The "What Are You Working On?" Thread

[garyjpaterson]

Well, took me two days, but got a reasonable looking UV map for the main chassis... No idea if its correct or not, but its my first proper attempt at UV unwrapping so will no doubt need some tweaking.

Only done one side (so its mirrored just now), which should be okay for now. Will get the UV map mirrored so I can put text and stuff on it soon. Found it pretty hard to get my head around at first, but seems to work okay. Can't wait to get AO baked but I need to get everything else unwrapped too...

Some pics of my new wireframe skin

What is the best practice? Is it best to have a new texture for each 'material' so each shader? For example the chassis will be carbon fibre, so should I be places other parts which will use the same shader (like the suspension arms) on the same UV map, and they all load the same texture and therefore use the same shader in AC?

Also for parts on the same object that should use different shaders (so I have some metal bits and shiny painted bits on the chassis), should they be separated and use another texture map? Right now they are all on the same texture, just a different colour (so same shader).

Sorry if I don't make sense, its all fairly new to me still...

Oh and heres a pic of the actual unwrap, probably a not that great. Will have to make room for two copies when I make it non-symmetrical (and of course weld the two sides together).

 

[burrito]

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/aerodatabasesauberc9.html

Sauber C9 Sprint​

 

[Delta7Fox]

Work in progress

 

[AccAkut]

What is the best practice? Is it best to have a new texture for each 'material' so each shader? For example the chassis will be carbon fibre, so should I be places other parts which will use the same shader (like the suspension arms) on the same UV map, and they all load the same texture and therefore use the same shader in AC?

Also for parts on the same object that should use different shaders (so I have some metal bits and shiny painted bits on the chassis), should they be separated and use another texture map? Right now they are all on the same texture, just a different colour (so same shader).

Sorry if I don't make sense, its all fairly new to me still...

Overall you should keep the number of materials and textures as low as possible. I don't quite understand your question tho, what do you mean with "on the same UV map"? If you want the suspension arms to use the same tiled carbon texture, just map it on its own, but chose the right size for it in the UV map window.

this is what the UV maps for my engine looks like. Looks chaotic, but this mapping uses ~4 different textures depending on material. I just unwrapped it, dragged all the stuff out of the main UV square, then sorted it by material. First everything metal, then everything plastic, then everything rubber and so on. Due to this, for now, I could keep the texture count below 50 for the whole car.

 

[garyjpaterson]

Overall you should keep the number of materials and textures as low as possible. I don't quite understand your question tho, what do you mean with "on the same UV map"? If you want the suspension arms to use the same tiled carbon texture, just map it on its own, but chose the right size for it in the UV map window.

this is what the UV maps for my engine looks like. Looks chaotic, but this mapping uses ~4 different textures depending on material. I just unwrapped it, dragged all the stuff out of the main UV square, then sorted it by material. First everything metal, then everything plastic, then everything rubber and so on. Due to this, for now, I could keep the texture count below 50 for the whole car.
View attachment 164101
View attachment 164102

So how does that engine texture work, with all the overlapping? Is it just the UVs overlap, but because they are different materials you assign each a new texture?

Sorry, probably really dumb questions, but I for whatever reason just don't get this stuff Thanks for trying to help though!

 

[Gergo Panker]

What is the best practice? Is it best to have a new texture for each 'material' so each shader? For example the chassis will be carbon fibre, so should I be places other parts which will use the same shader (like the suspension arms) on the same UV map, and they all load the same texture and therefore use the same shader in AC?

Also for parts on the same object that should use different shaders (so I have some metal bits and shiny painted bits on the chassis), should they be separated and use another texture map? Right now they are all on the same texture, just a different colour (so same shader).

Sorry if I don't make sense, its all fairly new to me still...

What we usually do is bake a main AO map for all significant body parts that use detail textures (e.g. all body paint, carbon and plastic parts) and alternatively another one if for example the car has an open engine area with lots of components visible that are not relevant to the main livery.
If you want the car to have visual damage, you have to make sure there are no overlapping UVs and also symmetrical parts are unwrapped completely (otherwise damage will appear on both sides even if you do not hit the other side of the car).

Then you create as many materials as you need, and using the multimap shader you just use different detail textures. The basic textures for each shader will be the same, so the AO as diffuse, a NM (if there is any), and the RGB map.

Same story in the interior, usually we have a single AO with all the bigger parts included and we create a new material wherever there is a new detail texture required. All small objects where an AO would not make a difference are usually mapped on various gradients on a separate details texture.

Our biggest concern is video memory, the kn5 file size, and as long as the same texture is used for the same shader type, it will not be added as extra size.

This method makes it easier to learn a car's texture and material structure for supervising artists who take the models over once they are submitted, in a mod's case you can also go with the new-texture-for-every-new-material technique plus custom RGB maps to optimize it as much as possible, but then it becomes a pain when you realize that a specific object has to be a different material. I've done that for several cars in the past and it's always a nightmare to rearrange maps once everything is baked and ready to go just because you notice a piece that is metal instead of plastic.

Having the same AO map for all exterior/interior parts gives you the freedom to swap materials as you like.

 

[garyjpaterson]

Thanks guys, really helpful stuff.

Takes a bit of getting used to, I'm sure by the end of this project I'll have a much better understanding. Should make finishing my other stuff happen a decent rate (hopefully).

Anyway, played with the multimap shaders for the first time, and got something resembling carbon fibre for the tub! Very happy, obviously still needs a ton of work, but looks good anyway.

For some reason I couldn't get the detail (carbon) to show up until I set the everything on the diffuse texture alpha channel to black? Seems the opposite of what I thought to be logical - I must be missing something.

 

[AccAkut]

So how does that engine texture work, with all the overlapping? Is it just the UVs overlap, but because they are different materials you assign each a new texture?

Yes, like that. Its a bit hard to explain Basically when i started modelling the engine bay stuff I started with the engine itself and the turbo, and decided that it would need a material that looks like metal, with a Normalmap.

Then as I went one I kept on adding pieces to that mesh, filled in spaces in the UV map, and kept on adding things and textures to that png texture. It was not done in one go, but in many steps over a couple of months.
Then when I added mesh that uses another material (plastic), I would load that other plastic texture that material uses as background image in the UV mapping window, position it, ignoring the UV map the "metal material "mesh uses.

I did this to prevent the 100+ texture madness I initially created when I made the Porsche, may have gone a little overboard

 

[After_Midnight]

Thanks guys, really helpful stuff.

Takes a bit of getting used to, I'm sure by the end of this project I'll have a much better understanding. Should make finishing my other stuff happen a decent rate (hopefully).

Anyway, played with the multimap shaders for the first time, and got something resembling carbon fibre for the tub! Very happy, obviously still needs a ton of work, but looks good anyway.

For some reason I couldn't get the detail (carbon) to show up until I set the everything on the diffuse texture alpha channel to black? Seems the opposite of what I thought to be logical - I must be missing something.

Looks really great

 

[Fat-Alfie]

It does indeed! It's really starting to come together now and looks like a top notch project

 

[BDA]

Taking a break from 962 skins:

Wait, sorry, pasted the wrong thing.

There we go.

 

[formulaHEINE]

Taking a break from 962 skins:

Nice one! Best to enjoy with a Crockett's Theme tape in infinite loop!
BTW my 962 skin should be ready tomorrow. I did simple skin for the GT3 RS in the last day.

 

[garyjpaterson]

New problem -

For some reason my wheels (and wheelnuts) are now not showing up in the ksEditor, when it worked fine earlier. I checked the export, and the wheel are exporting properly.

And they show up in the hierarchy, but are invisible and in the wrong position. And the strangest thing is they show up in-game just perfectly!? This image shows the problem, and the next ones are the same model just in-game.

Todays work was just unwrapping the front nosecone/wing and rear wing. Takes a fair bit of time, but I think I'm getting marginally quicker. Front wing has a lot of surfaces so took me a while, rear didn't take nearly as long.

 

[garyjpaterson]

I'm guessing the wheel problem has something to do with the wheel dummy's since they work in-game but not in the showroom, so I'll make new ones tomorrow to see if that fixes it...

In the mean time, at least not having wheels allows better visibility to thee calipers, I don't think I showed them before.

 

[mclarenf1papa]

Try hitting F1 to turn on/off blurred rims in the editor...might have something to do with that.

 

[AccAkut]

I'm guessing the wheel problem has something to do with the wheel dummy's since they work in-game but not in the showroom, so I'll make new ones tomorrow to see if that fixes it...

More like the opposite, something about the dummies is wrong in the fbx, as ingame some of the positioning things about them are overruled by that cars suspension.ini and other parameters. In Blender I would check if all positions/rotations are applied correctly relating to 0,0,0 of the model and if scale is set correctly.

 

[garyjpaterson]

Try hitting F1 to turn on/off blurred rims in the editor...might have something to do with that.

More like the opposite, something about the dummies is wrong in the fbx, as ingame some of the positioning things about them are overruled by that cars suspension.ini and other parameters. In Blender I would check if all positions/rotations are applied correctly relating to 0,0,0 of the model and if scale is set correctly.

Lol, it was just the blurred rims (of which I don't have any yet)... who pressed F1 when I wasn't looking? Spent like half an hour reexporting the model checking positions and rotation of the mesh/dummy, turns out its the simplest thing.

 

[NightEye87]

For some reason I couldn't get the detail (carbon) to show up until I set the everything on the diffuse texture alpha channel to black? Seems the opposite of what I thought to be logical - I must be missing something.

The alpha channel acts as a mask for the detail texture. So whereever it is white you're telling the game "please cover up my detail texture and show diffise instead" rather than "please show my detail texture". Once you've done it a few times this 'reversed' method becomes second nature

Car's looking lovely already!

 

[AccAkut]

Lol, it was just the blurred rims (of which I don't have any yet)... who pressed F1 when I wasn't looking? Spent like half an hour reexporting the model checking positions and rotation of the mesh/dummy, turns out its the simplest thing.

Don't be mad, I asked that same question a few weeks ago. Couldn't quite figure out why my preview pics showed blur only thought I had seen your car with blurred rims already

Your mapping work looks really good, that carbon weave fits the curvy parts very well.

The whole car still looks unusually futuristic for me Going by your use of the Dallara logo, is this some kind of freelance project you want to show them too?

 

[garyjpaterson]

thought I had seen your car with blurred rims already

Your mapping work looks really good, that carbon weave fits the curvy parts very well.

The whole car still looks unusually futuristic for me Going by your use of the Dallara logo, is this some kind of freelance project you want to show them too?

Nope, never made a blurred rim texture in my life, or any rim texture for that matter Not 100% sure I'm keeping these wheels for this project yet - they look okay but were actually made for the S3 Transit

I'm really pleased about how it looks with the carbon, really transforms the whole thing imo.

Unusual and Futuristic are what im going for

And not much thought went into the Dallara thing, I just wanted a real brand that didn't have a super strong/recogniseabe DNA - which gives me freedom for it to look as I please. Had I called it a BMW, it'd have to have the twin kidneys, hofmeister kink etc. Given Dallara have never produces in house road cars before (as far as I know), there are no rules, visually.