TOUGH wrote:
Friends,
I have asked around and no one seems to have any info regarding the development of new cube maps for rfactor. I am looking for specific info. Thank you in advance,
Terry
I'm not sure I get what you're asking. Are you looking for information about how to create cube maps or are you asking for information on cube maps that you've heard have been developed for rFactor? It would also help to know what specific info it is that you're looking for.
I'm going to take a stab at what I suspect you're asking and answer with what little info I've got about creating new cube maps. To build one, it needs to be 6 times as wide as it is high. If your map is 256 pixels tall then it needs to be 1536 wide. The 6x width allows the one map to equate to all 6 sides of a cube. I personally do not know exactly how the sides work out beyond the fact that for the 6 side by side bit you'll have side, side, top, bottom, side, side. The sides themselves do equate to something along the lines of North, South, East, and West, but I don't know exactly how those are keyed.
Once you've got your 6x wide texture created, you need to save it as a dds file. It will need a white alpha channel I believe, so you either need to include one or save as DXT5 (interpolated alpha). In the dds options for whether it's a 2d texture, a volume texture, or a cube map, you need to select cube map. Make certain you don't create any mip maps when you save either as those are not supported for the cube maps in rFactor.
As far as how the cube map works, I'm much more familiar with the cars than anything else. For those, imagine the cube floating around the car with each side of the cube reflecting off the car. The cube does not change orientation as the car moves. In other words, if one side of the cube is facing North, then it will always be facing North regardless of where the car is pointed (kind of like those dashboard auto compasses). So as the car rotates and the cube doesn't, the reflections on the car move around.
It would be fairly easy to determine how the sides are sorted by creating a cube with the sides being different solid colors (like red, blue, yellow, white) or different patterns (white with black dots, horizontal stripes, diagonal stripes, plaid), and then see how the reflections work out ingame. However, I don't know that it's all that important since the car is dynamic to it.
That's about it for what I know on the cube map. If I'm answering the wrong questions, then just ignore this. If I answered the right ones, then cool.
_________________
Tah Tah For Now!
Scott Stockton
www.theuspits.com
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phil 4:13
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