After Stereo built that PBR framework I've been using derivative shaders all over the place.
I've finally got LDR cubes to play nicely with the PBR stuff. It's still not ideal being LDR and non-mipped and static blurring, but for most track type materials it still gets about 90% of the visual quality and realism which is all that matters really.
Please forgive the weird pink on the top of the tyre wall, that is my bad over-spray from rough PS work on the textures.
So to sum up.
This is custom TOD with new sky shader and TOD inputs, with modified sky texture to get correct intensity values.
All lighting values are matched with proper PBR reference materials... basically everything matches up pretty nicely.
Then it's got a tone map to bring the colour balance back in line.
The asphalt is a PBR derivative that Stereo and I worked on on the asphalt track.
The textures on the walls and tyre wall are full PBR (albedo, spec, gloss, AO and normals)
All parts are using the same fundamental shader base. FPS seems no different here using these shaders vs the default standard_f/v types. I guess modern GPU's are just more than capable of doing the extra bit of maths PBR requires.
As you can see this material on the tyre wall is mostly all in the shade and yet it looks rich and full of texture, lighting and details.
Cam wanted to make a city track, and so did I, but neither have the time for anything huge despite having a few rough layouts of our local cities already planned, along with Exeter Roads Stereo and I began.
Nice ideas but in the end there is probably 1000hrs or even 1500hrs to make any of those fully with all the details realised just because of the sheer scale!
So we decided to do a tiny loop of Leeds city centre for Racer. It's about 500m in length. Quite a lot of buildings though but the basic ground work shouldn't take us long at all which is the main time cost.
We've already got a roughed out template in Racer to test the course feels ok to drive and to test graphics with.
It's still early days but the plan was to make everything PBR, have AO maps everywhere we could, and really bring out the nice lighting and depth of lighting that is possible with PBR and AO in these kinds of city environments where shadows and bright highlights rule.
Ideally we might have say 6 shaders for the entire city, with splitting done manually only to optimise draw count/view distance. The aim is for more FPS than any other Racer track, while also having more detail and visual quality than any other track too.
If that won't get Ruud interested in the idea of proper full PBR support and stuff I don't know what will
The aim is to get something looking as good as Grid Autosport if not better.
I think Cam is still busy adding splines everywhere, and we've probably got about 20 buildings or so roughed out too.
My next task after all the props for the track-elements are done is possibly to take a look at making a 3D spectator that can wave their hands etc
It'd be extra cool to have a streaker who would run across the track as you drove along hehe
Maybe the Tour de France is still strong in my mind after it departed here just a few weeks ago
Sorry for babbling in post yer screenies. The forums are so quiet it seems we may as well just have one thread where we're all seeing what each other are up to
Dave