Hey @Scawen. Just wanted to ask something about the Access Levels and more specific to the - "Team".

How will the automatic download of the mods work when set to - "Team"

I am thinking of something like this - When set the access level to Team, only people that are in the same team as the mod creator can download it. But does that mean you can join in servers that people has the mod - e.g. private server only for the team?

And will there be an way to play with an team mod in public servers. Because it would be fun to play with your mod and see other private mods. I am most afraid of someone stealing our dds textures.. How can we protect our textures from someone just getting the .dds and pasting it to their mod. Or using it for something else.

Thanks

Also I think there is an mistake in the Vehicle Mod Regulations -> https://www.lfs.net/files/vehmods/regulations
It says - "Once reviewed and published your mod will become available for use in LFS according to its access level. (see 5.6 - Access Level)"
And there is no 5.6, The point for access level is 4.6

Quote from superlame :

So this will be similar to the downloading skins from the master server I guess. But will there be an option for us ( the mod creators / publishers ) to have the textures at higher resolution ( 4096 x 4096 ) locally.

Like skins - When we are creating skins its ususally 4096x4096 and we put it as .JPEG in our data/skins folder.

When we upload it to the master server we downscale it to 1024x1024 so it fits the requirements for upload.

Just save the textures at 4096 resolution dds and replace the mod texture file in your dds folder.

Btw. we can upload 2048 car skins to master server now. 1024 for helmet skins still.

Quote from pärtan :

What about texture sizes? Will it go as high as 2048?
...
From what I understand having tried making vob mods in the past, the texture projection is not based on UV maps, but is projected from various angles? Is this correct?

Also, I think normal maps are a great asset for making optimized and nice looking cars. Are there any plans to explore this?

About texture size, there is a maximum size of 1024x1024 for each png texture. The pngs you supply are converted to dds when you export from the editor. The texture limit is important for fast download and quick use online. Today I'm finalising the total texture area in the export check. My aim is to look at our highest resolution cars, use their texture area (combined pixel count) as a guide, and allow around 30% to 50% more total area than that.

Artists will have to be reasonable, you can save so much by using small repeating textures, for materials like a car seat. For example a massive picture to cover a whole seat in minute detail isn't suitable for uploaded mods for online racing.

I imagine there are some people with excellent graphic art skills who have focused on renders in the past, or maybe cars for single use in games, who will be able to adjust their texturing approach to make huge savings in texture area to make models suitable for in-game download and online use.

EDIT: Forgot to reply about normal maps. I haven't coded for them even in the new graphics system but would like to one day. In the meantime, the material types are very limited. Although we have more material types available in the development version, the public version car materials are limited to MATT or SHINY. And these may be SOLID, ALPHA (transparent with opacity controlled by the alpha channel) or ATEST (alpha test - though this is not recommended as it doesn't work well with MSAA).

EDIT2: Also forgot to reply about the mappings. The UV coordinates of the output vertices are all computed from planar mappings. You can create a planar mapping, to map a rectangular cutout onto a rectangular mapping on the object. It's in one of the videos. The planar mappings can come from any direction. Usually one of the main axis directions but any direction is possible. I know that artists would also like cylindrical mappings, or even manual adjustment of individual UV coordinates. I do plan to implement cylindrical mappings but it is not done yet.

Quote from Drifteris :

I mean, do you bake the skin template in the LFS modeler? Sort of like normal LFS cars? And then how would you know where the edges are so that you could skin it easier? Normally i use wire frame layer if using gimp but these modded cars sure won't have wire frame layers.

I just wanna know how other people can make skins for the mod.

You can create a skin template by having a separate 2D graphics program open, and pasting special screenshots from the LFS mapping editor, carefully positioned. It wouldn't be a good idea for me to describe it right now - I've got work to do! But I've written a bit in the incomplete modeller document.
https://www.lfs.net/ed_man/modeller.htm

The idea of a skin is just that - other people can make their own skin based on your template and upload it to LFS.net in the normal way as they did for official skins.

I already have a request noted to export a wireframe image.

Quote from NumberTwo :

Not being aero overhaul, but can you add a wing to mod car? Is there a property of lift and drag for the wing you make? Can you add a diffuser to modded car?

Or are mods for now limited only to cars without aero?

All features available in the LFS cars, are available in the mods. We are supplying you with the development editors.

People who have specific questions like this, it could be good to have a quick search for key words in one of these two documents:
https://www.lfs.net/ed_man/vehed.htm
https://www.lfs.net/ed_man/modeller.htm

Or of course quite a lot is covered in the videos. Documents and videos are incomplete though.

Quote from kenblock30 :

A question about servers, the plan is a hosting from US? Because always when people talk about America they mean that country and its a large continent so if thats the plan we will get bad ping from south countries, like Argentina, Chile, Brasil, Uruguay, etc...
We worked to make a nice community to run events and this can be bad for us

The America server is located in Ashburn, USA which has very good internet connectivity so we hope it will be good for North and South America. We'll see when we get to testing!

Quote from kagurazakayukari :

I got to say many Chinese players are waiting this for so long... Huge appreciate!

My only concern is if the new master server will creating and running a new asia server that are technical blocked by Chinese government.
...
Maybe we can arrange a early test with. And this could be done after public test patch availabe.

I hope there will be no problem for Chinese racers and mod creators. The Asian server is in Tokyo, Japan so I hope there will be no problem! I'd like to hear from you when we start testing.

Last edited by Scawen, Tue 2 Nov 2021, 09:33.

Quote from Papator :

and some shadows too, because of the cheep proccessing of shadowing in LFS

use the "blank skin" layer under the black mask whith "multiply" label

Updated, thanks for this tip !

FXR skin now is updated but with same name and uploaded, if you have downloaded it but want the "new" one delete it from "skins" folder of lfs and "skins_dds" folder so that when you put it back the dds is updated.

Quote from ESAPEKKA_13 :

where do i install the texture?

inside dds folder (which is located inside the data folder)

Thanks for the kind words, Rez, glad you enjoy it

Just to clarify, it's only PiranMOTODestructionDerby where you may crash with competitors - other PiranMOTO servers follow the Rules of Clean Racing.

The Friday night DDs are Jon's nights (I don't want to steal his credit ) and it's always 20:00 UK time, so that works out to be 19:00 UTC in the summer and 20:00 UTC in the winter.

Hey all,

a few months back my eyes caught on the poor, slightly rusty condition of the default FOX muffler, so i thought of replacing it with a brand new looking one.

After finishing the exhaust i had a thought of remaking the FOX interior as a test because i haven't really tried to modify interiors that much apart from just adding radios and/or stickers to places, so i wanted to try to upscale the old existing texture and make it appear slightly more higher res.

There was also a slight mistake with the brake balance controller, original texture says L/R when it should be F/R

During this process i accidentally discovered how FOX's rev lights work when i exported datalog3_alp.dds with wrong settings, leading to an idea of making the rev lights round instead of the original square ones. To me, this looks nicer than square leds but it's down to a matter of taste.

It's not much of a proper retexture as really i've mostly just upscaled originals and slapped carbon fiber texture on top to give it more detail, but it could be worse for a first full retexture, hence why "higher res" is in quotation marks.

Image comparisons as well as the .zip with textures can be found below, just extract to LFS/data/dds. Don't forget to back up the original files.

Also you don't need to install every texture, for example if you want the exhaust only, just take FO_Parts.dds from the pack. Rest of the texture names should be quite self-explanatory, apart from carbon_BMW, which is the general carbon texture for front spoiler supports, inner side of rear wing plates and the rollbar at the top of the airdam.

But i've written too much now, enjoy the pack

Last edited by nikopdr, Wed 21 Jul 2021, 20:35.

When you're setting your racer name, press control on the driver name entry, and under the text you should see 8 colors pop up that you can choose from.


JPG car skin files go to LFS/data/skins, DDS goes to /data/skins_dds.
Other cosmetic files such as interior textures, lights, etc are in /data/dds

Great work, thanks for updating this! Not used Blender in probably a decade but still quick to get it up and running with these, cheers.

Just need to figure what I'm actually doing now! (and edit some dds files)

I wasn't a part of L4P but thanks for featuring the Denso skin along with L4P skins Render looks great, wheels look a bit like plastic and the tire manufacturer logo is mirrored but that's about the only things i could find wrong with it

EDIT: oh, and XR_interior1.dds looks like it's from an older version, since the lights seem to be half black

Last edited by nikopdr, Fri 18 Jun 2021, 18:13.

Quote from marljiks :

How to get those colorless windows? Can't find them anywhere..

check here the file
rearscreen_ALP.dds
s_window_ALP.dds

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/94602

Look At THIS

LFS XRT custom brake disc dds Not private public, download and use

XRT tail lights made by me ( Ronin )
Fell Free To Use


https://imgur.com/IkaLMHu

-DOWNLOAD-
https://www.mediafire.com/file/rptgajkuk3wn842/XR_Interior1.dds/file

Hello,

I found The Revolution Pack Brake Discs from internet. Fixed both brake discs to right filename and fixed other one to 512x512px. I asked permission and i have permission to share these.

Simply:
1. Unzip pack.
2. Copy "DISCDRILL_ALP.dds" and "DISCSOLID_ALP.dds" to .../data/dds folder.

Remember, its good to take backup from original brake discs.

Full credits and copyrights to © Lynce Digital Art C.B. - 2009 - Javier Ferreira.

https://mega.nz/file/fUhn0SaB#pMFvilDif3A4QbxclIzlw4MOZ9lX-wn44NlZyUoVdGs

From my experience - I'm often working with the textures inside LFS\data\dds folder - on a SSD those files are loading/previewing much, much faster than being on a HDD.

It's not because of the custom DDS textures.

so i have no vobs installed but i have some dds installed but still get the errors?

Any suggestions or should i just re install my lfs?

In the meantime, drop this little beauty into your LFS/data/dds folder for a thicker smoke that's not too thick. Or there's a few more versions out there too, now you know which filename to search for

LX fenders use carbon.dds. The black square in LX_interior1 only modifies some trims and a few bits on the car.
Altho I'd say most if not all cars look better having that square painted black.

Is possible to get an option to remove the spoilers of GTR cars for drifting thx.

And also something I thought would be cool, is have some sort of a button in the "Tyres" section that can load custom rims. And when a player gets online, each player downloads each others rims(They are very small in size. I think you just need .cem, and .dds file. The two together for one rim might get to max file size of less than 2mb. Avg 1mb per rim) just like skins and we all have unique rims. Once it's downloaded then stored it somewhere locally or something.

Well I don't know how it works exactly but you get the idea. xd
Hopefully its possible.

Last edited by Avc, Mon 8 Feb 2021, 19:01.

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

i use DXT5 BC7. that should work for DX 11 right?

BC7 and DXT5 are two separate compression method, you only use one or the other. DXT is compatible with both DX9 and DX11, while BC7 is only available to DX11 hardware.

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

i suppose if mip maps applied its better ?

For 3D objects, always use mip mapping, but in the case of LFS, see below.

For DDS files, LFS re-save them with

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

i also noticed its not possible to use jasonjason´s sunroof´s ( https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/954963#post954963 ) experimental uf1 dds skin (made it glass see through) and other experiments like chameleon skin (changes colors when hit by sun or shade). those skins were made in dds (with a test). is that then the DXT from (i think they were saved in DXT1 or DXT3) that makes it impossible to use in todays game? (oh he answers it too in post 49): https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/957656#post957656

After a discovery of DANIEL-CRO on the forum, he found out that texture loading when loading a new track could be greatly reduced by saving textures in the proper format, and made a tool to convert every textures to the proper format automatically. After that, Scawen implemented a simlar system into LFS for all DDS textures, that will automatically change the texture format to DXT1 for opaque objects, DXT5 for ALP objects, and generate mipmaps. So yeah, whatever the format you export it to, if you enable mips or not, LFS will change it if it doesn't match its needs (so mips always ON, alpha depending on "ALP" tag (for alpha blend or alpha test materials, which replaced "ATEST" and "ALPHA" on older textures) on the name).

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

i was also thinking. how does DDS compare to example TGA ?

TGA is uncompressed, so it's nice for the "source" files, but not really for use in the production game, while BC compression operate on a 4x4 pixels basis and can do 1/8th of the TGA size, for a similar resolution.

EDIT: Here's some documentation if you're interested in more detail: http://www.reedbeta.com/blog/understanding-bcn-texture-compression-formats/

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

thats not power of 4 ? why would devs make them square then? i dont get your point.

UV textures for some cars are squished, like the XRT, and the resolution to "unsquish" them it is 5120x4096 in the case of the XRT for a 4k resolution. Ideally this resolution should only be used for the creation of the texture, while the final export in DDS is resized to a power of two (so 4096x4096) to have proper compression.

Last edited by nacim, Sun 7 Feb 2021, 12:47.

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

i dont "need" a very strong pc for the use im using it for.
by posting those specs i just wanted to say i wouldnt consider it potato pc.

It's a 8+ year old CPU. I just upgraded from a 4770 which was feeling very weak for most sims. Games like GTA are nowhere near as CPU intensive, hence why they perform fine with potato CPU + decent GPU.

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

dds files is not a mod... and also not effecting connection.
basically its just images. when track loads its loading those.
but yes. a clean install is always preferred.

A DDS file is a mod. If the base LFS texture is (for instance) a 256x256 pixel texture and you've gone and created a 1024x1024px DDS, you've increased the pixel count of that texture by 16 times, which occupies more memory. That could be the difference between "fits all the textures in GPU memory" and "GPU needs to swap textures from either disk (VERY VERY SLOW) or CPU Memory (SLOW)".

Essentially any changes to the base LFS install (outside of setups and translations) have the potential to impact performance.

Hey yesterday was my first time playing LFS and I liked it but I wanted to download mods to the game like cars and I copy the dds, engine, skins, etc to the game folder like u suppose to do but when I get on the game it’s either all 4 of my wheels don’t match the car and it look stupid or the rear wheels looked like I just got to an accident so I reinstalled the game and install it again to see if the problem will fix, nope it still happening can anyone tell me why?

A very,very interesting program to transform any file in dds format with each characteristic.

On the attachment.

Revised by Norton.