Good looking baked lighting, reflections etc

rumblesushi

Hello people,

I've started work on my first game, a web based 3D racing game, and would like some advice on how to bake better looking lighting than the standard lighting through render to texture with the scanline renderer, which seems to be just gouraud shading. Ideally something to make the texture look more metal/reflective, plus some subtle specular highlights etc.

I would also like any general advice on how to improve these car models too. These are done by my colleague, and they are amongst her first 3D models, so any critiques and technical advice is welcome.

It's important to note that these models are for a browser based software engine, with no realtime lighting, and also they are very low poly. The RX7 is 300 triangles, the Lan Evo is 292, and the Skyline is 288.








The Skyline especially would obviously REALLY benefit from some basked reflections or something to make it look metallic, rather than just being plain matte black

What would be the best way to go about baking some generic reflections in Max? And possibly some subtle specular to add a more metallic look. And should this be done with the scanline renderer or MR?

Cheers,
RumbleSushi

leechdemon

I've found that if the wheel-wells of the cars don't have a peak, but instead have a flat top, the segmentation doesn't look as bad. Like, there shouldn't be a loop at the center of the wheel well, just chamfer it or connect the rings on either side. For some reason, seeing that peak at the top really blocks-up the car.

Ambient Occlusion gives a lot to real-world pizzazz to life-size objects. You could try baking some of that into your Diffuse map. As far as reflections, a basic Bitmap reflection would do a lot for the glass, chrome, etc. Try applying that in Max and baking it into your diffuse as well.

JonMurphy

Agreed that a GI bake will help. A trick I use too, is to apply a subtle gradient map, working planar on UV2, black at the bottom of the model (although you won't want this affecting the wheels), white at the top. Full self illumination, then render to texture to your UV1 mapping. take the resulting map of your gradient into PS and subtley overlay.

As for baking specular highlights, I'm afraid you haven't got the geometry to support this. It's going to be a hand-paint job, much like what you have going on under the door of the RX-7. I recommend studying the car textures in the Gran Turismo games back on the Playstation 1 for pointers.

creamcheese

Hi, I'm actually doing the modelling of the cars for rumblesushi, so I've joined up so I can talk directly to you.

First, hi again and thanks for your replies. I'm working on adding lighting and also adding some more hand drawn elements.

I've used some AO on the Lan Evo.



I just used a sklight and a target direct light (as you can see by the blue line on the pic). This is the only lighting I've used so far. I'll have a go at GI - I'm looking through some tutorials and will experiment a bit later on this evening if I have a chance.

I'm fairly happy with the Lan Evo so far. On the pics I've shown, the bottom two show some glitches, below the spoiler and also above the wing mirror. I have tried moving the light and changing its settings. I will keep trying. Does anyone else know why these glitches may be there and how to solve them? (I'm thinking if worst comes to worst, I'll try correcting them in PS, but would obviously prefer to not have them in the first place).

I've also tried working on the black Skyline. I'm least happy with this. I need to work on elements of my basic texture (the windows are all wrong, but I can do that). The hard part is getting it to look shiny like a nice black car should. I tried your suggestions - I found a tutorial on reflection mapping using a bitmap. It looked all distorted on the car (maybe because it's so low poly?). Any more help with this would be great.

I also thought of using gradients - JonMurphy, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by " working planar on UV2, black at the bottom of the model (although you won't want this affecting the wheels), white at the top. Full self illumination, then render to texture to your UV1 mapping". I haven't used a UV2. I just unwrap uvw, then create my texture in PS. Do you mean that you use more than one uv map and then they are kind of merged/layered? I tried adding a gradient in PS to my map, but with all the seperate parts, oriented and scaled differently, the gradient is obviously pretty hard to match up. Plus, although I can see this looks better, it does look quite matte/misty even using different layers and opacities. So understanding a UV2 might help a lot here.

leechdemon - re:wheel well, do you just mean I should have it as it is, but with the top flat?

Also, we are thinking of creating a normal map derived from a higher poly version and using this to create better lighting (used with my orig texture). Would this be feasible and a good idea? Does anyone know of any good tutorials?

OK, so to sum up - I'm working on your suggestions (slowly as I have to look up tutorials on everything first). I am also experimenting. Any good tutorials, resources, tips, help would be great. I am pretty new at all this and a self learner, so I appreciate any kind of advice and guidance.

Just for info - I am working on low poly cars (300 tris and under), but can use up to 512 maps.

Thanks

creamcheese

Just a quick bump because I wrote this a few days ago, but it's only just been added as I'm a new user.