Re: 3D design problems w/ buildings (weird discoloration/ brightness)

Hi

> This is a recurring problem that seems to have ruined the already
> onerous task of adding 3D objects to tracks. It would be great(ly
> appreciated) if somebody could suggest a viable solution, so I wouldn't
> have to bulldoze all the gazillion buildings created or pull the plug on
> this fruitless exercise.
>
> Here's an example screenshot from one of the tracks:
> http://stcreativedesigns.fhero.net/img/stcd-build00.png

Ok, first take a deep breath, as you can see from several examples, it 
is possible to add objects which get lit properly, and I try to figure 
this out together with you.

> The red arrow points at the weird discoloration/brightness that appears
> on just about every building created on lots of tracks. Does anybody
> know what's causing that, and is there anything to fix? That happens
> with buildings of various shapes and sizes. As a hopeless experimenter,
> it's difficult to say what went wrong there. I tried "Optimize vertices"
> and "Optimize surfaces" for the whole building (group), no change. I
> also thought it might be caused by the stupid crease 45.000000 lines
> that always get added to the .ac file after you edit the track, but now
> that I went and removed all of that extra junk from one track.ac file,
> it turned out the same graphical BS (as seen in the example image)
> remained there. I've edited the various light settings (amb, emi, spec,
> shi) at the top of the .ac file and returned to the track, but nothing's
> worked.

Basically a lot can go wrong when doing modeling, before we look into 
your case some general infos/posts:
- Car modeling tutorial, basically the splitting and lighting part 
applies for all objects in TORCS, see http://youtu.be/JFaWNe8jcMc
- http://www.berniw.org/trb/forum/showthread.php?topicid=163
- 
http://torcs.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/torcs/torcs/torcs/doc/tutorials/track/index.html?revision=1.2&pathrev=r1-3-1

For TORCS you have to:
- Set ac3d crease angle to 180 in the preferences (then the rendering in 
ac3d is as close to the rendering in TORCS as it can get)
- Use only one material
- Take care when extruding that you are not leaving "inner surfaces" 
behind (confuses the lighting/shading)
- Use only single sided smooth shaded surfaces
- And some more, have a look into the car tutorial linked above

Ok, now lets have a look into your screenshot, it looks very confusing, 
I could imagine that it is a combination of weird surface subdivision, 
wrong surface types and normals and "inner leftovers" and broken object 
organization.

> So now, after these predictable failures, I'm looking for useful advice
> from more experienced 3D manipulators. This is not a graphics
> card/graphics settings issue: tracks without those 3D objects added
> don't exhibit that discoloration. Section "Graphic" in the track.xml
> file shouldn't be at fault, either: editing the light values there made
> no difference. And this only affects buildings, not for example
> grandstands or billboards.
>
> I wonder if the surface manipulation of a building could somehow have
> messed it up: selecting a surface/surfaces, often using "Divide" to get
> smaller areas of the surface, then "Cut away object" (to be able to add
> a door or window), then naming that object and choosing some specific

Yes, that is the way to go.

> texture (mainly door or window). But if this method produces those
> graphical anomalies, how are you supposed to add doors and windows to a
> building? A separate rectangle placed in front of another object, like a
> door before a building, often caused ridiculous and disturbing
> flickering. Furthermore, there are buildings on these tracks with doors

Yes, thats Z-fighting, you should not do this. Depending on the viewing 
distance it can be appropriate in some cases to just paint the door on 
the texture though.

> and windows added like described, and they, for some reason, don't have
> that bright discoloration. So confusing, so frustrating, so tiresome to
> bang your head against that wall.
>
> More relevant info can be provided if needed. The .ac files, however,
> won't be distributed.

Hmm, too bad, so you will never release the tracks in any form (acc is 
just a combination of multiple ac files, it is not rocket science to 
convert it back)?

Kind regards

Bernhard


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