Twisted DIRT Forums

MX vs ATV (and prior MX games) Forum => Track Making Tools (Reflex Track Compiler, MVA Editor, Armadillo/Dillo Too/APM/Etc.) => Topic started by: MADMAN855 on April 26, 2012, 10:59:28 PM

Title: White Chalk boarders for track?
Post by: MADMAN855 on April 26, 2012, 10:59:28 PM
Could someone please make a video tutorial showing how to make the white chalk lines for your track in photoshop? boblob801 has a youtube video where he does this, but it is extremely, unbelievably confusing. AL167 uses a much simpler, but better photoshop technique in his videos, but he has yet to cover this aspect of track building. If anyone could do this it would be greatly appreciated!

On a side note, the downfall of boblob801's tutorial is he ASSUMES that the viewer is a master-level photoshop artist. Some of us are beginners, and have never done this type of thing, and are totally lost when the person making the tutorial is flying around photoshop at light-speed, and changing various settings with no explanation.  In the future, please follow AL'S template of not confusing the crap out of the viewer. Remember back to when you 1st learned this process and didn't understand 90% of what is going on. I personally feel that this will help expand the track-building community. If I didn't have direct support from my good friend MXPRO318, I would have thrown my hands up in the air and given up without even giving it a shot. At first, building a track is a very tall order. We just need lots of beginner tutorials like AL is doing and I think we will see a large increase in participants. Especially considering the dis-banding of rainbow, and how god-awful alive is. The die hard mva fans will eventually realize that Reflex is the last thing we are ever going to get from the geniuses at Rainbow, and if you want to play the top-notch motocross game, this is it. 
Title: Re: White Chalk boarders for track?
Post by: JamieT on April 27, 2012, 07:57:02 AM
You create this affect in your "Chrome Lum" file. Check the Wiki for more info on what this is, but I like to think of this as your lightmapping.

In photoshop this file will have a regular layer, which you can make any colour you want. (This is what colour your dirt will "try" to become) - I say try because, its more of a tinted effect.

next part of this file, is the "Alpha channel" in photoshop. This is a very important part, because this is where you decide how bright your track surface will appear in game. If you put this at white, you will be blinded in the game by the brightness, if you make it black, you won't see anything in the game.  40-50% grey is a good starting colour / brightness for your alpha channel.


So to answer your question, you will need to paint white lines in the regular layer, and then in those same spots, paint white lines (or just lighter grey)  in the alpha channel.

hope that helps
Title: Re: White Chalk boarders for track?
Post by: al167 on April 27, 2012, 08:45:51 AM
sorry madman855 will be a little while for a video tutorial as i want to do my tutorials in order. but ill try and explain it quickly for you, open up your height map, start a new layer. paint white lines 3px wide where you want them. then press ctrl A (select all) then ctrl C (copy). now in the folder with the track your working on you will see an image called  "your track name"_Chrominance luminance map. open it in photoshop and then start a new layer. now press shift + ctrl + V (pastes and keeps image position) now save it and import it into the editor replacing the privious crmlum map.
cheers al167