By Tom Matthews (zeppelin101)
Since 3D Editor first came
out and a few people started finding out how to edit tracks with the equipment
they had just been given, more people have started to take an interest in the
actual art of track making. I call it an art because it takes a lot of
patience, time and skill to make a complete track which does not suffer from
graphical glitches, or random crashes. I started to make tracks about a year
ago after seeing Maverick’s
Although I have not produced much in the way of public releases apart from my unfinished beta of a fictional track on racesimulations.com, I have done my best to look into 3D Editor, and find out as much as I can about the way GP4 reads the track data that has been encoded into all the different file formats. Although I do not claim to be an expert on track editing as such, I have learnt a lot off of many people’s experiences and how to solve issues that may arise during a track making project.
This tutorial aims to pass the knowledge that I have gained in recent months onto you, so that the community of track makers can grow, and so that GP4 can last even longer as a great game. I will not make out track editing to be an easy thing, because I’ll be honest, it isn’t. It does take time, and commitment, and if more than one person is involved, the whole project can hinge on just that one person. Track editing isn’t easy, but it is fun, there is a great feeling that a person can achieve the first time they get their .dat in game, and start editing graphics without the game crashing. Track editing really is a one of a kind experience.
I’d strongly advise that you read further ahead than you intend to complete of this guide, as I may miss things out which I mention later. I’ll say it now, this tutorial is meant to help you get started, I’ve not written it to encompass everything that you must do to make a track, just a few tips, and some info to get you started. Also, do read at least some of the guide that Lo2k has written, it does have a lot of useful information in it, and if you don’t understand how something works, refer to that first.
- Pitlane
- Kerbs
- CC-Line
- Mapping
The latest 3D Editor (at time of creation, 17.6, get it on www.realgpx.com)
Zmodeler 1.07b and the .gp4 file plugin (available on www.grandprixgames.org)
3ds max is an optional program, it costs a lot of money, so I doubt you’ll bother, it is an excellent tool for track editing however.
Photoshop / PaintShopPro for texture creation.
WadUpdater 3.4 / EasyWad for updating your track wad (easywad comes with CSM)
TexResizer 2.4 (www.realgpx.com for wadupdater as well)
From most important, to most annoying :P
- .dat : The physical track surface which is where your car will be driving / where you will run into rails and total your car
- .gp4 : (important, but possibly the most annoying as well) – The graphical side. This is the lengthiest part of the whole track making process. It requires importing / making your own objects and textures. If the .gp4 and .dat file are in the same folder, opening the .gp4 opens both files. NOTE- when both are open with 16.4, be sure to select cameras or cc-line under the physics tab, otherwise the .dat and / or pitlane will be displaced.
- .bin : (can be VERY annoying) This is what enables all those lovely skidmarks and highly reflective rain surfaces. It’s basically a secondary track mesh that sits on top of the physical and graphical surface. The pitlane .bin is currently of most concern, as this flickers no matter which tricks you try (apart from making a new .gp4 mesh yourself)
- .col : Although creating a basic behaviour file for your track takes seconds, editing it and making the banks and verges of your track dynamic in terms of run-off areas and other small things, takes time. It means you either have to create totally new faces upon which new behaviour will sit for your surfaces, or it means converting possibly thousands of faces (all this will be explained further later) to a new behavioural type.
There are also import files – the cameras and cc-line, but these cannot be edited as stand-alone file types, so we’ll ignore those for the time being.
Now comes the fun part.
The most difficult part of creating your .dat is probably deciding which track you want to replace. Go into your circuits folder in your main GP4 directory (normally C:\Program Files\Infogrames\Grand Prix 4, and have a look at the 17 .dats you have in front of you. Make a choice and then get ready to create your track. Once you have decided on a track to replace, the next part is very simple, and creating an actual track surface takes about 20 minutes if you know what you’re after. The most important thing to remember is that this is your first track, so don’t try anything too adventurous in terms of heights, as it will come back and be very difficult to work around later on. Anyway, that’s your first warning, now let’s make a layout…
So, the first thing you’ll want to do is delete all the previous track sectors. You cannot delete the first three sectors as these are the “initial sectors”, with one defining all primary sector values, and the other two showing you which direction your track is going to go when you start creating your layout. If you try and delete the first three sectors, you will be greeted with a nice error message:
Now you’ve deleted all 8-1400 track sectors and the pitlane sectors, it’s time to create your layout. As a rough guide, 100 sectors is equal to about 490m (one sector is 16 feet long), so take that into account when making your layout, so that you get a track that is a good length to drive around, and not too long and boring.
Use “Add” > “Multiple Sectors” to being making your
layout. Bear in mind that a negative value is a left hand turn,
and a positive value is a right turn. When making corners, I
find it’s best to work in groups of ten, as this means you can create variable
radius corners, and loosen out normal corners for a fast exit. I also find it
easier to use the “Curve Angle” parameter to set the degree variation of the
corner. I think it just makes it easier to track how a corner changes, or to
work out a complete radius for a corner which is constantly changing, and then
consider where to go next.
I would advise strongly NOT to create a crossover track for your first attempt, because believe me, nothing is worse than trying to work out how high the “bridge” sectors have to be above the bottom ones, and then how long your bridge should be, and then later, making / finding an object to use for your bridge. Quite easy really to start off with isn’t it? J
Once you come to the final straight, you may have problems lining it up. There is a very easy trick which will get you round this problem, and will make sure you create a wonderfully straight… straight.
Make sure that the .dat and .gp4 are in the same folder,
then open up, *track replaced*2001.gp4 and then create a new scene with Add
> New Scene. 
You will notice that an object has been created called “BRIDGE_Object01”. What you can do next, is displace it on to your straight, (with v16.4, make sure you have selected either cameras or cc-line before proceeding) and then double click on it, and select one of the Faces. You will then have three vertex names in front of you. Basically, stretch out the ones that are closest to the unfinished straight and line them up with the rest of the track. What you have then, is a perfectly straight edge to work from, and you can finish creating your layout so it has a nice straight… straight J
You may need to stretch or shorten the last sector, but don’t worry about that for the time being, we can do this later when it comes to adding the graphics, and creating the .bin files.
Now you’ve created a layout that will one day become part of the F1 calendar, you’ve got to make it look like one. (You may notice for the next pictures I’ve set the track to show plain & wireframe. To turn this on, go to Display > Physics > Plain and Wireframe) This means making your banks, verges and kerbs, and finally, the part which most people seem to struggle with; the Pitlane. You can access the run-off commands by double clicking on any sector (start at the beginning, it makes it a lot easier :P), and you will be confronted with a list of commands.
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The ones you are most interested in at the moment, are “Bank Description”, which is both a left and right value, hence why there are two, and the “Verge Description” values which determine the small area between the track and the run-offs. Eventually, when you start creating kerbs, you will also have “Right / Left Kerb Start” and the “Kerb Description” commands. It’s important to know that some commands are also known as “flags” because they mark the behaviour of an important parameter at a given sector position. |
As you can see
from the picture on the right, the parameters are quite simple to edit. The ones you
won’t need to worry about at the moment are “Height Offset”, and “Arm Direction
2”. The first of these obviously sets a height in cm for the difference between
final fence height and the track, while the 2nd Arm
Direction adds precision to Arm Direction main value,
I’d leave this alone for the time being. The main problem with this part of the
.dat creation process is the amount of time it takes.
Basically, you have to go through every sector, and change the values until you
create the effect, and run-offs you wish. It’s probably best to set the Verge
Description to 2048, or 1048 on both sides before you start (regardless of the
bank value for the time being) and then create your layout, because then you won’t have to
worry about that until you want much closer rails.
Just remember how real tracks are built, whether they are classic tracks such as Suzuka and Monza, or the new tracks like Istanbul and Shanghai, the essentials are the same. Down long straights, the rails aren’t very far away, in fact, they are rarely ever more than a few metres away, so don’t go over the top and have them 50 or so metres away down the straights. In fact, you should already be planning / have planned where you want to put stuff so you can build the track around it. It sounds like too much really for this stage of the process, but believe me, it makes it much easier later on when the crowds aren’t miles away from the track at different points.
For run-offs, a new rule applies, in that you have to think about how a car handles. For example, a car very rarely spins off before the driver has turned in unless there is some kind of failure. The most likely thing to happen, is that the car will either go in a straight line into the gravel trap because of understeer, or the car will spin off at the exit, or mid corner due to oversteer. So remember that this is where your run-offs should begin / end. A picture, would best explain the point:
You can see here that the run-off area is now suitable for a
car to spin off mid-corner, or even on the exit (perhaps with less room of
error), or for a car to brake and not turn in properly. It’s also best to
remember that the rail distance should change depending on how fast or slow the
corner is. For hairpins, take into account the massive deceleration required,
and make your banks to fit, and for faster corners, mostly in excess of 110mph
(about 180kmh) that the run-off can be closer to the track, but not too close,
unless you enjoy spectacular cross-track crashes. If you fancy yourself as the
next Herman Tilke, then make all your run-offs as
large as possible, and put lots of tarmac down J
With this information, you should be able to create realistic run-offs for your track. I would advise the use of the current tracks as a base if this is your first track so that you can use it as a reference if you become stuck. With verges, the main thing to remember is that these are the parts that separate the track from the run-off area, particularly in corners. If you look at any track, it’s never just track – run-off, there is always something separating the two. Use sensible values, probably nothing larger than 2048 (about 2.5m) as this will give you a nice area to work with in between the track and run-off.
Track profiler is a handy tool for editing heights.
To use it, go to Action > Track Profiler, this will be followed by something
like this:
Each square represents a track sector, and as you can see, you can change the height of both pitlane and track, as well as viewing left and right track heights (these aren’t editable yet) to see check your banking. The line between each sector is incredible useful for smoothing purposes, as it means you get a connected line that looks reasonably straight no matter how zoomed in you are. To change how many sectors you are looking at, either type in a new value in the Number of sectors box, or click the arrow for a list of defaults, To change the first sector that you can see on the current part of the track, just enter a new value into the First sector box.
It isn’t too hard once you understand the principles of how it is supposed to connect to the track. The main problem I’ve noticed when people send me their attempts at the pitlane is that they use huge values to get it off the track, and back on again. Remember that pitlane entry / exit is meant to be smooth, so that the cars can accelerate out easily, and drive in easily with minimal braking. I don’t use curve angle of any more than 15, so that this happens. Remember as well, that if you have a straight with no kinks in it, that you can just reverse the value you used to get the pitlane off of the track, to get it back running parallel with. Also keep in mind that the closer the pitlane is to the track, the quicker you’ll be in and out for that pitstop.
For example, if you have a straight that is 200 sectors long from the last corner to the first, then you can have a very long pitlane, or a very short one. If you have a short straight, or a Monaco style curve, then your choices are more limited. The most viable option I find, is to create the pitlane from before the last corner, and then keep it inside and then begin the pitlane along the straight.
The other problem that people so often experience is of
course the flags. Flags determine where certain events happen on your pitlane / track. In this case, where the pitlane fences begin and end, where the pitlane connects to the track, where the pitlane “starts”
(I’ll describe this further later) and “ends”, and of course when the speed
limiter comes on, and turns off, and where the garages start and end. Each of
the flags determines a different part of the pitlane.
The most obvious ones are “Connect Pitlane Start /
End”. These two flags are track-bound, and they must be placed in the sector
where the first pitlane sector is, and where the last
pitlane sector is on the track. The Pitlane starts and ends flags are perhaps one of the most
difficult to place. Basically, where the pitlane
starts, is where it begins to move away from the track, so on the sector before
your “offset” starts, add this flag (create the following sectors first,
otherwise this flag will be copied across the whole pitlane,
and it’s not fun deleting them all). The pitlane ends
is the opposite, and it should be placed where the pitlane
rejoins the track, before a short straight section. A diagram of this, is
always helpful, if you get stuck, print a copy off! Pitlane
flags are the most problematic part of the .dat as
they account of 99% of the crashes that people first get.
Once you’ve placed your flags, you need to create the connecting rails which then stop when the pitlane rails begin (Pitlane fences begin flag J).
You
basically need to mould the banks to fit the pitlane
moving away from the track, and then once you reach the sector with the flag,
play around with the arm direction values until one side reaches over to the
top pitlane rail, and in the next sector, that rail
reaches over to the closest rail. You will end up with something like this on
one end, and something similar on the other :
It will take some experimentation, but the rule for connecting the rails is that the furthest sector joins the top rail, and the closest joins the bottom, as you can see here. At the other end, it’s the same, but moved one sector back. So the one underneath the top rail (or slightly front) joins the top, and the one behind joins the bottom rail. When you are creating the joining parts between the track rail and pitlane rail, you will need to use the Fence Distance 2 (or FD2) value to gain maximum effect. The maximum you can have in this box is 65535, then you must add one to the FD1 value, and begin again. It isn’t that hard once you know what steps are involved, but if you aren’t sure what goes where, or how to connect things up, then you can have problems.
When you have created these connecting parts, you may notice that a fence has been built over the sector. To remove this, simply select the sector which the rail belongs to (don’t double click) and select the right / left fence gate check box depending on which side your pitlane is on. There is a picture later on under the kerbs section that will help you locate them if you are stuck.
One problem I have been faced with recently, is what if the pitlane is on the outside of a corner before turning in? This is quite simple when you understand what values you have used to create that corner in the first place. If the pitlane is on the inside of a corner, then the value will always be greater (giving you a tighter corner) so it sits inside the corner snugly. On the outside however, it must be slightly less, but not by much. The hardest part is actually gauging how close the pitlane should be. I believe say that it should be as close as possible, as this makes the maths nice and easy for calculating your new curve values, whether it’s interior, or exterior, and gives faster entry / exit. You may not pick up this skill straight away, but it will come to you, and then you will be creating pitlanes in 5 minutes, rather than 50.
Although they seem a relatively simply phenomenon on
every track, kerb placement is essential to get the best results and fastest
times. If you look at any real track, the kerbs are placed to give the cars
maximum cross-track area on the entry and exit of the corners. Kerbs are
created the same way that multiple sectors are created; “Add” > “Kerbs” and
you will receive this dialogue box:
The top “bar”, is where you say how long you want your kerbs to (in sectors) and which side they are on.
The second “box”, is the parameters for how large your kerbs are, and how high they are. While I myself prefer to have ‘91 style kerbs; high and not very deep, you may prefer the opposite. I’ll give some suggested values for each kerb type, and hopefully give you some idea of the differences between the two, and maybe give you an idea of what the values give you graphically as well as physically.
Always, always, always, have the “D1” value set to no more than 2. This determines how far the kerb is from the actual track, and the further away it is, the less you can use your kerbs, because there will be a strip of grass in-between kerb and track. For the other distance values, something like this: Would give you ’91 style kerbs for the interior of corners. You’ll notice that the kerb is barely over the 1.7m mark in terms of depth, making it nice and close to the track. The height values here may seem extreme, but they give you a high kerb, that you will still spin on at any speed, but also looks quite pleasing graphically. |
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If you substituted these values for something like this: Then this would be superb for an exit kerb. As a guide to length for exit kerbs, they shouldn’t really be any longer than about 20 sectors unless the next corner is very close (20-30 sectors away) in which case it may seem more pleasing to the eye graphically to have the kerbs connected if they turn left then right or vice versa. If you use similar values to this for the interior of a kerb (use about 400-450 max for the interior of a kerb as the D4 value), then you will have Tilke-style kerbs that can pretty much be driven straight over with very little loss in grip, unlike the above values. Once your track is covered in kerbs, you may wish to edit them later, either by rebuilding them entirely, or changing them in certain parts. If you want to change them in certain sectors, then just select the “Kerb Description” flag in the same way you select the bank and verge description flags. |
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If you do decide to redo them, there is a small bug to take note of if you create kerbs on the leftside when they overlap with the right. Instead of the kerb feeling box being checked on this small window : The right fence gate box will be checked instead of the left kerb feeling. I believe a fix is on the way, but it is a strange bug that you should remember if you are remaking kerbs. Other than that, kerb placement is the most important thing here, and you can use the original tracks to help you if you wish. |
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I have written a tutorial already for this available here on realgpx.com, but since then, the method for creating a cc-line has become considerably easier.
With the old code, you had to create the cc-line corner by corner, testing it every time you added a new corner section to make sure it was driving your line correctly. Now, thanks to Patrick, this is not necessary anymore, as he has edited the code so that current “tweak” (this was the value that had to be changed in order to make cc-line display properly in most cases) is already displayed and calculated in 3D editor. This has drastically reduced the time it takes to create a cc-line, because although the more vigilant of you may still wish to test the line every corner so that can find as faster line as possible through it, the persistent opening and closing of GP4 and 3D editor to edit the tweak values, is gladly not required any more.
There isn’t really much that I can say on cc-line creation as people have different methods of approaching it, and they of course have their own preferences. This is most apparent with those of us who use a steering wheel, and who totally ignore the cc-line because so often, we think we have found a faster way around the track, that isn’t so easy to turn into a line for the cc cars to use. In fact, if you are a keyboarder, then it is very likely that you will have a completely different perception of the best line to take around a track from those of us using analogue controllers. I myself am incredibly ignorant of keyboard people, and have been told many times that my cc-lines are quite frankly terrible for keyboarders, because they would take a different line all together through a corner.
The basic principle of creating a cc-line is of course, how to make the cars get on the throttle early enough to keep on accelerating out of a corner, and how to make them go through a corner quickly. So often it is that you have to completely miss the apex of a corner in order to make the cars go round it fastest. The most classic example of this is turn 8 at Istanbul, where the cars actually go straight through the middle of the track in order to take the other three apexes at a steady 150mph.
More often than not however, your first track will probably have a number of relatively tight single apex corners, or fast and long corners. In this case, you would mostly need to cut the apex through each turn, but this depends on how you’ve created your kerbs, or rather, which era they belong to. If you look at modern kerbs, they are very flat, enabling the cars to fly over them and still maintain grip. Go back 15 years, and the kerbs are 30-40 cm high on the inside of the corner, and so if you touch them, the car loses stability, and more often than not, you hit a wall and lose the side of the car.
Here is the basic interface of the cc-line window :
The first box sets the length of this section of cc-line. The shift value is a
value that determines the offset in metres of the end of the cc-line section
from the start, which is useful if you can’t get the right value in the curve
1, or curve 2 values. As a guide, anything under 10,000 is generally used for
hairpins, or anything that covers 70-150 degrees in anything under 15 sectors.
Larger values are more gentle curves, and you simply have to experiment to get
the right values for your corner. The Curve 2 value is more of a fine-tune
value for the last half of the cc-line section.
I would advise that you use another cc-line section rather than use a value lower than the Curve 1 value. It’s mostly used to have the cars accelerate out of a corner, but can be used to have them speed up for the next section of a complex of corners. CC-Line creation takes a little bit longer than the rest of the process because it does need a lot of testing to get a definite value that makes the cars both fast, and easy to drive for keyboarders, as well as giving a good entry to the next corner.
Jip mappings are things such as the gridlines, start/finish lines and the pitlane markings. The start / finish line will already be present in the first sector of your track, so you don’t need to worry about this. To create the other mappings, I would use one of Ricardo Lampert’s .dats as a base, as he includes split lines and improved .jip mapping files. Remember that you can set where your split lines are in the initial sector of the .dat, otherwise they will appear approximately at 33% and 66% of the track distance.
That pretty much covers it for the .dat. If you’re just making a fantasy track, then be as creative as you like, but since this is probably your first track, you might want to keep it relatively simple height wise so that land creation etc will be easier later on.
By all accounts, creating these two files is the easiest of the whole track
editing process. As I explained earlier, the .col
defines how each part of the track behaves. For example, you have a long back
straight, but before that straight, you had a long and fast corner, with a
large gravel trap. What makes the gravel trap behave as gravel, the track
behave as tarmac, the verge behave as grass, and the kerbs you’ve made act as a
slippery surface is the .col. It’s really simple to create, but of course, like
many thing in GP4, getting it just right takes
a lot longer. I think that probably the best way to go about
making your .col is to probably get the graphical
parts ready in your banks, and then match (as best you can if you can’t be bothered
to be precise) the .col areas to your assigned
graphical areas that are tarmac, hard areas, grass and gravel.
To create a .col file, go to File > Convert .dat to > and then create .col file. Here you will be greeted with a window asking you what you want each area to consist of. This is handy because if you want to have whole areas as something different to the defaults, you don’t have to convert all of the faces, you can just set them in this window, and change some over later if you wish. See the picture on the right here. Rails should be left as they are.
Here is the
basic interface for the .col once you’ve entered a
subsection (grass areas, gravel areas, tarmac areas, or hard areas).
Each face corresponds to a tri-mesh “face” (commonly called a poly) of the track surface. To set a behaviour to a face, you simply click on the behaviour you want it to have, and it’s automatically shifted off to the corresponding area of the .col file. Easy huh?
To create entire gravel traps, you will have to do this a lot. Consider that in an average length track (say about 4km) there is 2 polies per track sector. That’s two for the track, four for the verges, four for the banks, and four for the rails. That’s 14 polies per sector, and 4km is roughly equal to 820 sectors, so you have 11,480 faces to work with.
Technically, you’ll only use a fraction of that, as you can ignore the rails and track area, and a majority of verges, and approximately half of the bank faces, depending on how many corners, long or short you have, then you have about 2,500 left to shift. It may sound like a lot, but it doesn’t take that long, you just have to find each run-off trap area (they are a long way through, as verges take priority in the .col and are therefore first) and then convert it to whatever you like.
Just a note, a hard surface is a mix of tarmac and grass. It is smooth, but has very little grip, and is therefore used on kerbs. It’s interesting having verges set to hard surfaces, as one small mistake can spin the car right off the track, and it will be quite difficult to stop on a hard surface run-off area too.
.bin files are also very simple to make, however they cause almost all crashes that appear throughout the track editing process. The .bin is the mesh that sits on top of the track surface. It basically displays wet reflections, skidmarks, and jip mappings. Jip mappings are things such as the gridlines, start/finish lines and the pitlane markings. To create the track and pitlane .bin, delete the final sector of you track and then go to File > Convert .dat to > Create .bin file, you will then be asked if you want to “cover side lines”. Select yes if you don’t want to have the white line down running down each side of the track, and no if you do want to have that present. The reason we delete the final sector, is because more often than not, the last third of the track disappears when the .bin files are added to the wad.
Remember to add both of these files to your wad.
I think it’s fair to see that this is what makes track editing so annoying. There is such a huge volume of stuff to put in here that it takes a long time to get right. It depends on what track you’re doing, or how you’re doing it (for a fictional track at any rate) but it really is quite time consuming. It’s not too difficult, but it is quite nice to have an idea of what you want to do, and where you want to start before you really get stuck in. With my last track, the foetus, I spent months on (more than I should have really) on the .gp4 trying to cram as much stuff in as possible to make it seem as realistic as possible. I imported / exported and made nearly 600 objects, which is still a far cry from the default tracks, particularly Monaco, which has closer to 2,400 objects. Still, I find it best to work on the size of a .gp4, as this actually makes life a lot easier, as you can then play around with objects of varying detail, and size. I will add a note here on using hi-poly objects; if you do make a hi-poly stand or building, please use lo-res textures and map them so that you have multiple instances of the texture on the object. This will keep your PO reasonable, whereas giving it hi-res textures will most likely kill even the best of PC’s pretty quick.
The huge bridge on the foetus is over 5,000 polies, and I used relatively lo-res textures on it, and made sure they were mapped with multiple instances of the texture across the object, as you can see in the screenshot.
Before you test drive your track, you need to be able to see what you’re driving around. This is a very simply process, and it takes a very short time to add all of your track objects. First thing is to make sure you have unpacked your wad, and converted all your .tex files to .tga’s using Tex Resizer. You then need to add your .dat and .gp4 to the same folder as the .tga’s. We do this, so that both the .gp4 and .dat open at the same time, and so we can see what textures we are working with while working on the .gp4. To open both .gp4 and .dat at the same time, just open the .gp4 and the .dat will automatically open with it.
You will then need to create a new scene in the .gp4, and then
delete all of the others. To create a new scene, enter the scenes page, click
on the create button, and then “new scene”. You can select each of the other
scenes and click the delete button to get rid of them, leaving you with
your one empty scene to work with.
Open your new scene, and then click on add, which has replaced create, and then click on Track from .dat. You will then be greeted with a new screen.
Here you can select what you add to that particular scene,
and what texture is assigned to it. Check the Track and Pitlane
boxes and select the appropriate textures using the texture preview box on the far
right to see which texture is which. We’re leaving kerbs out of this scene
because they sit on top of the verges, which can cause a conflict, and hence a
crash later on, so we’ll add those to a new scene once we’ve created the track
and pitlane objects in this scene.
Once you’ve set your textures, click create objects, and watch your track appear, waiting to be driven ;). You’ll notice that one object was created called BRIDGE_Object01. This is just to make sure the scene has a count of one object, and you can delete this after adding your objects, and the same goes for Scene 2 once you’ve added your kerbs in the same way here, but selecting kerbs instead of Track and Pitlane.
Once this is done, you can go and test your track. Just update the wad with your .gp4, .col and .bin files and make sure that you .dat is in the circuits folder under the correct name (eg, Melbourne is S1CT1.dat etc). You can then select your track in .gp4 and make sure it’s drivable. This is the best time to test heights, as it’s possible you’ll find that you want to edit your heights and definitely smooth them in the .dat with profiler, and perhaps check for small bumps you’ve added by accident along the way.
There are many different ways you can go about this. If you haven’t got great 3d modelling skills, or in fact you can’t be bothered, then there are a few tips which I can give you which will ensure you have well made (and pre-textured) objects sitting around your track – Importing and exporting from other .gp4’s.
It’s really simple, open up the .gp4 of the track from which you want to take some objects. Then, select the one which you want to export, you will have to search for quite some time as not all objects have names which relate directly to what they are. So once you’ve found your object, go to File > Export > Object to .gp4. You will then be greeted with this screen:
Select no if you don’t want to edit the object at all, and just import it into your track, and select yes if you want to edit it in zmodeler.
You cannot
import .gp4 files into 3ds max, for this we would need to export to .3ds. Once
you have exported your object, make sure your own track’s .gp4 is open and then
go to File > Import > Import .gp4 object. You can then use the displace, rotate and scale functions to place your
object where you want it, how you want it. To export / import .3ds files, just
follow the same procedure, selecting .3ds files instead of .gp4’s.
In my opinion, it’s probably better to edit any object via a .3ds, whether in 3ds max, or zmodeler because each part (sub-object ) is displayed as an individual object in both programs, but is not when using a .gp4. A note on importing .3ds files, you will have to invert faces creation once you have imported it into 3d editor. To do this, go to the Action menu > Invert > Faces Creation, and this will make your objects visible in game, or appear correctly.
There is an easy way to create “close land”, which is land that site directly around the outside of the track and can probably be flat. The main problem with this form of creation is that the mapping is quite bad, as it uses face-by-face mapping, where every two triangular mesh faces hold on instance of the texture assigned to it. There are many mapping tutorials on the internet for zmodeler, and if you are using 3ds max, there is an extra section at the end with tips and hints on creating easy land, mapping and links to basic poly-modelling tutorials.
The method for creating this land is the fence method. This tool is extremely useful as many objects can be created using it, the main ones being “close land”, fences (obviously) and trees. You can also create REFLECT_ class objects using it for the same trees, and fences. To create a fence go to Add > Fences. You will then be greeted with this interface:
Basically, you have your sector range at the top, at the moment, this would be creating fences with a height of 0m all the way around the track on the left side. The Fence Foot and Fence Head settings are the major ones, manipulation of these can result in a surprising number of possibilities for new objects around your track. |
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The values I use mostly for creating land are as follows:
This will create a strip of land that extends 5m from the
foot of your track rails. The visualisation on the right of the window is very
helpful as you can use it to effectively see what you are creating and change
it accordingly. Click Create Fence (make sure you’ve selected an appropriate
sector range, and which side you want this land on, a note for hairpins is that
you may need to create these separately as they offer less space than other
corners and straights do) and look, you have your first strip of land on track J.
To create trees, just tweak the values slightly. Since trees stand vertically, you will need to have the same value in the “offset with original rails” box on both Fence Head, and Fence Foot. You can then change how high your trees are (15-20m ought to be fine) with the Fence Foot box inside the Z position area. You can then create REFLECT_ class objects for your trees or fences by checking the reflected box once you have added a value. REFLECT_ class objects define reflected objects in wet weather.
There are lots of different classes available in 3D editor, most of them imported from GP2 and GP3. The main ones you will be using are: BRIDGE, CROWD, FBUILD, FENCE, LARGESIGN, MARSHALL,MISCTSO, NBUILD, NLAND, NSTAND, NTREE, REFLECT, REQUIRED, SHADOW and TRACK. All of these seem to define distance and some visibility data for objects. Although I cannot say exactly what all of them refer to, I have worked out what most of them are.
BRIDGE class is obviously for cross-track objects such as bridges and ad-bridges, it seems to have high texture lod values. CROWD objects are for your crowds in the stands. This class seems to give them low visibility by making sure they are only fully visible when you are right on top of them so to speak, therefore they have low texture lod distances. Adding the extension FULL to the crowd object name will hide this object in free practices
FBUILD objects seem to refer to structures that are inside the track rails, or are particularly close to the track. I haven’t found any difference between setting objects as FBUILD and NBUILD, they are both very similar (NBUILD is essentially any object in the track that is basically a structure).
FENCE class is for your track fences sitting on top of your rails, it seems to change texture lod distances.
LARGESIGN is for large adverts such as double billboards sitting outside your track rails, this also seems to affect texture lod distances.
MARSHALL is for your track marshals, I am not sure exactly what this changes.
MISCTSO is basically miscellaneous objects that don’t fall into any other category. It seems to store the default texture lod distances.
NSTAND is for your stands, like BRIDGE, it appears to store high texture lod distances.
NTREE (Near Tree) is for trees, is has relatively high texture lod distances and is reflected in wet conditions.
FTREE (Far Tree) is the same class as NTREE but objects have no reflection in wet conditions.
REFLECT is for reflecting objects (rails, trees, large adboards, fences, but not stands or overly large objects), I do not think it stores texture data.
REQUIRED is for pit buildings, it basically defines the pit buildings because they must be there.
SHADOW stores shadow data, however, you can get away with naming your shadows “shadow_00”, or “SHADOW_00”.
TRACK is for major track objects, do not put trackxx and pitlanexx objects into this class though because your .bin file will not function correctly anymore. Rails, banks and verges in both track and pitlane can use this class. Use the original .gp4’s to work out which should and shouldn’t use TRACK class. It uses a wide range of texture lod distances.
I cannot be certain about the texture part for each class, this is just something I believe I have observed, however I could be very wrong, and at the least, you should use classes to define objects further than just their names. In fact, major .gp4 crashes I have had to deal with have been caused in many cases by bad class names, or duplicated object names.
To do this you’ll need a good track map. Most people seem to be grabbing aerial
shots of tracks off of Google Earth at the moment, as well as getting basic
heights from there too. You’ll just need to see if there is a hi-res track shot
available first, otherwise, there are many sites on the web which will give you
relatively good detail track maps.
To load up your image, you’ll need to have a fresh .gp4 with your one plane ready. Double click on the plane to go into the texture / part view, and then click on “Add” and select your track map. Remember to save it as an RGB 32-bit tga, otherwise 3d editor will not use it. Probably the best way to approach it is to find out the length of the longest straight rather than the full track length, because then you can get your scale right sooner. I think perhaps the best way to do this is to make your track sectors to the approximate length on the straight (remember that each sector is 4.877m) and then scale up your track map until the straight you measured is about the same as the one you have made for the layout.
You can then delete all of these sectors once it is correct, displace the track map until the initial sector is close to the start line, and then slowly work around each corner.
Remember it’s better to have an accurate track than to have made it in record time, so take it slow and make it as accurate as possible. Once this is done, you just need to know where all the gravel traps are, how big they are, bank size etc to make all of the run offs and rail distances accurate. Onboard videos help a lot, if you can get one, or lots, then take them and study them hard, they will help you get your heights right, banks looking realistic, and gravel traps in the right place. Get as many pictures from around the track as you can too, anything that will help you to make the track as close to real life as possible. Making a real track does take a long time, so make the most of it and make it look like the real thing, believe me, everyone in the community will be thankful for it in the end.
Although it is a very complex tool, 3ds max is undoubtedly one of the best programs for creating your 3d models. Having discovered it’s huge usefulness in recent months, I make everything in 3ds max, all my carshapes are, and will be created in 3ds max, and a lot of the objects from the Foetus were made in max as well. The best thing 3ds max offers is it’s modifier list, especially for mapping, plus you can run multiple modifiers at the same time, and turn some off, while others are still active.
I think that 3ds max is probably the best tool for land creation as well. There is a wide range of tools are your disposal to create land, and objects to populate your track. I will endeavour to explain as best I can how to create land in 3ds max, and how to give your land, banks and verges a uniform mapping. I used 3ds max 7, but all the tools I use are available in v6 if you are using this.
The first thing to do, is to convert your .dat to a .3ds file. Go to File > Convert .dat to > .3ds. You will then need to import it into ZM and re-export it (for some reason, 3d editor’s .3ds file format is buggy and does not work correctly on import into 3ds max). You can then import your track layout into 3ds max.
The first thing you will need to do is select both of your banks, and then right-click and scroll down to Convert to > Convert to Editable Poly. Editable Mesh is pants quite frankly so ignore it, and try not to use it, Editable Poly also gives you more tools J.
You can then
click on the second symbol on the top right of the UI (the blue thing) to go
into the modify panel.
You will then be greeted with something like this
(probably only on a one-sided panel however) : 
This basically lists all of the different sub objects (from left to right, vertices, edges, borders, polygons and elements), your soft selection settings for creating things such as perfect hills (soft selection uses a falloff value and affects polygons / edges / vertices in varying ways depending on how close to the select section they are). You also have your Edit Geometry tab, which adds new, or different tools depending on which sub-object mode you are in. To create land, we will be using the edges sub object mode. Go to your Perspective view, and then press F4 to bring up the wireframe view.
Select edges mode, and then select some edges. Something like this:
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Now press W, or select the move tool from the toolbar at the top of UI, and then hold shift down, and select both X and Y axes on the move tool, and drag out. This will create a new set of polygons, and new edges which you can then detach to a new object. To detach it, make sure your edges are still selected, then hold CTRL, and click on the polygon mode, this will select only the polygons you have just made, and you can then click detach in the edit geometry panel. You can then manipulate this as you wish using the vertex sub object mode. If you want to make it more detailed, select the edges perpendicular to your formerly selected edges and then click connect. This will add a new row of edges, and you can do this as often as you like to add more detail to a hill on your land for example. You can also use the Cut tool in vertex or edge mode to make edges and vertices exactly where you want them to be. |
I mentioned the Soft Selection tool earlier, and now I’m going to explain how you can use it to create perfect hills from the centre of a mesh. If you just want to experiment, and you don’t want to add them to your track, then save your scene, and start with again with a blank scene (File > New). Then, create a Plane 25x25 through the Keyboard Entry Tab, and then make sure it has 5 segments vertically, and horizontally. Convert this to Editable Poly and select the middle polygon. Open up the Soft Selection tab and check the “Use Soft Selection” box. This will give you something like this:
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If you then select the move tool and drag this polygon up in the Z-axis, you will notice that the selected polygon moves to where you want it to go, but the others “falloff” around it, creating a hill. You can change the falloff value for this effect in the soft selection menu. For example, change it from 20 to 10, and you have a sharper incline for your hill. Change it to 50 and the effect isn’t very noticeable until you’ve moved the polygon a long way. You can also change the effect using the Pinch and Bubble boxes, which give a similar effect to falloff, but can be used in conjunction with a large falloff (or a small one for that matter) to make quirky shapes. This can also be useful for creating curved surfaces (such as car bodies or building tops) and when used with some of the other poly tools such as bevel, you can create some truly wacky shapes in no time at all. |
Mapping in max is very simple. In ZM, you would map onto a texture, or fill the texture with your object when mapping it. In max, you create a plane upon which your supposed texture would sit and you can change how it is mapped, and how many instances of the texture there are across the whole object by adding some values to a few boxes, rather than continually scaling and rotating your object in the UV Mapper view in ZM. To give an object mapping in 3ds max, just select UVW Map Modifier from the Modifier’s list. You will then be given a list of parameters which you can change depending on what you want your texture to look like on the object. It’s probably best to load up a texture for this process so you can see what you are doing. Press M to bring up the material editor, and select an empty slot. Click on the small square next to the Diffuse colour slot, and then select the Bitmap option, and then select your texture (you must navigate to the folder it is in first). Make sure if you are using a .tga that you have saved it in photoshop first, otherwise max will not be able to use it.
You can then assign this your material using this icon: |
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Your texture will still not be displayed however, so click on the white and blue chequed cube to “show map in viewport”. You can now map your texture your object.
By changing the value in the U and V tile boxes, you will get more instances of the texture across the object. Change both to 10, and you will have 10 instances of the texture across your plane, change it to 100, and there will be 100 instances of the texture. If you have a uniform mesh such as the one above, you can use the Face map, which will add one instance of the texture per poly (or per double tri-mesh poly). The instance method of mapping is particularly useful for making sure that all your land has the same mapping, so it looks good as you drive around your track.
To do this, just map one piece of land with the amount of textures as you want them to be displayed in the end. You can then right-click on the UVW Map Modifier in the top window, and select copy. Select the other objects, go to the modifier window, and then right-click again and then select Paste Instanced not paste, because with Paste Instanced, all of your land will retain it’s new mapping, and with paste, it will just add a new UVW Map Modifier to the list with the default settings.
That’s pretty much it for this guide. I don’t think I’ve missed anything that will get you on your way to fully completing a track. Remember however that this guide is not meant to tell you what everything does, rather it is meant to tell you what you should do with each file, and how to work with it, and how to work towards creating a crash free track. The whole thing is very much a trial and error thing. Many people give up having made the .dat because they don’t know what to do next, or they don’t know how what to do with the graphics because they can’t make objects in ZM or 3ds max, or another 3d modelling program. Persevere, if nothing else, you’ll have a new track to drive rather than racing around the default ones all the time J.
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/3DS-MAX/1 A source for many tutorials for the absolute beginner, to pretty advanced stuff.
http://www.3dnuts.com/tutorials.shtml I learnt how to make rims and tires from this site, a good place for beginners also
http://www.3dkingdom.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=1&topic=&allstories=1 This site seriously rocks, there are tutorials for loads of stuff on here, from rendering to animation to modelling for beginners.
http://www.3d-palace.com/ A fantastic site for vide tutorials, not all of them have audio, but there are some that are the best on the web
Lo2k for the time and effort he has put into creating this editor, I doubt that people like him come along very often and do so much for a game to make it that much easier to edit. Thanks mate
Patrickc for his brilliant bit of cc-line code, you’ve made everyone’s lives a lot easier
Maverick for writing the first tutorial on track editing, it certainly got me into track making a while back
Jimbob for his commitment to track editing and for being a bit of a knowledge bank and remembering tips that everyone gives
Ricardo Lampert for his track updates, he kicked the whole thing off really
Gildoorf for constantly testing me and finding just exactly what I did know and what I thought I knew
All the other track editing guys out there who are keeping this game alive, thanks guys.
v1.01 (04/19/06)
New details about CROWD, NTREE and FTREE classes thanks to Erwin.
v1.0 (04/17/06)
Original release.