• Welcome to PiBoSo Official Forum. Please login or sign up.
 
March 19, 2024, 05:35:15 AM

News:

GP Bikes beta21c available! :)


Public Road map ?

Started by Eagle, December 16, 2014, 07:37:07 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Hawk

I heard that JuJu was just taking a sabbatical from GPB for a while..... I'm sure he'll be back at some stage, we hope!  :)

Hawk.

Grooveski

January 31, 2015, 05:43:07 PM #46 Last Edit: January 31, 2015, 05:46:33 PM by Grooveski
Quote from: doubledragoncc on January 29, 2015, 09:45:23 AMGreat work there Grooveski. We were discussing track detail inanother thread as H pointed out and I think it would help you track builders if we the general dumb non modding lot helped by working on the 2D graphics to take off some of the workload. So if you had like a folder with tga, png, jpg files for trackside detail we could download and then work on, you could use what you wanted from the uploaded worked on files????

Okey dokey - there you go.  :)
http://www.motogp500online.com/Stuff/Grooveski/Tracks_wip/OM_TSO_01.rar


Few tips:

- Don't take any guff.
As an example look at the two memorials.  One is the model with a photo off the net thrown at it and a botch-job UV, the other I just knocked up - an example of the next step(modelers first-draft texture map).  Neither are acceptable.
If you're sent the likes of those I'd expect a reply saying:
"First UV too simple, other one better res but could you sort the parts a bit(...and what's with all the dead space?  That's loaded pixels we could be using for detail.)  Also could you add steps please."

- Don't work on a dodgy UV.
If it's bad wait for it to be fixed rather than skinning it.  If you put time into the image then ask me to change the model I'll have to recreate the old UV rather than make a new one that'll be easier for everyone to work with.  Paint little coloured dots and arrows onto the skin to show which bits you want grouped, flipped, enlarged, etc and send it back.
i.e. "Stretch the obelisk in memorial.bmp to full height, group the step walls and new steps, delete the unseen poys and re-UV"

- Watch out for details that I've missed. 
I may have been tired, sidetracked or drunk that night and think that part's done.  Don't assume I've noticed some glaring fault because I may not have.

- Don't be shy.
If you want a model UV revamped/added/modifed just say.
Have a peek in the Dundrod folder at the number of road surface images there are.  Image detailing makes a huge difference.

- Keep your eye open for a nice high-poly Beech tree model lf you happen to be playing any rally games.

- Google maps Street View.
Something else that wasn't there when I lofted.
No excuse for getting anything wrong these days on a road track.  What a resource!

-  Don't for one second think that skinning is "...only 2D".
It's what you see.  It's what the model is there to show.  It's something I'm not very good at and you wouldn't believe how much I appreciate the offer of assistance.
I read the "detail" thread where Piboso listed the capabilities so you'll notice I've dropped in two copies of the buildings.  One has a texture map and the other has bump and spec channels as well.  At the moment they're just wearing copies of the colour map(which isn't how it works) but even at that you can see how the spec map is enhancing the glow through the windows and shadows in the tower).
If you want other environmental layers added just say so.

- Work in highres. 
If a modeler thinks a skin should be 512x512 a skinner will be working at 2048x2048.  You can argue it out at the conversion stage but the skinner will always be right really.
Bear in mind I have no idea what GP Bikes can do.  You'll have to ask around about what kind of resolutions you should be using.

Have fun.  :)
Josh

Grooveski

Have decided to go back to loft.   ::)

It's not that long(hour-wise) since I froze it and other than some time welding the land to it nothing since then will be lost.
Have more elevation info these days, better onboards and street view.
...plus GP Bikes will push more polys than the original plan and it'd be the best time to add them.

So if there's anyone who's done a bit of MAX lofting and fancies taking a look at it along with me, it needs a fair bit of tweaking and the pits(and a couple of side roads)added.


doubledragoncc

Hi Grooveski I just got your message and downloaded it thanks buddy. I got the track files too. Now I am very much scratching my head at the statement about thinking it was 2D, man was I wrong, got a lot to learn here lol.

This is totally new to me all 3D i ever done is for 3D printing and never needed to think of lighting and the like. It will take me a while, plus Im real busy trying to get my new company going but I really want to get into this.

Thanks for the chance and the help m8

DD

Oh I work in 2048x2048 which is what my bike skins
GPBOC Live Streams: https://www.youtube.com/c/IASystemsComputerControls; i7 12700K 5.1GHz Z690 ASUS Strix Z690-A Mobo 32GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM ASUS Strix RTX3080 OC 10GB DDR6X ASUS Ryujin 360 AOI Cooler ROG Thor 1200w PSU in ROG Helios Tower Case.

Grooveski

No hurry, must be coming up on ten years since I started.  ;)
I didn't touch it for about eight of them.  Day job was too much like the hobby so I gave the hobby a rest.  Even at that though it's not exactly been the quickest build.   ;D

This'll be the new land model.  Was tempted to ditch the old one and switch to this anyway.
Other reason for the change is that I'd hacked the existing land down to GP500's 800m draw distance - so it's scrap now.


Ian

Hi Grooveski good to see you m8
This man worked wonders with GP500 tracks and was fun to train with taught me loads.
He will be a great addition to the GP bikes community

doubledragoncc

THis is fun. Played around a bit to learn what is what and I think I might at least get some good stuff for higher quality of 3D objects. How were you going to do the bridges? not in 3D wire frame, just flat faced? I have much to learn.

Can that program open any GPB track to get to files? If so what ones get the 3D objects in them?

DD
GPBOC Live Streams: https://www.youtube.com/c/IASystemsComputerControls; i7 12700K 5.1GHz Z690 ASUS Strix Z690-A Mobo 32GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM ASUS Strix RTX3080 OC 10GB DDR6X ASUS Ryujin 360 AOI Cooler ROG Thor 1200w PSU in ROG Helios Tower Case.

h106frp

This is a clip of a slow ride around the course with reasonable resolution, chance to actually see all the interesting feature that can be added - this track is going to need a lot of trees, hedges and fences! Circuit footage start around 3min30sec.
https://www.youtube.com/v/wDhTnPQs8E8

Grooveski

Quote from: doubledragoncc on January 31, 2015, 11:38:20 PM
THis is fun. Played around a bit to learn what is what and I think I might at least get some good stuff for higher quality of 3D objects. How were you going to do the bridges? not in 3D wire frame, just flat faced? I have much to learn.

Can that program open any GPB track to get to files? If so what ones get the 3D objects in them?

DD

That kind of stuff is done as either a specific colour in the image or as a black and white alpha channel in a .tga to tell the game which bits are transparent.  Here's a bit of stand, the cyan bits are see-through(in GP500) and the surfaces set to double-sided.



I don't know what method GPB uses but it doesn't matter at the moment if you want to start painting, you can switch an image between the two methods in less that a minute.
Just be careful to maintain crisp edges to the transparent sections.  Don't use airbrushes near them and if you resize the image don't use any smoothing, it'll blur the edge.

When you're done you can take a copy of the image, black-and-white it then run then an edge blur.  Tweaking the channels and contrast settings will let you make the blurred bands narrower and you shouldn't be far off something that'll do for the spec channel.
We can beef up the models with solid handrails and the likes if we want more substance to them.
Don't paint on the bridge height signs, they'll go on as model detail too.

As for getting into game files - sorry, no idea.
I suspect downloading tracktools from the main site would be a good place to start.  Scooped it up today in passing, haven't cracked it open yet...
...but it's only a matter of time.   ::)

Quote from: Ian on January 31, 2015, 10:47:30 PM
Hi Grooveski good to see you m8

Hey dude!   :P
Be seeing you on track soon.  Was just setteling into the forum, lol.

doubledragoncc

TY G, I didnt think about transparency coool.

DD
GPBOC Live Streams: https://www.youtube.com/c/IASystemsComputerControls; i7 12700K 5.1GHz Z690 ASUS Strix Z690-A Mobo 32GB 3600MHz DDR4 RAM ASUS Strix RTX3080 OC 10GB DDR6X ASUS Ryujin 360 AOI Cooler ROG Thor 1200w PSU in ROG Helios Tower Case.

Grooveski

Quote from: h106frp on February 01, 2015, 12:15:57 AM...this track is going to need a lot of trees, hedges and fences!

Where I was planning on image strips along the back straight for the valley and town would be better done with a simple model as well.
I'll overlay the lowres aerial shot onto the new land and it'll show where treelines and buildings go and where to chop the model up for reskinning.  For the close up areas I have a series of higher quality aerial images to do the same with.

Adding the 3d fences will take a while but hedges appear miraculously quickly.  You extrude the edgeline of the play area up, extrude your new polys back and hey presto there's a 3d hedge model waiting for a tweak and a skin.

The tree planting will be a saga.  Just finding all the right textures for the lowres ones will be a job in itself. 
Was thinking about the higher poly ones earlier - I used to have a program that grew tree models to adjustable parameters.  Will try to find it again, was rather clever.

h106frp

February 01, 2015, 09:15:52 AM #56 Last Edit: February 01, 2015, 09:43:01 AM by h106frp
Curious as to what time of year you are aiming for?, might be nice to have a spring or autumn for a change from the 'perfect summer' depicted in most tracks. Watching through a few vids, what strikes me about this track is how the scenic cues make it very quick to remember the course. Some the more prominent tree and hedge/fence line  features seem almost as important as the structures and the ones around the first footbridge and descent toward start/finish already stand out.

I also noted as you suggested earlier that it has a large variety of road surfaces and some have quite abrupt changes in texture. I hope you can also capture the feel of the various different changes in slope and altitude of the track, it seems to be an area JP has concentrated on in his new IOM.

This course seems a good candidate to exercise the GPB engine and could look really stunning (in an immersive way, not just flashy), its not too long, but full on interest, and would be a good test of whether the community could eventually come together to complete a project as large as IOM with the desired level of detail.

If anyone has easy access to the track, i'm sure it would help to have good quality high res images, especially proper elevations (square on front side) and notes on the textures for the prominent structures and features around the track.

edit....
Just tried one of the popular mod tracks and it struck me that it still feels very 1990's gp500, riding through a 'channel' with prominent polygon landscape very immediate in the view, if this track could break the mold and create an environment as immersive as the physics side of the sim is intended to be it would be sheer joy to witness.

Please Grooveski, let you talent run wild on this one and tap the potential of some of this modern graphics hardware that we have available.

nuovaic

Quote from: h106frp on February 01, 2015, 09:15:52 AM
If anyone has easy access to the track, i'm sure it would help to have good quality high res images, especially proper elevations (square on front side) and notes on the textures for the prominent structures and features around the track.

That's something I can do. I will be there in a few weeks (family visit) and would love to help out if needed. I can take up to 6024x4024 res RAW with a good lens, but at this time of year, there will be no leaves on the trees and could be snow.

Yes, Grooveski, let your talent run off the scale! Please. And thank you for even looking into this.

h106frp

Seems we have all the ingredients available to make this work  :)

I have only been back in the GPB fold a little while, but one opinion i have formed is that GPB needs a stand out track both to engage the community and developer. It is probably hard for a developer with limited resource to commit to track work, it is time consuming generating quality graphic content and the network issues are probably higher on the list of technical issues requiring attention.

The engine has however been endowed by Piboso with many modern graphic features to make the environment truly immersive and i am sure that Piboso would like to see them exploited, if you put time and effort into developing software you really need the reward of seeing them used to maintain your enthusiasm to push forward with a project. At the end of the day, the purpose of a sim is to suspend the belief you are in an artificial environment, to achieve this you need a sim world that is believable in its level of detail.

The GPB community seems the most engaged of any in Pibosos projects (if forums postings are a guide) and i am sure many of us have been waiting for years for a really great bike sim - this is it, last chance saloon, the big commercial publishing houses just don get it and never will - we want a challenging quality simulation, not just another crappy game!

Grooveski

Seasons can be changed via textures and lighting files.  April, June or September would make sense, that's when the real races are.  Summer is easiest because as you say it's most common so there are more tree skins already kicking around.
Autumn would be nice.
Up to whoever skins it I guess.

The rises and undulations are built into the loft already.   When Button went up to measure the widths he done a slow video lap on the scooter that was more useful than most of the 150mph-and-airbourne onboards I watched.
The main problem with the loft is that it's about 3m too high.  Will fix that with a global scale by a small percentage which shouldn't affect the track detail much.  After that I'll be tweaking the spline in as large sections as possible so as not to mess with the bumps.
Most of the track's been resurfaced over the years but doesn't look too different - there might be a few bumps to iron out along the top straight(it definately looks smoother than it used to be).  Back straight still looks like a handfull though, don't think much has changed there.
The hairpins need work too.  I remember having a hard time making them and they're both a long way out on elevation change.
...and the verges are kinda close-but-no-cigar.

Nice one Nouvaic.  We'll get you a list together.  :)
Top of DD's will likely be the timing box and cafe(which'll get remodeled based on your images then probably partially skinned in them as well.
Was always going to put a bit of work into the cafe so the more images the better.  Shots of the building, the signs, the menu.
Wouldn't hurt to know what the inside looks like too.
Get as square and straight as possible, for buildings than means as far back as you can and zoom in.
This is all I have to work with for the cafe and as you can see the perspective makes it virtually useless as an overlay for modelling and totaly useless for skinning(It could be deformed to closer to square but would always be wonky and blurry.



So yeah, images would be a huge help.  No worries if it's not the brightest day, slightly overcast would be better than a sunny day where there are contrasts and shadows at play.

I'll start my wish list off with the antenna tower.  This is the best I have to go on at the moment:



It's pretty good but a higher detail shot would be nice as would a couple from other angles and maybe a side-on from a distance(even if it's just the top peeking over treetops).

...you'll be needing a tape measure too.  ;)
(Not for the tower)  ;D