GP4 Track Editing - new new thread

My Graphic card is a GeForce FX5600, and after having tried without antialiasing, it's the same. But thanks for the tips anyway.

I'm pretty sure someone had this trouble before and finaly found the solution but I can't remind who and when...maybe a search here and on my forum (click on my sigpic below) could help.

OK, let's have a big look, thanks very much !

Well, after having read a few 20 pages of this topic, there was one solution posted which was to make the last sector of the track a bit longer, then to save the .dat, to delete the last sector, to genereate .bin ,.col and .gp4 files, and finally to remove the last trackXX object of the .gp4 file. I have done all this, and the game doesn't crash when I press Escape, but the tarmac isn't displayed before the S/F Line, and the gampe crashes in Turn two (after about a little third of a lap). Does someone have a solution ? Sorry to insist, but I really want my track to work. Thanks in advance.

Gusgus Wrote:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The track I made works fine ingame, but crashes when the game is said
> to go to the session result screen and when I press Escape. Is there
> any way to fix that ? Moreover, when I use it with TSM, a popup appers
> saying "Unknown Pitside -5380", despite the track works (but still
> crashes on exit). Is it related to my problem ? If not, what can I do
> to fix it ?
>

did you enable debug info in GPxPatch?

WYSIWYG / F1: Overtaking has become a strategy!

Gusgus schreef:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Well, after having read a few 20 pages of this topic, there was one
> solution posted which was to make the last sector of the track a bit
> longer, then to save the .dat, to delete the last sector, to genereate
> .bin ,.col and .gp4 files, and finally to remove the last trackXX
> object of the .gp4 file. I have done all this, and the game doesn't
> crash when I press Escape, but the tarmac isn't displayed before the
> S/F Line, and the gampe crashes in Turn two (after about a little
> third of a lap). Does someone have a solution ? Sorry to insist, but I
> really want my track to work. Thanks in advance.



First of all, your dat file is lookin' fine, very well done. It's really fun to drive.

I discovered that your track crash when debug mode is enabled in GpxPatch.

Normally if you run a selfmade track debug mode must be enabled to avoid crashing when hitting the Esc button.

In very rare situations, like in this case, a selfmade track can only be run without the debug mode enabled to avoid crashing.

Sadly it will crash when hitting the Esc button.

---

My Grand Prix 4 Files
I'm a total dick. How many people can say that?

@Turbo lover : I'm pleased that you like my track, although it's still far from what I want it to do. Thank you very much for your help and your explainations.

@erwin_78 : as Turbo Lover said, the game crashes when I enable the Debug Mode...

Where's the thread about the Paul Ricard Circuit for GP4?

EDIT: Damn it, I forgot that we have a SEARCH BUTTON :S sorry

---

"I'm an artist, the track is my canvas, and the car is my brush."




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2006 07:36PM by Senna.

Another small but anoying issue with my track. I've used and moddified the orignal Montreal pit building. Above each garage is a sign that says something like F1GP, i've edited this so it says drivers and teams above their respected garages. The thing is the first 3 team (which are in a seperate object) don't display in game. They are transparent. All the others work fine. What could cause this?

And while i am here, what the difference between DTX1 and DTX5 tex files?

paul..

airefresco Wrote:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> And while i am here, what the difference between DTX1 and DTX5 tex
> files?
>
> paul..

In short: the alpha channel.
If you don't use the alpha channel then always use DXT1 because DXT5 will only double the filesize and nothing more.
If you do use alpha on the texture then DXT1 is able to store a 1 bit alpha, which means something like alpha enabled or disabled per pixel.
DXT3 has an explicit 4 bit alpha, which means that you can have 256 different shades of the alpha channel per pixel.
DXT5 is similair to DXT3, except that it has an interpolated alpha channel.
Interpolation is something like anti-aliasing. It's a type of curve fitting.

[edit]
In addition:
DXT3 might also be useful as it's the most 'true' representation of the image processed in your image editor (which works with pixels)

Some scenarios here:
You made a helmet and the only perpose for the alpha channel is transparency. There's no need for a gradient type of transparency because your visor is just plain glass. Then you'd pick DXT1. Alpha on or off per pixel.

your helmet uses a visor and the top is darker than the bottom. then you could use DXT3 or DXT5.
DXT3 uses the exact same image as you would save it to TGA. 256 levels of transparency per pixel.
So if you need a very detailed alpha channel then DXT3 is the best choice.
But this also has a downside: Textures easily become very 'grainy' because of the detail.
DirectX doesn't use pixels as we know it and Microsoft invented DXT5. This lets the alpha 'bleed' a bit.
when your original texture has a sequence of alpha pixels like 255,0,127,255 then DXT5 will (for the eye) make it something look like this 255,80,200,255.
Sounds like there's image-loss there and there is, but this avoids you from making 2048 pixel textures for simple small textures. So it's some sort of intelligent blur if you like

---

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2006 02:46AM by ZaZ.

Thanks Zaz, i understand now. Any ideas on my other problem?

would a screenshot help?

paul..

they might be transparent because of the tex. but most likely some lod or clipping values need changed (set to 0?) or move the object to another scene

____
Tony

I already tried changing to another scene and doesn't make any difference. I will try the other things now.

thanks,
paul..

reverting normals AND/OR face order for this part could help too.

Is there any negatives in adding too many track sectors?
I thin ksome curves are too chunky, and manually ading more sectors smoothens it out alot, and when converting to bin/gp4 etc it looks a lot better.
I guess it messes up the track length value as that counts sectors doesn't it? But what about cc line, will it affect that much?

____
Tony

Do not be surprised if things goes mad after...
Using non standard length sectors would cause much troubles, bin troubles at least (tyre skids will be a mess) and probably other things (maybe cc-line too, yep).

Well, but I think one should nevertheless use the method of adding new sctors in order to smooth out tight corners because this is very important for a well driveable track - even if tyre skids aren't correct, imo.

Well i was going to test not using the .bin and editing the mesh in 3ds max, I got to the stage of not using a .bin for now, with no problems at all, not one crash, but I didn't bother editing the mesh adding new faces

does the bin need to match the dat, or just the objects?
if so then adding the extra sectors, creating the .gp4 and .bin and then deleting the sectors would work (work=having smoother looking corners)?

____
Tony

Well the .bin is created from the .dat, which the 3d mesh is then created from, so I'd say that the .bin has to match the .dat, which in turn has to match the objects. I mean, I've basically set up a track where the track and pitlane objects are one object in 3ded, so the .bin has no reference for setting up another mesh over the top of the original graphical surface. While it worked for the track, I'm still having problems with the pitlane, but I haven't had any crashes at all yet, no matter what I do to it, which is good news I suppose in a round-a-bout kinda way