7. FCE Tweaker

NFS: Carbon

Don't think that's all, far from it ;-) After all, there's also such a thing as "car chroming", or the highlights everyone loves. As you understand, no one is going to calculate real-time ray tracing taking into account surface curvature, the angle of light incidence, and the reflective properties of the surface using a bunch of complex formulas, if only because for a game an FPS of 0.003 is too low ;-) That's why reflections are pre-calculated for the model using so-called "normals". This is a ray defined for each vertex of the model and showing in which direction light will be reflected from it. The length of the ray sets the intensity of the reflection.

CarCAD cannot edit normals; initially in it the normals have a length of 0. However, a program can work with them: FCE Tweaker, supplied with CarCAD. Let's finally get the car into shape. Just in case, create a backup copy of your car somewhere and launch FCE Tweaker.

The interface, of course, leaves much to be desired, but at least everything works ;-)

On the left is the familiar list of parts and geometry sets, on the right is the 3D view of the parts selected in the list.

The Q and W keys toggle the wireframe and filled view of the model. S saves the file, and specifically the one you opened (which is why you needed to make a backup copy). Don't touch the F key – it will merge together all the parts selected in the list. (careful!)

And N and M create normals for the selected part in two different ways. Here are examples:

Method M:

Method N:

Simply put, if you don't like it this way, try that way ;-) As for me personally, I don't like all this chroming in principle...

And finally, about how to make transparent windows on a car. You noticed some list in FCE Tweaker.

This is the list of so-called "smoothing groups". Generally speaking, in a mesh, for each of its triangles there are special parameters called "Smoothing groups". Sometimes they really are used for smoothing, but here they define special properties of a given triangle. Press Ctrl and hover the mouse over the image of the car. You will see one of its triangles become highlighted, and the list of parameters will become available. Then you can change these parameters for that triangle. For convenience, you can zoom in/out the image with the +/- keys and enable the wireframe grid with W.

Their meaning is as follows:

1 Don't Chrome – for a triangle with this parameter, "chroming" will not be performed
2 High Chrome – for this triangle "chroming" will be more intense. Used for windows and other highly reflective surfaces.
3 No Cull – as you know, triangles of a model are opaque only on one side. This parameter is used to make a triangle opaque on both sides.
4 Semi-Transparent – the triangle is semi-transparent. (for windows)
6 All windows – the triangle is part of a window.
7 Front Window – the triangle is part of the windshield
8 Left Window – the triangle is part of the left window
9 Back Window – the triangle is part of the rear window
10 Right Window – the triangle is part of the right window.
11 Broken Window – when a window breaks on impact, those of its triangles that do NOT have this parameter will disappear. Used to create the remaining "shards" of the shattered glass.

The work, of course, is painstaking – working on every triangle, but what can you do... on the other hand, it might turn out beautiful. ;-)