[Tutorial] How to build lower lods.

I sent you a pm about the subject ;o)

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2009 07:27PM by Excalibur.

Thanks Excalibur

Excalibur Wrote:
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> @ Ruboy: Well I don't speak about the first one
> I've done because it took me about 2 hours or
> more, the time to test and to understand .
> Otherwise, I could say about 45 minutes for each
> lod. But I guess it depends on the knowledge and
> the skill of everyone. I didn't know how to do
> this before, just learnt it since 4 days. Maybe it
> can be faster.

Exactly around 40 - 50 minutes each lod x 8 (without counting lod 0) thats for car 1 and you have to do that too for car 2 of each team, else in game the 2nd car has wrong numbers. Thats why i went almost nuts doing it for nearly 50 cars.

07 No Tsm Track Pack__GPGSL08 Mod__range">97 TeamArt
Tutorial how to compile a No Csm Mod

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Shame that you have to pay for Poly Cruncher, I guess its true nothings free anymore, except GIMP.

As the "Lodding Machine", I'd like to give you a couple of suggestions

1- Always use car_2_lod_0, it will make it easier to make lods for both cars by just moving the car numbers and driver names mapping

2- Play around with Vertex Weld and Smooth modifiers (the first one mainly) to get better results when "crunching" the shape. Use them before and after the optimization!

3- Beware that, as we're using .3ds format, we'll always get screwed up normals in Zmod. You may want to have a crack at re-calculating them, but that's kinda boring, and from lod 2 onwards, you won't notice the difference.

4- You may want not to "crunch" the shape for lod1, as it's the one that shows up a lot in-game. Just delete z_cockpit objects from lod_0 and some random minor parts as little antennas, etc. z_cockpit objects should be enough though.

5- I made, some time ago, a little util that renames objects inside a .gp4 file. It has a built-in function to automatically rename car objects to a shortened version in order to export the car correctly in .3ds format, and then to rename them backwards to the original names. I don't ensure it to be bug-free nor user friendly, but some of you maybe be interested in it. If you want to, I can upload it somewhere.

Thanks a lot for these precisions öggo!

For the 4: I have updated my tutorial yesterday on this point.

For the 5: It would be clearly a great help if you could share this tool to rename all 3D car objects because it is one of the longest part of the work. I'm very interested by your tool. Is it possible to get it and to share it in public, so I can update my tutorial and add a link with your tool?

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Tutorial updated today:

It concerns 3D objects names. Öggo made a great tool to rename objects automatically! It allows you to earn a lot of time! It handle only GP4 files but there is a way to rename it once you have your shape modified in 3ds format. Thanks a lot Öggo!

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Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2009 12:08AM by Excalibur.

great tutorial

Thanks Fongu! And thanks to Öggo's GP4Renamer tool, it takes about 5 to 10 minutes to make 1 lod now ....

But maybe I will explain how to rename car parts manually anyway, at the end of the tuto. I had deleted this part but maybe some people would like to know how to do this....

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can someone send me gp4renamer, I've not got it on this computer and gp4italia is down

ditto please or if someone could upload it somewhere i'd be very grateful

"someone" heard his prayer...

download => [rapidshare.com]

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RELEASE => Physics (under FIA Technical Regulations)
MagicDatas? Setups? Pit Stop Strategies? Track Specific Performances? Up2Date GP?
Power Torque Curve? Where's this stuff? All download is available at ..

All right! Thanks Phantaman... The tuto is updated with your link and Öggo's permanent link too...I've got other links for GP4 renamer if needed.

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thanks for this tutorial excalibur!now i've got all lower lods for mitsuro sano's mclaren 2008(i made them with multires)

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My GPGSL Career

Thanks, you are welcome. ;o) great to see that this tutorial is helpful.

Just a suggestion. For Better lods without losing quality on the shape, try 3D Photo Browser + Polygon cruncher (limited on time but with full options) or Polygon cruncher for 3DS max. After, I think it is worth to buy it if you use to create lower lods often...But the multires option is good enough to do the work (it is just that you may lose car parts/ faces under a certain percentage).

Cheers ;o)

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before to use multires,i wanted to use polygon cruncher,but 3dsmax have a problem to load plug-in(Brazil too).I will fix it re-downloading part1's package of 3dsmax 2009.

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My GPGSL Career

just 1 question excalibur do u need to assign textures to lod4?

Dont blaim me for my english im just proud that im from the Netherlands
Greetz Nick

ANYONE!!!!!!!???????

Dont blaim me for my english im just proud that im from the Netherlands
Greetz Nick

yes