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Nope, hadn't run through them all.  Have done now and everything's working as it should do.  Cheers. 

I'm actually looking forward to doing some skins.

Glad to hear it, I may have a village for you to skin soon.   
Dropped on the first landscape texture, just as a planer image for now.
When the other two are lined up over it I'll cut the model into 3 parts and reapply each as a UV, should be rolling hills and fields as far as the eye can see.

This skin will serve for placing scenery as well as for chopping up the land model.  The nearby parts will be subpatched and remapped for repeating textures.

I wonder how it is to use a joystick with one hand and an xbox controller with the other...

That's the set up I've been using for years for GP500 and various other games(flight sims and the likes).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nECwsUKFMc

For GPB I added the back brake to the left xpad trigger and the clutch to the back axis of the right xpad thumbstick. 
Have clutch assist switched on for gear changes and am only using the manual clutch for starting, with the front manual rider lean not working until 90mph that hand isn't doing anything at the start anyway so it's no bother to stretch my thumb over to the clutch for a few seconds.  If(hopefully) the rider lean is fixed in the future I'll be wanting to lean forward while slipping the clutch so will have to rejig things a little but for the moment the setup works fine.
...on bigger bikes.  When I briefly tried a moto3 bike I changed the clutch to the trigger and used the shoulder button above it for the back brake(which isn't analogue but I wasn't using the back much anyway).
Will probably end up using the second arrangement and adding a pedal for the brake but for now I'll stick with the first and practice on bikes that don't need their clutches slipped.

GPB wasn't picking up on both controllers when I first tried to set it up so I'm running UJR to merge them into a single virtual stick on id1.
http://z10.invisionfree.com/MotoGP500onlineForum/index.php?showtopic=1384

Took me the best part of a night to get all the axis set up nice but I was really impressed by the level of control there is built into the settings screen.   

Can you do hill climbs in GPB?
i.e. can you have separate start and finish lines.

Just curious.

Hiho.
Didn't mean to hijack the Public Road thread so thought I'd start a fresh one.

Managed to get GPL loaded up and tried the olivers mount track, its fun and very well done with all the scenic details, but does feel very 'flat' the road has no camber anywhere and feels quite unnatural for what is meant to be a 'road'. Hedge lines likewise - vertical edges and no feeling of the natural variations you get on a road. Still it is an old engine.

To make this track really work i think the road surface profile and immediate roadside scenery will need a bit of work to convince the rider this really is a typical public highway most of the time.

I will play a bit more to get a feel for it,  still working on keeping the car in a straight line - would be a lot more fun on 2 wheels...

Yeah, I watched the video a few times and was having the same thoughts.

Now that I've had a look at the tracktools I've decided to stay in max for assembly.  Means we can tweak the loft direct during testing to fine tune bumps then just re-export to the game.

Opens a few other possibilities too.  I don't know how to do it yet but I'm pretty sure you can use edgelines as secondary loft splines...
...so I could make up any shape of hedge cross-section for a bunch of points along the topside and the software would fill in the gaps.
Think it's worth including a centre strip inside the hedge model so there are three layers for the light to come through rather than just two.  You're so close to the model that you can tell it's a model.
Having a spec channel for the hedge will be nice - leaves are shiny after all.

Camber can be added to the loft as well.  Originaly I didn't add road camber because it'd have pushed close to GP500s limit.  I traded it off for spare polys for bump detail.

So, a weekend of reading max tutorials ahead by the sounds of it...
...inbetween bouts at the A1 Ring.  Just got round to going full version GPB a couple of nights ago.  It's like I've never ridden a bike game before. 
Loving the analogue rider control.   

I'm drooling right now.. *q*

Must admit so am I. 
It's kinda semi off the road at the moment with a leaky gearshaft seal.  An easy fix and I've got the seal but it's cold and dark out there and that's three weekends now I've not got round to it.   

So you've a better idea what goes on at this end:

I knock up a rough model and ask the software to make a new UV map.  It dismantles the model and lays all the parts out in it's UV Texture window.



I can then move or scale these parts how-ever I like.  Can drag individual points around and stack parts on top of each other.
....like Bridge2.  All four of the sides in the stair sections are essentially the same so rather than have 4 little views of it in the skin we stack the parts and map the same section of the UVmap to all 4 parts of the model.  The image resolution of everything being higher because we've less parts to fit onto the map.
So the sides can be stacked, the main span sides too, and the stairs, decks, etc...



Now I export the UVmap as a UV template and give it to you.  If you deform images to squeeze them into bits of template they'll go into the game and the game will just deform them back out again.  It's probably not going to be very noticable if it's just a tiny amount but it's not doing any good and is a bit pointless, more work for you and anyone who may want to change things later.
Better for you to lay the parts roughly into place on the template and send it back saying "adjust UV".  I'll then load what you've sent into the background of the UV window and drag the parts and points around until the UVmap fits the skin.

Example with the timing box template loaded as a background image.


When I line up all the parts the model will be wearing the skin like a glove and no images will have been deformed along the way.
If you see a better way of arranging things so you can use a slightly higher resolution part image feel free but bear in mind there might be more going in there.  In this case we'll need a rectangle for the paint colour, a fair sized area for the bridge height sign and if nuovaic happens to be there and see any wee signs we'll add them too.  As I'm adding parts to the model I'll be adding the new surfaces to the existing UV map.
Having the bridge already skinned will mean I'll be able to get the new parts lined up well - should work a treat. 

Just trying to get to grips with gimp as my old graphic software is ancient, had a play with bridge 2 but i cannot seem to get it to scale to the UV. Stairs on UV seems steep compared to photo. Do you have a link to a viewer app that can load the part model and skin?

See tip 2. 

Don't waste time making the image fit the template.  Instead use the template to roughly lay out the parts on the canvas and send me a copy of 'what you want the skin to be'.  I'll adjust the UV to fit the image.
That's a great base image.  I'll use it to stretch the bridge to the right size(wont affect the UV).
...then add the box section trellis to give it more substance.  Adding the extra steelwork will be a doddle with the skin already on the model.

Grooveski@hotmail.co.uk

Proper bridge templates. 
http://www.motogp500online.com/Stuff/Grooveski/Tracks_wip/OM_TSO_01_Bridge_Templates.rar
Have a play with opening the eps versions.  You have to specify your canvas size in pixels when you open it.
EPS is the best format for templates.  A crisp line on a transparent background at any resolution.  Very usable.  Should have really exported them last night and incuded then before.

Dude that tower is complex lol. Im up for a challenge but is it not easier to make in 3D? To do a 2D with translucent would be a bit rough and not so detailed or not?

A fully modelled tower would take days to make and be tens of thousands of polys.  It just took me just over an hour to lay down a framework for a transparent version.
Say the same again adding the various 3D antennea and probably another sorting out the UV.  Should come in at a thousand polys or so plus quite a high res skin and a spec map - that's plenty for any TSO that doesn't involve boobies. 

That reminds me, I'll make some proper templates for the bridges, those lowres screengrab ones are garbage.
(Don't take any guff!)



That GPL model looks pretty good.  I'll be checking that out for sure.   

Nice one,  I'd come across a few of those images but that page has lots more.  That should be plenty!
Good view of the little mast too , it's quite hard to see on street view.

Seasons can be changed via textures and lighting files.  April, June or September would make sense, that's when the real races are.  Summer is easiest because as you say it's most common so there are more tree skins already kicking around.
Autumn would be nice.
Up to whoever skins it I guess.

The rises and undulations are built into the loft already.   When Button went up to measure the widths he done a slow video lap on the scooter that was more useful than most of the 150mph-and-airbourne onboards I watched.
The main problem with the loft is that it's about 3m too high.  Will fix that with a global scale by a small percentage which shouldn't affect the track detail much.  After that I'll be tweaking the spline in as large sections as possible so as not to mess with the bumps.
Most of the track's been resurfaced over the years but doesn't look too different - there might be a few bumps to iron out along the top straight(it definately looks smoother than it used to be).  Back straight still looks like a handfull though, don't think much has changed there.
The hairpins need work too.  I remember having a hard time making them and they're both a long way out on elevation change.
...and the verges are kinda close-but-no-cigar.

Nice one Nouvaic.  We'll get you a list together. 
Top of DD's will likely be the timing box and cafe(which'll get remodeled based on your images then probably partially skinned in them as well.
Was always going to put a bit of work into the cafe so the more images the better.  Shots of the building, the signs, the menu.
Wouldn't hurt to know what the inside looks like too.
Get as square and straight as possible, for buildings than means as far back as you can and zoom in.
This is all I have to work with for the cafe and as you can see the perspective makes it virtually useless as an overlay for modelling and totaly useless for skinning(It could be deformed to closer to square but would always be wonky and blurry.



So yeah, images would be a huge help.  No worries if it's not the brightest day, slightly overcast would be better than a sunny day where there are contrasts and shadows at play.

I'll start my wish list off with the antenna tower.  This is the best I have to go on at the moment:



It's pretty good but a higher detail shot would be nice as would a couple from other angles and maybe a side-on from a distance(even if it's just the top peeking over treetops).

...you'll be needing a tape measure too. 
(Not for the tower) 

...this track is going to need a lot of trees, hedges and fences!

Where I was planning on image strips along the back straight for the valley and town would be better done with a simple model as well.
I'll overlay the lowres aerial shot onto the new land and it'll show where treelines and buildings go and where to chop the model up for reskinning.  For the close up areas I have a series of higher quality aerial images to do the same with.

Adding the 3d fences will take a while but hedges appear miraculously quickly.  You extrude the edgeline of the play area up, extrude your new polys back and hey presto there's a 3d hedge model waiting for a tweak and a skin.

The tree planting will be a saga.  Just finding all the right textures for the lowres ones will be a job in itself. 
Was thinking about the higher poly ones earlier - I used to have a program that grew tree models to adjustable parameters.  Will try to find it again, was rather clever.

THis is fun. Played around a bit to learn what is what and I think I might at least get some good stuff for higher quality of 3D objects. How were you going to do the bridges? not in 3D wire frame, just flat faced? I have much to learn.

Can that program open any GPB track to get to files? If so what ones get the 3D objects in them?

DD

That kind of stuff is done as either a specific colour in the image or as a black and white alpha channel in a .tga to tell the game which bits are transparent.  Here's a bit of stand, the cyan bits are see-through(in GP500) and the surfaces set to double-sided.



I don't know what method GPB uses but it doesn't matter at the moment if you want to start painting, you can switch an image between the two methods in less that a minute.
Just be careful to maintain crisp edges to the transparent sections.  Don't use airbrushes near them and if you resize the image don't use any smoothing, it'll blur the edge.

When you're done you can take a copy of the image, black-and-white it then run then an edge blur.  Tweaking the channels and contrast settings will let you make the blurred bands narrower and you shouldn't be far off something that'll do for the spec channel.
We can beef up the models with solid handrails and the likes if we want more substance to them.
Don't paint on the bridge height signs, they'll go on as model detail too.

As for getting into game files - sorry, no idea.
I suspect downloading tracktools from the main site would be a good place to start.  Scooped it up today in passing, haven't cracked it open yet...
...but it's only a matter of time.   

Hi Grooveski good to see you m8

Hey dude!   
Be seeing you on track soon.  Was just setteling into the forum, lol.

No hurry, must be coming up on ten years since I started. 
I didn't touch it for about eight of them.  Day job was too much like the hobby so I gave the hobby a rest.  Even at that though it's not exactly been the quickest build.   

This'll be the new land model.  Was tempted to ditch the old one and switch to this anyway.
Other reason for the change is that I'd hacked the existing land down to GP500's 800m draw distance - so it's scrap now.