W.I.P. Lime Rock

[Johnr777]

Looking very good!

 

[Pixelchaser]

its coming together nicely too. other than aligning the planes with hillside vectors I don't know what to do with the grass on the hillsides, and I don't want diagonal planes with grass that appears to grow to the side .

 

[luchian]

Must be some GMO grass, cause it looks bloody good

 

[Pixelchaser]

remember the cookies @Johnr777 ! you can have plenty.

850K poly for the whole first layer. adding further kslayers with lesser frequency will fill in the patches. really happy to get these calculations somewhat correct on first attempts.

 

[luchian]

I know that you also have an eye for screenshots, but these look really really good. Everything is coherent, I love that.
Now if only someone would go along and finish modeling some pedestrian passage..

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

 

[Pixelchaser]

you know me well luchian. everything that's bad is definitely hidden in these shots

I always knew the grass would mean a graphics overhaul on the satellite though.

 

[luchian]

Hahaha, well, I like it nonetheless.
Otherwise, if everything goes well, I should be friends with time again in about 1 week.. but then again, I have said that so many times that even I find it hard to believe. We'll see. The good news is that the will to do stuff is still present .

 

[Pixelchaser]

my shots were just me being happy to have layed the grass. it was a 2 days job, 20 hours at least. still many conundrums to figure out though, I like tall grass, but that there is around 20 cm, either I have even more grass to accommodate a 10cm grass height, or I stay with 20cm, conundrum is, the higher it gets the more whack it looks when it joins to the track. but otherwise its imprecievable how tall it is, and as we are using so much resource for it, it might as well be a feature graphically used as much as possible. I love just how it softens everything and all the other straight lines from other objects. so I'm going to do some grass wall textures gradually getting higher inwards to the 20cm, that way you can keep the high grass but it wont appear tall with any drop off.

 

[BigRedBen]

Hey.. Registered here just to say that this is looking great! Keep going! Can't wait to someday get my hands on it

 

[Pixelchaser]

playing with tree ideas today.. I shouldn't be, but it just happens this way

 

[Pixelchaser]

got some new grass going too.

 

[Pixelchaser]

i had to create a new layer from the scenery to place the 3D grass. and as my mask makes some quite radical scenery variation, the same 3D grass wouldn't work over it, so I'm poly chopping the grass distribution layers so that I can have different grass over the variation too. probably another 20 hours work painting the blue polys out for separation . will all be worth it instead of simplifying the base textures.

 

[2ndLastJedi]

playing with tree ideas today.. I shouldn't be, but it just happens this way

Merry Christmas !

 

[Pixelchaser]

Merry Christmas !

and a merry Christmas to you 2nd last jedi . heres a falcon I painted a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Pixelchaser]

using a function called bitmap selectin 3ds max I'm able to create a selection tool based on information on the mask channel I use ingame, this means the grass can match the variation on the base texture.

the bitmap select only selects polys with blue, the on this layer I use scatter to distribute only on those patches etc.

result of first style of grass, the patches you see will be filled in with different grass.... using patches of grass at 100m x 100m

 

[luchian]

Very interesting approach . Does it worth it ingame ?
Actually speaking about it, is 3d grass better than a perfect grass texture (with some NM maybe) ?

I am thinking at iRacing, for comparison.

 

[Pixelchaser]

well its just different patches of grass. lilski has it on his tracks, its subtle, I plan on it not being as subtle and be noticeable given theres over a million polys of investment. but even at its most subtle it does add a lot. but that's another opinion on how to do it. anyway john touched on an old method I was tinkering with the viariation channel so if we can get it to work that would be better than creating custom patches.

 

[Johnr777]

Yeah, the variation texture mapping is very simple, so simple that I think it can do the job, but it will take some photoshop warping and distorting of the actual texture to make it all fit in place. Would be cool to repurpose that shader!

 

[Pixelchaser]

you mean re code that shader, properly.

 

[Johnr777]

LOL, our AC2 wishlist is growing by the minute