[Mark01]

Hey,

Thanks for the comments everyone, it's been a while since I did not posted any updates here (5 months) but honestly I didn't worked as much on it since last time and even If I made some progress it's not worth an update after all these months.

It's always easy for me to come up with something new and get overly ambitious with an inspiration overdose at the start but then I end up being lazy of the project and put it aside, that's my biggest weakness (I'm not the only one I guess...) But I'm still working on it and I'll complete it, so If you are still looking for it (not sure there are a lot people ) be prepared for an update.


The main work is the modeling part of the rest of the island, I need a lot of inspiration and this project depends on it, I already exported some parts of my island to the game but it's a pain in the ass to work with vertex color, lights, normal/spec maps and what's irritate me the most is the fact that I can't edit WPLs with notepad, so to not waste my time I'll export only after completing the whole island.

So my workflow goes this way:

-modeling
-texturing
-lighting
-ao vertex color pass
-exporting

I'm also working with organic 3d modeling softwares (such as zbrush, mudbox, sculptris...) and I already made one track with it and it looks better, more natural.

[Triple Penetration]

Very good.

[Frank.s]

Yeah, sounds good.

Also, i'm not sure if you know this but it is possible to edit wpls using notepad, however it requires a little more effort than editing, say an ide file.

1. Download Dagerons Placement tool.
2. Use it to open a wpl and export the whole file to a dat file.
3. Edit the (text based) .dat file in notepad or w/e
4. Import the dat into Placement tool and save. (it will replace all lines)

[Mark01]

Frank, that'll be really helpful thanks man!

------

I made huge progress on the island yesterday but still it wasn't enough for me to show off some screens and I had enough work on it for the day but I still wanted to try something else... so after that I decided to make a quick test with vertex alpha ingame to see if there would be no problems with z-fighting or any kind of bugs in the distance because that's what I'm going to use for all the terrains and dirt tracks and all I can say is that it works well!






And if you're wondering how it looks in max


There is only 2 layers, dirt and tyre marks the rest is grass and I did not used blendshape shader because there is no support for normal maps (yet?)

[nkjellman]

This looks great. It would fit nicely in EFTW.

[noelgamo]

Great job Mark01 .. the textures are Great.. did you use the terrain blending shader?(dont know whats its called) or did you use an alpha on the roads?

[Frank.s]

That smooth polyflow combined with normal maps, vertex alpha and AO, it's inspiring.

I've been getting some problems with vertex alpha transparency, is there any sure-fire way to stop the z-fighting?

This post has been edited by Frank.s on Friday, Feb 3 2012, 15:02

[Blaster_nl]

QUOTE (Frank.s @ Monday, Jan 30 2012, 14:14)

Yeah, sounds good. Also, i'm not sure if you know this but it is possible to edit wpls using notepad, however it requires a little more effort than editing, say an ide file. 1. Download Dagerons Placement tool. 2. Use it to open a wpl and export the whole file to a dat file. 3. Edit the (text based) .dat file in notepad or w/e 4. Import the dat into Placement tool and save. (it will replace all lines)

And why in gods name would u use that unfisnhed tool instead of GIMS

?

[Frank.s]

I don't.
Read our convo, Mark wanted to know a way to edit a wpl using notepad so i told him how.
Could you edit your post to remove the unnecessary pic?

[nkjellman]

QUOTE (Blaster_nl @ Friday, Feb 3 2012, 15:44)

QUOTE (Frank.s @ Monday, Jan 30 2012, 14:14) Yeah, sounds good. Also, i'm not sure if you know this but it is possible to edit wpls using notepad, however it requires a little more effort than editing, say an ide file. 1. Download Dagerons Placement tool. 2. Use it to open a wpl and export the whole file to a dat file. 3. Edit the (text based) .dat file in notepad or w/e 4. Import the dat into Placement tool and save. (it will replace all lines) And why in gods name would u use that unfisnhed tool instead of GIMS ?

Only time I use it is when I'm converting maps to xpl so they work on Xbox 360.

[Mark01]

Last time I simply erased my whole wpl file by exporting another one who had only one entry with GIMS... I know that's dumb and I should have made a backup but sh*t happened and I just miss the old school way of editing IPL's with notepad, Frank offered me his help and that's always good to know that it's still possible to use mr notepad.

Anyway Frank the z-fighting happens only if the overlay surface is too close to the other, you can use the "push" modifier in max to put distance between em,

[steel89ita]

I'm really looking forward to see some new shots from this map, the idea of an island with 3 racetracks is really awesome!
I liked the screens of the vertex alpha too, I have to check the use of it (do you know if there is a discussion of it for GIMS?).
Thanks and very well done, it seems very well done!

[avail]

Can we get some updates? :3