Texturing a Racetrack Help!!

Brashen · Sep 2013

Hey Polycount,

I've been working on a track thats a futuristic and contains light patterns a and such resembling those of the movie tron.

Question is how can I apply my texture to curves. I get terrible banding and the like.

The track is modeled in 3dsmax with a line and a loft applied to it.

Any help would be most appreciated.

cmtanko · Sep 2013

I think they could help better if you could post the mesh and textures maybe ?

Pathologist · Sep 2013

Try using the UVW Xform modifier.

Brashen · Sep 2013

Hey guys thanks for the swift reply:

Here are the imgs:

http://postimg.org/image/bc9r4wukl/

http://postimg.org/image/loyzl4o2b/

Ace-Angel · Sep 2013

You will want to, usually for a case like this, to unwrap your road as a single long strip and tile your road pattern on it.

What do you mean by 'curves'? Usually places on roads that have curves lack any kind of 'clean noise' detail, to specifically avoid issues like this, so you could try another texture? Although, again, if you long strip unwrap it, you can simply move around a couple of verts in your UV to compensate for any stretching if you must use the same texture.

Brashen · Sep 2013

I meant to say bends in the track. I couldn't find anything about it on the wiki pages. And googling it for the past 2 days hasnt resulted in much either. I need the textures to bend with the curve is all.

Brashen · Sep 2013

Anybody have any more ideas on the matter?

fade1 · Sep 2013

maybe show a quick viewport screenshot with textures...
i guess the stretching comes from the skewed quads in curves. that's something you just can reduce with more polys. add loops along your track.

jovcem · Sep 2013

I think you should check Apply Mapping, so the texture bends where there is a curve. If that is what you are looking for

Brashen · Sep 2013

I did check apply mapping Here's what i have.

AlecMoody · Sep 2013

You just need to scale your UVs vertically so they are much much taller. Right now your UVs are telling the texture to tile 1 time, meaning its getting stretched the entire length of the track.

Brashen · Sep 2013

Did as you said but look at he bends in the road this what I meant.

AlecMoody · Sep 2013

If you add a few dividing segments running longways around the track those errors will be mostly cleaned up. Having organized geometric patterns like on your texture is going to require a lot of segments in both directions for a totally clean look.

Brashen · Sep 2013

Thanks for the suggestions Alec, but hat doesn't help.

fade1 · Sep 2013

As Alex said you need a few subdivisions to reduce the distortions. See the attached picture...

Brashen · Sep 2013

If you look at the inner bend its still distorted fade1

.Wiki · Sep 2013

When you created the racetrack with a spline you can enable the 3d display mode and set it to a rectangular shape. Then turn on the "generate mapping coordinates" checkbox. The created UVs will create a good base and you wont have to adjust it much.

fade1 · Sep 2013

You will always have a distortion. The reason for this is the way graphic card render&texture polygons. They squeeze a quadratic texture into a non quadratic polygon( basically two triangles). It's not like skewing in photoshop.

There is just one way around: more geo -> less distortion. But don't worry, even Forza 5 has to deal with this and it looks fine.

Brashen · Sep 2013

Thank you guys for the suggestions.

gsokol · Sep 2013

try adding some more loops parallel to the track. Specifically, kinda closer to the edges of the road.

fade1 is right in that you will always have a little bit of distortion in there, but you can control where and how it fades based on your edgeloops.

Texturing a Racetrack Help!!

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