*****GP4 Track editing*****

[images.google.de]

@xero: watch this link... this are informations about the new Mercedes-Arena. If you scroll down you see one point above of the trackmap "Informationen Mercedes-Arena"

The first is the lenght of it on the ideal line
the second is the width of the track in this part
the third ist the angle (like in the last corner of indianapolis)
the fourth is the changing of the height...

this is an information i got from Walnu

hm, litle problem with my track again, at the point mynew section comes at the old, i seem to have a slight thing. mijn tcam/cockpit view changes for a second, and also i see i've lost shadow on some part where i did have them before. looks like we can delete it and start over again. maybe lo2k can give an update on some minor feature's (an 11.7.01 ) so we have some new options, or wont this be anytime soon?

Thanks tobeast. I'm just going to do it by guestimating via photos now. As long as it's believable to most users then i'll be happy! It got in such a mess with elevations because I had to maintain a certain rotation angle to avoid complications when putting the objects back into 3DEditor, and it throws you off a great deal! I'm still tweaking these elevations as I build the land around it.

@Maverick: that sounds like a problem with the ccline elevation values, but I could be wrong.

@Maverick: that sounds like a problem with the ccline elevation values, but I could be wrong.

Elevations? cant find them anywhere.

No, this is clearly due to a non updated .col file because .col file defines mesh where shadows will be projected on and also defines in an unknown way how chase cameras point toward the car (I assume it's just dependant to height difference between car and .col track surface).

Xero, i have found the perfect picture for you, it is a bit small but it shows the new part of the track from above

[www.f1total.com]

hm, that's odd, it was just right as i recalled yesterday, and i havent touched the col file. ah well, let's start over

oh btw:
Lo2k Wrote:
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> No, this is clearly due to a non updated .col file
> because .col file defines mesh where shadows will
> be projected on and also defines in an unknown way
> how chase cameras point toward the car (I assume
> it's just dependant to height difference between
> car and .col track surface).

Will there be any way to load col and gp4, or col and dat at the same time as we now have with gp4 and dat? it seems te only way to really line things up propperly when you make radical changes.

one other thing, is there a way to have bin -> gp4 ? cause i know you can do gp4 -> bin. and to line things up it would be nice to make dat -> bin -> gp4. so all works well, maybe allso bin -> col but i may be a bit to ambitious here

last point, as i made the new setion i tried to make some fences match, and it is crap to do, when i rotate it the steps between stuff is pretty big. very hard to get things right. what is still on top of my list in means of grafical editing is snapping, so you can snap to points or edges. this way you dont have gaps all over the place. Is this something you think you can do? It can take hours off the progress of making a track.






Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2005 07:57PM by <Maverick>.

Will there be any way to load col and gp4, or col and dat at the same time as we now have with gp4 and dat?
Having .gp4 and .dat editing possibilities at the same time was a challenge but it's now a reality. Anyway, adding more file formats simultaneously is not that easy and that's why it's not done already.

one other thing, is there a way to have bin -> gp4 ?
I can build a .gp4 file from a .bin but I'm pretty sure GP4 will never load it as some things are needed (as trackside cameras, cc-line) and they can't be created from .bin.

maybe also bin -> col but i may be a bit to ambitious here
Yep. Doing this, you will have default behaviour everywhere and no shadows I think, because only track mesh will be defined in the .col and track behaviour is anyway not driven by .col file

when i rotate it the steps between stuff is pretty big.
If I remind well, precision is 1 or 0.1 degree...I will check that.

so you can snap to points or edges.
Well, it's not the first time I hear about snapping but snapping would be very CPU consuming and I don't know if it would be very "usable".

Having .gp4 and .dat editing possibilities at the same time was a challenge but it's now a reality. Anyway, adding more file formats simultaneously is not that easy and that's why it's not done already.
I unerstand that, but the posibility to load just gp4 and col and no dat, or some other combination would be very interesting, as now when i have a new section i have absolutely no clue whatsoever about how high or width my col sections should be.

I can build a .gp4 file from a .bin but I'm pretty sure GP4 will never load it as some things are needed (as trackside cameras, cc-line) and they can't be created from .bin.
im just refering to the track layout here, so maybe IMPORT bin/dat to gp4 would be the right word.

Well, it's not the first time I hear about snapping but snapping would be very CPU consuming and I don't know if it would be very "usable".
could it be an optionall feature in the options tab? I dont know about others, but I would certainly like to give up some cpu power for it

maybe also bin -> col but i may be a bit to ambitious here
Yep. Doing this, you will have default behaviour everywhere and no shadows I think, because only track mesh will be defined in the .col and track behaviour is anyway not driven by .col file

Is it possible to overlay the .gp4 and .col, but only enable editing to the .col? Having the .gp4 act as a ghost so to speak?

Maverick I just saw your video about that round track you made and I must say that you have done a great work!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2005 10:56AM by vesuvius.

Lo2k,
about:

"...I can build a .gp4 file from a .bin but I'm pretty sure GP4 will never load it as some things are needed (as trackside cameras, cc-line) and they can't be created from .bin. ..."

But although it does not work, perhaps can help to save some time.
I have Barcelona2004.dat file (without CC-line) anb .bin generated by it. I would desperately need .gp4, but it is so "time expensive" that i don't know if i will be able to do it, but with some help (only the major task as is make correspond the polygons, etc) perhaps I would be animated to follow with it...

cheers

hm, just had a thought lo2k, since there is something about the cc-direction that makes the ccline get better. If you edit the value the ccline gets better than before, and i allways try to get a value close to 0, because it sounds very neutrall to me. now can this be because that value changes the ccline in the editor, but not ingame, as when you edit it, the one in the editor gets closer to the ingame one, that maybe the value is looked up for calculating the ccline, but should not be? So you should ignore this value, as its no longer being used for ccline (may have bin in prior games) Is this a possibility? Or have you looked into this before?

edit hm, looked into it, changing the ccdirections DOES change the ingame ccline, so thats a shame.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2005 02:57PM by <Maverick>.

I was tenting my bcn track and with the new bin, the tarmac disapears in the old La Caixa curve...RIGHT, at least a change!

Now i would need some time (or help :-S ) to edit the .GP4 file.

Seriously guys, if you're going to do a proper track project it's sooo much easier starting with the .gp4! This way you can edit the .dat file to fit it. It's near impossible to do it the other way around! The problem is the .gp4 takes a long time to do when you've major reconstruction like the Nurbugring. Doing Barcelona shouldn't be too hard though!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2005 02:37PM by Xero.

Xero Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Seriously guys, if you're going to do a proper
> track project it's sooo much easier starting with
> the .gp4! This way you can edit the .dat file to
> fit it. It's near impossible to do it the other
> way around!

you're right, doing the gp4 is the easiest, but what use is a nice gp4 if it's not possible to have a suitable dat for it? i'm not interested in making a track for release, face it i'm a sloppy worker and bored quite easily, so i by far lack the patience to make a track nice and tidy, but by sorting out the dat, and looking what the posibilities are i think we can acomplish more than by just editing the gp4. be honest, editing the gp4 is no challenge at all, you can move whatever you want, to whereever you want without a single crash, you just have to line up everything. the only thing it takes is time.
Now i dont want to offend you here really, making a new grafical track is also something thats a lot of work, and face it, it has to be done sometime. but i just disagree on the fact that making a gp4 now is better. the grafical part is nice, but the fisical part is where the challenge lies (at least imho).

ok, sorry i typed all that, nor harm intended, maybe we can work together on a track, one for gfx, one for fysics

Xero - can you post some progress screens just so we get an idea of what process you're doing?

ie make the gp4 (is this everything: stands, verges, crowd??)
- then ccline or sectors? are they done to fit the .gp4, or to 'please' 3d editor... etc


____
Tony

Xero a écrit:
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>The problem is the .gp4 takes a long time to do when you've major reconstruction like the Nurbugring.

I 100% agree with you It made two weeks who i work on the Tamburello turn


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editing the gp4 is no challenge at all
I disagree... I thought so to until I realised what i'll need to do for my nurburgring! After I finish building, I need to seperate it all into objects, and then parts, and then line them all up in 3deditor... going to be frustrating!

I see what you mean with the challenge being within the physical part of the track, because alot of unknown factors remain. The point im getting across is only start on the physical part if you want to learn whats going on. If you plan on making a track you can drive and see in game, then you really need to start with the .gp4!

@b-tone: i'll post some progress shots once i've done a bit more work. Yes, im making everything. Good news is the new section contains no stands to my knowledge, so this will save some time.

Xero Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> editing the gp4 is no challenge at all
> I disagree... I thought so to until I realised
> what i'll need to do for my nurburgring! After I
> finish building, I need to seperate it all into
> objects, and then parts, and then line them all up
> in 3deditor... going to be frustrating!

Yes you are tight, i was stating it a bit black and white.

> I see what you mean with the challenge being
> within the physical part of the track, because
> alot of unknown factors remain. The point im
> getting across is only start on the physical part
> if you want to learn whats going on. If you plan
> on making a track you can drive and see in game,
> then you really need to start with the .gp4!

Well, i think on that part i disagree with you. on the grafical part you are not really limited on what you can do. but in the physical part you are. so when you start making the unlimited gfx part, and try to fit the limited phys. part to it you might have some complications. aslo, i think in some time it can be possible to create a .gp4 tracklayout from a dat/bin file, or maybe even (untextured) land from a col file. if you can get that into your gp4 file you are allready doing great. but doing it the other way around cant be done. as the properties for the dat can't be lead from the gp4. and as you saw with bin yourself, generating from dat goes far better then form gp4.
we'll problably see in the future what turns out to be the better method, for now it doens't matter that much as combining the to things is a 10year job. but improvements are on the way.

(just one thing, to let you see creating gp4 after dat can be done: [members.home.nl] (as i said before, i'm sloppy, so dont mind the numereous errors and texture bugs, i didn't take much time to make that part)