Shady Business (Patreon)

This week, I finally started the tedious process of making the shadow casters for the GMC General. While the game can use the visible model to draw shadows, that becomes very inefficient on highly detailed models like player vehicles. To compare, the hood and fenders alone are roughly 4500-5000 triangles, while the equivalent shadow caster is only about 350 triangles. That's a whole order of magnitude difference!

I'm seeing some light among the shadows too. At this point I have more than half of the existing models shadowed(?) and will be changing my workflow so that I make shadow casters as I make the visible geometry (rather than leaving it for the end of the project, where it snowballs into being a big task).

I also made a new fifth wheel/slider model this week, based on a Holland 2535-F-36. I finally have a decent amount of reference material for various fifth wheels, so expect some variety in my truck projects moving forward! (Expect a beefy Simplex on the Peterbilt 350)

My next focus on the GMC will be the frame, suspension, and driveline details. I've already been doing some refinement on my existing crossmembers, but I think it's high time I finished the 'foundation' of the truck!

I think I'll also be configuring the chassis to have multiple rear suspension options. At the very least, I'll be doing the classic Reyco 101A four-spring tandem, and the obscure GMC Aire suspension (RPO G43).

I've gotten a little clever and have actually separated the rear suspension, crossmembers, axles, etc into a separate 'bogey' accessory, which the chassis accessory applies as an override (i.e. out of sight of the player). This saves a lot on the file size (consider that there are to be 19+ individual chassis models). So having multiple suspension options really only comes down to how intrepid I'm feeling with def-editing.