Forum Postings 2000 May

collected and (very little) formatted by addie walti


Threads

The start of a thread is on top right below the title

Total Jam Size
More Jam Problems (non-standard-height flag)
tracks maps

Track File Size
Revelation??? (jams size etc.)
sky turns black
Fences (join at track ends)
question about cc-line sectors (cmd80 vs cmd112)

end of file




Index

Total Jam Size

Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Hi,
Can someone tell what the max total jam size before gp2 has a hernia is.

Thanks in advance.

Rob



Posted by Fat Rat from 207.194.25.182:

Hi Rob

Somewhere around 827392 or likely 830000 . but it's not that easy to hit that # precisely .

I found anything over 830000 crashes , Double check the MP MCo track , it's very near the limt as we found ,

CU
Les


Index

More Jam Problems (non-standard-height flag)

Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Hi,
I having a problem with a fence texture for the Clipsal 500 track being made by Dave Richards et al. In order to get the total jam size smaller I had to reduce the width of the fence textures to 128 with the jam editor. The problem is one of the texture seems to 'bleed' into another when placed into the track. The texture are next to each other in the jamfile.
The jam in question has the check boxes for transperancy, non standard height and non standard width checked.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Rob


Posted by Fat Rat from 209.53.102.99:

Hi Rob & all

Yes this is exactly what I was hintng at with Alfa .

I've been going through this
" full canvas map " bug .

No one has been able to crack this one . It was sent to Addie ( on holidays ) I belive . I wanted to wait till all were present so I woulnd not have to repeate too much .

But the 128 figure bothers me ,
Now when We de unked the 188 cmd , even before any of the capabilities of the newer JE

The #of rows ( resolution ) and the repeats values are not 100 % ( belive it not )

What I found was that any time you stray form a " standard advert " texture size . No matter what you do in the JE you can not map with an 188 more than 1 repeat or rows .

Now remember not all textures in a track were mapped with an 188 , some\most are mapped in the GPO or ID5 objects .

Now any standard advert texture or texture originally mapped by MP is compatable with the 188 cmds. but other irregular sizes ARE NOT .

Either custom or stock , it has happened to me very early on TE 1.52 days , trying to use one of the bushes textures with many repeats & 32 res.

& I got everything on that canvas , With Westwood I found this can even include traces of textures from totally different jams .

Though I had no prob. with 256 , 128 I think I had 1 64x64 that would not map correctly but 64x32 seemed fine , This also goes for heights too , you may have a standard width but a non compatable height which is the cause of the trouble .

Sorry it's not much help , more of an advisement or warning , When we get further info We'll post

CU
Les


Posted by µartijn from 195.96.98.222:

In other words, try to use exclusively the following values for the horizontal and vertical dimensions:
2,4,8,16,32,64,128.

Textures like this will likely not have troubles being mapped unto an object or ribbon, regardless of repeats or offset (I never heared of problems, at least).
Textures with other values for H or V will probably not like to be repeated or offset.


Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Hi Guys,
I went back to the jam editor and unchecked the non-standard height and width check boxes. This fixed the problem. Maybe having textures with these boxes checked on a given canvas causes the texture mapping in gp2 to look for a bitmap 256 wide instead of 128 wide. Hence the check boxes my actually be for standard height and width. i.e. if they are checked then the texture needs to be standard height and width.

Cheers

Rob


Index

tracks maps

Posted by Stefano Merighi from 151.26.135.200:

I'm looking for track maps of tracks like Mexico City, Paul Ricard, Phoenix91, Avus, and many others. Where can i find them?


Posted by James Knopp from 195.92.194.17:

Have a good search at www.grandprix2.com. It's full of tracks! :)

Posted by µartijn from 212.64.16.38:

Maps of most tracks can be found at
http://www.silhouet.com/motorsport/tracks/tracks.html

Posted by Andrew D from 203.109.250.95:

Hey,

I am currently finishing off Phoenix 91, aswell as 89-90 so they should be ready soon.

But the link that Martijn gave is the best one, but you could try Forix as well.
http://www.forix.com/asp/f1.asp?lang=english

Cheers
Andrew D


Index

Track File Size

Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Hi all,
I want to know what is the maximum file size before GP2 crashes?
What is the maximum number of objects that can go into a track?
The file I am working on is 56.5 kb in size and it's causing GP2 to crash.

Any help, psychological or otherwise, will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Rob

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

hello rob, all
as i just read in the cmd-lib:

---
trackfile-size limit: 62000 bytes (exactly! thanks grammy!)
---

btw: lots of information could be found in my collection of former forum-postings. i know, its a lot and its raw, but as we all are used to search the web for information this wont be a big challenge neither.

you find the collection and more on my gp2-site: http://www.asit.ch/~addie/index.html

i hope its useful information
addie


Posted by Paul Hoad from 194.201.70.97:

I saw some code that talked about 128 [objects] but this I think was for the TrackObjectDefinitions or internal objects can't remember now!

Paul Hoad


Posted by John Verheijen from 195.96.108.12:

That must be Internal Objects.
Track Object Definitions is limited to total track size.


Index

Revelation??? (jams size etc.)

Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Hi All,
When fiddling around with Jam files, I found that the total jam size relates to the "Canvas Size" of the Jam file, not the textured area. I'm not sure if this is earth shattering, but it was new to me. I found the reason why my track crashed. It was a dud object. The problem has been cured. I am having other problems trying to get parts of an object to display in GP2. The object looks OK in object editor but some textures are missing in GP2.
Why is this so?

Cheers

Rob

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

rob
you confirm my idea of the total jam size !

i have the same problem as you with some objects. a certain area of the object just doesnt accept any (custom-)texture, any size, any anything. in another case i could fix it with mapping a smaller texture (maybe coincidence). rob, were you succesful with the original texture (i mean the texture that was mapped at that area in the base of your object) ?

is there a limit for the textures (jam size) on a given object ? or maybe even (also) a jam-size limit for a certain part of the track ? (remember the monaco track of adalberto that used to hang gp2 when you were about to leave the tunnel, exactly at the position of the view distance cmds ? maybe its all the same cause of problems.)

rob, if you or anybody else finds a way around this, i would be very glad if you would post it here !

addie


Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Hi All,
Addie it's so nice to hear from you:-)
Thanks for the respose, you've given me some ideas to follow up.

Cheers
Rob


Posted by Jason Hope from 207.253.206.182:

hey all,
nice to see you back Addie. I had a problem with my .jam's today. I couldn't start a quickrace. the Game just froze and that's it! I knew it had something to do with the jam's, so I quickly looked at the jam files I had, and saw if there was a way to eliminate them, without losing any of the needed textures. I looked at the the total jam size, and it was somewhere in the range of 896 000. I then started the latest jam editor, the one that allows cutting and pasting. to make a long story short, i rearaged everything in the jam folder and ended up with two less files. the total size was now 830 000. Still would not start a quickrace. Did some more editing. Now it's down to 807936. The track loads for a quickrace now. I figured that the MAXIMUM jam size is around 810 000. the total size has to do with both the textures and the total hieght and length of the file. I had 10 256x256 files, and as I shrunk them, the total jam size shrunk too. So it is a combo of both that contributr to it.

Hope this helps a little
Jason Hope

Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

Jason,
Fat Rat suggested 830000 is the magic number for total jam size

Cheers
Rob


Posted by Jhope from 209.104.76.93:

this answers a few more questions then.

1: this must now be slot dependent. the reason is because I changed the track to different slots, with the total siza at roughly 810000, and the track froze on 5 of the 8 slots I put it in.

2- the total size of the jam is a major major influence on the total jam size. I reduced the total down to 790000 by just fidling with the size of certain jams, AND re-aranging their textures. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I find that "texture location" on the jam is also a major influence on the size. Don't take this for what it is. I still have to test this theory.

t'ill later,
Jason Hope

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

jason

i do not understand the first sentence of point 2 !?

have you also checked how an empty canvas counts in the total jam size (of the TE) and in the whatever-size-limit in gp2 ?
you often come along jams with gaps between single textures. do they count or dont they ?
and if the width of the canvas is less than 256 ? how does it count in gp2 ? with 256 or with the actual size ?
how do unused textures count in the total jam size (of the TE) and in the limit in gp2 ?

paul, how exactly calculates the total-jam-size function ?

addie

(i cant help thanking again mal ross for the great jameditor !)


Posted by Rob Huffer from 202.137.80.194:

I tried to map the textures to the original object and they mapped fine. So their was no problem with texture size differences on the original object. I must have just screwed up the modified object.

Cheers

Rob

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

i would be very interested in what exactly caused the problem. as mentioned before, i have similar problems.

addie






Track Length

Posted by Ferrari312 from 62.7.118.61:

In the Statistics for the track it mentions the distance in miles, I want to know is this accurate? I'm running an enduro race and I want to set the number of laps to be a 600-mile race (3 x 200 mile stints). Thanks for any help.

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

ferrari312, all

if you want to go for sure, go like this:

if n is the number of track length units, then

length of the track is ( n-1 ) x 16 feet; the rest is length unit conversions
(at least thats how i see it)

you get the number of track length units at the end of the track data table in the 2nd most to the right column called cumulative length. you find the track data table in the menu called tables.

the minus 1 thing is included because there is an overlap of one at the ends of the track. this can be checked out by mapping textures on the road.

and after all its not that important. a lot of tracks are inaccurate by MORE than 1 unit anyway. (my bern-bremgarten track does not count here, because i found out about the minus 1 thing only at the very end of developing it, and i could not overcome to redo the cc-line again :)

i hope its useful (and stimulating) information
addie

ps which one do you mean ? B3 ? T, T2, T3 or T4 (i hope you forget about the T5 that was a waste of time for gilles)

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

oh
of course it should read:
ps which one ARE you ?
:)



Index

sky turns black

Posted by DIM from 195.64.71.145:

All the sky's in the new trackpack 2000 are black in my game now, does anyone got a solution for this, it looks like racing at night ! If i turn off the sky in the graphics section, the sky turns grey...


Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

your installation misses the file with the sky-texture. for most tracks its a file called clouda.jam in the gamejams subdirectory ...

i hope its useful information
addie


Index

Fences (join at track ends)

Posted by David Richards from 202.12.71.12:

I have noticed that on some tracks - the fences don't join properly. Instead of staying at the same distance as set for last and first track section, they converge at the track join as though fence distance was set to 0.

How do you cure this?


Posted by Ian Hill from 194.82.103.37:

There's a parameter somewhere in the tree setting the "initial fence distance" or soemthing.
Found it:
TRack Config - Track Sections - Begin Left Bank (and Begin Right Bank). Set this to what you want the widths to be at the start of section 0.

HTH
Ian

Posted by
David Richards from 202.12.71.12:

Thanks, Ian!!!


Index

question about cc-line sectors (cmd80 vs cmd112)

Posted by Sykor from 195.23.214.55:

I've already read the (great) "brief introduction to cc-line" by addie walti. But there was somethings regarding cc sectors that I didn't understood. For instance: the difference between cmd80 and cmd120 sectors. Which ones do we use? And in which situations?

Mnyric Sykor

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.13:

hello mnyric

the difference between those two types of cc-line-sectors is, the cmd80 has a constant radius and the cmd112 has a beginning and an ending radius. so you may have a sector that “opens”, e.g. at the exit of a corner. you just have to define the radius at the beginning of the sector and the radius at the end of the sector. inbetween the two of them gp2 makes a transition.

in custom tracks, most of the times so far cmd80 are used, but if you look at the original tracks you pretty often come along cmd112s at the exit of corners.

i hope its useful information
addie

Posted by alfa from 203.14.183.25:

In the tracks that I've made, I tended to spend an awfully large amount of time trying to get the CC cars to get a good power down at the exit of a turn.
What I would find is a tendency for the cars to "notice" that the CC line had changed from very curved to less curved (near corner exit) and lift off for a millisecond or so apparently in an effort to compensate.
Has anyone else noticed this, and if so, has anyone experimented to see if cmd112's prevent it?


Index

end of list