I should get the license the 25 or 26th, dont remember. At the moment, I'm pulling my hair out with the trees again!
No, there is no glitch with them, only trying to fix up the flickering. Turns out quite a few trees from different tree objects line up too nearly or are in the same spot, so I'm actually going over each one, and moving them a bit around so they dont flicker no more. While at it, I found out a nice plugin to align objects to a surface, even if uneven. So I'm levelling each trees with the ground and pushing them back 0.2m in, just so they are planted.
I'm nearly done with the stretch (always start with it, and go around), and it makes a nice difference! Some trees were quite pushed into the ground.
This is going to push back the update, as it will likely take until tomorrow night or so to be done with this, and then I'll see if I can push in wet reflections...

I wish I had good news with me, but I don't.
Well, its not bad either, just that I don't think I'll be able to release something today.
The darn trees. I thought it would be much easier than this but actually, it is a whole lot of work. More than converting the trees to BB actually!
Yesterday, I lost about 2-3 hours of work due to a little glitch that happened when I used the plugin to fit objects to terrain on my billboard trees. I did the whole stretch where the paddock is, and until the first few corners. Then packaged, and tried, and to my disgust, all the trees I used the plugin on were upside down. A horrific view!
After close inspection and losing more time trying to figure what when wrong, I couldnt see anything.
The triangulation was still the same, the local axis as well, the tree was showing fine in 3dsmax as well. I really have no clue what happened.
The fix was to detach them again, use mario's precious tool to create new BB based on the new fitted ones, and attach them again.
So to actually fit the trees to ground now, I must detach all, raise them 20m (so they are all out of the ground well, the plugin needs objects to be sitting above ground, and some trees were up to 10m down into the ground), center pivot to bottom (default for BB is middle, this is needed to align), run the plugin (Glue), center pivot back to middle (so mario's tools create the tree at the correct location, otherwise the tree is half inside the ground, since the tool expect the pivot to be middle), use mario's tool to create new BB, attach, drop 0.2m into ground for a better look, and rename smile.png
Now, I havent counter exactly how much trees there are, but I figure its in the 3000-5000 number... smile.png
I received my 3dsimed v3 license yesterday, and figured out a new workflow to help me pinpoint the trouble trees.
Until now, I was making a few corrections, packaging, trying in the game, to make sure everything was right. Sometimes it tooks me 1-2 try to actually move the right tree. Its not so obvious sometimes.
This was really long, as my computer doesnt load rf2 (and 3dsmax for that matter) very fast.
So now, what I do, I keep a 3dsimed v3 open with my scene, I can easily see the trees that touches each other, I can also know the objects name it belongs too, etc... so finding it in 3dsmax is much easier.
I cannot handle the scene very well now that the road and curbs are tessellated. Until I get the new parts, I must run in object shading mode which doesnt give me much clues about the trees, dont know what type it is, how it looks, etc...
Also, when I started I only had the ground layer + the trees, I started moving trees, but forgot about fences, tree lines, and stuff... which were frozen and hidden.
So now I work with objects, signs, fences, but in a frozen state. At least I can position stuff properly.
The alignment of the tree had a drastic effect on how the track looks! Like I said, there was areas with trees deep into the ground, this could be seen a few corners after start, when you took the L turn going past the gp connection section. Now the trees are standing tall in the area.
Also, there was many many trees sitting on each other, or so close, now they are more spread out, so it gives the illusion there are more trees!
Regarding the grass I thought I could fix with 3dsimed, I will have to seek further.. looks like I didnt checked properly on first time I did this, the grass mowed texture from silverstone doesnt tile like it does in Silverstone. Since the original grass textures had some of these, I thought it would look great with it more apparent using the silverstone grass properties, but the mowed texture doesnt tile right.
I tried to learn about texture mapping, but looks like the way its usually done in max, isnt the same way its done for rFactor gmts. The only options I could find in the mat editor regarding the texture mapping, is the scale, offset and rotation. I could get the mowed texture to a right scale, but rotating it (since its 90 degrees off) didnt produced the desired result.
I tried some UV modifiers but none helped. Any tips on that area? Its the one area I have no clue currently.
Anyone can give me a concrete example, like how to turn and tile the mowed texture so it looks right? That would help me immensely progress further and change more base textures.
And no worry, once I'm done, you should not find one flickering tree! At least from racing view (cockpit or whatever) and tv cameras. If you really want to and go freelook, you'll probably find some, but none should distract you from driving or watching a replay!
So, I'll do my best today, but hopes are slim.
Regarding the mowed texture, if I cannot find a way to tile it properly, I'll use another texture from another ISI track to replace meanwhile.

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DOWNLOAD v0.96 -> http://www.drivingitalia.net/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5541

Nordschleife Guide download link (Thanks to Hectari for providing this! Give this a try, it's an amazing in depth review of the track and how to race it)
Tosch HDR Profile for v0.90 and 0.91 download link
Tosch HDR Profile for v0.80 download link

(remember to turn hdr off for best look, or use Tosch HDR Profile, ISI's default isnt proper for this)

UPDATE #4 (v0.95): It's nearing 7am and I havent slept yet, was working on 0.96 after reading a nice explanations from wgeuze (did I got it right?) on mesh smooth. So I have 2x mesh smooth instead of 2x tessel the road mesh. But I think it is too smooth.. will try 1 mesh smooth 1 tessel tomorrow, and update the post with more informations on what's new smile.png You can find out most about it in my first post of today... Enjoy, 0.96 coming up in 25 mins or so if I'm still awake :P



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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Pleclair news

Sorry for the lack of update, the last week has been pretty tough by itself. Some regarding the track itself, and some involving real life matters.
I spent quite a bit of time on the road again, hehe, I mean on the track’s tarmac appearance, and I made quite a bit of progress as you will soon see in the new screenshots
I spent some time with a new plugin I got that can pull google earth’s data right into 3dsmax, with whatever resolution texture you want. Pretty neat stuff.
I imported the track into Max, and spent some time figuring out a way to replace the low res far scenery with some better one, but seems like I’m not there yet.
I have also tried different things like conforming the road we have on the new terrain, even tho it wasnt a perfect fit, but the result was like a brand new track :P The exact same shape of corner, with totally different elevation. Was really odd!
So until I get better with modelling, I’ll put this on hold. The thing is, the mesh is all nicely made of squares or rectangle (triangulated), so its hard to cut in and replace what I have in the far scenery. Would even be harder to replace the inner scenery.
I almost called it quit last week while working on the road. I knew something wasnt right, but couldnt really get it to look like what I wanted, the higher resolution detail/spec/bump map were displayed too big.
After getting it to a size I wanted, thru resizing the uvw channel 2, I found out there was quite a bit of distortion in the uvs, and it resulted in blurry patch in the road.
So I redid the uvs for the channel 2 for the whole track, and I got it to look pretty good!
I will likely darken the road texture a bit, I lighten it up a tad too much, since I also switched to the real road shader, which made the road look darker. Much darker.
I also took a look at the reference picture Richard sent me, and something struck me. The place is bushy as hell. The bushes we had were border disgusting, and far too few. I understand when the track was made, computer were a lot less powerful, but that aint true no more
So I started to bushen the place a little! I replaced all bushes with new ones, and added quite a bit of variations. 9 in total, against 3 there was.
I made sure to pick bushes that looked wild, and not something you’d find in a garden :P I also started to remove the ugly tree line that was real close to the road. The bushes will fill this space, and I’ll likely add more trees where I see it is more dense on the pictures I have.
As for later optimization regarding the much increased bushes (well, the original bushes where made of 8 polygons anyway, so the total difference wont be as large as it would seems to be, since they are now 1 poly billboard… but still… I’ll break down the bushes objects, and put them into vis group, so people with max detail will get all bushes, and as you go down, you’ll lose some, until you have only those close to track.
Might not make 4 groups, might end up into 2-3 or something like that, we’ll see.
I downloaded some courses for 3dsmax, regarding basics, and some for uvw mapping, making seemless textures. Should help me understand some more stuff and progress further.
So here are the brand new screenshots. There are many!
This session was started at 8pm, and ran accelerated 2 laps to get some rubber in with 12 ai cars. Oh, and I also noticed the texture for the race groove was mapped sideways, it is now mapped properly in the right direction!
It is going to take quite a bit more time than I first thought. But this is mainly because my expectations are now much higher and I wanna do a lot of things I didnt even thought I would be able to do. So, hang tight.
There will still be in between releases, but I learned by my previous releases that most people didnt followed the thread, and are asking me question I already answered, or even mentioned in my updates. So until I got the textures to a point I’m satisfied enough I can resume work on the mesh (I’ll likely do the bushes in between too, and add more trees as well), then you’ll have this version, and I’ll continue on fixing up the cracks.
I also mesh smoothed the far scenery a bit. I couldnt and wouldnt smooth it all, since it would have torn large hole everywhere, plus resulted in many extra polygons, that wouldnt have been that much necessary. So I only smoothed the most jagged parts, couple of polygons per scenery objects. It did a pretty good job, as you can see in the first screenshot well, in the far back.
I also replaced and added more variety of grass too. I havent started to billboard them and increase their number, but will do. The nice hills after the gp overlap will look much better with billboard grass instead of those x shape grass that looks odd, since some grass is very dark since the light isnt hitting them.
The track is already around 350mb now When I’ll be done, I would think it will reach upward of 600mb. So it will be the size it should for the size of the track it is

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Pleclair

Quick update! Since I've mentioned earlier that I've started fiddling with the grass texture, I just made up a very nice one for the most common grass there is in Nords, which basically covers all the far scenery, but sometimes coming close to track, like on the main stretch.
Turns out my first try earlier was no good. Well it was seamless, and with no pattern visible, but it was so without a pattern that from not so far away, it would almost look like a plain color.
So I played some more and some more, and I got something really solid now. smile.png
No visible pattern, but the grass have more contrast than before, more shading to it. It is perfectly seamless as well. Managed to get a pretty nice tint to it too. Looks highly natural to me.
I started noticing a little more the subtleties of real life lighting, and turns out grass at noon become highly reflective and dark grass will turns very bright.
Here is some screenshots taken at 8pm ish (I just love morning and evening lighting :P)
GRAB_617.JPG
GRAB_618.JPG
GRAB_619.JPG
GRAB_620.JPG (Close Up grass, good lighting)
GRAB_621.JPG (Close Up grass, partly shadowed)
And to please those asking me for daytime screenshots, here are a few taken at 2pm :P
GRAB_622.JPG
GRAB_623.JPG
GRAB_624.JPG
GRAB_625.JPG

.

And here is some in the rain, again at 2pm.
Still no reflections in tho. This is planned for v1.0 (or after if I cant figure it out in time)
GRAB_626.JPG
GRAB_627.JPG
GRAB_628.JPG
GRAB_633.JPG
GRAB_634.JPG

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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally! Wait, before you think I'm done with it all, I'm not!
But I got something worth of sharing with you, and this time, not only with screenshots smile.png It's been a few week ends already I wanted to push in an update, and something always got added or changed.
On my last screenshots, I started working on the grass. Turns out I managed to replace all grasses with 4096x4096 textures, that I made from scratch myself. So they aren't from any other tracks or whatever.
The only thing in Nords at the moment, that have been borrowed is the asphalt details maps (from Mores).
So, what to expect in this version?
Much better grasses all around, redid all trees again, since I made new grasses, the trees were too de-saturated for the new grass, so I remade them all. I applied my latest alpha masking techniques to them, and they look much much better. The specular maps and bump maps are also improved too.
Also, when I did the trees, I took the default textures, loaded them up in PS, and replaced with better trees. But we had about 50-60 trees mats defined, that used about 15 or so textures maps. So many trees repeated.
Now all 50-60 trees mats are different. I went again from the default textures, and picked trees matching those, and took a good look at the many images I have (thanks to Richard), and from videos on youtube, and made sure I picked trees variety that ressemble those in Nords.
I have removed many ugly tree lines that were way to close to the track. I will later replace all tree lines with real trees, similar to how its done in Mores.
The tarmac detail maps are now smaller. Turns out you guys were right. At some point, I was looking at a particular screenshot, and the car looked tiny on the tarmac, which appeared too big. So I made the grain a bit smaller, and now it looks pretty darn good.
I also made new gravel textures for the gravel traps. Redid the specs/bumps on the guard rails and curbs too.
Probably forgetting stuff as well, but you'll see. There are a few things to fix in this version, the remaining cracks, a few UV mapping problems, some trees are flickering, some new bushes stand out of some fences, need to pull them back in.
But I think it should be enough for a while for you to enjoy a nearly brand new track from a visual perspective smile.png

 

download v0.97a beta -> http://www.drivingitalia.net/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5541



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