Hi,cheers, thanks Black_Stormy for the video and advice.
The issue with the jarring darker truss texture may be due to the smooth shading I had. I watched the video you created cool. Now have added a edge split modifier to all the meshes. I have not applied the edge split though. Do I need to apply this to the mesh before compiling?
I have really never used modifiers in Blender, I would like to be able to use them correctly in the future.
The edge split has fixed a few of the shadow problems, if it still is jarring then I guess the art direction of the trusses is at fault. I have found it difficult to get what I wanted. I originally had the idea these trusses would have green paint for some reason it ended up as red. I did boost the saturation of the texture to exceedingly high levels this may have had a negative effect.
The underside of the truss texture was intentionally created differently(added scratches)from the sides and top of the red truss .
Is this the problem you have with the texture? Should I lower the overall saturation of the red trusses?
I have also added, I am not sure of the technical term in architecture, possibly a gusset plate? I added a mesh that holds 2 separate trusses together a metal cap with bolts. Was the best attempt I could do, could be better was difficult to get this result. If any one wants to give an idea on how to make these gusset plates better let me know.I used a 256x256 sheet for 4 variations.
5 texture sheets:
1=Red Truss
2=X type support
3=X type broke support A
4=X type broken spport B
5= Gusset plates
bridge width 1720 units
These pictures have texture in the view port shading, this seems to have lit the mesh, it looks brighter.
Gusset plate texture 256x256
lit underside view of texture
lit
lit
lit top and underside view of texture
non lit
I don't have blender set up to export smd's since the 2013 update I have not exported anything just been making models, so I still need to do that. Still need to create a collision mesh still need to do that. Both the collision mesh and the exporting I probably need help/advice how to do this.
The textures and modelling process is finished or near finished.
The model was created in hammer first a year or so ago. In Blender it took about a month or so to create this model, a lot of time was spent numerous times redoing the UV layout.