Help creating bike shadow

[h106frp]

Trying to create the shadow model for the chassis;

Followed the guide and created a model with no textures linked (surfaces still have UV co-ords, just no texture as per normal) and painted base white in default material color. Check in fbx viewer and only model and base material color are present. 

Compiles OK in fbx2edf as a shadow model

Linking the file to the game causes all bike shadows to disappear even the front wheel which is currently a separate default shadow.

Does the model need a particular object structure (single object possibly) ? currently i am just using a simplified version of the main chassis model with a number of object parts.

Thanks

[Blackheart]

I think the shadows model must be the same you use in the game for the chassis.

The only thing I do it is remove the textures on the model, export in FBX (without lights) and save with fbx2edf as shadow.

[h106frp]

Cannot be that, its currently quite happy with the 990 shadow and my bike model so it would seem that the model can be anything you want. The only info is on PBs guide is where he states it should be 'textured untextured white'.

For a normal bike component the only rule seems to be that all object parts have UV co-ordinates but if there is no texture file associated in the fbx file then it just inherits the base material color from the 3D app.

I am guessing its another 3D model structure thing like the mirrors because of the way it corrupts the entire bike shadow model but the rider still has his shadow.

[Blackheart]

The Murasama (i think) has a single edf for all the shadows of the bike. So if u put just the chassis shadow, there will be problems.
Try to remove all the shadows of 990, and use the your models.

[h106frp]

That's possible, i will try it later.

Thanks

That did not work, so i tried grouping all the separate chassis objects into a single object and it worked OK to create the chassis shadow

Note: Shadow quality is dependent on model quality, keep a sharp outline while reducing the 3D mesh triangle count and the shadows are improved   

[HornetMaX]

Note: Shadow quality is dependent on model quality, keep a sharp outline while reducing the 3D mesh triangle count and the shadows are improved   

Just to be sure, you're aware of bike_shadow parameter in gpbike.ini, right ?

http://forum.piboso.com/index.php?topic=14.0

[h106frp]

Yes, knew about the settings - everything tested in default, this is some sort of rendering setting.

The shadow is an actual 3D model complete with animated parts but to get to the model size typical of the default model shadow you do have to have quite a coarse mesh so best the keep the triangles on the areas that create the shadow edge and block out the center of the model.

[HornetMaX]

Yes, knew about the settings - everything tested in default, this is some sort of rendering setting.

I have it at 2048 all the time (with bike_reflections at 512 vs the default 128), doesn't seem to have a big impact anyway.

It's probably part of the  GPB philosophy "I want GPB to run on cheap/old hardware": it's not a bad idea per se, but the default settings should be cranked up so that people with half-decent hardware could get something good out of the box, instead of having to fumble with hidden settings to get the top out of GPB. People with limited hardware will always be able to crank detail down. Today it's the other way around.

[h106frp]

I did create a sharper shadow with a bigger model but as it seemed to hurt frame rate for modest noticeable visual improvement so i went for something similar to the original in the end

[HornetMaX]

Yes, that's good practice anyway, you don't need all the details in the shadow model.