RELEASED-wip Vancouver City circuit 98

[JrC]

Hello JrC,

i see you are quite motivated to work on the Vancouver Circuit. I'd love to see that track scratch build for AC with LIDAR data...

I'll tell you what i've been told: If you are willing to try to learn 3D modeling and launch this project i'll gladly help you with the track surface, using lidar data to bring it to life

Assets can be added later if you get in touch with the original author and get his approval ,but you might end up redoing it all over too , wich would be even better...

most important is to learn and have fun

Hey Maruto,

That sounds awesome... my dream is to have both layouts based on Lidar data and having tried out your 3R track you know what you are doing.

Im learning at a reasonable rate as I go and face each hurdle. About 3 weeks ago I had never touched blender but Im getting a bit better learning how to seperate and merge objects. Understand the orientations and how to manipulate stuff in there. Add vertices and faces etc although Im like a child compared to you all who do scratch building.
I still have massive gaps in knowledge and the first actual mesh I will have to do myself will be the groove layer so we will see how that goes. Overall though Im pretty pleased with overall progress as I thought I would stall a few times as I came across issues like the wrong way AI spline thing for the pits in the 98 layout.

The conversion is really learning the way AC wants everything and to try to build up the base to get to the point to do a full LIDAR version.
There will be a few technically challenges in that the Lidar data wont have some of the roads from the track so my intention was to take a nearby road to give it as much realism as I could. Plus the whole pit road being unable to function as historically built in the 98 layout.

Give me some time to get better at all this and we will talk! Its really helpful having all the videos out there or I would totally flounder .
Ive actually exported the initial data but it was pretty massive with so many points in a dense area but it was really a first crack at understanding it.

Cheers!

 

[JrC]

Thanks to one of Luchians posts I got reverb working... the settings arent right but its going to be great for running under the viaduct and skytrain tracks and along the buildings on the back straight

 

[JrC]

just started fiddling with the reverb settings. I have a few ideas. but it will take some testing.

I was jealous of @maruto 's road textures so i found some free ones to play online with.

 

[JrC]

Everything is working nicely but I think ive overdone it with multimap textures on walls etc as I tried a 26 car race last night and i was getting down to 56 fps where before I was up around 70 ish. Ill have to look at scaling a few things back.

In terms of optimization is there any things I should specificially do in terms of joining models or reducing scene objects. I was hoping to update the vehicles but that will add more polys as well.

 

[luchian]

Everything is working nicely but I think ive overdone it with multimap textures on walls etc as I tried a 26 car race last night and i was getting down to 56 fps where before I was up around 70 ish. Ill have to look at scaling a few things back.

In terms of optimization is there any things I should specificially do in terms of joining models or reducing scene objects. I was hoping to update the vehicles but that will add more polys as well.

https://assettocorsamods.net/threads/maximize-performance-merge-all-track-objects.777/

Don't let the thread number fool you - it's not written by @Johnr777 (for once)

 

[JrC]

https://assettocorsamods.net/threads/maximize-performance-merge-all-track-objects.777/

Don't let the thread number fool you - it's not written by @Johnr777

Thanks @luchian. and thanks for being a resource for all our noob questions... i got to page 21 on the tutorial just the other night as I figured I would find some other gems and I did but I notice a trend around having to answer questions on the pit locations... always with the spawn locations.

Really appreciate all the great info and people helping in this forum

 

[luchian]

Thanks @luchian. and thanks for being a resource for all our noob questions... i got to page 21 on the tutorial just the other night as I figured I would find some other gems and I did but I notice a trend around having to answer questions on the pit locations... always with the spawn locations.

Really appreciate all the great info and people helping in this forum

Hahaha, yes, the "spawn location" re-spawns a lot . Not many people get into reading like yourself. I fully support your approach, it gives you some general knowledge - like reading a book

 

[JrC]

really interesting on the draw calls...
Ill have to think on this.
I also noted that i added about 30 reverb locations and Im not sure what effect that is having...
I have to stop doing ten edits at a time and start testing each thing...

Hahaha, yes, the "spawn location" re-spawns a lot . Not many people get into reading like yourself. I fully support your approach, it gives you some general knowledge - like reading a book

Seriously... i got to the ... move origins to geometry and i was like... holy crap... that just saved me hours... i was doing it manually...

 

[Johnr777]

Given the age of this track and the fact that it is a conversion, a few things to consider:

- high texture / material count

- collision meshes? Are detailed meshes, tirewalls, set as 1wall?

 

[JrC]

Given the age of this track and the fact that it is a conversion, a few things to consider:

- high texture / material count

- collision meshes? Are detailed meshes, tirewalls, set as 1wall?

Hi Johnr777, yes. the Tirewalls are all set up as walls and they arent one object.
I will have to do a few tests as I realized as I was copying things it was creating a new material so thats likely an issue to. I can go back and mass relink the textures to the same materials and Ill look at joining more of the scene objects. When it got exported all the buildings, for example were 3 objects and Ive slowly been rejoining them over time.
Also the new multimap textures are 1.3mb each for all 4 of the layers so it made each section of that road 5mb and the roads arent currently joined into a single object as some of the materials were off in where the specific road textures were mapped.

Thanks for all the food for thought.

and Luchian...
This is key i think. Im scared to do the math on my scene now.

as for how the DIP is counted in 3D models;
- 1 object with 1 material (standard) is counted as 1 DIP
- 1 object with a multi material (4 sub-materials) is counted as 4 DIP
- 2 objects with 1 material is counted as 2 DIP
- 2 objects with the exact same multi-material (4 sub-materials) is counted as 8 DIP

now this is why we need to be careful when we use multi/sub-object materials

20 separate objects with 10 polygons each, having the same multi-materials (with 10 sub-materials) is counted as 200 DIP with average batch size of 10.
If we attach all those objects together, the result will be 10 DIP with average batch size of 200

 

[JrC]

Thanks @luchian and @Johnr777

I can now extrapolate the draw calls on the scene and ive done a bunch of merging of objects and its already better. For instance, the traffic lights were 8 different objects and I was able to merge them into a single object and then merge three at an intersection in the same corner as that effectively makes them a single object with shared material of the same type.

I did a quick test and its already a more stable FPS with quite a bit of work to do as I see the DIP calls in the FPS screen too. This may be affected by how i set up the draw distance in CM as i remember making this bigger and the DIP in some scenes is way higher so I think I dont need the draw distance the same?

In any case I will keep testing. Im pretty happy with being able to run the 99 Players car too.
Great tire textures John

 

[Johnr777]

Thanks @luchian and @Johnr777

I can now extrapolate the draw calls on the scene and ive done a bunch of merging of objects and its already better. For instance, the traffic lights were 8 different objects and I was able to merge them into a single object and then merge three at an intersection in the same corner as that effectively makes them a single object with shared material of the same type.

I did a quick test and its already a more stable FPS with quite a bit of work to do as I see the DIP calls in the FPS screen too. This may be affected by how i set up the draw distance in CM as i remember making this bigger and the DIP in some scenes is way higher so I think I dont need the draw distance the same?

In any case I will keep testing. Im pretty happy with being able to run the 99 Players car too.
Great tire textures John

oh yes, the Firestones

 

[JrC]

oh yes, the Firestones

Greg was a huge hero of mine. Can still remember where I was the day it happened. I think I still have the VHS recording somewhere as in those days I was watching every race and waking up early to watch F1 on the weekends.

The whole Dip thing raises and interesting question in the difference of a road course vs longer one where if I look at the background mesh that creates the hills.... would it be better to merge the whole thing in a single mesh and just render it all the time as its basically likely almost doing that anyways so if its loaded as a single call then it reduce the need to load as it came into view.

 

[Johnr777]

Greg was a huge hero of mine. Can still remember where I was the day it happened. I think I still have the VHS recording somewhere as in those days I was watching every race and waking up early to watch F1 on the weekends.

The whole Dip thing raises and interesting question in the difference of a road course vs longer one where if I look at the background mesh that creates the hills.... would it be better to merge the whole thing in a single mesh and just render it all the time as its basically likely almost doing that anyways so if its loaded as a single call then it reduce the need to load as it came into view.

You also have to watch out for a high triangle count, to make it even more confusing

When you say "merge" are you attaching objects that are using different materials? if thats the case, when you export, the game doesnt support multiple materials and will break the mesh up again.

 

[JrC]

You also have to watch out for a high triangle count, to make it even more confusing

When you say "merge" are you attaching objects that are using different materials? if thats the case, when you export, the game doesnt support multiple materials and will break the mesh up again.

yep... i am...
but in the case of the traffic light I think that is still helping me because even if it breaks it into seperate meshes by material it is still less objects?

So that means if I have two buildings ... they are the same and have the same materials...
if i join them into a single object... ie 1 object with 3 materials.. it will seperate the mesh into 3 objects with 1 materials? one object per material?

 

[Johnr777]

yep... i am...
but in the case of the traffic light I think that is still helping me because even if it breaks it into seperate meshes by material it is still less objects?

So that means if I have two buildings ... they are the same and have the same materials...
if i join them into a single object... ie 1 object with 3 materials.. it will seperate the mesh into 3 objects with 1 materials? one object per material?

one object for each material, in KSeditor there are called "SUBS''

 

[JrC]

one object for each material, in KSeditor there are called "SUBS''

Gotcha. that helps as i noticed that there was a different convention in Ks editor.
Thanks as always. I think this help me understand.
it helped me in the case of the traffic lights because it still reduced the total objects from 3 of them with 8 objects and each with its own material to 8 objects with the same material all being drawn only when the scene is in view reducing the DIP.

my brain hurts

 

[Johnr777]

Gotcha. that helps as i noticed that there was a different convention in Ks editor.
Thanks as always. I think this help me understand.
it helped me in the case of the traffic lights because it still reduced the total objects from 3 of them with 8 objects and each with its own material to 8 objects with the same material all being drawn only when the scene is in view reducing the DIP.

my brain hurts

hey, as long it reduces DIP

 

[JrC]

hey, as long it reduces DIP

Thats what im getting LOL

So I realized I can drive around the track, find the highest DIP points. track them then say merge backgrounds... come back and test those specific points again and see the effect on the DIP.
I just have to remember to do one thing at a time and that way if its garbage I can just go ctrl z in blender and revert.

Im doing all the editing on my laptop then exporting and taking it to the desktop at the TV that isnt hooked up to the net

good times

 

[JrC]

I wanted to poke around a bit in the Newbury track but I cant seem to find it on either PC, in the SDK files or the games files.
Is it not included anymore?