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collected and (very little) formatted by addie walti
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New limit found!
Max. size of track file ?
Shadow Object in the Pitlane?
View distance Limits on short tracks
problem with track height
Pit problem
How do I import an object?
Altitude/height changes
v3tarmacmap siblings ?!
Objects before Objects
mirror blue on night track in GP2
Posted by AD from 62.30.140.22:
I've found a new trackediting limit. Any CC line segment over 360 degrees is ignored.
Just split it into 2+ sectors and it's fine though!
Posted by AD from 62.30.140.22:
I don't think it has anything to do with PO. I know the original limit for GP2 is
62000 bytes, there's a patch to make it 65535, but I think the sme applies to GP3.
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
In GP3 its 140000 and in gp3-2000 it's 200000.
Posted by Paul Edmonds from 212.159.36.249:
I've posted some screenshots of my forthcoming Nazareth track on the website at www.pedmonds.f9.co.uk.
There are a few teething problems to sort out - but one that's baffling me is getting
the shadow of the bridge to fall on the pitlane. Does anybody know the Location Code
Type C for the pitlane?
Posted by Marcos Gauguin from 200.190.240.188:
Take a look at Interlagos. There's a big bridge over the s/f line and the pitlane,
complete with its shadows.
Gauguin
Posted by Paul Edmonds from 212.159.36.249:
I've run into a little issue with view distances in both Nazareth and the Milwaukee
Mile. Addie notes in the Command Library that the distance arg. is 60 - 255. However,
it seems that if the arg. length is more than half the track length-2, then you end
up with a void after half the track length for the rest of your arg. length.
Some might say I should make longer tracks ;-)) - but I thought I'd make the observation.
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
so, e.g. if the tracks length is say 400, then working max view distance is198 ?
for viewing backwards and forwards ? or is it possible to e.g. have 220 forward and
178 backward ?
btw paul, have you also worked with tracks shorter than a mile, say about 1km ? if
yes, you observed any special phenomenas of the strange kind ?
Posted by Paul Edmonds from 212.88.40.146:
Yes, that seems to be about right. As far as I can determine, you can't exceed that
figure in either direction, or offset rear view values against front view values.
The shortest track I've done is Nazareth at 0.946 miles, which behaved like the Milwaukee
Mile - no problems other than this view distance issue.
Posted by Knuckles from 203.212.143.17:
I came accross the void problem with view distances as well but I don't think you
have quite got it right as to what causes it because I found that it depends on your
direction as to wether the void appears when using the same view distance. Try changing
a left hand oval into a right hand oval and you will see what I mean. I think it
has more do do with how far you "overshoot" the outside of the track than
the magnitude of the view distance. I have found for example that if I overshoot
the view distance from the pitlane on an oval I don't have a problem where I overshoot
to the infield but I do if it is to the outside. (All depends on where your pit entry
and exit points are and whether the view is on entry or exit as to wether you are
overshooting into the infield or on the outside of the track)
Posted by JC MUSUMECI from 195.6.155.200:
I'm working on a new track which work for the moment. But when i try to change any
track height, and i launch the track in GP3/gp3-2000, the game freeze when i click
on "Start". Is someone can explain me how to make it workable? PLease,
it's urgent!!!
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
when working with track-heights you always had to pay attention the "ends of
the track do match". so you have to watch the columns "cumulative gradient"
and "cumulative altitude" in the track data table (menu tables / track
data). at the very end of this table those columns have to be as close to zero as
it gets again (though some +- 10 will work also)
but after all, gp3 normally does not freeze if the heights are "messed".
the worst you get is "the grandmother of all ramps", but no freeze or crash,
so the problem in the track may be a different one.
what do you mean with "click on start" ? you mean, you normally start gp3
in windoze (or in gpxpatch) and then "drive", etc. ?
btw see the "trouble shooters FAQ" @ http://www.grandprix3.ch/TEIC/index.html
for known reasons for gp3 to freeze when loading a track ...
i hope it helps
Posted by AD from 62.30.112.1:
I've made a GP2 pitlane, it seems OK but there are a couple of problems. The pitline
goes up to disappear into the distance (at some strange point. And in the pitlane,
the fence textures disappear, and the tarmac line takes the wrong route, but the
car doesn't. It's a short track, with quite a long (60% of track) pitlane.
Posted by Schubert from 203.197.54.115:
The command PitLane End Length has an arg which should be 2 less than the total length
of the sectors ahead. In your case it might be 1 less than that.
Posted by AD from 62.30.112.1:
I should have been a pit clearer. It's the entry that's the problem, and the value
is more than 2 less than the value to the fences.
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
i havent seen it, so i’m just guessing (probably i’d be just guessing anyway).
sounds to me like the layout of the pit lane is “not properly matching”. unfortunately
the TE gives not a 100% accurate view of the pit lane layout. its not the TEs fault,
its mainly because its not fully understood how pit lanes are really attached to
the track, in a geometrical point of view. and if it would be understood it would
be way too much of work to implement it in a TE.
the width of the pit lane is looking wrong in the TE (of paul) so one gets a bit
misleaded sometimes. its not that much of a problem if the tracks ends are connected
properly, proper angles and overlap. but as soon as the angle does not match or the
overlap,gp2/3 has to compensate, and thats the part that is not yet figured out,
nor simulated in the TE.
best indication of such “compensating” is if you see a gap in the pit lane where
the pit lane’s fences begin or end. look at the angels in the gap and you will get
the idea in which way gp2/3 compensated, in other words: in which direction you had
to correct. and last but not least, if you see a gap, the pit lane is simply to short.
you may also see compensations at start and end point of the pit lane sometimes.
be sure to have the whole pit lane visible at that stage of work (keep your eye on
cmds 0x9e and 0x9b in the pit lane).
the attachemend-points of the pit lane to the track, given by the cmds 0x86 and 0x87
in the track are given. if the pit lane between those points does not fit, gp2/3
compensates as good as it can. and it compensates angles at the attachement points
themselves and at the points where the pit in and pit out ramps are connected to
the pit lane world, given by the cmds 0x9f and 0xa0 in the pit lane. as mentioned
above a very important point is the connection-point of the track ends. if the layout
of the track is not 100% proper at the ends, which means the angles do not match
and the overlap is other than about 1 length unit, you will have the beginning of
a distorted view in the TE. the TE just starts drawing the track at the beginning
and ends at the end, no matter how wrong the angle is at the end. but gp2/3 always
has a proper angle at the ends (at least as long as you dont have crazy and intentionally
wrong angles).
what i’d like to point out is, having proper matching ends in the track layout is
the first step to get a trouble free pit lane. next thing is, you have to comsider,
the pit lane is not attached at the centerline of the track, as implied in pauls
TE, but border to border, as shown in vainos TE. if you have a right side pit lane,
the right border of the track and the right border of the pit lane are matched normally
(practically; but if you look at it in detail you notice its something like “the
centerline of the pit lane is attached to a point 300 width units from the centerline
of the track or the border of the track”, i dont recall the details anymore. but
this is only important if you have extraordinary track- or pit lane-widths at those
points).
however, now if you e.g. have the pit lane start before a 90 degree final corner
and the pit lane end after a 90 degree (same side as final corner) first corner,
the actually neccessary length of the pit lane is noticeable affected. if you have
the pit lane in the “infield”, the pit lane had to be shorter than seen in the TE,
if its on the outside it had to be longer than seen, shorter or longer by say about
2 - 6 units that is. if its not, you get the gaps, or worse. if its 90 degree corners,
thats the easiest case. if the corners are other than that, you have to put on good
shoes.
if you have a situation like in the nazareth-oval its even worse, because the pit
lane itself also makes about two thirds of the oval, or more. all you can do is watching
the angles and gaps in the game to get an idea which way to correct.
and that was just the layout. if there is topology also, you may have to face even
more trouble. good news is, the two things can be looked separately. so you can fix
the layout with zeroed heights, and after that work on the heights on their own.
please correct me if i’m wrong.
i hope its useful
Posted by Karl Sanders from 172.190.45.240:
I've just finished my Monaco nighttime track and now Im working on an Adelaide nighttime
track. I need to know how to import objects - buildings - from the Monaco track file
to the Adelaide track file so that I'll have more buildings to make the track look
even better. I've tried everything I can think of without any luck. Can you please
give me a step by step guide on how to do this.
Thsnk you.
Posted by Andrew from 195.93.33.154:
you have to also import it (im sure you have got that far) then you need to go to
the internal object, asign it the textures you want, then make an object deffinition
for it, thats how to do it very basic (i hope i didnt miss something in this quick
post!)
for the rest see addies tutorials etc
Posted by Karl Sanders from 172.144.145.66:
Thanks Andrew. You're right, i have got as far as importing the new object. As far
as assigning new textures then making an object definition - do these two values
have to correlate. Eg: if the new texture is 970 do I have to put this same number
in the object definition?
Seems like a dumb question, I know, but this could really help me a lot.
Posted by Andrew from 195.93.48.189:
no, they are different things, for the jam id you have to open up the "internal"
object (it should be at the bottom of the list) then edit the texture data (and mapping
if need be)
then you need an object definition, you create that and sort out the properties,
e,g the rotation, position, and apply the correct internal object to that object
definition in the id 1 box, for the rest of the valuces copy them from the original
object in the other track
Posted by Andrew from 195.93.48.189:
oh, also that object definiton is then what you sellect when you add a new object
to the track
Posted by Andreas Forrer from 146.180.92.194:
I'm trying to change the altitudes in an existing track, which has scenery. For some
odd reason TE behaves rather strange: While trying to smooth out one section TE (randomly?)
moves the sector with the altitude difference back and forth. I expected it to move
it forward so at the end of the track (start/finish) I would gradually bring both
planes togehter, but TE seems to be moving this difference back and forth and I never
get anywhere editing it. What am I missing here?
Posted by Karl Sanders from 172.191.132.68:
The altitude ang gradient only really matter in the first and last track section.
Look at them both before you change anything and remember the values. If they are
the same when you have finshed changing the hieght it will be okay. If for example
you increase the hieght of sector 2 it will lift all the other sectors right up til
the end of the lap, so you then have to decrease it somewhere ahead to bring down
the altitude of the final sector so that it "sits" at the same hieght that
it did originally.
You also have to take into account the lenght of the sebtor your changing. If its
a long sector you increase it will mean that you have to change a few sectors after
it to bring the final track sector back down to its original altitude.
Hope this helps.
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
maybe the basic problem is the understanding of the "height"-value. this
value does not mean "height" (like altitude o.s.s.). it rather means "change
of gradient per track length unit" or something like that. and as karl mentioned,
if changing this value in a certain tracksector, all the following sectors are affected
as well. e.g. like you had a stripe/ribbon of lead in your hands and continue to
shape it, you had to pay attention to have the ends matching then.
as a side-remark: sometimes you happen to base on a track that features an "initial-gradient"
(e.g. suzuka), its given in the config-section of the track in the track-tree, and
unfortunately its not taken in calculation in the gradient- and altitude calculations
in the TE of paul, so you may want to zero this out first. or you could use the TE
of vaino iso-hannula for this, as in this editor, its implemented.
i hope its useful
Posted by Karl Sanders from 172.189.36.109:
The comparison with a lead pipe is useful because if you bend one part of it the
rest of it would stick up in the air and to get the end of the pipe back to where
it was originall, you'd have to bend it back down somewhere else - in other words
the track in Gp3 is "Stiff".
Posted by Andreas Forrer from 146.180.92.194:
Thank's for the explanations. Those were helpful, but not quite my problem: I understand
the 'bent lead pipe' comparison and that is kinda what I expected from TE. However
what happens is a bit different: Instead of having the huge altitude difference at
the start/finish line I have somewhere in the track almost a 90 degree crack, where
your car gets airborne and falls down onto earth again (looks great btw, sometimes
it disassembles in mid air). So I change that section anticipating now to be able
to go past it and encounter the problem further down the road. But that doesn't happen,
sometimes I get this crack AHEAD of where I was before. It seems to shift around
randomly.
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
OH ! welcome to the club, you had the honor to face the grandmother of all ramps
:)
technically seen its some overflow. the range of overall altitude in gp3 is limited,
so practically the track does not only have to fit in a 2 dimensional world, but
in a box. if its “too high” or "too low" it “flips” and gives you this
ramp.
in the track config section in the track tree lookout for an argument called “track
start z”, here you can vertically shift your track. if s/f is the “highest” point
of the track you may want to set track start z to say 10000 if its the lowest point
you may want to set it to -10000, etc.
btw i have to admit the lead pipe image is not yet 100% correct. imagine you have
set your track up in a way the ends do not match. guess what gp3.exe does ? it matches
them anyway, but strange things may happen, and if its “too weird” it may crash.
e.g. if the altitude levels do not match, you get a sharp bump at the s/f line, some
of you may remember the early days of custom tracks for grandprix2 :)
so somehow gp3 compensates unperfect shaped track layouts, this is the good part.
the downside for us is, we have a hard time with the pit lane in such a case, as
mentioned in an earlier post.
i hope it helps
Posted by Andreas Forrer from 146.180.92.194:
Ahh, I see the light! Thank's Addie, I think you hit the nail on its head. Yup, the
mother of all ramps is what I got. Looks scary: You look straight onto a wall of
track as if your car is suspended 1000 feet into the air to be dropped straight down.
And yes, the crooked pitlane was, what started me on my search of changing the heights,
cause my pit building looked more like a rollercoaster ride.
Posted by Dieter from 195.93.64.177:
There are two different tarmac-bmp´s in the TechJam-Folder: tarmacmap has obviously
jam-id 837 and is mapped on the road surface automatically. But does anybody know
what jam-id v3tarmacmap uses? Or is it just used for software-version and replaces
tarmacmap then? I have changed v3tarmacmap and tried running software-mode, but actually
did not see any difference. Or does it not become that obvious because of the lower
resolution?
Posted by Andreas Forrer from 146.180.92.195:
I noticed that myself when playing around with the textures for my Chicago Speedway
track. I actually ended up changing v3tarmacmap around. Changing tarmacmap didn't
do anything for me. I'm running hardware mode and 800x600 res.
Posted by SDI from 213.84.65.29:
v3tarmacmap is used for the voodoo 3 I think. The two files are mutually exclusive.
Posted by Schubert from 203.199.169.150:
How do i make an object appear before another object?
I have 2 objects in a trk sector ...
1. stand with roof (on right) and )
2. a wide advert with starting lights but it appears behind the stand with roof (clearly
a part of this advert is erased and the stand overlaps it when viwed from a particular
angle)
I am not familiar with objects so any help is appreciated!
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
on this subject, marcos gauguin found a good example that could be of help. on the
a1-ring, somewhere in the back of the track you have two houses, some trees and scenery
combined. the houses are behind the scenery which is quite unusual. maybe the same
trick works with stand behind advert. but you had to work out the very trick on your
own. i dont know why the house is behind the scenery (but i'd like to know :).
if this does not work out, you could edit one of the objects in order to shift the
origin. normally the drawingorder s given by the sequence of object anchors. so in
your case the anchor of the advert should be placed before the anchor of the stand.
now maybe if you place the anchors in that way, the position of the object does not
match your wish, and here you had to editi the objects themselves instead of the
anchors.
i hope this helps
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
btw the mentioned post of marcos gauguin was in october 2001, see thread "Objects
behind ribbons" in the posting collection @ http://www.grandprix3.ch/TEIC/index.html
Posted by Schubert from 203.199.169.222:
After playing around with the values i noticed that in the object description the
DETAIL value goes like this....
Detail 127 .... shows object before track fences and all other objects from track
point of view.
Detail 128 shows object before all other objects but from pits only :)
So a value of 129 (128) for my advert worked well. But i had to see that it the poles
of the advert were above track fences so that it doesn't overlap the track fences
and the stands have a value of 127 so that they don't appear before track fences.
:)
Posted by Hernan from 200.80.15.94:
Hi all,
I'm afraid that the houses in a1-ring aren't behind the scenery, it looks like but
they aren't, if you drive to the sector and make a left turn to head off the houses
you will see they are in front the scenery.
As far as i could see the objects are shown behind ribbons until the place they are
inserted when they show in front of the ribbons, the same happens backwards.
So when you leave the hairpin in a1-ring you see the houses in the distnace behind
the scenery and when you reach the point they are inserted they are out of your angle
of view.
hope this helps and maybe someone could explain it better.
Posted by Schubert from 203.199.169.94:
ya!
BTW can somebuddy help me out with the Objects behind OBJECTS (and not behind Ribbons)
Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:
“object behind object” could be done also by the positions of the object-anchor-cmds
+offset. its first comes first serves. but sometimes you want to anchor two objects
at the same place, which isnt possible. or, to have them the way you want them, the
order of the cmds clashes the drawing-order. in that case you could try to edit the
object-shape, “shifting the origin” by shifting the coordinates of all points. as
you may know, its the origin that corresponds to the anchor-position (plus sidewards
shift of course). i hope this does not sound too confusing. else please dont hesitate
to ask again.
unfortunately there are also cases where you even cant do it by origin-shifting.
in the original tracks thats the case when norman surplus “combined” objects. the
big prize goes to the person who manages to combine two arbitrary objects into a
single one. its possible, because you can see it in the original tracks, e.g. imola
features some houses with trees, all in a single object-shape. but nobody made a
custom combined-object-shape so far, AFAIK.
i hope its useful
Posted by Schubert Cardozo from
203.197.54.7:
Thanks. I'll see what can be done.
Posted by Hernan from 200.80.15.237:
Check out my Long Beach track, leaving the dolphins fountain on the right you can
see the aquarium garage biulding it's made using two objects combined.
Posted by AAS from 62.226.35.254:
On my new track with night sky
i have blue sky in the mirrors. What can I do ?
Posted by AD from 62.30.112.1:
Try changing the palette entry for that colour to black. You can't have sky textures
in the mirrors for some daft reason, so there will be just 1 colour.
Posted by AAS from 62.226.33.59:
Where changing the palette entry for that colour to black?
I have all values in the 0xc9's like in Lake Joutjarvi (night)
Posted by Matteo from 213.45.254.90:
you must search the color index in the palette and set a 0xc9 cmd for its index.
Posted by Gore from 213.243.137.165:
Open the JAM file to the JAM Editor. Check the "untextured colour" section.
Choose primary 0 and secondary 0.
You can't change it with 0xc9
Posted by AAS from 62.226.33.206:
ok
thank you all
thank you Gore
Posted by Matteo from 212.171.194.197:
well, if you are using a new jam set ...yes I think this is the best choose gore!
but if you want use the standard jam pack I think you need to modifing the main palette
by 0xc9 cmd...isn't it?
bye, Matteo
ps: tnx for suzuka!
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