Truck painting

[Slickster]

Ahh, I guess I do mostly the same steps that have been mentioned, however my 'taking a screenie, and painting over the side' step is a tad different than some, but eh, whatever floats your boat. I have layers for the base color, paint, logos, any outlines, and a final layer for the shading of the truck.

Usually the more layers, the better and easier it is to adjust the scheme if needed. Such as, my Wild Thang has 8 or so layers.

[Phineus]

Yep, Slick. Layers are great. The best thing I like about them is you can go back and edit any layer later. If you do it right on top of the existing paint, there's no turning back. Also, the layer palette lets you turn things on and off, or fade them paritally out so you can work around and under other layers without harm.

<center><img src="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/post2940l.gif"></center>
That's the psp layer palette, of course. Photoshop is a bit different but the principle is the same. Anyway, I haven't done it yet, as you'll see in a second, but I imagine painting over other images using the fader would be very helpful.

Now, back tracking a little. I've mapped my sample truck to all new wireframe textures. By the way, I've always wondered how somebody would go about painting a truck like the stock grave digger - it being all black and all.. This method would sure make easier work of it. For mine, tho, we're at the wireframe step.

<center><img src="http://mtm2.com/~forum/images/post2940k.gif"></center>

So, now we have a couple more questions. First is filling-in and shading. If I use layers, I can paint away and put in lights and the like without too much difficulty, but the actual filling-in runs into those lines. I'm not being dense or anything, but for the sake of explanation and clarity, what's the ideal time to paint over those lines? As for how, I assume you just select outside the wire frame and invert the selection and fill? Another possibility, I guess would be to do the same thing, then promote to layer - that would allow you to see the wireframe over top of the base paint, and it could then be deleted afterward (I think I'm answering my own questions as I work things through). Anyway... the real puzzler, for me, is the shading and even the body lines. I look at D2S' Falcon, or even something as basic as Rep Fan's <a href="http://mtm2.com/~trucks/P2004/thepizzageekbyrepfan.jpg">pizza geek</a> and everything just seems to be in the right place and in the right proportions. Is this an artistic thing or is there some sort of formula that prescribes measurements and amounts? After all, this is a basic coat of paint. And yet, I've had problems with it. Even recently. If you use too many colors, the odds are high the truck won't look right in the game. So, like, what's the secret?

The next question is a much more practical matter. Stockers use two textures. I've mapped to three, leaving room for under carriage stuff. My Jimmy used three also. However, I've seen as many as twenty-some on a single truck. So, the questions is, is there a rule of thumb for the number of textures a truck should 'ideally' use? If I've used three for the basic body, would an engine and other accessories need anymore than a fourth?

Thanks for your insights.

[JBrossack]

Phin, what version of PSP is that?

[Cale]

I'm too the point where my body I try to keep to 3 textures, (one cab sides, one bed sides, one roof and hood, squeeze tailgate, grille, and windshield on there somewhere but all else depends. Should be some black on one image for the inner body, a small square for whatever the frame color is. Shocks, gastanks, transfer cases, etc. are usually BigDoGGe's, so think 64x64 textures. Engines get one more 256x256. Usually, tires/axles up the count as well. But thats just what I go by [;)]

[Phineus]

Jon, that's psp5.

Thanks Cale.

[JBrossack]

Case in point, my Annihilator paint.... The entire body squeezed into one 256x256 texture....

http://www.mtm2.com/~imtra/Annihilator3d3.jpg

[Phineus]

Show us the texture, please. Or release the truck [:P]

And by the way, I hope you don't plan on deleting forum pics. Can't have no dead image links...

[Rep Fan]

We could all have single texture trucks like that, if we built our trucks with a Nascar Painting program like Jon.

cheater.

In that Nascar thing tho, it looked great, but once you get it on a truck, it lost a truckload of the detail that paintjob really has. I'll stick with my multiple texture trucks.

Cuz I'm all about clearity and detail.

[Cale]

And Rep can tell you about the custom I showed him tonight, I finally took D2S's Leadfoot conversion and did something with it...but I was lazy and tried the one texture map...didn't work. Too blurry/choppy. I'll try again later.

[JBrossack]

I've gotten lazy in my old age, so what? I proved I could model with Radical Rescue, now I proved I can paint too... Will I ever put the two masterful techniques together? pfft... Yeah right.. I barely have time to brush my teeth.

But Kevin, yeah it lost a lot of detail, but it would've lost it anyway going from a 32-bit texture to 8.... Just you all wait until I get the sister truck to this up and running... [;)]

[Phineus]

I don't know about anybody else, but I just wanted to see how things were arranaged on a single texture. That's all. If it looks similar to an evo cram job, then that's fine. But I was curious. On the other side of this, does the Nascar Painting program do the cramming? And if yes, do you get options for how many or what size textures you use?

[JBrossack]

NASCAR Racing 2004 uses a single 1024x1024 32-bit texture. Doesn't need much more than that.. Wish we could do the same for MTM2...

[ZOtm_BigDOGGe]

a 1024x1024 texture file has 16 times the area for artwork, so small wonder it works for Nascar and not MTM2. Even the stock trucks require two 256x256 RAWs to achieve any form of detail.


The EVO bodys at my scrapyard were originally a single 512x512 texture, so I broke up their artwork into 3 or 4 separate RAWs to maintain detail, rather than resize the one large 512x512 texture file to 256x256......The difference really shows in the game. Even then, I have to reduce the artwork of the sides of the body to 85% of it's original size to make it all fit.


When I use a pre-made part on my trucks, I transfer it's textures to the existing body RAWs for the model, rather than add extra texture files to the POD. Shocks, fuel tanks, etc are all re-mapped to the main model RAWs. Example:


.....


NOTE that extra texture files don't slow the framerates of the game, but they do make the truck POD file larger.

Yep, Slick. Layers are great. The best thing I like about them is you can go back and edit any layer later. If you do it right on top of the existing paint, there's no turning back.

I've only used layers on a couple of trucks myself. That's because I always make duplicates of textures before I do any work on them. It kinda works as a "poor man's undo" system....if I don't like the changes, then I just reload the pre-modified duplicate and try again...... When the project is done, then I delete all the duplicates (there may be quite a few!).

[Malibu350]

> NOTE that extra texture files don't slow the framerates of the game,

like hell they don't. I've seen it time and time again with tracks and trucks and phin can attest to this when I did MoX to name one. texture counts play a major role in frame rates or the lack there of.

[ZOtm_BigDOGGe]

I beg to differ, but this topic has been tested and discussed before at Vales. Drive2survive backed up my observation.

I tried a truck both with and without animation. The animated truck had twice the number of large textures versus the non-animated version, yet the frame rate didn't change regardless of which truck was tried in the game.


Here's a link to the original topic at Vales:

http://vales.com/mtm2/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4654

Perhaps this only applies to when animation is applied to a truck, but the extra textures are still there in the POD nonetheless. I'll have to run a few more experiments and let you all know the results.

[ZOtm_BigDOGGe]

*TEST COMPLETE*


OK, I took the stock bigfoot truck, renamed it, then I mapped a few of it's surfaces to 3 more 256x256 textures, for a total of 5 large textures vs the 2 on the stock truck. I then tried each on farm road alone, with no other trucks to upset the experiment.


Both trucks gave me the exact same framerate of 85 frames per second.....no difference, dispite the fact that one truck had 150% more 256x256 texture files.


-->Please note that this does not apply to tracks.....I have done no experiments in that area, but tracks may very well be affected by the number of textures....I'm not arguing that point.

[Slickster]

Ummm...BD, your MTM2 fps is probably maxed or bottlenecked and what not. Additional textures do chug down the game, and I can attest to this from WF5. Different trucks with a different amount of textures will affect the fps significantly.

[ZOtm_BigDOGGe]

Different trucks with a different amount of textures will affect the fps significantly.

Different trucks make for poor comparisons, due to different poly counts, etc.....The same probably goes for the various trucks in the WF5 event.

......Try using versions of the same truck with different texture counts and let me know what your results are.....

If I'm incorrect, then I'd like to know it, but for now the evidenceb I keep seeing says otherwise.


---> I just tried it again with 3 BOT trucks running alongside my test trucks to reduce the framerate without maxing it out.....With both the stock or the modified truck I got 42-43 fps, so at this time I feel I am still correct......I used the same 3 bot trucks for both tests (one stock and two customs) and used the near-to-the-truck view from behind, looking forward, so all 4 trucks were in view at the time when I recorded the framerate.

[Malibu350]

You could map your truck to 30 textures and probably not notice any additional lag because the textures are already loaded into your cards memory, but i assure you that anyone else in the game will get a pretty good hit when you come into their view unless they're driving the same truck.

For tracks it's essentially the same, ie there's a certain number of textures that can come into view at a time before you get hit even if you're driving a stock truck, if you're driving a custom truck with say 10 textures then that threshold decreases in proportion to whatever track you are on.

A good track example would be kodiak island. The unique base textures on that track pretty much max out the limit so adding models was a problem so most are set to complex to make it more driveable in sparse. Try running it in sparse then in complex with and without a custom truck, you'll see lag with or without the fr display when additional complex model textures come into view.

As for a truck example?, try this beta of L&O. Take it out on c98 and do a lap, then on the second lap flick on the lights to bring up another texture. I think you'll see some lag that's drawn purely from texture memory strain.


There are so many variables in this game that this's not that big of a deal, but I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt, from experience, in both tracks and trucks that excessive textures in a track or a truck will cause lag. There is no argument, it exists.



I apologize to Phin for *beep* up his thread here, I'll clean it up later and try and keep my mouth shut in the future so to just leave well enough alone.

[ZOtm_BigDOGGe]

You could map your truck to 30 textures and probably not notice any additional lag because the textures are already loaded into your cards memory, but i assure you that anyone else in the game will get a pretty good hit when you come into their view unless they're driving the same truck.

The texture data of a truck is not sent over the net to opponents when playing online. Only position, speed, orientation type of data is sent to the other players so their machines can render the opponent's trucks in the same attitude, altitude and velocity.

For anyone to see my truck while playing online, they would have to have it downloaded and installed on their PC already, and so the textures of my vehicle should be pre-loaded into their memory as well as mine.

For tracks it's essentially the same, ie there's a certain number of textures that can come into view at a time before you get hit even if you're driving a stock truck, if you're driving a custom truck with say 10 textures then that threshold decreases in proportion to whatever track you are on.

A good track example would be kodiak island . The unique base textures on that track pretty much max out the limit so adding models was a problem so most are set to complex to make it more driveable in sparse. Try running it in sparse then in complex with and without a custom truck, you'll see lag with or without the fr display when additional complex model textures come into view.

Like I said before, my arguments do not apply to tracks & their texture counts.

As for a truck example?, try this beta of L&O. Take it out on c98 and do a lap, then on the second lap flick on the lights to bring up another texture. I think you'll see some lag that's drawn purely from texture memory strain.

The semi-transparent light textures are a completely different animal.

When I originally made my UFO model, I had installed 4 colored lights around the perimeter, with VERY WIDE light cones emanating from them (distance, or length of the cones remained stock). I just increased the terminating point diameter to a much larger size to make wide beams, like floodlights.

For some reason, this created a great amount of lag and loss of frame rate and frame stutter. When I reduced the cone's end diameter back to normal headlight dimensions, the lag disappeared. The number of textures remained the same throughout the experience.

As a result of this experience, I think using the light textures as an example of how the quantity of truck RAWs affect frame rates doesn't apply here.

There are so many variables in this game that this's not that big of a deal, but I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt, from experience, in both tracks and trucks that excessive textures in a track or a truck will cause lag. There is no argument, it exists.

From my own experiences over the years of NOTHING BUT truck-making and experimenting with unusual designs and set-ups, I have to say there is a very good forum for debate here.

Does any lag at all exist with trucks with greater numbers of textures? Perhaps, but it's so small that it can be ignored in most, if not all cases. It all depends on what is meant by "excessive textures".

I have seen trucks with as many as 22 separate RAWs (axles and tires not included), and have seen some lag from them, but they were built somewhat sloppy by rookies. If you need an extra 256x256 texture or 3 to finish your truck, you can add them with little or no worry.

I can see that we will probably never reach a point of agreement here, but as long as the EVIDENCE I see verifies my argument, I have to stick by it. No offense intended bro.