Friday 27 December 2013

Importing to rFactor 2

Once I had exported everything from max all I had to do now was modify the code. I did this using Notepad ++. Here's one of the .gen files I modified. As you can see this is the file that you say what models go where. You can also setup the LOD's in here but I wont be making any lod's at the moment.


Now all the models and textures are in the game dev mode. I had a little bit of a problem with the position of the wheels and figured out I needed to adjust the suspension. I had a look round on the forums to find out what piece of code I needed to modify and found someone had made a suspension editor for the first rfactor which also works with rfactor 2 so I had a play round with that. It took me a while again to find out what did what but i managed to get the wheels in the correct position after some trial and error. Here's some of the code I modified. 


I also had to change the camera position of the cockpit camera which was pretty easy to do, just z,y and x values in the code. One other problem I had was the steering wheel would rotate around an irregular axis. So again I did some searching on the forums and found a piece of code. I needed to get the angle of the steering wheel from max and calculate the COS and SIN to get the correct values for the engine. Here's a little piece of code that I used and now the steering wheel rotates perfectly.


And here are a couple of pics of my car working in engine.




Tuesday 24 December 2013

Exporting from 3DsMax

I actually started doing this a while ago so this blog post is a little late. I followed the Complete Vehicle modding tutorial pdf that is on the rfactor 2 website and imported the car they provided. I did that in the first few weeks of my project to get familiar with the workflow. I used this as a base for importing my own car. It was really just a matter of changing file names in the code.

All the material setup is done in Max with a plugin they provided. The only problem is this plugin only works with max 2012 so I had to download the student version of that just to do the exporting. My supervisor advised for me to get the car in the engine before I finish off all the texture work. So the only objects I had textured were the wheels and steering wheel. Its Pretty easy to setup the materials in max once you get used to it. I just had to change my wheels textures as the tyres need their own texture sheet. This is because the tyres have an animated texture that blurs when its spinning.
Here are a few pics of the material setups. Its pretty much the same setup for everything accept for things with alpha channels. cube maps or animated materials. 


Then I just needed to apply the textures to each object. The tyres, rims, brake disks, interior etc all need to be separate and have a specified naming convention. For example for the wheels I have test_car_lr_tire
then just change the lr to lf, rr and lr. This is the same for the rims, brakes and calipers. Also the american spelling of tyre needs to be used which gave me some problems earlier. To export the objects I had to use the GMT file exporter which are the file types rfactor 2 uses. Here's what it looks like.



Tuesday 17 December 2013

Progress Review

Last week I needed to create a progress review to show where I am and and where I'm heading. It needed to be in the format of a poster so I made these two and tried to make them as visually appealing as I can. I may end up using these to present my work at expo tees too. I talked about my research into what mod tools/game to use. My modelling process and programs Im using and everything I've done so far. And what I plan to do next.



Thursday 12 December 2013

Bucket seats

I have been working on getting the car in rFactor 2 recently and ill post some updates for that soon but for now here are the bucket seats I recently textured. Again using xNormal for the normal and ao map baking. Marmoset 2 was released recently as well so i haven been playing around with that for my beauty shots. I set out to make some bride seats from the start which is a big Japanese company that makes racing seats. I also decided I was going to make a carbon kevlar seat as they have an interesting pattern on the back which i tried to replicate on my texture.



Thursday 5 December 2013

Steering wheel

I've been fixing up the model and trying to remove any unnecessary triangles without loosing any detail. I managed to remove about 7,000 tri's. So the whole car is about 50k tri's at the moment which should be fine. I wont be making and LOD's at the moment, I'll see how the game runs with my model first.

I've also textured the steering wheel, I used nDo2 to add all the stitches and leather texture. I added some smudges to the brushed metal bits too in the specular map as brushed metal show's finger prints.
Here are the diffuse, normal and specular maps ip made. and the final result in marmoset.



Thursday 28 November 2013

Wheel Texturing

I decided to texture the wheel as I know It wont need any adjustments to the model and for rfactor 2 the texture for the wheel has to be on a separate texture sheet. I used xnormal to bake my normal maps and ambient occlusion maps. The normal map needed some fixing as you will always get errors baking something circular. I used Ndo2 to add some more details too like the tyre tread and text on the side of the tyre. This is the normal map, Diffuse and specular maps I made.

And heres a pic of the textured applied to my model in marmoset toolbag.


Thursday 21 November 2013

Fixing things & lowpoly

I met with my supervisor and he pointed out a few things to change in my model so over the past few days I've been fixing any errors and improving the topology. I decided to change the design of my front wheel arches and the front spoiler. Some of my friends said they could be improved and I did say earlier that I was thinking of changing the front spoiler to a more aggressive looking one. Here are my new front arches and spoiler.


I also started making the lowpoly. I did this by just duplicating the highpoly model, deleting the turbosmooth modifier and then just removed loads of edgeloops. I got the model own to 57,000 tris which should be completely fine. I will just have to see how rfactor runs when the models ingame. If it needs more optimization I could easily go back and delete some more loops.


And here's the high and low poly next to each other. High on the left and Low on the right.





Sunday 17 November 2013

Seats

For the seats I decided to make some modern bucket seats as the stock seats differ greatly from my reference and It will suit the street racer look I'm going for. The seats I decided to make are these...
Bride Lowmax, they are a very popular Japanese brand so I think they are ideal for this car.


This is quite a complex shape to model but I've made a bucket seat before so Im sure I can get it looking right. I started off modelling the base first which will be a separate object to the back and front. Here's the model I made, Its quite blocky but I used edge loops so it smooth out well with turbosmooth applied.


Misc

I made the exhaust today, I decided to go with a twin tip design. I had to cut a hole where the exhaust comes out but ti do this I had to detach the rear end and mirror it over so that will be once piece. I also made some windscreen wipers. I may have to add some extra detail to these as they are a bit too simple at the moment.



Saturday 16 November 2013

Tachometer

I decided to add a autometer tachometer to make my car a bit more custom. I got he idea from one of my reference pieces that had one fitted. Here is some of the reference I gathered for it. The gauge also has a shift light fitted which I can hopefully get working in he engine.


And here's the model I made. I turned out pretty great. I placed it where the stock rev meter would be.
I also decided to add a camera into my scene to have a look at what the players view might be like in game.



Friday 15 November 2013

Steering Wheel & Steering column

Here's the steering wheel I made. I should of put more edges into the model as its going to be a bit tricky making the lowpoly. This bit of the car will be important to get right as it will be right in the middle of the players view. It will also move when turning the car. If i get time I could rig and animate some hands and arms holding the steering wheel which would add some real polish to my project.


And the steering column, This wont need as much detail as it will be obscured by the steering wheel. It was actually quite hard to get a good look at it from reference because the steering wheel was in the way. I also decided to model a key for the ignition. It looks quite blocky at the moment but turbosmooth will fix that.




Thursday 14 November 2013

Completed dashboard

Continuing with the dash I copied the vent from the left side over to the right. And just extruded the top over to complete the dashboard. It took a few adjustments to get it to fit without clipping through the outer body mesh but its sorted now. Here's a pic with the center console and dashboard in the car.




Wednesday 13 November 2013

Gauges


Continuing with the dashboard I started to model the gauges. This is quite a complex shape but I reckon I got it looking like the reference. I used the same technique I used with the air vents. Here’s a pic showing the technique. It worked quite well. I modeled It so when turbosmooth is applied then it smooth’s it all out evenly, as you can see in the lowpoly its quite blocky. I mirrored it over too.



Tuesday 12 November 2013

Start of Dashboard

This is the start of the dash. For the vent I used a cylinder, placed behind the mesh that was there and used the cut tool and snapped the vertexes to the cylinder. This made the shape I desired for the vent. Again I can’t get the dimensions perfect without any measurements but I’ll try to get it as close as possible. It’s looking good so far.





I will be using the stock interior so stock radio and switches. Here are some of the knobs and switches I made for the radio and heater. 


Sunday 10 November 2013

Center console

Here’s a few of the reference images I gathered for the interior. I also took some screenshots in Need for Speed Shift which has the car Im making. Pretty much all of the interiors are unique in some way so id like to add my own little touches. 


This is the center console I’ve made, used a lot of reference for this. It is all one object accept for the buttons, gear leaver and handbrake. I plan to sculpt a bit on the leather gear stick cover in mudbox.





Start of interior & roll cage

Now the outer shell is complete I can start making the Interior. I decided to make the interior shell all one piece. I won’t be putting too much detail into the rear seats as you won’t be able to see them. This is the interior so far that has the rear seats, roof, and floor etc.


I started making the roll cage; this was pretty easy, I just used cylinders. I’m going for a full 6-point roll cage so the rear seats will become unusable. Here’s a pic. I plan to add welds in the texture and I will like to make some foam to cover some of the cage that I can sculpt in mudbox.  


Friday 8 November 2013

Gtr badge, outer shell done

Here’s the front GTR badge I made. I used this reference and it looks pretty good. Maybe a bit too much detail but I don’t see why not.

So here’s the car at the moment. The outer shell is pretty much done so I decided to mirror it over to see what it looks like. Next I can start making the interior and underside. 


Thursday 7 November 2013

Rear adjustments

I still wasn't that happy with the rear of the car so I decided to make some of it again. I made completely new geometry and made sure I got the shape I wanted. This worked much better and was easier to edit to get the shape I needed. I still not 100% happy but it will have to do for now.


Here’s the piece I made connected to the rest of the rear. I also made the rear spoiler.


Just a few little things I did here. I added a door handle to the door, did some adjustments to the roof and I added some lips to all the windows.


Wednesday 6 November 2013

Rear details

Making the rear lights wasn’t too hard to do. Just made a chamfered box, extruded some parts and then made another for the actual light and copied it across for the second light. And of course added supporting edges as it’s the high poly.


I added some more small details like the rear badge, number plate and other bits. The model was really starting to come together once I started adding the little details.




Tuesday 5 November 2013

Roof & Rear

From this I started making he roof, again extending my existing geometry. The window looked a bit small when I compared it to my reference so I did some adjustment there. 



I again changed some of my geometry to match some proportions and some of the lines. I wasn't happy with the rear lines coming from the rear arch. I will try and get it looking as close to my reference as I can but it will be impossible to get it perfect without an actual measurements which I can’t get a hold of. So I did that and I started to make the boot.


I started to work on the rear of the car more now. I used the front bumper for the rear and just rotated and changed some of the dimensions. I have also been struggling with the rear end for a few days now. Getting the edge loops to all flow neatly and carry the right lines through the car is quite had to do. I decided to make the very rear of the car a separate piece which it is actually like on my reference photos but on models I've seen of this same car they've kept it as he same piece. So I’ll continue adjusting the rear until I’m happy with it. But I don’t want to waste too much time on one bit of the car.