The new assets, content and track rework thread

[rubberduck]

oh ok, SR 3.0 will be much better anyway

more reworked tracks are coming soon, these are only 3 out of 8 currently

modified version of Stain in green crystal environment

yes, SpaceMine, with mining UFOs

or Cross, with a looping and a jump

[CryHam]

Cool, interesting. I saw your PR, I need to check all first. Not sure if I'm okay to replace all yet.

[rubberduck]

I even created new marble rock terrain, and some more new roads, and pink crystal terrain
Some made for and tested with a new version of infinity

[CryHam]

Awesome I like it, will replace our old Infinity for sure. I think this could qualify for new scenery Marble if not now then maybe later. But dang, I can't rebuild old SR since January so will do it someday maybe. For now I'll qualify it as Surreal.
New Stain looks great too. I'm gonna rename it to Slide. I'll leave the old Stain too, it looks really good in SR3 in rain with wet road.
All changes are cool, I merged. New Cross is lagging a lot, will try fixing.

I noticed few things. Some important.
We're in a split state now since I did tracks3 repo and this tracks repo is also changing. So I need to also merge (reapply) your changes to tracks3. Half of changes don't need much, just merging xml, adding new content too. Fluids don't even exist yet in SR3 but will have to redo them.
Generally colors changed in SR3 (not my fault: sRGB, is now different) and fog is still basic in SR3.
But: we will get into trouble if anyone edits heightmap in old SR tracks and I edited it too in SR3 tracks3. And there was also a change in not format f32 but sizes e.g. it's now 1024 not 1025, so all heightmap files in SR3 changed. And since I started adding horizons to SR3 tracks (goal is to add to all) I even do edit them or need to on borders to cover terrain-horizon transitions.
Additionally it's a binary file, we can't just merge chages (e.g. from this place into same place in SR3). Only way I think now would be to reapply any terrain editing also in tracks3, but that's manual work which won't really be the same.

[rubberduck]

ok, I think I will take a more or less shorter break anyway now

[CryHam]

No problem. I forgot to add: new tracks don't have such issues, they're most welcome. Ah and I already added some floating rocks in Surreal in SR3, will merge.

[rubberduck]

And I started to make another complete new track, which I didn't plan before. and here are some hints what it will be: marble scenery with bits of mossy, a lot up and down, canyon, jumps

[rubberduck]

a sneak peak of my new track, I made it really far but it is not finished yet. It is to 98% drivable already (one way, not drivable in reverse), there are a few issues, and mainly visual updates left to do.
it has a really hidden looping, some tricky jumps (the closest road in the image is not a jump though) and it goes a lot of up and down.

[CryHam]

Cool. So I'll have to add Marble scenery to Gui.

[rubberduck]

another sneak peak what is coming very soon, and the track is long, almost 16 km, which is also my longest yet

[CryHam]

Allright 16km is quite long track indeed. Great.

[rubberduck]

I finished the track now, I made it even a tiny bit longer and cooler, now it is exactly 16 km, just look in the repo

[CryHam]

Beautiful track, awesome. I fell in love on first drive .
Congrats on entering the top 3 track creators who made 16km or longer tracks (it's just you, EP and me).
Not too difficult, not too Fps dropping, perfect. I merged both PRs.

I have an idea of recoloring those moss assets (terrain, maybe grass or tree leaves too) to red-pink (or also red-orange) to fit more the colors I would associate with Marble scenery (just my idea of it), since half of it is still Moss looking. Not sure if you'd like it though? Green-cyan colors are more calm and pleasant to look at, than red-pink, but this color is not yet used in other sceneries.

Could be a new topic for this track but anyways, here is Mar2-Momayon and it's preview, from repo:

[rubberduck]

I like the idea of recoloring the moss parts, including grasses, trees and rocks, I did a quick test recoloring the screenshot.
It would be cool if you do this, especially with grasses and trees. I have really planned some other things now and not so much time for SR next week

[CryHam]

Yeah exactly, I was close to that bottom screen in my thoughts. I'll do it, IDK when, I am usually busy with SR3 things.

[rubberduck]

I created another 2 new tracks, the first, Aln6-Overgrowth I already started more than a week ago as mossy scenery, and Sur10-Glitchy
Both of them are not that difficult and with 0.9km and 4.4km rather short

I have also made some cool new CC0 skies out of CC0 HDRIs (polyhaven and ambientcg), to replace the current ones, I already read the other thread here
https://sebastianplaten.lima-city.de/ot ... es_CC0.zip

I have not fully integrated them into SR, mainly for one reason: the sky color and sun settings in the presets.xml, but also how you want them named, which ones you want, if not all
With some I edited colors a bit, some are variations, including different exposure, or some with different hdris overlaid (mixed) to make them look more interesting

[CryHam]

Great stuff once again.
Overgrowth is cool, difficult from this tall grass.
Glitchy is very original and surprising.
Are those *_static.mesh files just a copy of those without? I can push this, since this is missing in repo.

I looked at skies quickly. Well few are okay, some have visible problems near horizon line when looking. I think due to fixing original images where there was no sky and now there is a copy. Sadly this is quite noticable. Also few have still some parts of building or terrain on them.
Here is what I added to presets.xml to test them in SR editor

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

<!--  skies, new 2.8  -->
<s m="sky2/aristea_wreck01"     c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/dikhololo_night01"   c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/farm_field01"        c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/farm_field02"        c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/hilly_terrain01"     c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/hilly_terrain02"     c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/hilly_terrain03"     c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/kloofendal01"        c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/kloppenheim01"       c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/kloppenheim02"       c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/mud_road01"          c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/mud_road02"          c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/Outdoor046A"         c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/Outdoor053A"         c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/Outdoor053B"         c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/Outdoor083A"         c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/scythian_tombs01"    c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/scythian_tombs02"    c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/sunflowers01"        c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />
<s m="sky2/winter_lake01"       c="#c0d0f0" p="40" y="50" />


As explained above:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

<!--  Skies  ================================================================
      m - material name from sky.mat  c - color (for list)  y - sun yaw  p - pitch -->


so y and p are angles where sun is, done really by looking in editor at sun and checking shadow lands, adjusting on Sun tab with pitch and yaw sliders.
c is just the name color for Gui list, picked for general sky color.
This doesn't really matter at first, when sky is good then I or we can adjust it for creators.

And in sky.mat file:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

//  skies, new 2.8
material sky2/aristea_wreck01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture aristea_wreck01.jpg
}
material sky2/dikhololo_night01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture dikhololo_night01.jpg
}
material sky2/farm_field01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture farm_field01.jpg
}
material sky2/farm_field02
{
    parent base_sky
    texture farm_field02.jpg
}
material sky2/hilly_terrain01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture hilly_terrain01.jpg
}
material sky2/hilly_terrain02
{
    parent base_sky
    texture hilly_terrain02.jpg
}
material sky2/hilly_terrain03
{
    parent base_sky
    texture hilly_terrain03.jpg
}
material sky2/kloofendal01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture kloofendal01.jpg
}
material sky2/kloppenheim01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture kloppenheim01.jpg
}
material sky2/kloppenheim02
{
    parent base_sky
    texture kloppenheim02.jpg
}
material sky2/mud_road01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture mud_road01.jpg
}
material sky2/mud_road02
{
    parent base_sky
    texture mud_road02.jpg
}
material sky2/Outdoor046A
{
    parent base_sky
    texture Outdoor046A.jpg
}
material sky2/Outdoor053A
{
    parent base_sky
    texture Outdoor053A.jpg
}
material sky2/Outdoor053B
{
    parent base_sky
    texture Outdoor053B.jpg
}
material sky2/Outdoor083A
{
    parent base_sky
    texture Outdoor083A.jpg
}
material sky2/scythian_tombs01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture scythian_tombs01.jpg
}
material sky2/scythian_tombs02
{
    parent base_sky
    texture scythian_tombs02.jpg
}
material sky2/sunflowers01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture sunflowers01.jpg
}
material sky2/winter_lake01
{
    parent base_sky
    texture winter_lake01.jpg
}


I'm not sure yet. But definitely skies need to be tested in editor during development. And the sky is good for game if there are: no noticeably visible repetitions, no building/terrain parts left, and it looks okay when mirror reflected. Even with far horizons in SR3, this will still be visible (and look bad) so that's why.

[CryHam]

aristea_wreck01 + good, maybe could be better when mirrored but okay
dikhololo_night01 - really strange, this is from a city? has 2 lights, could be good for planets with 2 suns but we don't have such feature yet (could have in SR3 I think)
farm_field01, 02 + are okay, just strangely darker and blurry in one place
hilly_terrain01 - bad, too bright (white) and has visible rests buildings
hilly_terrain02, 03 - okay, just dark
kloofendal01 + almost great, one place with repetitions, and one with darker blur on horizon
kloppenheim01 + great, but that smoke from factory or something is meh
kloppenheim02 - feels unreal for me and too blurry, no detail at all
mud_road01, 02 + good, but you can see mirror of that gray cloud bottom
Outdoor046A + very good, mirrors really well near horizon, that's the aim here. Only the plane traces up are meh
Outdoor053A - top is okay, but near horizon repetitions look quite artificial, near sun, and few small rests of something is left too
B I'm okay but any color variations are okay only after all stuff is fixed in original
Outdoor083A - horribly dark and visible border on horizon, while rest of sky is okay, just rather empty/plain
scythian_tombs01 - again would be good if not the main thing (under sun) showing repetitions
sunflowers01 + good mostly, somewhat repetitive near horizon and when mirrored, maybe more blured here would be better IDK
winter_lake01 - too bright, too empty, and has visible remains of stuff

Hmm actually half of our current skies have some of these repetition issues. Ah and yeah I once tried with a 16k image and it was a lot of work to fix those, no wonder such freaking skies when fixed are paid.
And yeah I'd like to name them better too for editor, and just leave original name in txt file.
If the originals have enough detail we could aim at 8k x 2k resolution, if not then no point. Would need looking at file size to not have too much jpg crap. I didn't yet start with HDR in SR3 but if I did then ugh we would need real HDR formats for skies (as in originals I think) IDK would also have huge files.

[rubberduck]

Are those *_static.mesh files just a copy of those without? I can push this, since this is missing in repo.

yes, that worked without any problems. I didn't any real changes here. They are only behaving differently because they have no bullet file, and that is what I wanted.

And for skies, it was more or less a first experimental version, I then edited more then planned, also until today I didn't look how they look in a 3D sky setting, for example in SR or in blender.
So I saw these issues today too in the morning when looking at them in 3D

[rubberduck]

I decided to make Overgrowth a little longer, now 1,5 km, because I like the scenery so much. I even increased the blue specular glow too.

[CryHam]

Nice improvement. Yeah for me longer is better. I pushed it to repos.

[rubberduck]

I really can't stop making tracks, and long ones...
Now I started another one, with lots of loops, maybe more loops than every other track else has, and again longer than I ever made, something like 20-25 km I think about
I am not even at 10 km and have at least 11 1/2 loopings and more are coming

[CryHam]

I really can't stop making tracks, and long ones...

Now this is a good thing

I am not even at 10 km and have at least 11 1/2 loopings and more are coming

Sounds great already, I can't wait to test it

[rubberduck]

slowly making progress, at least with roads, terrain needs to be done I also have an idea there too how to create a different look compared to the other space tracks

[CryHam]

Cool.
If you want a some more Fps, then disable most or all columns. This isn't a problem in SR3 (can have many) but with old SR many columns drop Fps. Also same with many road/pipe material changes (less changed gives more Fps).