I’m trying to create a racegame to take my first steps into game creation. I’ve tried in the past with a fighting game, but noticed that although modeling was going fairly well, it would be too much challenge to create on my own in a steady pace, with all the animation and game-mechanics behind such games.
So I think a racegame might be more manageable. Starting off with one car and one track. It’s important for me to do many things myself (so no buying models or scripts and such), so I can learn from it and also can say that I made it. Graphics is 100% me, programming maybe 50 to 70%. I’m not good with audio and music, so at some point I might need help with that.
I’ve already got the beginnings of my car-model, but at the moment I’m getting stuck on the details. So I want to start importing it in this state in the game engine, to atleast get the car to drive around. But there are things I still want to know before I continue on:
How do I edit the model further in Blender, after I’ve already imported it in the engine (I want to use the Godot engine).
What is better to use? Materials or textures for a car? I’ve read that textures ask less processing power. But I also want to be able to change the car color in-game at some point. Seeing how a car has different materials, is it possible to get that difference when the mesh is on a single texture? Or are there additional maps (like normal maps) that can be used with it to manage the speculars/gloss/transparancy/…
I currently have a mirror modifier and subdivision modifier on the model. Do I need to apply them before importing them into the game engine, or can I leave the modifiers as they are (so I can still edit them more easily afterwards).
Does everything need to be in the same object? Except for the wheels, everything is currently in a single object. But because of the subdivision modifier, the back of the car gives me unwanted smoothing. So can I seperate the body of the care and the backplate of the car?
What about the lights? Do I need to model the bulbs (already kinda did it with the front lights)?
I’ve got a “mark sharp” on the tail-lights. Does a game engine recognize that or do I to “hard-model” it in there?
It’s going to be an arcade racer in the veins of “Split Second”. First as a regular game, afterwards implement VR-functionality. I’m hoping that if I keep the measurements true-to-life, the switch will be easy. And therefor I still need to model the interior of the car afterwards.
So first I want to get it at a point to just simply drive around a track. The “Split Second” vibes, whistles and bells will come afterwards, when the basics are implemented.
1- Just reimport the glTF. No big deal.
2- This is a case where it very much depends. Shader performance is a whole beast unto itself.
3- You should apply and triangulate before exporting to glTF.
4- Doesn’t have to be the same object. Save yourself some time and do some simple stuff to see how it works
5- If this is your first game, don’t try to make it AAA visuals. Get it working first.
6- You need to work with autosmooth, mark sharp, and UV edges. You can also use bevel weight on edges. Just work with a weighted normals modifier and apply all for exporting to glTF.
Pro tip: make basic collision shapes and get things working in engine with those. Then replace them with nice assets. No sense in spending art time on something you can’t get working in engine.
So it’s best to apply them and safe as a new file, keeping the final original intact for further editing.
I agree, but at the same time, the graphics department is where my skills are the best. Most of the time, when I get stuck on something, I leave it be for a time doing something else. And that “letting go” helps to find a solution. So I go from designing to programming to designing to programming to … .
Going to read up on that. Especially the bevel weight sounds new to me.
Ok, got my carmodel mostly finished (no materials or textures though).
I’m have applied all the modifiers and exported to a gltf file. I’ve also set things up in Godot. But in Windows 10 3D viewer and in Godot, there is something of with the windows. In Blender they look as they should, but I get some weird shading in the 3D Viewer and Godot, as if the windows of the car are bend inwards and have soft edges. (See picture)
smoothing groups. You need to mark those edges, harden, or split edges. Alternative would be adjusting your autosmooth angle. Make sure you’re triangulating before exporting- don’t trust the exporter to do it right.
I marked those edges as sharp and the autosmooth angle was on 30°.
I tried exporting to .obj and that seemed to solve the problem, but importing it into Godot made it a single object, whereas with the gltf, it made the node-tree automatically and even recognized the wheels and applied the necessary nodes.
So now I took the rest of your advice and applied a triangulate modifier to the body mesh. And that fixed the problem for the gltf file.
Only problem I just see now is that the triangulation is different on the side-mirrors in Godot than in Blender. So I probably need to single out certain triangles ( edit mode, select faces I want to address and triangulate faces [ctrl + T] ) and adjust them accordingly?
Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.
Got the car already driving in Godot. But it’s a simple (gd) script from a video-tutorial on Youtube. But where do I go from here with programming and expanding upon that? I know how to program (but more in a way of traditional information and database handling). Can I go by Unity tutorials/scripts to help me with Godot (since both Godot and Unity are able to use C#/C++)
This is what I currently got. It’s all still with materials, so I would need to look into using textures (while maintaining to change the base color in-game). Probably going to need to bake them somehow?
