To whom it may concern...

Makes very interesting reading, you explain it a lot better than I could, should be mandatory reading for new content creators.
 
Thank you very much! And if you like, feel free to use the comment function of the blog.

Mick!

P.S.: I hope my English is understandable and not too bloated, as it is not my native language :-)
 
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The model is only one half of the project. Too many people just spray paint one or two colors and post it on the DLC. The result is a cartoon. Making a model is not the same talent as texturing a model. The latter takes some artistic talent. It may take time. I see an asset that is painted with no texturing to reflect reality it gets a quick delete. Sometimes that is a hard decision because these models may represent many hours of time. But if they look like a cartoon they are now simply a shape that looks terribly unreal.
 
I would understand it as message, that however fantastic detailed model is made, those are still photo textures, which makes more than half of final success. His concern is probably about Your creations being combination of extra hi-poly model and unnatural generic textures. I need to say that I have similar opinion. Since no LOD, hi-poly and generic textures (I didn't check mapping to know if reskin can be made), the usability of Your models in Trainz is disputable. On the other side I appreciate your creativity, level of details of Your models and effort to share experience with others through tutorials.
 
[...]those are still photo textures, which makes more than half of final success.

Photo textures are a very difficult thing to handle and to be honest I very rarely have seen those used in a proper manner. Mostly they look quite unrealistic, because of their shadows/ light direction, plants on the wall etc. A house front taken in the morning looks in Trainz in the evening also like a house in the morning, I can not call this very realistic. That's why I don't really like them, it needs a real artist or professional graphic designer to work on them to make them usable...

For example Walter Rank is such a professional, who has quite a bunch of assest on the DLS which use photo textures in a way I can accept (look for names like WR_xxx).

unnatural generic textures. I need to say that I have similar opinion.

This is not simply a generic textures but a quite complex material with many layers:
Diffuse (mixed material) = bitmap + smoke
Reflect (mixed material) = bitmap + smoke
Bump = bitmap
And if you really look at the item, you will see, that it is anything else but a generic monochrome texture, but this is for those models actually not the point:

the usability of Your models in Trainz is disputable.

It is actually not, because the intention of the blog is, among other things, to pass my experience in reducing the polygon count of models by using projection rendering and not to create models for daily usage, as also mentioned in the description of the assets already send to the DLS…

Mick!
 
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Agree, that fototextures are difficult to handle, but it is not impossible and when applied properly, result looks much more realistic than hi-poly model with generic textures (+layers). Of course real phototexture master cannot use pics taken under direct sun light. That is the only way for future textures to be without shadows, with constant and balanced brightness and contrast. Pics should be taken orthogonally optimally. I suppose Walter Rank to be ebpy on DLS. His assets doesn't look bad but more of them shows rasterizing made probably by oversharping of textures in editor. I prefer most of those of Ulme. As for the disputability of Your models in Trainz, I understand impact of bump and normal maps on look of final model, but even then it looks much better when phototexture is used. And 16k poly after optimalisation through projection rendering with no LOD for scenery is still quite heavy load for Trainz regardless it is for demonstration purpose or not.
 
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