Nissan's all done.

Finished both the 23 and 24 cars. Spent some time building a low-res model by which I hoped to be able to smooth the transition a bit. It did, somewhat. I noticed that the transition was really noticeable around the windscreen so I started to build the LR from that point. It did actually yeild not a bad rendition of the full model, about 200 polys.

The other thing I did was to use the original maps and graphics for the model. I was concerned that the "double rendering", (by using in game screen shots), was causing a change in the colour of the car, shading it too much and darkening it up. The results were better, but not great. The shape is better, less abrupt, but there is still noticable transition from low to high res.

Colour was more interesting because there were still differences in the colour, although they are the same original value. I am guessing that the rendering game engine has a different process for the low and high-res. Probably a simpler one for the low res. You learn something every day. The extra, hour or two is worth it, but again this is a very old gaming engine, you can't expect too much.

In game there are now 13 cars running, and I am not seeing a perfromance hit yet on at least my test tracks. The game can handle 16, within the original spec's of the cars. It has been modded, so that some tracks can handle as many as 24. It gets a bit flakey after 16 on some tracks so my goal would to have 16 performing, additional is a bonus. I have at least 10 more cars I would like to see in the game, but we will see how it goes.