W.I.P. Riggswater

[MGMetroDave]

Not strictly related, but couldn't find a better place to post it. This video came up in my feed. I think this tool might come in handy for quickly getting real terrain into blender. These are a few thoughts...I've not tested it, but thought I'd share with you anyway. Obviously the mesh would need optimisation for the AC game engine, and I don't know if the scale would be correct on import, and I'm going to make a guess and say that the level of detail would be nowhere near accurate enough for actual track meshes, so I reckon this tool would probably come in most useful for general scene geometry, and perhaps the surrounding landscape. And the UV would need to be converted and optimised, etc, but still!
The video I'd coming from a cgi/image rendering angle, not a game dev angle, so much of it isn't directly relevant to AC. Could probably make some nice specular maps based on the imported UV I'm guessing.

 

[thegreger]

MGMetroDave, I found your post in the "setting up trees" thread, and thought "I need to see what this guy is doing". As I suspected, it looks absolutely amazing! Really can't wait to lose myself in this in VR, these kinds of well-made countryside road tracks are the best thing in all of AC.

 

[MGMetroDave]

Thanks @thegreger and others for recent nice comments!
Just to explain, I've had to put this project temporarily on the back burner because of real life and a few health issues have forced it. In the meantime I've thankfully picked up a bit more experience and skills with the software, so hopefully it'll be back on the cards again very soon and I'll be able to work on some positive improvements.
Another reason I chose to take a break is that it's given Ilja the time to improve and optimise features that this track heavily relies on (especially the 3D grass, which there is a LOT of). The first 3D grass implementation was fast but had other bugs, the next one looked much better but (in the quantities seen in Riggswater) became a huge FPS hog (about 10-15fps on average on my system), but the current version of 3D grass looks great and is fast, and I've been working on custom grass sprites which are also now possible, plus it has so many options to tweak, which works well with Riggswater. I won't bore you with the details
I'd say Riggswater is about 85-90% ready for public beta. To get it to the first public stage it really just needs optimisation (which is already in progress) and a handful of fixes. It drives pretty well. The first public beta will probably just feature one layout, but the roads will be open to explore the backroads and dirt tracks, which I'm hoping will allow for a long point-to-point rally stage at some future time too.

Anyway, I felt I owed you all a bit of an explanation. Sorry for not being around much recently!

 

[thegreger]

I'm sorry to hear, @MGMetroDave, and you don't owe anyone anything! Prioritizing real life and your health over online life is never the wrong decision. Just know that if you do find the time/energy to get back to things there are probably lots of us who are really excited to see your work!

 

[fughettaboutit]

This is the animation test track from Soyo was made to show off some of the new features, config file included
-animation with .ksanim
-animation following a mesh
-animated weather vane, airplane propeller
-some smokey flares, custom sound via sfx/sound.bank

Only practice and hotlap mode, not drivable/throws you hard on the grass. Its at other places too, i guess its ok to put it here.

 

[Gunnar333]

One last test for the day, and the blades aren’t stflow, they rotate on their own

Sorry to borrow this thread, but how did you do the object hierarchy (rotor blades relative to helicopter, cabins relative to ferriswheel)?
I can successfully import the animation into ksEditor, works fine there.
But csp uses some "absolute" pivot points for the sub objects so everything is thrown together.
Can you do hierarchy in the config.ini?

Again sorry for using this thread.

 

[Johnr777]

Sorry to borrow this thread, but how did you do the object hierarchy (rotor blades relative to helicopter, cabins relative to ferriswheel)?
I can successfully import the animation into ksEditor, works fine there.
But csp uses some "absolute" pivot points for the sub objects so everything is thrown together.
Can you do hierarchy in the config.ini?

Again sorry for using this thread.

You can setup hirearchy like you normally would, in Blender or Max.
But then you need to refer to these dummies/empties in the config file.

This is how I set the helicopter in Max, the set square icon is a dummy/empty, the circle is the actual object...

Then you can stack them like this in your config (note, I used the windmill parameters here as an exercise, combined with a ksanim keyframe animation of the helicopter following a path)

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Animated_helicopter
ANIMATION = helicopter.ksanim
DURATION = 10

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Heli_prop ; Virtual node from above, which will be used to animate
WINDMILL_DIR = 0, 0, 1 ; (we are using modified windmill parameters to make the sphere rotate correctly)
WINDMILL_DIR_EXP = 0
WINDMILL_DIR_BOTH_SIDES = 1
SPIN_AXIS = 0, 0, 1 ;
SPEED_MULT = 100.0 ; Speed of the rotation
WIND_SPEED_KMH_MIN = 0 ; MIN, MAX and STOP are set like this to disregard any wind speed
WIND_SPEED_KMH_MAX = 1
WIND_SPEED_KMH_STOP = 0
LAG_UP = 0.998
LAG_DOWN = 0.998
LAG_BRAKING = 0.98

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Heli_prop_tail ; Virtual node from above, which will be used to animate
WINDMILL_DIR = 0, 0, 1 ; (we are using modified windmill parameters to make the sphere rotate correctly)
WINDMILL_DIR_EXP = 0
WINDMILL_DIR_BOTH_SIDES = 1
SPIN_AXIS = 0, 1, 0 ;
SPEED_MULT = 100.0 ; Speed of the rotation
WIND_SPEED_KMH_MIN = 0 ; MIN, MAX and STOP are set like this to disregard any wind speed
WIND_SPEED_KMH_MAX = 1
WIND_SPEED_KMH_STOP = 0
LAG_UP = 0.998
LAG_DOWN = 0.998
LAG_BRAKING = 0.98

 

[MGMetroDave]

Sorry to borrow this thread, but how did you do the object hierarchy (rotor blades relative to helicopter, cabins relative to ferriswheel)?
I can successfully import the animation into ksEditor, works fine there.
But csp uses some "absolute" pivot points for the sub objects so everything is thrown together.
Can you do hierarchy in the config.ini?

Again sorry for using this thread.

Hi Gunnar333! No worries for hijacking! Happy to see it's useful to others too. I'm sure I'll be referring back to your question in due time too!

To others who may be interested, I've not forgotten Riggswater. It's just had to be on the backburner lately. It'll be released as a public beta in due course!

Regards to all!

 

[Gunnar333]

Thanks Johnr777
I followed your suggestions but still facing the same problem.

My hierarchy in Max looks the same to me.
I linked one Dummy (FW_Center) to the FerrisWheel mesh and one Dummy (Cabin_000) to Gondel_00 mesh
You can see the parent-child linking in the video:
Animation is simply done by rotating the parent 360° clockwise and the child 360° anti clockwise.

Pivot Point of FW_Center and FerrisWheel mesh is 0,0,0
Pivot Point of Cabin_000 and Gondel_00 is placed top of the cabin mesh

exported it to fbx with Bake Animation activated.

Opened the fbx in ksEditor and then opened the fxb Animation in ksEditor, ksanim files is created.
Everything is still looking good:

Saved as Car KN5 file (I saw you mentioned it somewhere on discord)
embedded the kn5 in models.ini

[MODEL_1]
FILE=FerrisWheel.kn5
POSITION=50,20,0
ROTATION=0,0,0

and moved the ksanim file to extension folder

my ext_config.ini looks like that:

[WRAP_MESHES_...]
NAME = Cabin_Animation, Cabin_000
MESHES = Gondel_00
PIVOT_POS = 0, 0, 0
PIVOT_DIR = 0, 0, 1

[WRAP_MESHES_...]
NAME = FW_Animation, FW_Center
MESHES = FerrisWheel, Gondel_00
PIVOT_POS = 0, 0, 0
PIVOT_DIR = 0, 0, 1

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = FW_Animation
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 10

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Cabin_Animation
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 10

and this is how it looks in game:

without PIVOT_POS and PIVOT_DIR it looks the same.
with "save as KN5 track" it looks like that:

I also tried the windmill animation but still the same pivot point/hierarchy problem

 

[Johnr777]

Thanks Johnr777
I followed your suggestions but still facing the same problem.

My hierarchy in Max looks the same to me.
I linked one Dummy (FW_Center) to the FerrisWheel mesh and one Dummy (Cabin_000) to Gondel_00 mesh
You can see the parent-child linking in the video:
Animation is simply done by rotating the parent 360° clockwise and the child 360° anti clockwise.

Pivot Point of FW_Center and FerrisWheel mesh is 0,0,0
Pivot Point of Cabin_000 and Gondel_00 is placed top of the cabin mesh

exported it to fbx with Bake Animation activated.

Opened the fbx in ksEditor and then opened the fxb Animation in ksEditor, ksanim files is created.
Everything is still looking good:

View attachment 5325

Saved as Car KN5 file (I saw you mentioned it somewhere on discord)
embedded the kn5 in models.ini

[MODEL_1]
FILE=FerrisWheel.kn5
POSITION=50,20,0
ROTATION=0,0,0

and moved the ksanim file to extension folder

my ext_config.ini looks like that:

[WRAP_MESHES_...]
NAME = Cabin_Animation, Cabin_000
MESHES = Gondel_00
PIVOT_POS = 0, 0, 0
PIVOT_DIR = 0, 0, 1

[WRAP_MESHES_...]
NAME = FW_Animation, FW_Center
MESHES = FerrisWheel, Gondel_00
PIVOT_POS = 0, 0, 0
PIVOT_DIR = 0, 0, 1

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = FW_Animation
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 10

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Cabin_Animation
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 10

and this is how it looks in game:

without PIVOT_POS and PIVOT_DIR it looks the same.
with "save as KN5 track" it looks like that:

I also tried the windmill animation but still the same pivot point/hierarchy problem

Ahhhh, you don’t use the wrap meshes code if you are exporting from max with hierarchy, just use the animation line.

also you need to make sure Z is forward on the dummy

 

[Gunnar333]

Ahhhh, you don’t use the wrap meshes code if you are exporting from max with hierarchy, just use the animation line.

also you need to make sure Z is forward on the dummy

Woooohoooo!!!!
It works!!!

deleted the WRAP_MESHES and changed the ANIMATED lines to:

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = FW_Center
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 10

[ANIMATED_...]
NODE = Cabin_000
ANIMATION = FerrisWheel.ksanim
DURATION = 10

Will write a tutorial on that tomorrow and will post it in a new thread.

 

[MGMetroDave]

Just to confirm, this project is still alive. It's been months, sorry. I'm hoping to be getting back into the project hopefully. So just thought I'd share a little teaser update to see if there's still interest. Not much new stuff. Mainly just optimisation and fixes. Lots still to do. Enjoy...

 

[Stephen Brown]

Just to confirm, this project is still alive. It's been months, sorry. I'm hoping to be getting back into the project hopefully. So just thought I'd share a little teaser update to see if there's still interest. Not much new stuff. Mainly just optimisation and fixes. Lots still to do. Enjoy...

Looks very good and glad the project is still live, but trees generally grow vertically with rare exceptions. It seems most of your trees emerge perpendicular to whatever the angle of the ground is so a lot of them are leaning at weird angles. It immediately struck me as looking a bit odd, that's all.

 

[thegreger]

Aw, man. I'm only one person, sure, but I'm more excited about this than any other track right now. There are so few well-crafted public road tracks out there, and just driving around in VR taking in the scenery is such a great way to relax.

 

[luchian]

Just to confirm, this project is still alive. It's been months, sorry. I'm hoping to be getting back into the project hopefully. So just thought I'd share a little teaser update to see if there's still interest. Not much new stuff. Mainly just optimisation and fixes. Lots still to do. Enjoy...

The presentation . The ambience of this track seems indeed very relaxing (..except for the disco ). Will be a nice drive (I reckon a lot of night drivers will be driving into the lake at least once ).

May I ask what video card are you using? nVidia or AMD? I have a problem with the long distance shadows of cars, and I would be curious to learn your settings - because the shadow of the car looks very well in the opening shot.

 

[RJL]

Hope all is well MGMetroDave. Project still alive? High on my list of anticipated.

 

[quetillo]

One last test for the day, and the blades aren’t stflow, they rotate on their own

You used 3dmax, I would like to know the steps, I tried and it does not come out, I have seen videos of movement with trajectory but it is not the same for AC, you know some video tutorial. Thank you

 

[Johnr777]

You used 3dmax, I would like to know the steps, I tried and it does not come out, I have seen videos of movement with trajectory but it is not the same for AC, you know some video tutorial. Thank you

Look up on YouTube - “3ds max path constraint”. Lots of tutorials there demonstrating this. But essentially you draw a spline, then use this tool to connect the object to the spline, which becomes a path.

 

[quetillo]

Look up on YouTube - “3ds max path constraint”. Lots of tutorials there demonstrating this. But essentially you draw a spline, then use this tool to connect the object to the spline, which becomes a path.

I did so and it does not work, surely it is something that escapes me. Anyway, thanks

 

[Johnr777]

I did so and it does not work, surely it is something that escapes me. Anyway, thanks

Do you understand how to export animations for Assetto Corsa? You need to know that as well