Hello, although this is the appropriate section, I'm not sure if the developers keep checking here, but worth the try. Well, I've been creating liveries for a while now (actually since 2004 - and even did a lot for the Reiza titles) and recently tested the stuff with the new shader (result here). Oh boy, what a paint it was!!! I've always visualize the cars outside of the game, generally on a 3d software, but lately I created a PBR showroom with Marmoset Toolbag, which is what I used to paint some of the JT5 Shiro cars (see here). Since the release of the DLCs, all the files are encrypted and I understand that, but the ultimate solution of loading the game, saving a DDS & reloading the showroom every time you make a small change is simply unfeasible. Let alone the lack of camera freedom or worse, the weird lightning preventing you from visualize the right side and rear of the car. Even the most basic car have separate UV islands on its template that require some work to match the layout. And everyone that tried to paint a complex car (i.e. DTM) and/or a very detailed scheme knows how many times you have to save and check until the pixels are matching. I even when ahead and did some comparisons between the 2 procedures: Save .PSD + Marmoset Toolbag Saving the PSD file: 5 seconds (just CTRL+S) Reloading the livery: 2 seconds (automatic) Save .DDS + rF2 Showroom Saving the DDS file: 20 seconds (as DXT5) Reloading the livery: 6 seconds (press Reload) That's 19 seconds of extra waiting every time you move a piece of layout a few pixels until it matches. And just for the front + left side, for the rest you need to check the car on track, which take a least 10 more seconds. ------------------------------------------------------------------ My sugestions would be: 1) Standalone Viewer Lit by HDRI file; Free Camera (Move, Pan, Zoom); Able to load non-DDS files (JPG or PNG for example). 2) Release 3D Model Release a basic 3D model with the bare minimum for layout checking (i.e.: just a FBX file with car body).
I thought they fixed that a while ago but then went and stuffed it up again. I don't often do skins but I'm working on one now and, I agree, it can be a slow and monotonous job.
Can't argue with any of this. The Showroom is shit, not only for painters but just to view cars in. I use this https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtU8Nezhr6BNgbpZa1w5Kx9ZtXYgaw Full rotation, Zoom in and out. No dark sides. But some shadowing mostly around the rear wing can be annoying. The way things are working with the new shaders and loading DDS to the car they need to load the Mas that comes with the new set up or they want show. This updates when you reload the car in the showroom. The windows, drivers, extras don't load to the Mas. If you manually load them, they get deleted out off the Mas when you reload the car in the showroom. In fact, If you remove all the open files and just have the loaded Mas (with DDS files) and reload the car all the files inside the Mas are deleted! So you can see there's far more going wrong with the Custom skins system than just the showroom, and the fact that the AI still "want" show the custom skins on track. The showroom has been a issue ever since it was released it was rubbish. I wouldn't be holding my breath for a better one anytime soon.
Definitely!! The whole skin system is a mess. I just focuses on one thing for brevity reasons, but yeah, if we are talking about "wishes", there's A LOT of stuff to improve.