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So basically that means that each time I change a shader value, I must re-export the whole scene .map file everytime?

If Piboso is to keep this .shd definition, then at least, taking them out of the map file, putting it in one xml file, would make a lot more sense to me. 

Cause I can't see modders that need to learn the proper values to use for spec, etc, having to export the whole scene to change the road spec value.  That is not very efficient.

The only way to get a good looking grass or road, is by using a diffuse+detail textures. If you use detail quality diffuse and tile that, you will get some nasty textures in the distance, as a detail map fades away after a certain distance, so you only see it close to you... and it is much easier on the resources as well, since for the most part, it is a low res diffuse like 512x512 that is used instead of a 2k texture)... so I would really like to know how its handled in this sim, does it support multiple uv channels?  Or does it do a planar mapping ala AC for the detail maps, and adjust the tiling value.

I have search every forums for informations on shaders... and its very shady (pun intended) at best. 

gpb/wrs have nothing on the matter, and kart have some. 

I have found this thread, that was linked in the track resources: http://forum.kartracing-pro.com/index.php?topic=1739.0, but really, its only some simple examples... this won't make any converted track from AC look anywhere near the original.  Plus, it doesnt really explain how it all works, all the possible definition you can add in the .shd file... if we are to create race tracks that looks anywhere near what piboso's is making.. then we must have this information.  AC and rF2 dont hide anything about their shaders... you select one, configure it, add the maps, and you see the result. 

So I'm grasping a bit how it works... if I understood properly, I must create a .shd file named as my diffuse texture, and it must be in the same directory.  But... where is that?  I mean, the textures are in the .map file, right?  So, do I really need to export the map file from Max everytime I want to change a shader?  Cause figuring out how it works and how to get the results I want, I will have to make many tries, and this whole workflow seems very unproductive.. so I doubt it is the way it works. 

I'm looking at victoria, and I cannot find any shd file, so they must be as I think in the map file.  Any way to crack open a map file?  I could look at the shd of victoria and pick it up very quickly.

So basically, it woud be really nice if piboso could details everything that can go into the shd file. 

I mean, from the simple example in that thread, to the track creation rules... I see no way of doing some basic detail mapping..  having a low res diffuse + an high res detail on a different uv channel + normal + spec. 

Any way of having two normal maps?  One for the diffuse, and one for the detail? 

Any way of doing some blending?  Using masks, vertex blending, or? 

I was eager to get started and see what I can do with WRS/etc, so I set out to convert silverstone-international from ac, since I also know that track very well, so I could use it to train gpbikes.

Trying to load the .trp, which is probably linked to the .map file for the textures, the editor was crashing since the .map file is 815mb.  This happened to me in the kseditor (ac editor) before, and I tried the same fix I did to make the kseditor work with large map files.

The problem is tracked is 32bit app, and by default, it can only access 2gb of system ram, even on 64bit.  This was likely not enough to load the track so tracked crashed.. so that means, even with the patch, I might not be able to load nord's full scene.. as the map file will likely be much bigger then.

Anyway.. so if you stumble upon this issue, go there: http://ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php

download the patch and copy the .exe to tracked.exe directory and run it.  Select tracked.exe (or any other 32bit executable that gives you memory issues) and patch it.  The app will now be able to use 4gb of ram instead. 

So then, I was able to load silverstone-international in tracked...

Hope it helps someone

Funny you mention this, cause I was thinking the very same.  The FFB in kart is highly different then in the others.  I believed it's engine must have been the newest.

Seriously, I would highly suggest to Piboso to change his current model.

Make one sim, give it a good name that let people know it includes all motorsports categories, and sell the cars/bikes/karts in packages.  And let people buy a bundle package, the ultimate or extreme version that includes everything.

Then, its all a matter of working on one engine (that anyway all games use), and updating the vehicles after works on physics is done or to fix bugs, whatever... just like ISI does with rF2 actually.  Usually, things are somewhat backward compatible, up to a certain degree.

Since bike and cars share pretty much the same tracks, then the base package which would include the sim, should includes the regular tracks.  And when you get the most expensive kart package, you get the kart tracks as well.

I believe this would highly help with people hopping in the game... and would help development of all categories. 

And also, forums would be consolidated in one place, with one username/password, and I think that would be for the best of all titles... since someone who visit kartracing might not be aware of the others...  unless he digs up a bit.  But there is a chance he doesnt get to know about it.  Same for kart, while browsing wrs website/forum...  Unless you find a thread that link to the other... you might never know...

I will give krp a try then   I'm currently trying to convert ac's silverstone for wrs/gpb, to see if that works, and to get familiar with the process since I cannot work on the nord right now.  I will likely convert quite a few tracks for wrs if I can manage to get one done properly.  WRS dont have enough love

Actually, it isn't working in WRS.  It only supports 285 segments, and I have 410. 

However, Hawk mentioned that GPB supported more segments, so I wanted to see if I could get it to run there while waiting for the WRS update.

But seems it doesn't work. 

I see the app is 32bit.  This could be an issue when I have the full scene in.  At the moment, I only exported every terrain objects only.  Wanted to test out with this first, as the scene is huge.  About 20kmx20km.  And since it needs a large view distance so we can see the built mountains instead of having cardboard mountains, I wanted to make sure it could deal with this before adding everything.

Cause this scene doesn't run in rFactor 1 32bit without the 4gb patch.

Since I do not have the full scene yet, and far from it, I have checked memory usage while gpb tries to load the track, and it already uses 2gb at most, then drops to 1.6, and goes from 1.6 to 1.7 then crash.

So for the moment, memory isnt an issue, but will likely be when I add all trees/bushes/grasses, objects, guardrails, fences... etc...

At the moment, I'm upload the ground textures to mega, and I'm at 40%.  I will finish this first, then upload the required files to mega and give you the link to it.  Cause if I abort the transfer now, I will have to resume, and mega will check for every file and skip them since it's already there.. that process will take a while since I already have 40%.. so I'll wait till its done.

I just tried to copy my track folder from WRS to GPB.  Then with tracked, I loaded the .trp in that dir, loaded the rdf, then selected gp bikes with the radio selection button, and in grids, I chose bikes instead of cars, which set the grid to tighter spacing. 

Saved it, and tried it in GPB, and it still crashes.

You sure that GPB support at least 410 segments already? 

How is there exporter packaging meshes?  This track have a lot of objects.  Over 3000, so if the engine also have an objects limitation, this could be a problem as well.  I have read that the engine don't mind if the terrain is split into 10000 pieces or 1 performance wise.  So, I dunno.  This shouldn't be a problem, but anyone tried such a large number of objects before?

Hello all,

If you haven't been watching WRS forums lately, you aren't probably aware of this. 

First, let me introduce myself.  Some of you might know me already, I have been working since 2012 on nordschleife conversions.  It started with a conversion of the Ring 2007 2.2a by com8 for rFactor 1 to rF2.  The track wasn't looking very good originally in rF2, and the textures were dating a lot. 

With the donations I received from the generous members of the rF2 community, I have been able to purchase a lot of textures, plugins, apps to make my life easier to work on the conversion.

For a while, I wanted to share the textures with some modders, but having only 100kb/s upload speed doesn't make the process easy.

Now, my harddrives are aging, and they have seen a lot of work in the past 3 years, so I would feel better anyway if I had a backup of these online.  So now is a good time to share them as well.

What I'm offering is this:

3 collections of rendered alpha masked trees (3000x3000 for the first collection, and 3500x3500 for the other two, and 1000x1000, 1500x1500 for the smaller bushes)
and a lot of textures coming from gametextures.com.  I subscribed for a month to a dev account so I could have access to unlimited download, 2kx2k textures and requests, and made good use of my subscription.  I have about 5-6 textures made for the nordschleife itself, but can be used for any fantasy race tracks, or other race tracks using similar fences, guardrails, etc...

All I'm asking is that you don't download a folder as zip, and get what you need as you need it.  Everything is uncompressed to make this easier.   And of course a little credit for them.  I would also like to see your project, so if you could send me a pm to let me know about it, so I can download and see your track live, I would also highly appreciate.  It would be good for me to see how you used the textures that I'm familiar with, and see how you applied them differently.  I still have a lot to learn.  And most of all, please, don't share the link by yourself.  If you know someone who can be trusted, who could benefit from having these, let me know, or have him contact me, I'll hand him out the folder link.

You can check out pdf thumbnails for the trees here:

http://www.evermotion.org/files/pdf/textures4ever_vol_7.pdf
http://www.evermotion.org/files/pdf/textures4ever_vol_8.pdf
http://www.evermotion.org/files/pdf/textures4ever_vol_9.pdf

All the best,

Pierre-André

Ok, so if I understood correctly, I did all the steps (except the cameras and marshall which you mention) that ricco mentions.  I have my rdf for wrs and I extracted the default track already, copied the default files in my track folder in tracks, deleted the .map, .trp, .rdf and renamed the victoria.xxx to my track name.

So at this point, all I would need to do to get it in GPB would be to copy my track dir over to gpb track dir, open it in tracked, and generate race data for gpb, selecting bikes instead of cars?

Before I start tracked, should I delete the .rdf or I can simply press bike and save it?

Thanks for helping out!

So, I have the full vol7 of the tree collection online.  You can see and preview each trees online since they are pngs.

The gametextures materials is in tga and cannot be previewed on mega.  However, the names are pretty good and you should have a good idea of what you will get by it.  Each of these textures comes in different resolution, so you can download a 256 or something version and check it out to see what it is, then download the rest if you wish.

I don't think I have to mention it, but in case, please, do not download a large folder as a zip.  Otherwise the bandwidth will bust and no one will be able to access it for a while.

I started to upload gametextures stuff yesterday after finishing vol7 of the trees, and I started with nature(flora) and nature(ground).  Will finish nature, then move to some other categories.  I tried to download the textures into folder that made sense, but at some point I might have downloaded some into folder that wasn't meant to (by forgetting to change the download path while getting them), so they might not be 100% sorted, but close to.

PM sent to HornetMax, Hawk UK, Piboso, noss69, janaucarre and riccochicco. 

Enjoy

If I wish to try to run the track in GPB today, what steps do I need to do? 

At the moment, I have followed the tutorial found here: http://forum.kartracing-pro.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=8ccbb90d6100ae4ba3c974c9143d1d9f&topic=196.0 as well as the docs on tracked on the wiki.

So the track should be ready, with the splits, pits (no checkpoints yet), and grid.  I have noticed in tracked, there is a bike, cars, kart button.   Is that all I have to do?  Put a bike grid instead?

Hmm, interesting!  I was practicing gpbike a few mins ago and I'm starting to get a grip of it and thinking it would be nice to ride on nord, since I know it very well.  I have found laguna seca which isn't bad at all, and it's a circuit I loved years ago, so I still remembered it pretty well. 

For some reasons, I have an easier time with no aids than with them on.  I'm playing with my g27, using 180 degrees rotation, 100% direct lean, and no aids.  I have mapped the 4 leans buttons on the 6 buttons on the wheel, and after some time, I got used to leaning left and right.  I'm still not really comfortable with front/back...  I think you lean front when accelerating hard and/or going fast, and lean back when you wanna slow down, or have more traction?

I have seen this pretty darn awesome video on youtube a few days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_BDZakAZrc

Is that something possible with gpbike? 

Watch out for the music volume when you start the video

Good news then!  If you want one more tester to test it out with a track with that many segments, let me know.  I'd be happy to help.  Let me know.

Thanks for your time.

Actually, I found out... I opened the tcl file, and found out its a text file.  I got 410 segments.  I don't get it.  How am I supposed to fit the track in 285 segments when it got more than 150 corners... and plenty of "not so straight" straights. 

So when I try to load the track in game, it crashes. 

What can I do?

Hmm, any way to know this number?  Without knowing anything, I tried to choose view -> race data, and it crashed tracked.  Fortunately, I only lost about 1km, since I had saved the tcl not so long ago.