QUESTION Blender workflow basic questions

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

First of all, hello everyone! I'm a long time lurker posting for the first time. I'm a 3D/2D generalist artist working in the games industry and looking to get into AC modding, specially tracks! Here's some of my recent work: https://www.artstation.com/felipegall

I have good knoledge of modeling in general and Blender, but I'm still wrapping my head around the workflow. I've read most of the tutorials and gone through all the basic hurdles (naming conventions, learning how to navigate the editor, etc...), I can get a test track to load in the editor and then drive it in game, so I'm ready to start building. I've got some questions though...

- How do you guys deal with terrain? Do you simulate the ksMultilayer and ksGrass shaders using nodes or something? In other words, is there a way to work in Blender in a truly WYSIWYG way?

- Is there a way to automate the process of separating big terrain/road/collision meshes into smaller chunks to keep meshes within the poly limit?

 

[fughettaboutit]

You dont need to do anything material-related in blender, there is a simple KN5 exporter addon, but it has no such thing as correct material-export, let alone WYSIWYG.

ksEditor only needs a name for the material, all shader-settings are done there then.

Sorry i dont know any automatic stuff for separating meshes.

 

[luchian]

First of all, hello everyone! I'm a long time lurker posting for the first time. I'm a 3D/2D generalist artist working in the games industry and looking to get into AC modding, specially tracks! Here's some of my recent work: https://www.artstation.com/felipegall

I have good knoledge of modeling in general and Blender, but I'm still wrapping my head around the workflow. I've read most of the tutorials and gone through all the basic hurdles (naming conventions, learning how to navigate the editor, etc...), I can get a test track to load in the editor and then drive it in game, so I'm ready to start building. I've got some questions though...

- How do you guys deal with terrain? Do you simulate the ksMultilayer and ksGrass shaders using nodes or something? In other words, is there a way to work in Blender in a truly WYSIWYG way?

- Is there a way to automate the process of separating big terrain/road/collision meshes into smaller chunks to keep meshes within the poly limit?

Your portfolio looks impressive, congrats . Indeed, as fughettaboutit said, no need for anything special in Blender. All that the meshes need is a material/texture assigned (with UV). Any other setting does not matter, everything is set up in KS Editor.

 

[fughettaboutit]

agree, i like the rusty datsun

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

Thanks guys! I guess what I really want to understand is...how exactly do you work in Blender with things like terrain and the multi layer shader? Like, how do you even author the terrain assets? Do people paint the layer maskes in Photoshop and then import it in the editor to see it in action? I'm still trying to wrap my head around all the back and fourth.

 

[luchian]

Blender:
- model terrain,
- UV map it (therefore assign material/texture), done.

KS Editor:
- import FBX
- setup terrain shader. Have a look HERE, and in particular HERE (this is for the road, but it works similar for terrain).

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

Thanks for the shader tips luchian, should come in handy! The crux of my questioning is...I'm looking for ways to make working in Blender as WYSIWYG as possible to minimize going to the editor all the time just to see how the terrain (and everything else) looks in the actual game shader, with all the masks and everything. Anyway...What I'm trying to do really is fantasy free roam maps - I have been driving lots of free roam maps lately (LAC, Lake Louise, Lake Endine, Glen Sheil/Coe)...I'm a 3D artist by trade, so the idea of designing my own roads and at the same time making it a sandbox for 3D experimentation has been growing fast in my head for the past few weeks. I'm pretty obsessed, really. Just taking my time to getting the whole workflow pinned down.

I've considered using real world reference to quickstart things, but ultimately decided to create a terrain from scratch to have more control over all aspects (shape, textures, resolution). Does it make sense? I'm using World Creator...

So I have a terrain mesh with a 4 color mask at hand (in the screenshot there, only the baked 'satellite' texture is applied, that's what I meant before, I'd like to be able to see in Blender the final tiling textures mixed with this). What is an acceptable poly count for a terrain this size?

There's a polygon limit per object, right? Should I split the terrain in several pieces?

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

Also...Does it make sense to decimate the terrain mesh to save on polys?

I mean, for texture it uses planar projection anyway...Is there any harm in doing this?

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

How about the density, is it too much?

*sorry for the flooding guys, only now realized I CAN paste images in post edits, if I go to 'More Options...'

 

[fughettaboutit]

limit for vertices per mesh: 64k
including uv-data you could end up even below 50k per mesh
yes, sure, go as low poly as you can
max tris per track i would say like ~10million is already a huge track (including everythin), at 20millions it gets really stinky

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

So...I'm already considerably overboard. The terrain can be optimized a lot more by decimating further areas the player won't be able to see up close. I have no plans for roads or anything at the moment I don't know where these will be, for now I just wanna get the terrain and some roads in the editor. I'll sketch something some roads out to better distribute the density! You guys have any idea of the polycounts for the terrain in these big maps? I know LAC is in the millions of course but, how many? If I get the terrain to, say, 5 million, is there enough headroom for roads, physical roads, vegetation and objects? Given the ceiling of 10 million you've mentioned 5 million sounds like a lot but I have no idea how much say, the roads for one, amount to. I've seen some DENSE physical meshes .

 

[fughettaboutit]

you can set high density road-mesh to RENDERABLE=0
it still is physical

Kunos Nordschleife:
~5Mio+ verts (not tris)
plus
~1.33Mio verts invisible road

 

[fughettaboutit]

L.A. Canyons - i guess version 1.2 has even more now and he only means the roadmesh i think

 

[fughettaboutit]

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

Cool, that's some golden information right there, thanks a bunch. <3

 

[Felipe Oliveira Gall]

Regarding water, what is the current state of shaders? Is there trasparency/translucency at all? Does it make sense to have terrain under water at all? (visually speaking, I mean...I'd probably keep the player from falling off the island and getting underwater)

Edit: Actually my question is broader...is there any documentation on how to implement the new shader patch features? I've searched the GitHub and found nothing. I've only found bits and pieces scattered in forums but no real direction as to how to actually set up the .inis to make use of the features.