Which program are you using to edit files?

In photoshop you just open the converted dds image, switch to "channels"
palette (should be in the same "layer" submenu palette, if it isnt just
go to the drop down menu window->show->channels).

You can activate \ deactivate the alpha channel aswell as the RGB channels.

Alpha channels work in a greyscale where black is not-see trough, white
is completely see trough.

In the TYRE.dds theres a alpha embedded (coded?) in the game so you dont
need to actually draw the alpha channel, just paint the tyre thread in black
greyscale, what is white will be invisible what is black will be black, everything
in between will be mixed with the original LFS wheel color (so if its 50%
grey, i'll mix that 'darkness' with the standard beige wheel in LFS).

For other alpha channels encoding (DXT1a \ DXT1x \ DXT3 \ DXT5) they
all have the ability to hold a alpha channel, what differs is the bit of the
alpha channels that are being given, and the compression.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Why do you have to be a pain in the bum and type everything in incredibily small font and then hide it? It's very annoying to read.

Everything you said points to increasing power and putting rimz on cars so it seems like NFS is your ideal game!

I'm sadic no really, I know theres people who dont care about reading this sort of stuff, so making it small and 'invisible' makes it easy for them to ignore.

I could pm it, sure, but i think its debatable stuff, I'm not asking for 25" rimszes or 1500hp cars, dont mistake me for those underaged NFS fans, this is not the case. I've been around for years and this topic was more or less seriously always brought up. It became just a taboo, its the endless fight with purists of realism, people who enjoy graphics andrealism, and preachers who just
jump around in all threads bashing demo racers yelling "BUYS2BUYS2".
Maybe these last few posts could get cropped off this thread and made into a thread named "things we debate in LFS, etc".

Everything i said leans on the graphic appeal, something is easily feasible, something is time consuming or 'beyond reach' for now.
I played most of the NFS series (even back when you had appealing cockpits), i bought prostreet mainly to drift in the iconic cars, s15, etc, you know the drill. I just couldnt believe how arcade they made it, even worse, your car was being driven in a "invisible rail", so even with all helps off, the game itself was controlling the car, not you, so it was physically garbage.

And on the other hand, yes, drifting a car with some more power than
a XRT would definately make my day, moreso with some aggressive
rims and underfitted tires, thats the drifters look and thats the kind
of content I'd like to pay for. Everything is not there in S2. Yet.
Devs have just realeased a F1-like car and soon the scirocco is coming out,
doesnt sound much drift oriented in my books.

Please do understand, I dont really like arcade games, but i have a sweet-tooth when it comes to graphic looks, so a graphic-tooth, and the whole drifting appeal is missing visual wise in LFS :|
And im pretty sure the drifting audience is a very large chunk of LFS; it
really is the most rewarding drifting game out there, afterall.

Thats about it.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

EXPLAIN. O_o

Btw, I read all of your rant and the fact remains that if you want extra content, you have to buy the game. It's tough if you disagree, because no amount of whining about how you don't get what you want will not get you it, if you see what I mean.

Its not meant to be a rant altough i do agree it does sound "rah rah";

I dont mind buying the game, its cheap, i dont see whats the big fuss about
or why some S2 licenced act like they own the world, its not a big deal.
Saying "im not buying the game if.." isnt gonna get me what i would want
as much as "i'll buy the game so you can do this and that..". No difference.

Lets break it down to this

what i would like to see in game and would make me really go for it:

-Tyres that actually look like tyres, choice to fit underfitted tyres
or that sort of look, tyre skinnable area should be fully, no model spot
visible. This is because on patch Z the tires are beige and you cant
cover that color -_-.

-Rims that look like rims, now i do know they are embedded in the exe
for some reason so they might just be generated rather than modeled,
i dont know, having rims that look like rims would make me happy tough.
Skinnable.

-not totally necessary but a car with a more sport sedan look, as i said,
s15 \ skyline \ RX7, that sort of look, more powerful than a XRT.

Rims and tyres are modelable in a day, i could pop a new rim and a new
tyre starting from the LFS basic tyres in 10 minutes, modeling in 3d
is really a whole lot easier then you think. The physical properties of them
should take a little more. Making a new car model is a week worth.
I say starting from the LFS model because i think they've coded physics
based on the 3d model, so instead of rewriting all the properties they'd just
have to do a lot less to make it happen.

things i think LFS needs but i'd buy it anyways even if it hadnt

-a more realistic lightining system, its not easy job, it migh need a whole
new graphic engine and directx's. I dont pressure this thing since i know
its the classic "rome wasnt built in a day" so its okhay.

-modeling as a whole could use a bit more polygons, so far this game
is really low poly and this technology was fully operable years ago.
This pretty much means a lot, lot of work so i dont stress this either.

-bump maps.

-engine choices for cars, aswell as rims sizes, partly is not necessary
for racing as per-se partly its not practical.

That being said, i heard that in the patch with the scirocco (which i
dont care about, its not RWD ) theres gonna be new tyre and rim
models which are gonna be skinnable (rim models starting from the hub
or something along those lines), so i'm waiting patiently to see whats
gonna come out.

As a reminder, S2 is cheap. Like i said above, i hold a lot of hope for
the upcoming patch, really do hope the whole rim+tyres in game
are gonna get a fresh touch with it.

Hope this clears it up. Sorry for smashing the thread.
Nightshift, stop trolling.

LOL you are a subpar customer at best. Can't be bothered to buy the game, yet you play the demo for free, to the point you even spend time making mods for it.

More along the lines of "I'm not a customer"; Cant be bothered to buy
the game because the devs cant be bothered to make the content I'm
looking after, which isnt really all that much work, you are just gullible,
yet you have the nerve to come out and preach about the S2 license.
Yep I'm playing the demo, i like it, it has everything im looking for,
and everything this game has to offer me, which would be a realistic
engine to drift in, decent graphics, a nice track and a ok car to drift in.
I could support them? Sure, I'll sure do, when they'll start developing
towards a direction i might be more interested about.

I'm making 'mods' for it because i enjoy skinning, I'm a graphic artist, I tool
around with that kind of stuff. And i dont mind making a game more enjoyable for others:
you too could invest your time to make this game better instead of preaching about S2 licenses.
I could make the 3d models too, the devs arent just accepting that sort of donation.


Then you come here and tell "I want this" like a spoiled kid who thinks the devs are like his parents? Have you fallen out of your bed this morning?

Stop crying, son. I'm not demanding anything, thats words you put in my mouth to make
your point more bold, while you're just talking to be talking.
Whats more funny is that you think (firmly, think) that the low cost of S2 licence gives
you the rights to trashtalk people who yet dont feel like paying that for a game they dont
fully have interest in. I'm guessing you dont work, and dont really value money, Is that so?


No amount of whining is going to change the content in the demo. You want more? Then you buy the game, that's LFS business model, just in case you haven't got it until now.

You're inane. I dont want more content in the DEMO, i dont bias the devs for removing the XRT
thats perfectly understandable. If the devs are gonna put more of what I'm looking
for I'll be sure to buy the licence.

So far i have zero care for the S2 content.
The content i'm looking for does NOT yet exist.


The game is not good enough for your Royal Standards? Fine, move on and go buy something that fits you.

I'm not asking for much, you were probably too much in a rush to post flames to realize it.
I've bought pro street in the (vain) hope the physics werent THAT arcade but oh, damn wrong on
that, i should've known better. LFS is the only game with physics I'm looking for.


Nobody is forcing you to stay in this subpar community wasting time with this subpar game

The game is subpar from the graphical point of view, the community is subpar only when it comes
to troublesome mindless preachers like you. You are just insulting and you have yet
to prove a point, your arguments are broad and childish; please, if you really have to reply
just make sure you've read what i had to say, if you're just spamming \ trolling then fine,
well played.

-------On topic

- NSX. Preferably later version with the bigger engine

Quote from noskillz :

How do you know what drifters use, if you bought the game you would see that they use more than one car.

The XRG is in the demo to give you a sample of a RWD car, it has nothing to do with drifting.

I've read here and there, the sheer amount of drift gear for the XRT is kinda
self explanatory (up to a point), people generally complain about the fz50
rapid tire wear but still regard it as a more rewarding car to drift in.
XRT is still more used.

Im not going to buy a game to just 'see what drifters use'. that'd be sort of,
well, do I even need to keep going? Just end this discussion here, its already
turning into the same old flame that has been around for years.

Last edited by Byakugan, Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:19. Reason : myspelling

Meh LFS database is taking forever to up it



edit.

Alright meanwhile feel free to get it here http://www.megaupload.com/?d=70NNEOJL (tire sidewall)

cheers

Last edited by Byakugan, Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:30.

Quote from NightShift :

Yes and I want a pony too.



Lemme check:

1. RWD ... Ok!
2. Japanese look ... Ok!
3. 500 bhp or less (with intake restriction) ... Ok!
4. GTR ... Ok!
5. Drifts ... Guess so.

Here's your car: http://www.lfs.net/?page=contents&car=xr_gtr

It can be yours for 24£.



Because the XRG is a perfect opponent for the XFG and LFS is, like, a racing simulator?

If one still wants the XRT so bad, the S1 license is only 12£ anyway.

You see, this 'demo race bashing' mindset is what is making the LFS community subpar, at best. This game does not offer enough
content which i care about to justify the purchase, and the devs arent
moving towards that direction either. 1 map, blackwood, is fine; out of
all the cars, the only one i care about is the XRT.

the xrgtr, well i guess its a car that is hardcoded for gripping, so its
somewhat biased and wouldnt make for a good drifter, maybe
thats why its not very used as a drifting machine. huh?

And yeah, jdm look, I was (somewhat obviously) talking about a more
modern car, the xrt aka starion aka cubecar is pretty cool in my books
and is definately the iconic car for LFS, still, a car that mimics a
RX-7, or a s15 would definately be my choice, and we can both agree
RX-7 and XRT dont really look like the same.

I suggest to astain posting meaningless content such as the post above
in the future, its dull, repetitive, inane, toughtless and boring.

cheers

edit.

If you think they left the xrg there because its a xfg opponent you'd be sadly
mistaken (or at least, thats my pov); it was the only car drifters cared about
and it was in the demo.

Last edited by Byakugan, Sat, 24 Jan 2009 11:48.

Quote from charlay :

snip

/synthesis mode/

' i want a sport sedan \ coupe such as a s15\skyline anyways a jdm
style look with a base tune which would suit anything from serious racing
to hardcore drifting to amateur GTRing, say 300-500+ hp.'

Yeah, i i think i can speak for all drifters when i say a JDM with a
bit more sedan look and more power under the bonnet would be awesome.

The XRT was removed from the demo cause thats pretty much the only
car drifters care about (mostly), since the FZ50 (from what i can read)
burns out tyres way too quickly to be used as a drifter; and having
a big chunk of LFS playerbase care about 1 car which was included in
the demo was a bit iffy, profitwise, cant fathom why they didnt remove
the XRG instead since its pretty useless and almost nobody used it.

Thats what i think anyways. oh well, tried drifting the XRG today, uuhh,
im going to wind up an older patch with a XRT =D

edit. That being said, the XRT still lacks power and the sedan look i'd like
to see, along with rims that actually resemble rims and tyres that actually
resemble tyres. in patch Z tyres are light beige, uh O_O)

I guess the tire is finished, what do you guys think? Anything to fix?

Again, its 1024x1024, no need to pull a 2048 since nobody zooms that much
into tire sidewalls.

Btw its not a fidel replica. <_<

Mazda RX-7 (the last model not the old one).

With decent rims thrown in there i would even buy the game for that.
with realistic tires too, underfit choice etc.

Update!

Almost finished i guess, everything is excessively stretched (watch the
O's in yokohama) so i'll have to fix thing up.

Also, still have to add the alpha layer which will give all the " |||||| "
on the rubber a nice effect (from closeup at least).

All in all, its hardly recognizable from a distance, useful for screenies
at best ¬_¬

Took a break and started the tyre sidewall

crits would be great, i know its missing a whole lot of detail, texture is
1024x1024.

I heard the xrt\xrg model was lately modified so its a possiblity that there is no
way to make that reverse pitch black anymore, i'll keep on skinning and get
back to it later on

cheers

Dont know, this conversion is on its early stage, i'll decide stuff like that
later on, meanwhile, started adding badges and all to the rear, or course,
stuff like the "skyline" writing work even on black paint ^_^

Tail lights coming along pretty nicely; woot woot! shame that i cant
make full black the reverse light strips :|



cheers

Well i did spend an extensive time testing:

Coverted the interior1.dds with DXT1c, DXT1a, DXT3 (and deleted alpha),
or one of those with enabled and modified alpha.

Result? always the same, the game treats the greyscale as transparent in that
skin portion (as in the car model, i guess).

So its probably hard coded in the game, altough it might be a glow
texture hidden somewhere (_g.dds suffix), or even another simple texture
that is used for other lights too.

Either ways, i wish the developers would:

-tell me if theres a way to override the damn alpha or enable the alpha
i'll be making :P

or

-in the next patch make the model color as white, currently the red lights
are beige, corner lights orange, Rlights white; since the model itself
is covered by the texture anyways (you dont use the transparency to
interpolate the two colors), the car model might aswell be all white.

That being said, since you can even save a jpg and rename it .dds (no
alpha channel then), the game STILL treats it as anything else, applies
alpha channel to color scales. Conclusion : i give up

Anyways, new headlight skin, more genuine and realisting, imho, the lights
shape as a whole is off so i'll have another go at it! Rear lights, gonna try
to make em purely digital rather than chop a photo and see how things
turn out; grill is finished, im not satisfied with it so i'll make another one too.

Thanks for reading this wall of text. By the way, if a mod can move this
thread to "skin work in progress" and rename the thread "Skyline gtr32 conversion for xr's" i'd be grateful for it, cheers.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

That's some nice work there!

To answer your question, there is no way to get rid of that problem with the taillights. They are a fixed size, and you have to work with that entire space. The only way to make them not light up is to paint them black. Unfortunately, you can't use alpha layers for the interior textures in LFS. (I like the black R32, so it would be great if you can make a black skin for it.)

thanks

Yeah i was gonna resign for a black one, but the small issue is, when you
brake, the "indent" of the light piece will light up too (forming that yellow
line around lights). And thats ugly >_>

I was even thinking to make them another color, say, blue, and when
they light up, the whole piece will get shining blue not just the lights,
uh that'd be gross, but hey, if you dont brake they'll look fabulous

cheers

Still nothing? D:

dont let this hold you down "Demo Racer"
There has to be a way to override that goddamn tail light thing!

Anyways, started the front, cant really find high res pictures (forums
and ebay failed me), the grill is still WIP.

cheers

Hm F5 frenzy

I guessed so too, maybe I'm doing it wrong, heh, all the tail lights i saw
are pitch black so i guess nobody found a way out.

Still fiddling with it, cant make it, searched everything on the interwebs
and found nothing

Also gonna give tyres dds a whirl in the meantime, the whole "beige wheels
with a line of text" on em aint gonna cut it for me!

cheers

Hey everyone, long time no see, huh. Been off LFS for ages

So anyways i come here in seek of advice, i'm making some new stuff such
as a (to be) good skyline r32, yes, pasted lights galore and all that, i
know most of you arent fond of those but thats besides the point!

So as you can see on the pic, Im doing the rear lights, issue is, i can
only use pitch black for what was supposed to be the car color, since
anything else will become transparent, and when i brake, anything that isnt
black lights up (as you can see, the light panel "indent" around the lights
lights up aswell);

That is troublesome, i tried fiddling with alpha channels with no luck, is
there any solution? Any? O:

And yeah, help greatly appreciated cheers

yeah rear lights are too big for the brake action panel
but who cares, also, any graphics that goes into the turnlights
area is a whole [lot] darker than the rest for some reason, duhrr.[/i]

thanks for the support!

that insipred me to do another rim which i'll post soon!
also a few more renders with xrt and the other rims for 'showoff' purposes

on a sidenote, stock rims arent all that polysaving, car + wheels takes
10900 tris, the 4 wheels alone are about 5+k tris!

they could be a lot simplified, the center hub is really, really clogged with polies
which serve very little to no purpose in my opinion!

cheers

-BB-

Yo! >_>

Some news here, made 3d brakes (kept the texture size very quite,
biggest for the disc was 128x128), and added an interesting polycount
with the XRT stock and the XRT with the highest polycount rims i had
with also my brand new brakes

less overall polyes, and a tiny amount more of tri's (a bit more than 1k).
i think the difference is quite stunning. comments? >_>

cheers

-B-

EDIT: the polycount on the brake image is wrong i had a whole rim hidden,
the brake disc+caliper polycount is 180 triangles.

super helpful! thanks

-BB-

i found this thread, and its old.

but i felt like saying 3ds max isnt a '600$ like photoshop', its more like
3500$ (but the first time you buy it its almost 5000 for the yearly
subsciption etc).



-BB-

Oh yeah, i have a better visual now.

Would they be able to make use of exported 3d objects or the game engine
only 'recognizes' models from theyr 3d modeling software?

eric could devote his time to more tracks istead of rims and bodyparts,
hows about that ? no im not giving up, not just yet!

btw, high poly rims are way faster to make than low poly (i dont know
if anybody cares about this, just writing it for common knowledge purposes),
low poly is more time consuming because you have to optimize a lot
the wheel, the fact you can use triangles instead of all quad polies
is a thin reward really.
Also, low poly rims are best displayed with textures (LFS doesnt
support bump mapping, which makes things a tad harder), and textures
do take a lot of time to be made.

the current polycount im hovering around seems very accessible tho,
does anyone know the polycount of the actual stock rims on the xr?
just to give me an idea

Another small tought, bodyparts for cars would actually modify the original
texture for the car itself, this is troublesome since its not optimal to
have a lot of textures for each combination of parts.
would it be a better idea to make these parts have a skin on theyr own?
If someone had a importable 3d object for, say, an xrt i would be happy
to get my hands on it !

cheers

-B-