Whilst driving a few of the recent tracks (impress works of art they are) I wondered how modding is seen by someone completely inexperienced and starting from the complete beginning. Now some may say "well I started from knowing nothing, so others should have to as well", that really isn't an attitude that is of any benefit to anyone else is it. 1. Now rather than every modder that starts out having to start from scratch, perhaps there could be a collection of free objects, textures, materials etc to get people started with making their creations. Now bear in mind, the items in the repository would have to be freely given and verified that they were handed over for free for learning purposes. Advice on material settings all in one place so future modders will have a benchmark or at least a first step for what creates a good surface material. Let's not reinvent the wheel here. Contributions welcome. 2. This sort of works with advice to, what modders have up in their brains could benefit the community as a whole. Now I know some may get very territorial about their knowledge and for some reason not want to share. But as far as I am concerned "sharing is caring" and the modding community has only to benefit from such advice offered. Contributions welcome. The advice could be in the form of a brief Q&A session with a particular modder about methods they used. Perhaps some "do's and don'ts" from their point of view when they were creating their tracks. Meeting on the rF2 Discord? In addition to point 1... if there are those out there that didn't want to take a track full on, maybe building small reusable assets for others to freely use in whatever project they are working on. Whether this was just models, textures or perhaps material settings that work well. Contributions welcome. Let's stop "reinventing the wheel" and begin creating resources we can all use to benefit the modding community. Look at it like making modding more "open source" as it were. Racing Simulation Modding Facebook Group Modding Repository - Google Drive (Contributions welcome) 3D Modelling Tutorials http://www.3dlinks.com/tutorials_max.cfm http://www.3d-palace.com/ http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=160223&page=17&pp=15 http://www.danielbuck.net/ http://www.raz.ro/tutorials/lotus/lotus1.htm http://www.xaraxone.com/guest/guest13/index.htm http://www.3dspline.com/index.html http://www.tutorialized.com/ http://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/ http://www.polytools3d.com/polyunwrapper/ http://www.renderhjs.net/textools/ http://jokermartini.com/replication/ http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/tools.php#fbsubobjpivot MeshLab http://sourceforge.net/p/meshlab/wiki/Home/ 7 mesh programs for free http://meshrepair.org/ Free uvw unwrap Road Kill http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm Textures Please check licence on the textures and credit appropriately for your own projects, I take no responsibility for their misuse. http://www.texturex.com/ http://lostandtaken.com/gallery http://www.cgtextures.com/ http://textures.forrest.cz/ http://www.youthedesigner.com/2010/06/15/free-downloads-a-collection-of-rusted-textures/ http://www.oera.net/How2/TextureMaps2.htm http://www.1000skies.com/ http://www.mayang.com/textures/ http://www.marlinstudios.com/products/products.htm http://www.got3d.com/index.html http://www.noctua-graphics.de/english/freetex_e.htm http://www.grsites.com/textures/ http://www.episcura.com/ http://www.wildtextures.com/ http://www.texturemate.com/ http://texturelib.com/ 3d-coat.com - retopology and uvwmapping traceback.allegorithmic.com Substance utilities - combines textures into a substance material. Free Nuno's Track Texture (with variations PSB file) Tutorial here: http://quixel.se/ www.youtube.com/user/quixelteddy Youtube Tutorial Videos http://www.youtube.com/user/freew67 3dsmax Useful Plugins / Scripts Track Modding resources Xformer - break an already-merged object out from its 'parent' http://www.polytools3d.com/ - You can break out your UV islands however you want, and this gets you a really good starting point for packing them. Links http://www.mbdevteam.com/download/tutorials/ Artomatix launches materialize/ HANGOUT while you mod.... learn from each other. Perhaps you are stuck on modding something specifically? Let's put our virtual heads together and HANGOUT - http://tinyurl.com/racingsimmodding If you guys know any others then please add!
Can a mod move this to the main modding forum... I have linked things which won't just help track modding. Ta!
The biggest downside to something like this is: how often does someone actually have access to the 3D model to output it to Photoshop (or any of the other painting tools). It'd be cool if modders/ISI released the actual assets (or a .fbx or .obj or something) to be able to bring it into a 3D painting tool like this...but (at least with ISI), I don't see this happening very soon.
Want to add what I posted on another forum to unify and not separate the modding community, because we are all in this together and after the same things In addition to point 1... if there are those out there that didn't want to take a track full on, maybe building small reusable assets for others to freely use in whatever project they are working on. Whether this was just models, textures or perhaps material settings that work well. Look at it like making modding more "open source" as it were.
I just came across this thread Woodee. Good stuff, I`m just starting to learn to model in max and I`m loving it. Long way to go though. Will check out your links etc and post up any I may have or come across.
http://www.polytools3d.com/ PolyUnwrapper is particularly useful for doing buildings. You can break out your UV islands however you want, and this gets you a really good starting point for packing them. I found it a SUPER useful timesaver. Xformer is also super useful if you need to break an already-merged object out from its 'parent'.
Added modding repository link to first post These objects and textures were kindly provided to help modders like yourselves. Stop "reinventing the wheel" and get a headstart! If you want me to add to the repository, PM me a link of objects/textures you wish to share (they must be YOURS TO SHARE IN THE FIRST PLACE!) and I will add them to the same place.
