[RELEASE] Nordschleife Tourist v1.65 beta

Discussion in 'Locations' started by pleclair, Aug 4, 2013.

  1. Atle Dreier

    Atle Dreier Registered

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    I'm glad you mentioned the green/yellow tint in those screenshots... :) As a colour guy that stuff stands out like a sore thumb... :p
     
  2. GTClub_wajdi

    GTClub_wajdi Registered

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  3. Marc Collins

    Marc Collins Registered

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    The non-HDR shots are looking really nice. The only thing that sticks out of place graphically is the under-bridge texture! Someone send plelcair a good texture or two (one for side walls and one for ceiling) for the BILSTEIN bridge!! :)
     
  4. Kickbox

    Kickbox Registered

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    I hope you release it very soon, looks great!
     
  5. MapleHamwich

    MapleHamwich Registered

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    To be honest a little more model work on the Bilstein Bridge would help with the texture. Part of the problem right now is that the geometry of the bridge is very simple, so the texture really stands out. If you look at this picture, you can see the difference between the real bridge and the in game bridge. Adding that bit of complexity underneath would really help the look.
    http://i.imgur.com/b2jf6NA.jpg
     
  6. pleclair

    pleclair Registered

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    Thanks for the tip!

    I'm not sure if I'll be able to do this, but I'll certainly try. It looks simple, but I never altered a model that much so far... or added new stuff to one.

    Richard will soon send me plenty of reference pictures, so hopefully one or a few will contain the bilstein bridge.

    I see the guardrail shouldnt stop and there should be more trees too.

    But at this point, like I said previously, its not worth going after such details, since there is so much left to do.

    I'm still in the process of mildering down the default textures, unfortunately, I cannot apply a one size fit all macro to all textures to get them to look properly, most be fixed by hand, since they have different problems.

    Once I'll have the textures fixed, and proper bump/spec maps for the needed things (my trial of Crazy Bump is running out, so I wanna make the most out of it), then I'll resume work on the mesh, fixing crack, smoothing corner, and stuff.

    At this point, v0.97 will be ready.

    Then I'll try to optimize the shadows, lods, etc to the best I can, work some more on the tdf, wet reflections (hopefully, I'll need to discover the secret of the alpha channel for the road textures...), and fix whatever is left by then, and then v1.0 will be born.

    After 1.0, I'll go after trying to match the real life version a little more, and the ultimate goal would be replacing most if not all of the textures, but.... the related textures are somewhat hard to find... guard rails, etc... I havent found any suitable yet. All I've found where some generic road guard rails, not those you see on race track.

    The goal at this point is to restore the track as it was, proper for rf2, with whatever textures improvements I can find.

    Trying to go right away for the real life version would only lead to frustrations for me, since I need to learn much about 3d, the game engine, since what I see in max is far from what I see in game... so I need to learn what colors and brightness, contrast is suitable for in game. I made good progress on this lately. My first attempts at fixing the grass were highly unsuccessful, and this is by far my best shot. Still isnt perfect, will fiddle a little more, but I'm close.
     
  7. MapleHamwich

    MapleHamwich Registered

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    Oh for sure, no worries. : )
     
  8. Richard Hessels

    Richard Hessels Member

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    I found 2 rather good ones, from the both sides of the bridge.

    You can very clearly see the structure, but there is no billboard there anymore.
    Maybe there is a custom billboard for important races.

    View attachment 10011
    View attachment 10010

    I found a good photo with a billboard
    View attachment 10012

    PS. The NVIDIA Texture Tools got a great working bumpmap (normal map) tool.
    It will work forever and its free.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 20, 2013
  9. Aleksi Elomaa

    Aleksi Elomaa Registered

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    First two pictures are from Aremberg corner bridge.
     
  10. Davitmm

    Davitmm Registered

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    thank you very much to all the people who are working on this project
     
  11. Richard Hessels

    Richard Hessels Member

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    After looking more in to the photos yesterday I became aware of this too.
    They are almost the same design, so that's where I messed up.
    Indeed the first bridge contains the billboard, the 2nd bridge has no billboard.
    But it's been looked after now :)
    I'm helping Plecair to provide 2 new much more accurate bridges.
     
  12. Tosch

    Tosch Registered

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    Nice!!!
    I really like the idea of a open community project. The more people involved the better the final result.

    Thanks Richard
     
  13. tjc

    tjc Registered

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    +1 Tosch... it`s always good to see a community work together.

    Good stuff guys. :)
     
  14. Nor

    Nor Registered

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    @ pleclair, could you rotate some of the birch trees which are close to each other, repeating same bent trunk of a tree does not look good.

    apart of that, great progress on the environment
     
  15. pleclair

    pleclair Registered

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    Yeah I knew about that. It's been fixed :)

    When I picked the trees initially, I had no idea really what they were in game, and how often they would repeat. Have I known it would be such a common tree, I wouldnt have selected such an easy to spot tree in first place. I was waiting to work again more on tree to replace it. It's now done!



    Ok!

    Made amazingly good progress in the past 2-3 days, since my last update here!

    Worked non-stop on the grass/road/trees to get proper coloring/texturing done, and I must say that I'm really proud of the result! CrazyBump is so... crazy!

    I have noticed something two days ago that really improved the look ten folds. Turns out that the UVW map channels for anything above then 1 wasn't set properly. So thats why the road edges looked weird and appeared compressed, even tho they werent really. Its now all looking good, I copied the uvw channels 1 to 2 and 3 and things now look proper!

    So without any more, I'll let you enjoy these latest screens!

    HDR
    -----------------

    View attachment 10031

    View attachment 10032

    Those were took yesterday, before I found out about how to "bake" ambient occlusions into textures. This is now, with baked occlusions in all trees!

    View attachment 10033

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    View attachment 10046


    I haven't got non-HDR screens at this time, but if you thought non-HDR looked better before, then you won't be deceived ;) I'll try to send some more later today.

    As you can see in the screens, pretty much all textures have been edited and made to work right in HDR. From the guardrails, trees, fences, building textures, road signs, tatoos. So Tosch should have a really good time setting up a profile for the track next time!

    As Richard said, he sent me much better looking bridges, but I cannot use them as of now, they aren't fitting properly. But will soon do! He will also provide a 100x times better looking green hell cafe, and some very sweet high res guard rails!

    The guard rails we have now look a lot better tho with proper bump/spec maps to it! In many cases, where you don't see the top of the guardrails, you think it's round and 3d. Looking really good now! But those he sent me will look a ton better!

    Today, I'll have a shot in baking occlusions in the grass textures and see what it does.

    Regarding the update, here is what I'll do. When I'm done texturing and ready to resume work on the mesh itself, I'll post an update so you can enjoy a much better version than 0.96 until I'm done with sector 1-2 and done.

    This way, Tosch will be able to work on the profile and tell me if anything else need taking care of.


    So I hope you're all pleased with the latest progression and until next time, I'll wish you some great laps on the track!
     
  16. GTClub_wajdi

    GTClub_wajdi Registered

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    Wowww... it looks reallt very nice!
     
  17. DJCruicky

    DJCruicky Registered

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    Very pleased.
    [​IMG]
     
  18. pleclair

    pleclair Registered

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    Oh, and almost forgot this!

    Lime Rock visitors heard of the work on the Nordschleife and some came in for a visit!

    View attachment 10047

    As I check out often the replays, and when it gets to the end, you see this screen, I was really tired of looking at the jagged road and ugly cars! So I took some cars from Lime Rock Park and replaced those we see in this screen for now.

    All others are still the same, but those swapped looks a ton better.

    I also double mesh smoothed that part of the road too. I didnt smoothed it all the way back, just the corner we see in that camera view... to keep poly increase to a minimum.
     
  19. TIG_green

    TIG_green Registered

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    Not bad, not bad at all :)
     
  20. MapleHamwich

    MapleHamwich Registered

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    Looking much better. : )
     

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