GP4 Track Editing - new new thread

Hey guys,

at the moment I have got a really mysterious track in progress.
A friend sent me the basic layout and I'm finishing it now. The layout might be made with an older Builder-version, I'm sure.
Here are the current problems:

1. I edited an elevation profile in the DAT, created the 'track from DAT'. Although the Builder says the Z-values of all objects are as they should be considdering the DAT-file I get this in game:

Of course I replaced the former WAD and Dat before testing .
--> Why is the track appearing at the wrong niveau, although the Builder says the coordinates are fine?

2. I have one kerb (declared in DAT and GP4-file) that has grass behaviour, insetad of tarmac. Is there any way to fix it?

3. Once I've tested the track the game disabled my traction control after I crossed the start/finish-line for the first time. Because I saved/restored the car status, this event was repeatable every time I pressed backspace. Very mysterious... Any ideas?

Thanks for reading
Klaus Feldmann



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2012 05:15PM by klausfeldmann.

1. You need to recreate the .bin file too in order the dynamic tarmac was updated too to your new elevation changes (File Menu/ Convert dad to / bin files)

2. In the .gp4 file, go to parts level and at the very bottom of the surface properties window you will notice a behaviour combobox. Just change it from grass to land for your kerb object

3. I dunno for this one. It's the first time I ever heard about this trouble...

Lo2k schrieb:
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> 1. You need to recreate the .bin file too in order
> the dynamic tarmac was updated too to your new
> elevation changes (File Menu/ Convert dad to / bin
> files)

@#$%&, I've forgoten to do the basical things before testing! Thanks, it works.

> 2. In the .gp4 file, go to parts level and at the
> very bottom of the surface properties window you
> will notice a behaviour combobox. Just change it
> from grass to land for your kerb object

I had a look at it: It has had 'hard' behaviour as a kerb normally has. Changing it to 'tarmac' behaviour sadly has no effect. The kerb still behaves like grass, although the .col-file says it should be tarmac...
When I look back in-game I see weird displaing tarmac at this kerb:


> 3. I dunno for this one. It's the first time I
> ever heard about this trouble...

Yes, I guessed that. Crazy thing with automatic disabled driving aids. This trouble hasn't appeared again so far, so this shouldn't be a big problem, I think.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2012 11:59AM by klausfeldmann.

2. When you run atop this kerb and look at the tyre, does it follow kerb shape or the grass shape underneath ?
If it doesn't follow the kerb, it might be something wrong in the .dat kerb commands and you surely have better removing this kerb and recreating it.
BTW these sharp edges are due to the fact you recreated the .bin without using the same HD settings as the .gp4. You might check in Preferences/computation tab/HD track that method is on Bezier (I doubt it is) and recreate the .bin with that setting on.
If it is already on Bezier, you might have a try with approximative too and check ingame with recreated .bin (and .col to have everything up-to-date).

Yes, the tyre did follow the kerb shape. So I recreated the kerb in the dat and everything works fine now.
Thanks Laurent for the fix and for the HD-settings tip

Glad to hear it is solved

So I'm trying to remove the sky dome from a track (Melbourne 2011) and I'm getting a dark green sky after I removed the Horizon_clouds object from the .gp4 file. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT: Solved! I took the weather.wdt file from the original wad.

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2013 02:50AM by TomMK.

When you create a new scene using "Track from .dat", is it possible to combine the Track and Pitlane meshes into one, so that the pitlane does not overlap the track mesh but instead they form just a single, integrated mesh?

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

Well, it's of no use because .gp4 TRACKxx and PITLANExx objects are not displayed in game, they are replaced by .bin meshes, one for track and the other for pitlane and I doubt merging them is very healthy





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2013 06:23PM by Lo2k.

OK thanks Laurent. So it is OK to have the pitlane tarmac overlapping the track verge at the pitlane entry / exit? Do they have to be in different scenes?

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

Quote
TomMK
OK thanks Laurent. So it is OK to have the pitlane tarmac overlapping the track verge at the pitlane entry / exit?

It’s okay that the textures overlap.

Quote
TomMK
Do they have to be in different scenes?

They can be in the same scene.

Thanks auscain. You can tell I'm new at this. Another question:

Can you put the objects for crowd, seats and the stand in the same scene? In Melbourne the seats and crowd are separate from the stands - why?!

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

TomMK schrieb:
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> Can you put the objects for crowd, seats and the
> stand in the same scene? In Melbourne the seats
> and crowd are separate from the stands - why?!

They can be in the same scene without causing any problems. The question, which object you put in which scene is more a question of personal style .

OK, that's good to know, thanks klaus.

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

TomMK schrieb:
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> OK, that's good to know, thanks klaus.

No problem .
Just one thing in addition: The number of faces per scene is limited in GP4, so there will be a point where you maybe have to split the track in two or more scenes. But the GP4Builder will tell you in time, if there is a problem with the number of faces .

I have about 7 scenes at the moment so I think I'm OK. Just reorganizing the objects into different scenes according to my preference is taking a while!

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

TomMK Wrote:
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> Can you put the objects for crowd, seats and the stand in the same scene? In Melbourne the seats and crowd are separate from the stands - why?!

I used melborne to build Oran Park so I know a little through testing. I believe the “ crowd” was in a different scene with melborne because the transparent texture of the crowd was causing a different object to disappear or simply not shown in-game. I don’t pretend to fully understand the problem. Sometimes I just accept it just is an run with that. Feel free to have a look at Oran Park and I understand why I moved objects into different scenes. Following the original style is a wise choice I believe.

Klausfeldmann Wrote:
----------------------------------
> They can be in the same scene without causing any problems. The question, which object you put in which scene is more a question of personal style .

I don’t disagree with this method, until things don’t work in-game any longer

OK, so there something more to it than just personal style? I saw earlier in this thread that kerbs should be in a different scene. So what's the logic behind that?

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel

In the past there was an understanding that objects sitting on top of each other should be in different scenes. An example of this concept, which I used very often in tracks I worked in:

- Scene 1: track, pitlane, grass, runoffs, terrain
- Scene 2: kerbs, walls, grandstands, fences
- Scene 3: buildings, bridges, adverts, crowd

In my personal experience, this is a good way of organizing things in the .gp4 file, but it is not mandatory. Graphical bugs like flickering or incorrect drawing of objects (i.e., a marshall appearing behind a fence when he's physically ahead of it) are mostly unrelated to how objects are organized in scenes.

To be honest, I believe scenes exist only as a programming resource. The .gp4 file (most files in the game, actually) was structured with 16-bit indexes, which limit the number of "things" that can be referenced to 65,535 (in our case, vertices and faces). So scenes are used to double, triple, or quadruple that limit - as opposed to the alternative of using 32-bit indexes, which would raise that limit to an unnecessary 4.3 billion. Laurent please correct me if I'm wrong


My unfinished tracks: [www.grandprixgames.org]
Send bug reports and track editing questions to f1virtualblog@gmail.com

Prblanco that's exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!!

This track editing thing is REALLY addictive when you get started

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Intel NUC 8i3, 8GB RAM, MS Sidewinder Wheel