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I've been wondering tho, what is the use of the centerline?  Usually this is for the AI code?  Is it to calculate track length and fuel usage and such? 

What are the effects if it's not perfect?  And the benefits if it is as centered as possible?

Cause I see in your wiki, that you mention using as few segments as possible.  This is how I usually do my splines in max as well, but I was wondering if it was engine related.  Does the engine have problems dealing with a centerline that have too many segments?  Cause I will likely have quite a few, since even the straights on nord aren'T exactly straight, so I cannot use straight segments for extended length.

And corners aren't spline based either and in a perfect arc.  So I often need to break up the corners with 3-4 segments so the centerline stays more centered.  Cause I've noticed that the segment tend to head the opposite way of the previous one, so you cannot do any straight with those, and you cannot do really long and slightly curved one either as it doesn't want to stretch in such way, but it tend to go more and more on the opposite side ,and the curve gets bigger..

Again, I ask this because if it's important to keep the segments under a certain number, then I would like to know.

That's good to know about the best line then.

I understand for most tracks, it might not be a show stopper as you say, and as you say, after some practice, you can get it better, but the problem is, by the time you start figuring it out a bit, you would like to improve those you laid out previously, and then it becomes a nightmare... I had to redo half of my current centerline.. I'm currently nearing 9km now. 

As you can see, driving the centerline at 30km/h would take me about 30-45mins if I remember correctly.  It's been hours now I'm doing it this way...  while it's nothing compared to the amount of time that goes into the rest, it could certainly be improved by letting us drive the centerline too.  Specially if part of the code is already there for the best line!

Please!

If I am to convert the gtr evo version for the users of your sims (as I won't be able to release the laser scanned version publicly... might hand it to a few persons, including you if you are interested so you can see how your physics handles it.), then I would really hate to do this a second time the same way

If it becomes workable as a spline, where you move individual verts and it adapts instead of move everything after, then it would still be a good improvement, but seriously, please consider adding the option to drive the center line.. 

That's funny, cause when I started my com8 conversion of the nordschleife, I wasn't very good at driving it.  Well, at least when trying to set a good time.  So when I had to do the AIW, I was having an hard time, and I dunno, I feel more pressure when I drive while doing this then when I hotlap and I'm relaxed.  So my driving is affected a bit.  When you have over 150 corners, it becomes hard to do the perfect lap on it

So I was thinking, what if we could do it with a spline instead. 

Well, it turns out I now know how it would be, since I'm currently in the process of doing the centerline for it, and wow..  its really more a pain this way.  I got 3.7km done, and I can't get it dead center 99% of the time.  It always goes either way.  It doesn't seems to work quite like Max's bezier or smooth curves.  I also noticed that when you select a previous segment, and move the ending point, the rest of the track moves with it.  So if you want to adjust later one, you are screwed.

It would be so much easier to be able to create the centerline and bestline while driving, or at least having this option added as well.  I have noticed the bestline is often not very accurate, and might be the reason why, if it is created like the centerline.

This way of doing the centerline is likely to turn off some modders away, specially those wanting to bring longer tracks in...

But as much as driving it on rF2 is fun, I'm still very curious to drive this same mesh in other sims, to see how they cope with the elevation changes, high curbs, crests, bumps, jumps  and so on   And that also give me more cars to drive on it as well

I would highly like to drive a bike in gpb (once i get used to it, I can barely make a lap without heading outside the track, or crashing yet) on the laser nord.  I think it would be awesome   It's also a very nice track for bikes I think!  Not many tight hairpins, a good flow all around, should be really fun!

I'm only planning on using your textures for GPB, but if I ever plan to use them for anything else I will for sure ask your permission first.... I will also naturally give you credit for them in any MOD I create too. 

That was one thing I was going to ask: Whether the textures were created seamless to blend really well together, saves a lot of work, so yeah, that sounds great too! Also that they come with all the Normal/Spec/ AO maps is a big bonus! I absolutely agree with you that the normal maps do bring objects to life, and in a very efficient way. 

I personally use Maya, and export via FBX format into 3ds Max 2010 to be able to use the EDF exporter plugin to get my work into GPB. That's a pain in ass to have to do that, especially as the scale is often changed by a factor of +/-100 when I import a 3ds or fbx file created by 3ds Max into Maya for some reason(so like yourself I'm desperately awaiting the fix to the FBX2EDF exporter so I can bin 3ds Max altogether from the pipeline).
But up till now I have just been updating some currently available converted tracks for GPB, completely re-modelling the actual track surfaces from scratch to work better with GPB, as most were in a pretty bad state and causing bike instabilities. I've not gone to town on them as far as textures were concerned simply because the priority was to have as many tracks as possible that are very rideable for the bikes, and now, together with Noss69's "NC" track versions, RiccoChicco, and janaucarre's  work, I think we have a good few tracks that ride very well.

But I find working with converted tracks a pain in the ass because the meshes are in a terrible state(probably due to the original ripping process?), and to be honest, if I was to want to do any texture work on them it would be better for me to just rebuild the tracks completely from scratch in my opinion. I'm really not a big fan of conversions at all, except that I do understand that they provide a quick way of getting tracks into the system so users have a good variety of tracks to choose from.

What do you find is the best techniques and/or ways to get the track surface elevations as accurate as possible to the original circuits? Often freely available map data just isn't of high enough resolution(google maps for example is very bad), and other free elevation data sources are limited in resolution unless one is willing to pay good money for them. Just wondering if by any chance you know of a website that allows free download of good accurate(high resolution) terrain map elevation data? I know America makes available a lot of good terrain elevation data for free, but seems other countries are very reluctant to make this sort of data available for free. 

From what you've said in previous posts above, it's going take a while to upload all textures in the volumes that you have..... There is no rush for me, but just to say that if you prefer not to post a download link publicly in the forum, you can always send me a download link via this forums personal message system(PM). 

Thank you for the permissions.... Great contribution.... Very much appreciated indeed! 


Hawk.

I have never tried Maya.  To be honest, I don't consider myself a modder.  I have started to learn 3dsmax about 3 years ago, to bring the com8 nordschleife for rfactor 1, to rfactor 2.  At the time, GMT was supposed to bring the gtr evo version, but when they sent the sneek peek video to youtube and on isi's forum, simbin told them to stop it and you are probably aware of the story.

I was really eager to drive the nordschleife in rF2, and really deceived by the news, so I started to convert what was freely available myself.

The mesh, as you say, was in a pityful state.  I spent more than 1 year on it and did a pretty good job.  Then I got up to a point where there wasn't much to do, and someone was telling me AC was getting their own com8 conversion, and after looking at it, I tried to convert my rf2 version, but since AC wasn't able to deal with billboard trees, so I didn't wanted to convert the gigantic forest I had done... so I converted the gtr evo version for AC. 

SimBin was okay for a while, since I was giving it only to those who were sending me proof they own it on steam (a screenshot of their library), but as it picked up popularity, they asked me to stop.  So I did..

I then started to convert it to beamng, but kunos released the laser scanned version, and after playing it for an intense week in AC, I noticed the AI wasn't really in my league... the fast path of the track is not very good, so they are slow in many places around the track, you cannot bumper race at all with them, you never know when they slam the brakes...  of course, after a while you get to know where they fail, but its no fun...

rF2 have a much better AI, the best that I've found actually.  So I just converted the laser scanned version for rF2 (for my personal use) and its awesome I have managed to create a fast path that is even better than what I can do at AI 100%, so its a real challenge now!  I'll have to train some more in order to beat the AI again.

So for about 3 years, the only track I have raced pretty much is the nordschleife.  I just love this track, it has everything in it, there is no need to drive anywhere else for me   The track itself is a scenic sight, and I dunno, even after putting that much time into it, I can still improve myself.  Still a challenge to drive with some cars.  I recently found myself able to drive the rF2 howstons on it, and it was a pretty good feeling.  Did a 7m30 with them.

As we got our tax return recently, I was able to buy a few more sims I wanted to have, which included wrs (gpb), and krp, as well as dirt: rally and game stockcar extreme.  I don't believe dirt will be moddable, but all others are   Can't wait to drive game stockcar on the nord too!  I'm also in the process of trying to convert it to rF1, since there is still many good cars mods, and the game is still pretty decent in itself.

I wish I go could sometimes in Germany and test out my knowledge of the track, cause I'm sure I would be able to set a pretty good time on it as well

After my gtr evo conversion for AC, I did try to create a scratch made nord... and I got a rather accurate lofted track mesh. GTR evo is rather accurate, like 99%, except the more defined bumps, but all cambers, elevations, and corners are pretty solid.  And I based my spline on it, and did the camber so the track was fitting well with the gtr evo mesh under.  I drove that mesh, and it's really good too.

Driving the laser scanned after driving gtr evo in AC for more than 6 months, the most evident difference is brunnchen, the second corner.

I also have the terrain from google earth's data in max, of all the surrounding area, but I dunno how to do the inside part, the more defined hills and stuff nearby track, that isn't high resolution enough on google earth, so the only way I could think of doing this is by conforming the loft around track to the gtr evo mesh.  That would require some manual work here and there probably, but would likely work.  But I dunno, there must be some other ways.

I also have the curbs done and guardrails.  They are in 3d too.

So I cannot really answer your question about elevation data, as the only track I have worked on is the nordschleife.

I'm happy to have found this community, cause I'm sure you guys will probably be able to do a lot more with them then I will be able to.  So everyone benefits in the end, including me  

The first volume is 77% done   So, tomorrow I will send you, as well as Piboso, Noss69, RiccoChicco, janaucarre and hornetmax the link to the mega folder.  I will likely need to create a second mega account to have everything online.  So I will try to not have to split 1 collection, except maybe gametextures's.

Vol7 textures are 3000x3000 for the larger trees, and 1000x1000 I believe for the small bushes.  but the vol8-9 are 3500x3500 and 1500x1500 I believe, so the size is quite bigger.

The collection is interesting, cause for each kind of trees, you often have multiple different trees, but also, they comes facing different ways and/or lighted different ways. 

So if you want to create a forest of pine trees for example, you should have no problem creating one that will have enough variety to not notice the same tree twice in a single screen


PS:  If you guys ever have some spare time, maybe we could team up and finish the scratch made nord I started

Ok, I tried Hawk_UK's 2012 plugin, and as you mentioned, it worked only once.  However, it didn't worked, so I couldn't try again.  I thought that by deleting and reinstalling it might work for one time, and I could do this over and over, but it didn't worked.  I tried to look for any files that the plugin might create that might get read on subsequent tries and crash, but I haven't found anything.

So I found 2010 and converted my scene to it and tried the 2010 32bit plugin.  It crashes while making the shadow maps I believe.   

This was wrote before I tried 64 bit.  With 64-bit Max 2010 and plugin, I was able to successfully create my .map file, I'm currently exporting the trp.

This is good news

Sure, anyone who's making stuff for Piboso's sims are welcomed to have them. 

If you want to use them for other sims, let me know, and we'll see

As for other textures, when I subbed to gametextures.com, I went for a dev sub to get access to 2k textures and to be able to request some. 

So I have many ground textures. Forest, soil, grass, ground, sand, rocks, snow, as I wanted to make a winter version of the nordschleife, and vol9 of the trees have season trees, fall and winter.

I also picked up anything that was good for a race track, so I got some fences, guardrails, curbs, concrete, roofs, etc...  been able to download quite a bit since it was unlimited for a month.

All these are 2kx2k and comes with all the maps needed to make them shine.  So you have spec, normal (+/-), gloss, height, ao, etc... not all textures needs all these maps, but those who do, comes with them. 

And usually, they make sure their textures goes well with each others, so tarmac and grass textures blends really well with each others.

EDIT: And the normal maps that comes with the textures are insane.  As the textures are modelled, you have proper normal maps for fences and 3d grass and so on.  It really makes a difference from a photo normal map

Ok, thanks.  I'll try to see if I can find it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks  

Seems like my ISP have opened up the bandwidth a bit, I've seen upload speed up to 130kb/s   Not too shabby!

I got about 1/3 of vol7 online at the moment.  A little more than 400 trees to go.  I'm uploading them unrar'ed so you will be able to see a thumbnail of each and click to see a preview, if you wish to get them separately.  Mega provides a way to download a folder as a zip.  Plus compressing already compressed stuff don't result in much saving anyway. 

EDIT:  A little preview you can see 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


And to clear up any doubts:

Hello Pierre-André Leclair

Thank You for buying our products. Here is Your order summary (tax included):

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Product: Textures4ever vol. 7, Quantity: 1, Total price: 48.00 EUR
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Hello Pierre-André Leclair

Thank You for buying our products. Here is Your order summary (tax included):

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Please remember this number and use it in correspondence concerning this order.

Product: Textures4ever vol. 9, Quantity: 1, Total price: 59.00 EUR
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Most of them will likely need to be edited to fit in the game, since they will likely be too saturated, or bright.  So you will need to edit their brightness and saturation.  At least, I needed to for the rF2 engine which support 24h cycle and hdr.

I really would like to get started....  and see what I can do with WRS...  if I can't get my scene in the game, I cannot do anything

After I get these errors in the console that opens, the fbx2edf tool crashes.

Once the scene is exported to edf, there is no reason to export it a second time?  Unless I would be working on the mesh itself, but I won't.  The mat definitions are assigned with the editor right?  So, tuning shaders have nothing to do with Max?  Then I should not need to export many times?

Any log file saved from the fbx2edf tool?  Cause I can't see all the errors that pops up in the console, the list is a bit too long, and I don't have time to scroll before it crashes.

Any ideas on this error, Piboso? 

There is no child/parent relationship in my scene, I don't understand why the tool is spitting out this error. 

Do you have a max 2012 edf plugin available?

Really eager to drive the bumpy mesh in WRS.

Unfortunately, I don't even have a SSD to start with.  We have a rather tight budget, and even tho we had tax return, it's not enough to spend on something like this.  It was almost foolish to buy myself some games, but I can't help it..  it's mainly my main hobby, so it's still a very cheap hobby compared to some others

Spending 15-20$ or even 30-40$ on a game, which you play for hundreds of hours in most cases, sometime quite some more, so it's cheap

It will take some time to get online, but I will also have a backup, so I don't mind.  I'll share the link to the folder when I have at least 1 collection in.

Well, at the very present time, I have no burner.  It's been dead for a few years already, and never seen the need to replace it.  I can install windows from USB so that didn't bothered me.  And I'm the kind of guy that prefer to keep stuff on harddrives, cause anyway, they last longer than dvds (unless you are very careful with them, and always put them back where you store them...  I'm not that kind of guy

As for the size, hmmm, it's quite big actually.. probably in the 60-70gb range, maybe a tad more.

So even with dvds, it would still requires a good bunch, and not the best solution either. 

I think it would take roughly 1 week or so per collection of trees to get online.  But I don't mind really, at least I have no bandwidth cap.  Plus, I wanted to do this for a while, since I have no backup and I wouldn't want to lose them either in a hdd crash.

Well, I wouldn't mind.  If they can be put to good use, for this (these) games, then I don't mind.

I would hate to see these get out of the game.  I just don't want them to be in the wild and get used in other games.  Most other games have more than enough resources already and modding for rF2 or AC is easy since you already have a bunch of stock textures to work with.  And most of their talented modders have their resources anyway.

The problem is, I don't have a very good upload speed, being capped at 100kb/s.  So getting them online will take time.  I thought of BTSync, but since I won't be able to seed forever, it might not be that good of a solution.

I will likely upload them to mega and share the folder with the interested modders here.  I don't want them to be available to anyone that browse the forum.

I just started to upload textures4ever vol 7.  I'll create a thread in due time.  So I guess that gpbike forums is more active if you mentioned this?