This document is targeted at people who are building their own cars in rFactor 2. If you are only doing new liveries for existing cars, please refer to XXXXXXXX How to paint a car with the new material system - old for a guide on how to do that.
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Be sure you are also producing the Edge Spec Mask (which is stored in the AO map's Alpha Channel), through the Edge Baker tool. This tool it's pretty easy to use, as it does create a mask based on the higher LOD mesh of the car model. This tool will bake all the edges and cavities, so that we can tame the specular highlights along these zones in the car body, reducing the jaggies. Also, mask any car floor bit here in the Edge Spec Mask, so that it won't reflect the environment (since we have no yet a Specular AO via shader).
As for the Ambient Occlusion baking, these are the global maps you can reuse for all the liveries of a given car. As for the AO and Damage maps, that is just as it was before. We do really suggest to bake the Car's AO using these settings;
Put all these maps in the SKIN PSD, as a source/reference.
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At this stage we need to open the .veh file for the given livery/paint scheme, and add this string at the top of the file;
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MaterialOverride=" |
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CARNAME_BaseMat.json" |
As a general rule, and good practice, it's a good idea to use exactly the same name we do use for the albedo/diffuse map. For example, if our albedo/diffuse, for a specific livery, it's called AMV_GT3_01.DDS, our material .json will be AMV_GT3_01.json. Means our override in the veh will show something like this;MaterialOverridecar name and append "_BaseMat.json" and make this base material global for all liveries for the same car.
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DefaultLivery="AMV_GT3_01. |
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DDS" |
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MaterialOverride=" |
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AstonMartinGT3_ |
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BaseMat. |
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json" |
As for the .dds, these .json files needs to live in the same folder “/teams”. This is extremely important to make the system working correctly. It's also important that we do this override, before to even start editing the materials, since this will set the correct Source Path where to search & save the material settings.
Remember, all the unique files you'll be producing (.veh, .json, region maps, AO maps etc), per livery, they all need to be in the /teams folder;
First Load in the Material Editor (Web UI)
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Assign all the correct maps for the livery/paint you are working with. For the shader requirements, follow these the guidelines ; in the IBL Carbody Shader Reference document. Now it's time to just assign all the maps we previously discussed. You can hot load/reload the textures and maps, directly in the Editor. Also, double check the mapper is correctly setup (REFMAP0), and check that the Source Path (top gray bar, in the editor) it's correct, which means it has to point to the car “\teams” folder.
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Always remember to save when you are happy with your settings.Production Notes;
Semantics/Terminology;
Skin/Livery; The only creation of the specific livery and paint scheme
Global maps; The creation of all the global textures and maps, used by the car, despite it's specific livery
Livery maps; The creation/generation of all the maps needed to set the IBLCarShader
Livery Materials/Shader Setup; The process to setup up all the livery materials (IBLCARShader), with all the Livery maps, the Global maps, the proper .veh override and everything else that does bring the planned Livery ingame, showing it's final and wanted output. Needed for approval and totally dependent from the previous stages. Also, at this stage, the car model should be at its ~90% of developing, with everything in place and properly setup (both 3D and all the other materials used by the car, other than LODs etc...).
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