Railworks America

In 3DC what would be the best values to make reflective tape? I am currently using Diffuse: 60 and Amb: 35 which seem a bit too much.



And yes, the orange on the barrel needs to be dampened by -15%

Night shot?

Those dayglo orange bollards' white bands are reflective? In your photo the orange looks just like the faded plastic I see on real bollards and cones that have been out in the sun for a while. The reflective white paint looks right on to me as well.

That thin red pole looks very convincing, the silvery gleam of fresh Scotchlite/-brite or whatever that material is called. I have a reflective vest and cycling jacket for use in foul weather that has reflective strips and bands with just that same particular shine.

Like I said the orange (the plastic part) is too bright. I will fix that later.

Here is one of my reference shots:

A few notes for simulating actual reflective tape/paint:

• The Tex shader stays the same brightness no matter what the external lighting is.
• You can have seperate models for day and night
• Each LOD of the model can be totally different
• The AddATex shader provides a glow effect

So, doing the reflective bits as a seperate part of the model, in order of difficulty, you could; use the Tex shader and have them permanently lit to some extent, use the AddATex shader and have them permanently lit and glowing like there's a light shining on them, use LoDs to make the reflective bits glow more as the train gets nearer, or only make them light up at night.

If you just want to paint the things, they look ok as it is - you can just make the white a bit brighter if you want it newer, it'll wash out like it's reflecting strong daylight I'd imagine.

done with AddATex LoDs.

Thanks Kali. I never thought to use LoDs and as I did make the reflective parts their own component I can easily incorporate it. What I need to understand is how much Diffuse and Amb to use. I'll see if I can get a night shot with the LoD and AddATex enhancements up tonight.

OK, so ... AddATex is transparent...

I am not sure where to go from here except to draw backs on them which does not seem right.




Diffuse: 35 Amb: 4 Spec: 0 Trans: 0

Update: I played around with _fx_day and _fx_night very cool

I still trying to figure out the transparency issue.

It's hard to make out in your screenshot, but is it only the reflective orange that is transparent?

In prototype, the reflective tape is often put over a base layer of paint the same colour. Perhaps you can also put white and orange bands under the reflective layer on those bollards.

The silvery material on the thin red pole doesn't reflect at all?

The white parts are transparent as well. This is a side affect of using the AddATex shader and not the color of the material. I can certainly model a layer underneath the reflective tape, but I was hoping for an alternative or perhaps a way to adjust the AddATex shader.

I did not modify the T-Poll, that is why you don't see it doing anything.

Very nice work.

Thanks

Impressive

OK, I think I have the settings correct.... If you open up the image and looks closely you will see four Channelizer Drums.



Wish Kali would chime in. I am kinda wading in the deep end and not sure if the lifeguard is on duty.

These are looking great.

How did you get your night textures to look like that and not appear during the day as glowing. I've always had that problem with my buildings and houses and so haven't did any night windows unfortunately for almost all of my models and would like to do decent night windows for them.

You need to add the suffix _fx_night or _fx_day to your group, and then duplicate the components so you can change the component attributes.

Busy busy! looks like you did it how I did it - I used four fairly close lods so the effect faded in slightly & didn't pop up out of nowhere, but obviously there isn't much fading for reflective tape ( or paint, which is what I was after ). I did use different UVs for each LoDs glow area so I could change the strength, but I don't think you're even mapping yours? can you change the material settings for each LoD in 3dC?