Yes of course, how stupid of me... Thanks! Yes please. This would give us more possibilities to play around appearance of scene's other areas, which are not raced (like garage areas and so on...). Cheers!
Thank you Luck and Scott for your help. Problem was in incorrect mapping. I had specular map assigned to map channel 4. I wanted to have spec map and asphalt detail map in two diferent channels, but it seems it doesn't work in that way with realroad shader.
That's a good solution but in this way I can't get the rain fx on other asphalt surfaces. BTW, I'm struggling with another issue on my test conversion. I've a lot of triangles with different specularity along the RaceSurface_ istances. I've just tried a lot of different smoothing values...without any kind of result, so I think this is caused by the Realroad mesh computing. This is an example: View attachment 1163 Any suggestion? Tnx!
Hmm...I've temporarily solved using the Fix Cyl Wrap/Ignore splits in the export settings just for the Racesurface_. I don't know what this option really do...but it works. View attachment 1164
Can you show a screenshot of your wires and UV's? It sounds like maybe there's a seam in the UV's that shouldn't be there. Or possibly some shading group issues (or is that what you meant when you said you tried a lot of different smoothing values)?
Seams are ok...and I've tried to remap the entire track from scratch...with a fast spline mapping...but the problem it's still there. Faces and vertices are ok as well. :/ View attachment 1165 Yep. I mean I've tried a lot of smoothing combinations without changes. The problem exist only on Racesurface instances....
I take it those are your seams (UV Edit modifier active) and not just wire colors? It looks like you have a seam on every single edge--which can be bad. Try selecting all verts and welding them in the UV Editor (so you should only get seams on the outer edges). Also, I'd recommend quadrangulating the whole mesh as best as you can. There's also a little bit of sloppiness in some of your edges where you'd have some 5+ point polys (if you were to remove some of the 'inner' edges from the polys). I'll take a little bit of time in a little bit to do a draw-over to show you what I mean. I'm not 100% sure it will fix your specific problems, but it certainly won't hurt it, and it will give you a better, much cleaner mesh.
So, here's a suggestion on how to go about cleaning up your mesh: Generally speaking, it's best to have quads as much as possible. Especially as poly counts continue to increase, and tesselation becomes more prominent (i.e. DirectX11). If you get really desperate for low poly counts, you can't avoid breaking things down to the triangle level. RealRoad especially seems to prefer quads (or at least somewhat regularly-sized/aspect ratio triangles). View attachment 1175
The single edge doesn't help at all. The triangulation issue still there....BTW...Why seams should be a problem for the game engine? Just to know... For the quadrangulation I will try to manage some corners for testing the real difference.... Ty!
For sure, but remember this is a conversion test from other GMTs and a complete re-quad could be a suicide.
Ok! Here we are... I've rebuilt the entire track with quads...and the difference is HUGE. I've a boost of 20fps, the triangles disappears..the wet FX is much more evident and the feedback is far better...That's really cool... I worked in Cinema 4D because is my first 3D program and is fastest than Max 2010: View attachment 1185 I don't think I need more polys for streight...but for now the entire mesh is very light compared with the original triangulated mesh. Thanks for your help!
You might want to test that version of your track in the game to see what the groove looks like before proceeding. The less polys you have in a section, the more "square-ish" the groove will look. If you have an ideal line that crosses from one side of the track to the other that might look not so well with that few polys. Or maybe it's just right, it's just better to test it before going back means adjusting other objects as well. I speak from experience.
That's a good point. I know well oldest rF1 track methods and this is why I'm testing new features (I want to understand how optimize new track features)...In another thread Luc Van Camp form ISI, said they use about 1.5m wide polys. I'm using 1.2/1.5m wide polys everywhere...with a variable depth in streight for a max 7.0m. I don't know if we need square polys (IE: 1.5x1.5m) everywhere but I will try with a "high poly" section... For now I feel a good feedback from the track and compared to original ISI there are not huge differences. What do you think?
You don't need square quads, and you'll probably be able to get away with 7.0m polys, just. I would recommend something closer to 5.0m x 1.5m for the straights.
Thank you Luc. I'm working now with white painted lines...and I'm looking for the "best" technique for this field. I usually cut out the lines from the track mesh (side lines, pits, etc..)...but I would like to know if with the new track technology there is a smartest technique. I suppose lines need the same quad resolution as the track...
The line mesh doesn't need to follow the road mesh. You can easily add a bit more polys on the lines in the corners to increase the smoothness perception of the corner itself. I recommend adding a bit of zero-alpha padding when you map the lines. This should help fight aliasing a bit as there will be less of a hard white edge.
On the track mesh itself you need a higher poly resolution to have the groove and marbles show up correctly. On the white lines that won't be much of an issue as the width of the polys is going to be so low anyway that you can't have much directional change of the groove there anyway (if you apply RealRoad to it). As Luc said, if anything you're more likely to use higher poly count to make it look more round, not because of any engine requirements. Increasing the resolution along the basic spline on the road mesh quickly means 8-16 added polys per added row (depending on the width of your polys). Suggesting a rounder track curvature through the white line would be much, much more poly-efficient with only two added polys per added row (one left, one right).
Thanks guys...but I'm asking if could be better (in terms of efficiency and visual quality) to put the line mesh above the track (with a +0,01 on Z and leaving the track mesh intact), or I need to cut the mesh to extract the basic track line, adding extra triangles/quads to design the line shape inside the track mesh...
The most efficient way to do it would be to layer the line mesh 1-2mm on top of the surface, and checking the Decal option in the exporter. You may feel the 1mm bump in the FFB, but paint has its thickness as well so it's not unrealistic on the physics side. If you do want the lines to be flat, you can use the TDF's OnTop value to compensate. Personally, I'd keep the 1mm bump.
