Chrome paint

M

Marc Christopher Harris

Registered
Hello.

Me and a friend are working on something, a chrome - McLaren style paint scheme. We have read the following, http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/26868-Skinning-Chrome, http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/8780-Chrome-Help and watched the following https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kH2XPCwZVY

So have a vague understanding about the alpha channels, as have to make them for my league.

Have tried the white alpha channel on the bodywork, and it hasnt really worked. But will give the second thread instructions a go tonight.

Although, before I do - me and Nick thought...

I havent actually seen a chrome effect car in rFactor2 EVER. So does it actually work, or is there a reason why we haven't? Is it not worth it?

Thanks guys.

Marc.
 
A bright alpha channel is not enough. You need the right material settings for chrome (and a track with reflection mapper). The diffuse/albedo color for the chrome parts should be very dark (black), otherwise it looks wrong at night when illuminated with omni lights.



Here is the mod for testing. Car #99 is chrome effect.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ffx77cpabrxnq0f/Nissan_370z_chrome_091.rfcmp
 
Skan said:
Tosch, I sent You a pm about the chrome. You are making Me want to chrome everything.
Click to expand...

Reflection (or chrome) is not an attribute of the color/texture, although the alpha channel controls the amount of reflection (if you use the "car paint with damage" shader). For a mirror like reflection you need the right material settings and the standard wccarbody materials for all cars don't have the right settings, because car paint is a different material than chrome. The minimum reflection (when you look perpendicular on the surface) for a painted car is very low. For chrome it is nearly 100%.

The only way to create a chrome like reflection (if you don't use 3dsmax) is to export every gmt file with the modified material settings (wccarbody for instance) with gJED or 3dSimEd. You can test/change your settings in devmode, but in game rF2 reads the material settings from the gmt file.

 
Thank You for the reply. Thank You for the explanation. I do have 3dmax but I did not realize that was what is needed for this. I will just be happy with what I have been doing.
 
Tosch, the biggest drawback right now is that you can't achieve both looks at once, right? I mean, liveries like this are not technically possible:

dtm-spielberg-2014-vitaly-petrov-m-cke-motorsport-dtm-mercedes-amg-c-coup.jpg


Unless we had a slot on the shader for a texture controling the parameters that differ between usual car paint, and chrome. Maybe metalness? An extra texture with metalness on one channel, and microsurface on the alpha would be awesome. Then we could achieve various sorts of paints correctly i.e. automotive paint, decals, chrome, matte and brushed metallic.
 
I think we would need a gloss layer (for microsurface) to come close to physical based rendering. At the moment we only have the alpha channel to create gloss and fresnel reflection. The spec map plays also a role, but the map is the same for all cars (no wild card material) and the best compromise I've found so far is to use a very (very) bright specular map.


...but it's not to bad for the first try. :D




Here is the psd file for the skin. Layers for the specular map and a fresh alpha channel are included.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/kp6oalbkz33mm7f/370zRedChrome.7z
 
That looks nice. We need to remind ISI so they add "fresnel reflect" values into veh so we they override the values only for specific livery.

Could be like that in .veh

DefaultLivery="C7R_03.dds"
RefFres="0.3,1.5,5"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Btw, the red color is RGB 255.2.2. When you use this color with a simple T1 shader it will burn your eyes :D, but with a lot of reflections (car paint shader) the red looks much more natural and the saturation is reduced.

@Ales
A nice option would be to load the material settings from a gmenv file but the problem is that you can't have the same material with different settings loaded at the same time. For one skin with chrome effect you have to use this material for all other cars too.
 
Tosch said:
Btw, the red color is RGB 255.2.2. When you use this color with a simple T1 shader it will burn your eyes :D, but with a lot of reflections (car paint shader) the red looks much more natural and the saturation is reduced.

@Ales
A nice option would be to load the material settings from a gmenv file but the problem is that you can't have the same material with different settings loaded at the same time. For one skin with chrome effect you have to use this material for all other cars too.
Click to expand...

Thats why the option inside the veh would be the best and would overwrite the setting only for that specific livery. Everything else that would adjust the actually gmt directly it would give the result of all cars using that setting.
 
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