TUTORIAL Build your FIRST track - BASIC GUIDE

[LilSKi]

LilSKi, thanks for the info! It is amazing how much I DON"T KNOW! Here is a shot of the area where the AI stops and then restarts:

View attachment 1248

The right spline goes right down the middle of the track? It looks like my AI line crosses over the right spline about where the cars put on the brakes. How did it get like that??? The right spline goes off to the left at the bottom and then starts back in the middle of the track. The run off area on the bottom right was labeled as "1ROAD_10_SUB1" but I did not label it as such. I went around labeling the track area and when I came back to label those run off areas, I saw that they were already labeled? I'm not even sure they are the problem. Is there a way for me to move the line in the editor or do I have to go back in and try renaming all those run off areas even though they would still be "Track=1". Not sure how that would help.

Yeah that's kind of the opposite of what I thought the issue would be. I would have to see the track files to determine what the actual problem is.

 

[dpeters95]

Yeah that's kind of the opposite of what I thought the issue would be. I would have to see the track files to determine what the actual problem is.

Would I be able to send you the files? I don't want to post them here illegally, if that is the case since I don't have the original authors permission to disseminate... This is really just for education purposes.

 

[LilSKi]

many people use Drop Box or Google drive to send stuff. Just PM me the link and don't post it here.

 

[dpeters95]

Thank you. I will send you the link. I need to find out who created the track and just ask if I could have permission to convert to AC. All this would then be mute! I'm new around here and I just don't want to break the rules...

 

[Morten B]

Well that worked, but the car starts at the wrong angle, some 100 degres wrong
And my map seem to be half scale

When I try to rotate it for the car to start the right way, it gets broken again, mesured in 3DSmax it needs a 135 degree spin

 

[Fat-Alfie]

You should just need to rotate the cube 135° in the Z axis and re-export your .fbx

X=90°
Y=0°
Z=135°

 

[dpeters95]

Ok, I fixed the Ghost Car problem. Sometime in the conversion process I ended up with the track having 2 differently named folders in the Ghost Car folder! Deleted the old name, and all is good. Another lesson learned

I wish I could solve the AI problem though! LilSKi has been trying to help me with the AI problem but still no go. They leave the Start line make a turn and stop halfway down the straightaway. I can actually push a car a little distance and it seems to get loose of what is holding it. It will go around the next turn and stop again.

 

[dpeters95]

I thought I would post this in case others might have a similar problem:
First, since this was a rFactor track conversion, there were a few things that could have been done differently to ease the conversion , but, here is what I found as a solution to the AI problem. The track had a thin strip of what was really scenery on both sides extending through/under the bottom of the walls. Originally I named these objects as "1SCENE_XX" The reason for the leading "1" was because I thought the cars tires might get stuck in those areas near the wall if it was not solid. WELLLL, to make a long story short, the AI recorder DID NOT LIKE that! It mistook the scenery area as part of the actual track. I finally removed the leading "1" from the "SCENE_X" objects, and bingo, the AI worked perfectly! I have driven about 30 laps and have not seen any cars get stuck next to the walls.

I want to send a big THANK YOU to LilSKi for helping with this particular problem. He suggested several ideas that led me to the final answer! I also want to thank everyone else in the forum for helping me out with all my other 1st time track conversion problems!

I hope to build my own track from scratch someday and this has been a big learning experience...

 

[dpeters95]

Does anyone know how to set up the DRS Zones on a track. I see that there is a file called, "drs_zones.ini" in the "data" folder but I can't figure out how they get the numbers...

Here is a sample from the "Monza" track:

[ZONE_0]
DETECTION=0.880
START=0.029
END=0.152

TIA,
Dennis

 

[luchian]

I did not directly played with the DRS zones yet. However, the numbers seem to fit the 'coordinates' used in cameras.

IF this is the case, you can just load your track into the editor, load the AI line, and select it. You will see those colored vertical lines (indicating the position on track) so you can move those around and see the coordinates of the points you are interested in.

On my side, will not be able to test this sooner than 1-2 days.

 

[dpeters95]

I did not directly played with the DRS zones yet. However, the numbers seem to fit the 'coordinates' used in cameras.

IF this is the case, you can just load your track into the editor, load the AI line, and select it. You will see those colored vertical lines (indicating the position on track) so you can move those around and see the coordinates of the points you are interested in.

On my side, will not be able to test this sooner than 1-2 days.

Right again my friend! I checked the Monza track and the Start number falls right where they placed their DRS signs and the End falls just before the next curve! The Detection number is a little more difficult. It appears to be the end of the previous straightaway before the curve that leads to the beginning of the next straightaway that contains the DRS sign. Easy for me to say. Let me know if you see a better way to determine that "Detection" number.

Thanks

****EDIT****
Well, not only did I find a layout of the Baku track with the 2 designated DRS zones but also it included the detection points! I looked up the data points in the AC Editor and put the file in my data folder, gave it a try and it worked!

 

[luchian]

Great to hear .

I think every forum loves users like you (& the others "you" of course ), that not only ask questions but also make the effort in understanding how things work. It's really a great satisfaction seeing this kind of posts.

 

[dpeters95]

Thank you! By the way, I contacted the creator of this Baku_16 rFactor track which was "dix-racing.pl", and they were perfectly fine with giving me permission to create the Assetto Corsa version and freely distribute! They only asked that original development credit be given to them along with my conversion info in a "readme.txt" file. Absolutely, very nice of them!

 

[dpeters95]

Well, I'm back with another problem that I hope someone can help me with. I have been working on several conversions but I have 2 of them that seemed to go well but when I race them in AC, the sun is way too bright. I figured this should be easy, just decrease the sun's intensity. But how? I have tried numerous things to lower the brightness or contrast but nothing seems to work. Everything looks good in 3dSimEd3 but I even changed the "HDR" settings and the "Colors and fog" settings in the display menu thinking that would work. Well, it darkens my display in 3dSimEd3 but it looks the same in AC.

Then I tried changing the Illumination numbers in the AC Editor with the same result. It looks darker in the editor but just as bright in AC. All these changes just seem to change the way the track looks in those two programs but it doesn't carry over to the final KN5 file.

I thought this would be easy. I should have known better... Anyone?

 

[luchian]

There is a lightning.ini in your track\data folder (if there is not, you can create it). You can change sun pitch and angle over there. Make some tries and see if it goes in the direction you wish.

2/but generally, if the sun is "too bright", it's actually the shader settings. Lower the values in the shader, and it should make it better .

Or do you mean too "washed out" ?

..sent from my phone.

 

[Pixelchaser]

it all depends on the shader you are using. for multilayer shaders there are 3 main attributes. first is the "magic multi figure" then their is ambient and diffuse values, but the other attribute to affect all of this is specular design on the alpha channels for most textures.

ambient and diffuse can be down low, maybe 0.2 /0.3, magic multi =1 and with these settings you can balance any further annoyance by tunning your alpha channels to be darker and thus generate less specular.

I learn this from using 3dsimed and opening the ks tracks and literally translating what kunos sets as default values. its the only way to go about it. and as you have this program too. open a kunos track and study it.

so check your alpha channels firstly. if they are all white, that's your problem right there.

 

[dpeters95]

luchian/Pixelchaser,
Yes, I have moved the sun in lighting.ini which does make it darker as I set it lower in the sky. But it then appears to be 5-6 pm. I was looking for a single table that I could just lower the brightness. No such luck, huh? I'll have to look into shaders. I haven't done anything with those. In the AC Editor, I have "ksPerPixel" for all materials and it appears they all are set like this:

Ambient 0.2
Diffuse 0.8
Specular 0.2
SpecularExp 1
Emmissive 0 0 0
Alpha 0

I have not done anything in 3DsimEd3 with the shaders. Didn't know I could...
When you say to "lower the values in the shader", do you mean for every material because the sun doesn't have a material, correct? And how do I know if my Alpha channels are all white? Is that the "0" above?

Until I hear back, I will be looking at some of the ks tracks...

As always, thank you guys!

 

[Pixelchaser]

yeah the sun is the weather for all tracks and well only through weather files can that be changed. which is not what you should be doing., btw its good to test in every weather situation. it can provide clues when you stray ofcourse whilst fiddling, fiddling too much with shaders that work with HDR leads to the dark side.(anger & despair)

ambient / diffuse need to be matched more, this is for balancing everything between no light and our single point source of sunlight at its maximum value.(also minimal difference is required for using 3dgrass-but that's another story for later)

whilst things do get darker as the sun goes down and its technically correct to set it the way you have, you don't need to because HDR is post processing these settings. and knowing what hdr does post process wise is key to setting it all up. having HDR also means your art and shaders need to be correctly setup. Ac doesn't do night time obviously. if it did I think these settings would completely different. my first adventure into the ac sdk and shaders was to do exactly as you did. 0.2 and 0.8.

So the art requires to be well balanced imagery for the shaders to work and shaders being well balanced for the hdr to work properly. but there is no scope there to set hdr up much differently and that area is the PP filters. once you get this logic behind how its all working together it dictates that there is actually a right and a wrong way to set stuff up. for a long time I was in the belief there was no right or wrong but not any more.

SpecularEXP is an angle. 1 degree covers everything in basic terms. lowest I go is about 5 on ground terrain. an example of this is the type and style of a sun spot reflecting off various materials. a very shinny object will have a high value here indicating very narrow angle of light bounce, and a very dull object that doesn't reflect will have low numbers spreading the light about more so.

alpha channel is within the texture your using, ie the textures alpha channel. you have R, G, B, and A(alpha) channels within a DDS texture.

 

[dpeters95]

Well, here is what I have done... I changed Specular from 0.2 to 0.0. Wow, what a difference! All the materials sharpened up nicely. Things like ambulances that were before a bland grayish foggy shape have become nice sharp white vehicles with color trim! I had to raise the Ambient from 0.2 to 0.5 because the Specular reduction darkened the objects just a little too much. And, I sort of figured out the answer to my question, unfortunately, I have to do it to all the materials :-( Oh well, the result that I tried in AC was amazing. The sun was still bright but objects were no longer a bright washed out look.

One more hopeful question, is there by chance a file somewhere that I can replace all the Specular and Ambient numbers wholesale? I would think not. I would think it's all stored in each individual material file.

Once again, thank you both very much for the help. Once I started playing around with those settings, it all opened up for me!

 

[luchian]

[..]Or do you mean too "washed out" ?

There is a "batch" option in the SDK, but not sure it can be used for material settings..

Other option would be to maybe use an external editor (like Notepad++) and edit directly the values of you persistence file .