Singapore, night sky, rain and more...

I'm currently developing a night sky pack, actually based on original ones with heavily reduced brightness (32/255 points) and then going to test in the game... Then, I've used Belini's idea to extended the scenery (that is, painted the cyan area black) to the sky limits (there are any?)

By now, I'm using Scandura's Singapore, which is the only option while Belini's working on it... As I said, I've painted the sky black and gone to track... If I choose a sky pack who aren't at game (like "sunsetsky", the sky will be fully black (it would be a more realist sky for night races, as the lighting spots would blind the sky around and make it fully black with no stars (maybe a moon appearing, nothing more than that...)

Back to sky, set "sunset" one, set wet race... Then, the sky was as usual (daytime with dark clouds) and the horizon (with black sky) started to vanish...!! That's it... It simply disappeared while I was wandering around the track... Another one to "Random Bugs on Random PCs" series...

So, I'm starting to guess about how the sky are made in game... That's where our research begins... There are the "skya__.bmp" files, which are _a, _alo, _b, _blo, _c, _clo, _d, _dlo, _e and _elo... By now, I just found out that _alo are the SW counterparts for _a files, _blo for _b and so on...

Then, I started my research... First, removing all smap_ files... Started a wet race and I got a cloudless yellow sky!!

Then, replaced the smap_ and removed the sky_ ones and I got a default rainy sky, which means that game uses the sky_ for dry weather and smap_ for wet weather...

So, I got to make the Belini hint for sky: paint the horizon's cyan parts black, to create a night effect... Tested it at Fuji, which uses 192px height horizons... Both dry and wet got OK, except that it won't fill entire sky for obvious reasons...

Then, extended its height to 256px... For dry, normal... For wet, it began to disappear slowly until I didn't had any horizon around track... "Fuji-san don't exist anymore!!" Got it?

OK, there's a way to make possible night and rainy races? For now, I need the nightsky_ files to do that, but I must deactivate rain for that... Otherwise, wet races uses a daytime sky... What now?!

GPGSL-3: Fox race driver and team manager - 2011-2012 Constructor Champion - 2012 Driver Champion

Season 9 - #18 Erick Von Draxeler - #35 Marcus Bongardt

Great!!


One Racing driver and team manager
GPGSL-3: champion in 2007/2013/2014!
GPGSL-4: testdrivers champion in Season 11!

@#$%& rod vs , you still my @#$%& f1 logo on your sig?!?!!? its on my gp 06 mod f1c f1gogo.com/eaf1.net for short






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2009 03:44AM by micky-cannonball.

I did the same research you are doing a few time ago just to have a night race into a championship season, and i noticed that:
gp3 uses the bitmaps named skya_, skyb_, skyc_ and skyd_ for sunny races, and the smap_ for rainy races.
If you want a night and rain race (a nightmare...) you have to replace the sky bitmaps that Gp3 uses when it's raining.
You could take the originals rainy skyes, and make them darker, for example.
Or you can replace the rainy skyes with black ones.
But for what i know, you should replace the sky bitmaps in the techjam folder, because gpxpatch only uses the skya_ bitmaps, so you can have only night races when the rain % is set to zero.
I have created 2 techjam folders, one for night races and one for day races, changin the name to one i want to use into "techjam" and the other "techjam_xxx".
Bye

That is... SMAP_ files are a kind of "alpha channel" which the game applies to "something" (sky color) which I still didn't found out... Also, the clouds are painted lighter or darker according to the weather... If you don't know, SMAP_ files are used when rain probability in session is different than zero... (even if there's a overcast one, no rain, SMAP_ is used...)

GPGSL-3: Fox race driver and team manager - 2011-2012 Constructor Champion - 2012 Driver Champion

Season 9 - #18 Erick Von Draxeler - #35 Marcus Bongardt



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2009 12:56AM by ErickVonDraxeler.

micky-cannonball Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @#$%& rod vs , you still my @#$%& f1 logo on your
> sig?!?!!? its on my gp 06 mod f1c
> f1gogo.com/eaf1.net for short


I'm not a voodoo man to know it!! And the picture isn't your, so, I can use!!
And the home page aren't available!!!


One Racing driver and team manager
GPGSL-3: champion in 2007/2013/2014!
GPGSL-4: testdrivers champion in Season 11!

realistic weather uses mapped sky, the colours used for the mapping is somewhere in the exe.
if you want a night race with changing weather the only option is to either put up with
a blue upper sky or use the visor helmets

"put up with a blue upper sky" = ?

"realistic weather uses mapped sky, the colours used for the mapping is somewhere in the exe." = discard that, I've tried a wet race with no SMAP_ files and I got a cloudless yellow sky...

GPGSL-3: Fox race driver and team manager - 2011-2012 Constructor Champion - 2012 Driver Champion

Season 9 - #18 Erick Von Draxeler - #35 Marcus Bongardt



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2009 07:10PM by ErickVonDraxeler.

OK, sorry for all to bad words and a little of bad-humour...


One Racing driver and team manager
GPGSL-3: champion in 2007/2013/2014!
GPGSL-4: testdrivers champion in Season 11!

ErickVonDraxeler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "put up with a blue upper sky" = ?
>
> "realistic weather uses mapped sky, the colours
> used for the mapping is somewhere in the exe." =
> discard that, I've tried a wet race with no SMAP_
> files and I got a cloudless yellow sky...

yellow sky!!! probably because there was no image to map, that's why the maps are greyscale.
the maps are used only when there's a chance of rain, sometimes the weather prediction
is dry and you still get a mapped sky, in this case if your racing 100% distance it'll
probably cloud over, even sometimes very light rain, the weather is great in this sim



marina bay


building estoril

belini on youtube
[uk.youtube.com]

Fact... Sonic gave me that hint... I've misunderstood it previously...

Question now is: considering that the SMAP_ files are all 256-color bitmaps and the game has palletes to create the skies (0=sky, 255=clouds), where are those palletes, how could them be accessed and/or edited?

Why not? You've found almost everything in game...

GPGSL-3: Fox race driver and team manager - 2011-2012 Constructor Champion - 2012 Driver Champion

Season 9 - #18 Erick Von Draxeler - #35 Marcus Bongardt