Ok! ISI before the release of the beta promised a lot of tutorials for modding. Yes, the files are there, but they do not offer all the clarity for what would make a good mod. for example: it is not clear how to make chrome, glass, lights and other ... And that's just cars! What's the problem with loading the file in GMT max settings that know him? In the tutorial complete car empty, it does not have setting materials! So I made the export of machinery, shaders, I do not work properly, and when I add the object glass GEN game does not work! Ask - know? Ask! How to correctly configure materealy glass, car mat? What shaders and settings need, what textures and channels need to be? P.S. Sorry for my bad English!
There is no point yet for doing such complete guides, because the graphical engine, car dynamics, and general behavior is still changing from build to build. The available guides are made to get you in touch with the process, explaining what you need to do to put a car on a track, and thats all until ISI decides that the future changes made in the rf2 would not affect the car building procedure. However when we talk about getting the materials to look like chrome in game, it's your task to do some trial/error to get it right. Anyways you are not alone, there are currently a lot of info about creating content on rF2 on the net, you just need to google it.
I don't find creating materials by trial and error a good idea And especially in rendering engine being developed. What I recommend is getting modelling and textures right for now, then wait for development to progress. For example - you can't even get proper glass, because highest specular power you can type in 3D Studio into gMotor material is 100. I've put 2000 into GMT file manually and it looks far better, but I'm still very unhappy with car body shader's inconsistency in texture interpretation. Take environmant reflections and specular reflection - they represent the same optical effect in reality and are affected by the same material properties. Yet in rFactor 2 you must put material's reflectivity into specular map for specular lighting and into alpha channel of diffuse texture for environment lighting. It's a mess and if it's going to stay this way I'll probably end up developing another shader pack. I assume I will have to write at least some shaders and I'm allready receiving requests. At the moment we can't say which direction ISI will go with the shaders but it's not like ISI is happy with their current shaders aswell. I'm guessing there is some stuff they're pretty happy with (like shadows and HDR which have solid implementations allready an only require some adjustments) just like there is some stuff they would like to change, as soon as they find time for it. Back on the topic of materials - like I said, I'm not a great fan of trial and error. You may experiment with fresnel settings for glass, but it's better to read about optical properties of glass like refractive index and end up actually knowing what reflectivity levels you should aim for. This is an example from Wikipedia's article and shows external and internal reflectivity of glass, depending on angle: So we get like 0.06-0.08 for fresnel min, 1.0 for fresnel max and something between 4.0 and 5.0 for fresnel exponent, to get this kind of reflectivity curve (blue line). What ISI's GMT files are useful for is learning how to setup animation for brake lights and stuff like that. Maybe I'll have some tools for you in 2-3 months but I'm not making any promises. It all depends on how much time I will have for this kind of stuff.
That's a start. Using a hex editor capable of scripting is even better. Then you can move on to higher level languages.
