TUTORIAL Build your FIRST track - BASIC GUIDE

[LilSKi]

Hi Luchian,
Yeah, the person I am helping wanted the 67-7?? version. The layout is different. The Kunos version is awesome!

It's 'donationware' but it's old Zandvoort
http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/sandevoerde-f3-classic-tracks.138342/

@LilSKi : You must be anticipating my next question. If through conversion or whatever the track mesh is low poly with broken nodes/vertices, triangulation, what about objects like buildings? They don't need extra polys like for a smooth track, but would they not also need to be cleaned up for better textural graphic display/performance? I'm just wondering if this is why converted tracks have "flickering" objects???

You don't need to bother with objects unless you want to. Flickering is usually cause by Z-fighting. Two planes that face the same direction are too close to each other. So when at a distance the two planes fight each other and flicker.

 

[Ricardo Rey]

Zandvoort

1955

1967

1965

Not the best quality.

 

[Ricardo Rey]

@luchian - On the very first page of this post, there is a max image for exporting with triangulate checked. Forgive my ignorance for asking; if fixing the converted tracks we are converting triangles to quads, so is this necessary? I guess I am confused.

 

[LilSKi]

@luchian - On the very first page of this post, there is a max image for exporting with triangulate checked. Forgive my ignorance for asking; if fixing the converted tracks we are converting triangles to quads, so is this necessary? I guess I am confused.

All mesh gets converted to triangles on export. This is why when importing a track it is always in triangles. It is just easier to work on and fix models in quads.

Sometimes it is better to force the triangulation before export and in general it is a good practice as the sim may triangulate differently than the 3D software. For instance an object like a car may look right in the 3d software in quads but in sim when it triangulates the mesh that car can be floating in the air or stuck in the ground. So say when placing objects it is best to have the mesh triangulated in the 3D software. In blender I use the triangulate modifier on my terrain but I never apply it. That way I can turn it on and off as I need it.

 

[Ricardo Rey]

Thanks @LilSKi ! I'm finding it easier to "fix" the converted tracks in Blender. I'm just trying to learn my way around; so it's the frustration of the learning curve. then

I'm going to finish these track surfaces, then spend some time going through the tutorial on Blender.

 

[luchian]

I may add that it would be triangulated anyway, as a GPU only knows to work with triangles.

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[Ricardo Rey]

You guys are great! Thanks!

 

[Ricardo Rey]

I guess I'm not clear on the import/export options for scaling. Above it said at 100. I guess I thought I was at 1.00 or is it 100.0? Y up? meters. Actually everything seems to be OK but the scaling.

 

[cercata]

Any place where it's documented the params of surfaces.ini ?

I've discovered that setting DAMPING to 0.1-0.15 makes excelent gravel traps.

Edit: This is the best I found, not complete:
http://site.hagn.io/assettocorsa/modding/tracks/data/surfaces-ini

• KEY: name of the surface. Objects use surfaces by this name
• FRICTION: friction of this surface
• DAMPING: slow down factor
• WAV: a sound file playing while touching this surface
• WAV_PITCH: scales how fast the the sound is played
• FF_EFFECT: unknown
• DIRT_ADDITIVE: marks the surface as dirty (e.g. grass), 1=enabled, 0=disabled
• IS_VALID_TRACK: marks the surface as valid track. Invalid surfaces will trigger the penalty system. 1=valid track, 0=invalid track
• BLACK_FLAG_TIME: unknown
• SIN_HEIGHT: simulates a bumpy road. This defines the height of the bumps in meters.
• SIN_LENGTH: simulates a bumpy road. This defines the length of the bumps. 1 = 1 meter, 2 = 0.5 meter, 0.5 = 2 meter
• IS_PITLANE: marks the surface as a pitlane and activates the limiter. 1=pitlane, 0=normal track
• VIBRATION_GAIN: unknown
• VIBRATION_LENGTH: unknown

 

[LilSKi]

SIN_HEIGHT and SIN_LENGTH are not used to simulate a 'bumpy road'. Kunos uses it on their grass to 'feel bumpy' and IMO its the most unnatural thing in the sim and I refuse to use it.

BLACK_FLAG_TIME is pretty self explanatory. It is the setting for the slow down time if you go off in that area.

DIRT_ADDITIVE is not on or off. It is progressive. For example having the pit lane be 0.1 or 0.2 can be a good idea as it can be a bit dirty in real life and you can be low on traction when leaving the pits.

VIBRATION_GAIN and VIBRATION_LENGTH is also pretty self explanatory. It is the gain and height of the sin wave sent to the FFB wheel when on that surface.

FF_EFFECT is either not there or set to NULL on most kunos surfaces so it sounds like it is not used.

 

[GT VIRUS]

Is dirt additive for determining how dirty the cars get more? I wouldn't want to put that in pitlane personally.

 

[LilSKi]

Is dirt additive for determining how dirty the cars get more? I wouldn't want to put that in pitlane personally.

I'm not sure about adding dirt to the car. It is so little when compared to off track or 1.0 though. I think with 0.1 or 0.2 the tires just start to to gain some dirt at the exit of pit lane. I'm not saying to always do this but in my case Bridgehampton pit lane was known to have sand on it so I used it there. I don't think I used it at Riverside or NJMP but I'm not at home so I can't check.

 

[fbiehne]

Hi there,

finally I had the courage to start with track modding and so I tried this video:

Of course it won’t work the way I imagine it.
If I manage to get the track in game the car falls through the mesh (though named 1ROAD, 1GRASS etc).

I’ve got some questions regarding the video and it would be nice if someone could answer this:

1. In the video all is done in Blender Render, I work in Cycles. Does that influence the results, especially assigning materials?
2. Is there an equivalent to the GLSL Shading in Cycles? He uses GLSL shading which cannot be found in Cycles.
3. From 15:05 on he separates the mesh by material. When I try to do that it won’t work. Though I can assign grass and road textures to the same mesh (= the area with the road and grass) Blender won’t separate it. It’s still the same mesh. What if I loop cut it to have road and grass, choose the mesh where I want to have my grass/road on and separate the selection? Will that work?
4. In KS Editor everything looks grey and nothing like I have seen in several YouTube videos. There must be something wrong in the way I worked of course. The textures I used for now are .png format (better to work with .dds from the beginning?).
5. A modeling question: in the tutorial he makes a separate mesh for the pits and the track. Normally you would try to join them in one mesh I guess? And if so: how do you make the separation then? Keep an invisible, separate pit mesh in the background?

So many questions, guys.
I’m really just trying to begin this journey and it’s quite complicated, especially getting everything from Blender to KS Editor as it seems. There has to be something which I overlook, so help will be appreciated!

 

[luchian]

Hey @fbiehne , welcome and glad you took the plundge

I am on my phone, so can only answer 1,2,4,5 at this point .

1/ what you do in the 3d software (no matter which one) has no influence. The only thing you need when exporting is: geometry (of course) and a material assigned to it. Strongly encouraged (but not mandatory) would also be a UV map so that you texture do show up corectly .
Because all the settings on how the object will look, you will do them later, in AC Editor.

2/use whatever you like, has no influence later.

4/ when you open a "virgin" fbx the first time is normal. You need to start defining material properties. When you are bored and wish to stop, don't forget to save persistence or you will have to start over again next time you open the model.
For your working copy, png is ok. For final export use dds, as it helps performance (..and that is the language our GPUs use anyway)

5/ you would want a separate mesh, because you will name it diferently, in order to identify it as pitzone, hence have speed limitation.

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[fbiehne]

Thanks for your answers!
I finally managed to get it from Blender into SDK and then into AC (even without the car falling through the floor) but I noticed the scales are totally wrong, though I applied rotation and scale within Blender. Also I checked scale 1.0 when exporting the FBX.

 

[luchian]

Have you set the units to meters in the original Blender scene ?

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[LilSKi]

Have you set the units to meters in the original Blender scene ?

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You don't need to do that. Mine is set to imperial on all my tracks. It's probably the little scale button on export.

 

[luchian]

You don't need to do that. Mine is set to imperial on all my tracks. It's probably the little scale button on export.

..but how do you work in meters then ?
If you set it, then 1 (generic unit) = 1 meter.
If you don't, then you.. write manually m, cm in object properties ?

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[LilSKi]

I don't know how it works. I just know all my scene settings look like this.

I work in feet/inches and everything comes out fine. All of my tracks are this way. I even did the trick to make a box the size of one of the mclarens early on and it fit perfectly so I know it works.

 

[Ricardo Rey]

I don't know if this is considered a problem or not. When I subdivide the track sections x3, I end up with too many vertices to import into the editor. I have been forced to use 2 and sometimes 1. However, the track surface is much better than before.