*****GP4 Track editing - The new thread*****

wow this progress is great! only issue will be objects! not for long


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

@fulcoboy

this sounds better

anyway, feel free to make the shanghai too, but note i've made the dat in less than one day and spent 20 more days to make decent gfx (not finished tho).
Now i've got some good help from Oggo, so the work can be quicker.
rls date for the 1.0 version is always about end of july/early august.
Public thanks to Enzojz and Kimirgj for photos and videos.(and suddendly for Lo2k for the editor )









Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2005 12:11PM by shutt1e.

Hi,
i was wondering where can i download this track editor from? Im obsessed with editing things. Also another question, is it easy to create your own tracks, or is some basic knowledge needed?

So, my questions are:
1) Where can i download the track editor from?
2) Is it easy to create a track from scratch?
3) Is it easy to edit prevoious tracks, already on the game?

Thanks for your time

go here: download the tutorial and read it - everything is explained for a newbie in there! good luck!

[www.grandprixgames.org]


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Lucasinio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi,
> i was wondering where can i download this track
> editor from? Im obsessed with editing things. Also
> another question, is it easy to create your own
> tracks, or is some basic knowledge needed?
>
> So, my questions are:
> 1) Where can i download the track editor from?

from www.realgpx.com

> 2) Is it easy to create a track from scratch?

some knowledges are needed, look for the Maverick's tutorial on this forum and in the 3de manual.

> 3) Is it easy to edit prevoious tracks, already on
> the game?

no way

>
> Thanks for your time

@Shutt1e:
No way to edit original tracks ? o_O

Anyway, I'm glad to tell you ZM will soon be "avoidable" to convert .dat to .gp4, as I just got the first working results...but I think default texture is not the best

Lo2k Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> @Shutt1e:
> No way to edit original tracks ? o_O

well, all the tracks made until here are based on the original tracks.....

>
> Anyway, I'm glad to tell you ZM will soon be
> "avoidable" to convert .dat to .gp4, as I just got
> the first working results...but I think default
> texture is not the best
>
nice shot, dunno if you alredy know but i meet some troubles opening a .col with the latest 3de. clicking with left button on the 3d window cause always reset of the view,so the track can't be moved with the mouse like in the 13.5b version (usually clicking on 3d and with the button pressed and moving the mouse)
Talking about the 3ds->gp4 conversion, using large banks cause texture stretching in the mappings, can be the 3ds be generated using a higher number of polys than in the .dat? i.e. a bank is 15 units large, instead of using 1 15 units triangles for the 3ds, can be used 4 triangles in place of 1? take this only as idea, dunno if
can make you crazy with the mapping

HAHAHAHAH lmao!

H E L L O

i agree with shuttle about large bankings, if it could be made higher poly would be great.

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I'm against sigpics

I said in the gp4form that I changed default mouse behaviour of the camera to rotate/zoom in v14.5... So I asume you will be able to find your old browsing way going into preferences and unchecking rotate+zoom mode.

Concerning bank mapping stretching, I'm also thinking about it since some days.
Of course I could subdivide banks in as many faces as I wish but it won't solve stretching effect because things will only be solved if mapping coordinates offer constant texture sizes.
So the solution is to generate mapping coordinates respecting a fixed size all along the mesh.
So if I say: my grass texture is designed to be a 2m*2m square, it means mapping coordinates should be computed taking this size in account.
If face is 4m*2m, mapping coordinates would be 0,0 / 2,0 / 2,1 / 2,2 and this way texture will always keep a constant ratio.
I thought about it but this need some tests to see if it can be coded easily.

I have a question, I made my Zolder track with pitlane and created all the flags for the pitlane but it still crashes when I test it. Any idea's what may cause this?

fulcoboy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have a question, I made my Zolder track with
> pitlane and created all the flags for the pitlane
> but it still crashes when I test it. Any idea's
> what may cause this?

Make sure you got the trackflags at the right place. I too had a problem with them today. Follow maverick tutorial for this.

@ lo2k : is it possible that cc-cars follow a different ccline based on the track/weather conditions. Some cars went pretty "wide" during wet weather on my new adelaide circuit. They went thru the trackside barriers but they didn't crash.

Lo2k, what are bin files for?

i've read this from 3deditor manual: "This surface fully replace the .gp4 tarmac mesh", does this mean that track sections in one of the scenes in gp4 files are useless?

also, i tried generating bin files from my modified dat, but now the game crash when exiting from a race. i don't know why this is happening. maybe there's some bugs when creating bin files, or could it be the fact that i'm creating them from a dat without cc-line?

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I'm against sigpics

>>could it be the fact that i'm creating them from a dat without cc-line?

Don't think so.

>>what are bin files for?

I'm not the right person to explain this but here's what I understand:

The tarmac mesh is completely static. You can't add skidmarks to it.
The bin file is like an overlay. It replaces the track mesh and allows the game to show skidmarks, s/f line, and all the tarmac roadsigns that you'll find in tracks like monaco.

>>does this mean that track sections
>>in one of the scenes in gp4 files are useless?

My question exactly. All I can say is that when I created my Dijon track, it had no pitlane mesh (just the pitlane bin) and the pitlane tarmac was fully visible.

@fulcoboy: it could be due to numerous factors, for example for twice the count of needed pitlane commands (flags one): there's always should be only one of each needed flag command.

@Zjokke: I don't know and I never really tested wet weather cc-lines badly but I never saw any settings that could set any wet/dry differenciation for cc-line.

@Paco:
I also doubt it would come from the fact you have no cc-line.
As reported before, it seems pitlane.bin file could cause some troubles so try to only use the track .bin files (and original pitlane file) and see if it comes from pitlane .bin in your case.
For .bin files, Tom explained them fine
They are not really useless because we discovered lately that they are needed some way to make the .bin tarmac visible all along the track because without the .gp4 tarmac objects, .bin tarmac became invisible at about half of the track.

@Lo2k: That was my problem tnx

@ lo2k : thanks for your reply on ccline behaviour.

I got my first steps in graphical editting today.

Now my question : When clicking on DLBankNew I discovered that all banks exist into 1 part (Part0) Is it possible to divide it into multiple parts already? So that different textures can be used for the different runoff area's. Or is this the issue you were discussing about with maverick? (about slicing tracks I think it was)

3DEditor feature request : I don't know if this is possible : turning on/off physical/graphical layers in 3D editor temporary.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2005 11:40PM by Zjokke.

@Fulcoboy: fine

@Zjokke: Yep, that's what we spoke about and I'm not very happy with such idea because it would create hundreds of objects and would need to set textures for each object (moreover when you will be able to create objects in 3DEditor without ZM). For small changes, you can use the Detach feature, but not for big areas obviously. Else the solution would be to export the object and edit it in another editor (ZM, Max...).

For the request, look a second time in Display Menu or F10 Key...

Lo2k, i tried what you said, created bin files from my dat and used only the track bin, also i deleted the old track sectors but kept the new ones (in a new scene, which is scene 4). now the result is that i have tarmac missing from the last sectors of the track (i suspect they are the same amount i have added to the original track when modifying the layout).

i'm going to make some more tests to see what happens.

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I'm against sigpics

ok, tried some other things, but still no luck.

instead of creating a new scene to import my .gp4 (the one created from importing the dat to ZM), i imported it to the scene where the original track sections are, and deleted all the new objects but the track ones, so the scene was the same as before, but with also the track sections from the new layout, therefore, track sections from both layouts were there (TrackXX and TRACKXXNew or similar).

i tried that ingame (with col and track bin generated from dat file) and i have tarmac on the new layout but when i arrive at about turn 13 the tarmac dissapears. i thought it could be something to do with having track sections twice, so i deleted the original ones, tried ingame, and got the same result.

btw, game is crashing when exiting from the race/practice if i'm using new track bin file.

and one last thing:

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I'm against sigpics