Creating Racing Circuit; Need Help & Possibly Models...
Hello everyone!
Firstly, this is my first post here. I found the forum after searching Google for polycounts of circuits for racing games. Thankyou very much for welcoming me here, I hope I can build a good relationship with the members of this community.
Ok, so down to business! I'm in the middle of a project that sees me creating a fictional motor racing circuit, set in a pine forest in the UK. Think Hockenheim, come Donington, come Spa Francorchamps kind of thing. Lots of elevation changes, trees close to the circuit, fast sweeping curves and so on.
I started the project with a program called Bob's Track Builder, but rapidly found myself very limited with what I could do, so decided to continue work in AC3D, hoping I'd be able to, somehow, get the final product ingame.
My primary goal for this project is a scene for a 3D animation which will hopefully be created in Poser Pro 2010, utilising a number of props and characters I've already created, along with many more that I wish to create in the future. Although this is my primary goal, I'd dearly love to drive my circuit in a good racing game/sim, but would rather need to do as little tweaking as possible to make it compatible; changing a few buildings and so forth would be fine, but re-modelling most of the circuit would not.
I'm having a big problem with the terrain created by Bob's Track Builder, as it's very glitchy in places. There are rather ugly creases here and there and some very low-poly areas that I'd rather like slightly smoother. Also, as mentioned, the setting is within a pine forest clearing. I have utilised 'tree walls' for the far edges of the circuit's terrain, but I feel that poly-count is going to be an issue with all the 3D trees I'd like to include. I may need a few low-poly pine trees made for me, using flat planes with transparency maps or the like, to go behind the more detailed trees, so that the depth of the forest can still be seen from the circuit.
Along with this, another issue I'm having is texturing the terrain. I'd like to be able to texture it in a very detailed manner, where the terrain textures are different from one corner to the next, where cars have cut across the grass, or service vehicles have used the same route a number of times and so on. I can't seem to find a way of exporting a template from AC3D so that I might make texture maps for each part of the circuit. Things like service roads and infield areas will likely be textured onto the terrain, as well as footpaths and stuff like that, so it's a must really.
So, I'm wondering if anyone here has had experience of this kind of work? I've been working with 3D programs for quite a number of years, but have been very slow going, so you might still call me a newbie to it all. I can produce fairly basic models from scratch, but may need help with the more elaborate creations. My main forte is buildings and so on, so I ought to be fairly safe with most of the grandstands and trackside buildings, objects and so on.
Any help would be greatly appreciated on this; it's quite a monster of a project and my great attention to detail doesn't help to change that fact, lol!
Thankyou very much for your time and patience reading this. I know it's long, but I thought it best to try and answer the sorts of questions I envisaged cropping up before they were asked. If screen shots are required, I can provide them, so please ask if you'd like some for reference.
Thankyou!
Glen.
Firstly, this is my first post here. I found the forum after searching Google for polycounts of circuits for racing games. Thankyou very much for welcoming me here, I hope I can build a good relationship with the members of this community.
Ok, so down to business! I'm in the middle of a project that sees me creating a fictional motor racing circuit, set in a pine forest in the UK. Think Hockenheim, come Donington, come Spa Francorchamps kind of thing. Lots of elevation changes, trees close to the circuit, fast sweeping curves and so on.
I started the project with a program called Bob's Track Builder, but rapidly found myself very limited with what I could do, so decided to continue work in AC3D, hoping I'd be able to, somehow, get the final product ingame.
My primary goal for this project is a scene for a 3D animation which will hopefully be created in Poser Pro 2010, utilising a number of props and characters I've already created, along with many more that I wish to create in the future. Although this is my primary goal, I'd dearly love to drive my circuit in a good racing game/sim, but would rather need to do as little tweaking as possible to make it compatible; changing a few buildings and so forth would be fine, but re-modelling most of the circuit would not.
I'm having a big problem with the terrain created by Bob's Track Builder, as it's very glitchy in places. There are rather ugly creases here and there and some very low-poly areas that I'd rather like slightly smoother. Also, as mentioned, the setting is within a pine forest clearing. I have utilised 'tree walls' for the far edges of the circuit's terrain, but I feel that poly-count is going to be an issue with all the 3D trees I'd like to include. I may need a few low-poly pine trees made for me, using flat planes with transparency maps or the like, to go behind the more detailed trees, so that the depth of the forest can still be seen from the circuit.
Along with this, another issue I'm having is texturing the terrain. I'd like to be able to texture it in a very detailed manner, where the terrain textures are different from one corner to the next, where cars have cut across the grass, or service vehicles have used the same route a number of times and so on. I can't seem to find a way of exporting a template from AC3D so that I might make texture maps for each part of the circuit. Things like service roads and infield areas will likely be textured onto the terrain, as well as footpaths and stuff like that, so it's a must really.
So, I'm wondering if anyone here has had experience of this kind of work? I've been working with 3D programs for quite a number of years, but have been very slow going, so you might still call me a newbie to it all. I can produce fairly basic models from scratch, but may need help with the more elaborate creations. My main forte is buildings and so on, so I ought to be fairly safe with most of the grandstands and trackside buildings, objects and so on.
Any help would be greatly appreciated on this; it's quite a monster of a project and my great attention to detail doesn't help to change that fact, lol!
Thankyou very much for your time and patience reading this. I know it's long, but I thought it best to try and answer the sorts of questions I envisaged cropping up before they were asked. If screen shots are required, I can provide them, so please ask if you'd like some for reference.
Thankyou!
Glen.