W.I.P. Lime Rock

[Mr Whippy]

I couldn't get on with a tablet right away but given time doing more and more complex jobs you just learn nice workflows.

PS can be a pain with all the brushes and stuff though.
It's just not very clear imo.

I bought a £50 one and use it loads on some projects.
I'd imagine with a lot of practice and using fancy on-screen ones would make life easier.

But just basic ones are well worth it imo

 

[Pixelchaser]

the best advice is to get rid of your mouse. and its funny it actually works well as touch input too for absolutely everything. now I'm thinking, should have gone for the pro. was worried about having dual monitors, and pen only on monitor 1 and touch over all of it. kinda funky but very cool. the precision is fantastic tbh. can see me using it on modelling too in the future

 

[garyjpaterson]

I havent used mine in a long time, but i used to use it A LOT for freehand sketching/renders etc (as you see in my profile pic). That was my 'thing', though since becoming interested in 3d modelling I've sort of neglected those skills.

Great little thing though, its just getting used to drawing/sketching in one place and looking the other, so once you get it its really natural feeling.

 

[luchian]

getting used to drawing/sketching in one place and looking the other, so once you get it its really natural feeling.

Yes, this. It was great to just look at the screen and just let your hand move freely without thinking at the machanics but only at what you try to achieve.

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

 

[Pixelchaser]

made my own Yshape tree. just 1 so far . 2x1 for the tall trees. still need to work out the normals and grouping.
its a start.

 

[luchian]

Good, good, keep at it
Personally (not referring to you in particular, but to other tracks where I have seen this), I prefer good'ol texture from photo, instead of trees generated by any software. Sure, it's easier with the alpha channel, but still - I like to see real leaves when looking at a tree .

Back to LRP - keep going. Populate this damn thing with vegetation .

 

[Pixelchaser]

the leaves are individual on the tree and they are from a photo in speedtree. whats the difference you see exactly ? personally I think phot0 realism is one thing but nothing much else has it, and these generated trees look better in the environment besides having infinite amount available. I havn`t seen anything done better than with speed tree. not even professionally built tracks.

 

[mantasisg]

It is extremely hard to find proper real tree texture. Moreover to be similar to trees at the track. It also gets harder when there are many trees and you have to get that even, most natural look. Really difficult.

As much as I have experience in modeling tracks, which is only one year so far, it always was very challenging with textures. One of the hardest things always was to get good textures. Not always with success.

I planned to take a trip with a bicycle and photo camera, still too difficult. Have to find a single trees with as much simple background as possible.

Trees created with computer software probably are the best choice. Also the whole model will have this slight of animation/model vibe anyway, and those trees fits well.

It is different story in GT Sport. There are some crazy looking screenshots and footage.

 

[Pixelchaser]

id really like to see a track that does use photographs for trees. Im thinking its an urban myth btw. anyhoo ! this graphics tablet is the fricken shit for me. a whole world of photoshop I just didn't care for before touched my tree leaves up today with it. giving the insides of leaves some variation a they age etc. its going to be a little art full extra for sure.

the hand eye coordination isn't a problem, its the same as a mouse. and these latest tablets don't require any input to show the pen position. so it really is just like a mouse, ive also reduced the coverage on the tablet to be more mouse like. so now with less travel and in the centre my hand doesn't even need to move on the tablet to paint anywhere with nice strokes. really glad to have got it...

 

[luchian]

@Nords by Kunos. Ofc, not all are from photos, or at least the resolution is too bad to tell anyway. But then again, I am not a fan of Kunos trees anyways.

 

[mantasisg]

Cardboard trees gonna cardboard anyway. But that one on top looks very nice, at least part of it which can be seen.

@Pixelchaser I've had a go with "3D" grass today, and I have had same problem as you, even though I'm using Kunos texture now. I tried lots of dds export options in photoshop and it didn't work. Then I came back to blender, and it appeared that the vertex normals has ran away after converting particles system into a mesh. So I had to edit normals again, a bit later I noticed that it is enough just "re-apply" autosmoothing in mesh tab.

Then launched the editor again and it was ok now, shading and alpha test transparency looks nice, gonna test in game now.

Sorry if you are not using blender, but perhaps something similar could be happening with other software too.

Edit: Looking at your top newest screenshot looks like your grass looks ok, not sure if you fixed the issue. But if you fixed it, I wonder if it was vertex normals problem.

 

[Pixelchaser]

to me this looks like speed tree trees.

 

[Pixelchaser]

Cardboard trees gonna cardboard anyway. But that one on top looks very nice, at least part of it which can be seen.

@Pixelchaser I've had a go with "3D" grass today, and I have had same problem as you, even though I'm using Kunos texture now. I tried lots of dds export options in photoshop and it didn't work. Then I came back to blender, and it appeared that the vertex normals has ran away after converting particles system into a mesh. So I had to edit normals again, a bit later I noticed that it is enough just "re-apply" autosmoothing in mesh tab.

Then launched the editor again and it was ok now, shading and alpha test transparency looks nice, gonna test in game now.

Sorry if you are not using blender, but perhaps something similar could be happening with other software too.

well what appears wrong is actually correct. but taking into account mip mapping as well which you cant stop from happening leads to the issue. and this is why thick grass negates the issue because more texture space is attributed over the mips as they fade, so they always fade, its a question of what fades more. for example a 1 pixel wide strand of grass when mip mapped = less than 1 pixel. so that's a major fade. thing is with grass, whilst you could pick out a single strand at 10 metres away, at 100 you shouldn't, so the fade is essential. and the best result is down to the best artwork. to remove the effect completely requires designing the texture down at the highest mip level theoretically.

if we were to use photographs of trees, they would have to be aligned with the sun directions and that would need to work statically too. real tree pictures are a source that imo requires more post processing than is conveniently worth while. I think if there was a tree studio in real life, that would be the only way to do it.

 

[luchian]

You don't need to align any sun if you took the picture on a cloudy day.
And c'mon, are you telling me that (Christmas) fir tree is from speed tree ?
But let's assume it is (even though it isn't), then make me a tree with your magic tool that looks ^that^ real that I'll confuse it with a real one .

 

[mantasisg]

to remove the effect completely requires designing the texture down at the highest mip level theoretically.

Thats what I said a few weeks earlier in this thread. But the point not is not the same. I just wanted to share that today I got this issue solved by editing vertex normals. Seems that they also has effect on this fadeout thing. So thats it.

 

[luchian]

This is an example from a photo I took. It's not yet shared, because I did not crop it (I would happily share the photo if somebody wishes to process it). It's a CR2 raw file.

 

[Pixelchaser]

You don't need to align any sun if you took the picture on a cloudy day.
And c'mon, are you telling me that (Christmas) fir tree is from speed tree ?
But let's assume it is (even though it isn't), then make me a tree with your magic tool that looks ^that^ real that I'll confuse it with a real one .

well , ill prove you wrong man. and explain...that's why speed tree is so good. yes its from speed tree. I have every single tree from AC default tracks. every single tree is from speed tree. so its there man. its right there. look for yourself to see.

ive taken the texture used in that picture and used its alpha as a mask so you can see it. you wouldn't call this a real photograph. its a bog standard speed tree asset from the magic tool.

 

[Pixelchaser]

btw all the grass is made in speed tree too. and ive discovered the key to the fade. its an inbuilt system that renders the alpha channel with a scaled principle behind it. so upping the alpha scalar fixes it where colour streaking is involved in the final render. and this can be applied to trees also. in its form it can be considered a form of atmospheric distortion.

 

[luchian]

well , ill prove you wrong man. and explain...that's why speed tree is so good. yes its from speed tree. I have every single tree from AC default tracks. every single tree is from speed tree. so its there man. its right there. look for yourself to see.

ive taken the texture used in that picture and used its alpha as a mask so you can see it. you wouldn't call this a real photograph. its a bog standard speed tree asset from the magic tool.

ahm.. sorry but I don't see how this proves anything .

On the left side is the dds file. On the right side is the ingame screenshot. Very well. So ?
Who says the dds is generated by speed tree ? If any photo of a tree is used (with an alpha mask ofc) the same is obtained.

If you show me a very similar texture that you KNOW or DID in speed tree, then ok. But here is not the case .

 

[Pixelchaser]

you have lost me in this debate. . I know exactly what the case is here. your unfamiliarity is at fault here. I'm just responding to your immediate assumption that those trees must be photographic when they are from the very program you assumed they couldn't be from. sorry but I'm right here I really am. i can even tell where the forces magnet is positioned in order to program the fronds on the image to sit in a certain direction. of course it can be done else where but Speed tree is the convenient way to do it when you really care about representing actual tree types in a neutral lighting environment. its the only way to do it.

edit: made my own pine tree to show you, whilst I don't have those exact assets, I can make the exact same tree with any amount of variations. same superb quality. when imgur works I show you.