Car to shiny in game

[Teo Bubicic]

Hey guys,doing a skin for this season on AM Vantage but in game the car is to shiny.I made the alpha dark but it didn't change anything.Anyone knows a fix for this????

 

[Daniel Miebach]

I think you should modify the alpha layer and light it up to White and light grey ..
Then the skin should stop to appear to be shiny

 

[Jimmi Allison]

I think you should keep the alpha layer as it is. I dont see it as shiny when i use the template which we provide?

 

[Jorge Blasco]

IMO it is a pity. All the cars looks great in the showroom, but when you load it into the game, suddenly the car has tons of reflections, and it is hard see the skins properly. I would like to fix this issue (because for me it is), but i have no idea how to solve it.

 

[Jimmi Allison]

IMO it is a pity. All the cars looks great in the showroom, but when you load it into the game, suddenly the car has tons of reflections, and it is hard see the skins properly. I would like to fix this issue (because for me it is), but i have no idea how to solve it.

I would say thats the game.... but thats how it works.

 

[Teo Bubicic]

with what options do you guys save the dds,no alpha,1bit alpha,interpolated,i tried them all and its shiny as hell

 

[Jorge Blasco]

DXT5 ARGB 8bpp - interpolated alpha

 

[Teo Bubicic]

Ok got it,made the alpha dark grey and saved it as DXT5 ARGB 8bpp - interpolated alpha and its much better

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Teo is right. I too found the default alpha channel in the template way too shiny. Also keep in mind that in HDR mode you should never use bright colors. So if your car is white, the RGB value to use should be around 180, 180, 180. ISI has a nice document detailing the colors to use in these so called albedo maps.

 

[Jorge Blasco]

where can I find that isi document Marcel?.

PD: Ok, i found it. Thx anyway.

 

[Tomas Beha]

Yeah, the new shader URD added to the car body may not suit the templates that good, will take a look and ask Allison if it's worth updating their alpha - would much like if everyone used similar ones.

And very good point about HDR and colour saturation/brightness, we don't wan't cartoonish looking cars

- throw the link, might be usefull for others

 

[Marcel Offermans]

This is the explanation that ISI posted:
http://rfactor.net/web/rf2/devscorner/texture-maps-and-color-saturation/

And if that post leaves you with a better understanding but even more questions, then I highly recommend the following article:
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice

It covers Physically Based Rendering, a relatively new technique for doing materials in computer graphics and albedo maps are one aspect of it. Reading that article, and others on the same site, definitely gave me a better understanding.

 

[Jorge Blasco]

This is my case, and how the car looks into the game.

Looks like if the car has a extra "oil" or "water" layer. And it doesn't matter if I choose RGB colours under value 180, just look a little bit darker but still having the same problem. I don't know if it is my own settings, the alpha layer, or it is the mod.

 

[Jimmi Allison]

As Tomas said - it could be the alpha layer. If its the alpha layer, it can be fixed without teams involvement

 

[Marcel Offermans]

For reference, we have darkened the alpha layer of the Corvette a lot:


And, for reference, two shots of the resulting paint at sunrise:

 

[Jorge Blasco]

Drastic measures against problems

I painted the alpha layer fully dark and the result is in the screenshot. No more reflections. So I think the key is find the optimal grey colour that reflects the light in the proper way.

Edit, I think Marcel has found the perfect grey colour

 

[Tomas Beha]

Shots taken in the shadow is not the best reference But as I said, the new shader used by URD gives the cars alot more "shinyness" to it - also a bit too much to my liking.

 

[Tomas Beha]

Drastic measures against problems

I painted the alpha layer fully dark and the result is in the screenshot. No more reflections. So I think the key is find the optimal grey colour that reflects the light in the proper way.

Edit, I think Marcel has found the perfect grey colour

I'll take a look at the template alpha, a "flat grey" is not a good solution - and we wan't the cars to behave visually alike on track.

 

[Marcel Offermans]

I can send you our PSD if you like but the image above can easily be obtained by tweaking the original alpha channel (and darkening it considerably).

 

[Marcel Offermans]

FYI, not all car templates from URD even come with such an alpha channel. I remember the Ferrari not having one for example. So creating some and distributing those as part of the template probably makes sense.