BTB Improvements?

Brendon Pywell · Jan 30, 2014

Believe it or not, I get quite a few emails with suggestions on how BTB could be improved. Rather than me simply “sorting” them in my own Inbox, I’d like to openly ask the BTB community for their suggestions, allowing suggestions to be discussed and workshopped. I have a few ideas (pages of them) myself but it's always refreshing to get other people's ideas.

Aside from the next patch, I pretty much know what I am going to include in the next version. Beyond that I also have some great ideas as I address what I perceive to be BTB’s most common “annoyances”.

So please, feel free to offer your ideas on what you’d like to see in the upcoming releases. I’ll refrain from comment, but I will be taking notes.

R Soul · Jan 30, 2014

I'd like to be able to change the length of a node's control arms while keeping the rotation locked. Say I've made a perfect straight, and I then want to adjust the following corner. When moving the control point, it's impossible to keep the direction the same.

A while ago I came up with this technique for making a perfect straight, but it would be nice for BTB to be able to straighten a group of nodes automatically. Useful variations would be "vertical only" and "horizontal only".

This might be a long shot, but how changing the direction of the diagonals on a track?
This is what we have:

It would be very useful if we could select a surface and do this:

It would make track merging easier. It would be even better if we could then convert a track to terrain, keeping the original track of course. We could then delete unnecessary vertices where tracks meet, and if both tracks were terrain, the vertices could be merged.

soramame · Jan 30, 2014

I want the thing which I can adjust in a one of 2D line to be convenient when I change elevation.
It is better when I can display a background image on this part.

FerrariMan96 · Jan 31, 2014

Two things I can think of:

1. When editing the road cross section, it would be great if it could be done in all 3 axes (z as well), allowing for "diagonal" texture changes, e.g. when a ripple strip comes out diagonally from the road. It would also make it easier to connect two separate roads together (make the end cross-section diagonal). I don't know how feasible this would be to implement but it's a feature I'd certainly make use of.

2. FBX/Assetto Corsa export. This one's a bit more of a stretch, but even if BTB doesn't export directly to AC it would be great to export as FBX (which I believe is going to be the file format AC's modding tool will import for tracks).

EDIT: Thought of 2 more things.

3. Ability to add/connect terrain to the end of a point-to-point road.

4. (Related to the first one) ability to change the number of points in the road cross-section for different cross-sections. Another one which I'm not sure how easily it could be implemented, but it would be handy. Now that I think about it though, I think it would be difficult to make work. Still, I'll mention it anyway

jcrr · Jan 31, 2014

I JCRR creator tracks Peyregrosse, Puech Arnal, Mont-Dore and Descente du Minier on BTB. Firstly a big thank you for creating this software without which I would never have dared to get into modding.

One aspect that seems interesting to me to improve in BTB is the precision placement of objects. in three dimensions. Often I have to go through 3Dsimed to improve the placement of objects.

thank you again for this great software!

R Soul · Jan 31, 2014

I would like the ability to assign a different sky.mas file. It's understandable that BTB only comes with one file, but if someone had a pack of others, e.g. a city or European countryside, the user could choose which one BTB exported.

Lee Knight · Feb 1, 2014

Being able to weld mesh would be nice but being able to normalize UV on terrain would be a great help!
Got a couple of others too- must find that list again...

@ Ferrariman96 -if your using BTB Pro you could always Export as a dx file & convert...
Although an AC Export would allow using the BTB generated AIW which would save a LOT of hassles later on

Would also allow me to use AIW's Ive spent over a year on too!

FerrariMan96 · Feb 1, 2014

@Lee Knight That's what I've been thinking, it is possible to do it that way. But native support would be nicer.

In general BTB could do very well with an update to support the "new breed" of sims (rF2, AC and any others that come in the future and are moddable) however this would be a massive task I think due to the new features of these sims, so it's not one that I think Brendon should feel pressured to do - he is a one-man team after all.

Erwin Greven · Feb 1, 2014

I think an improvement would be when i click on one type of texture, i could let btb show me where further the textures are used. For instance i click on a grass01 texture and i could check a box which lets btb show me where this texture is used also on the whole project.

The same thing would be great which one type of object.

martinez · Feb 1, 2014

Hello everybody,
First I want to thank and send congratulations to Brendon for his great work. He made my dreams come true couple years ago!
Let me make a wishlist a little bigger

1. I think if there would be a possibility to "add" a physical "surface" to objects - only for BTB? Say I import a scenery (object) to the project and I would like to plant trees or raise Walls on it. Shortly said - something like "BTB Ground" option for objects. At this point - an improvement for managing huge objects (like skies or sceneries) would be also a great thing.
2. Also - a possibility to group/merge objects in BTB manually - that would help (experienced users) to improve track's performance. Or - just option to choose how BTB should group objects during export (small/medium/big groups). From my experience - exported BTB groups are too small (around 50 meters in size?)
Merging objects using the same texture would be the best idea, but I suppose it's impossible since objects from XPacks have their own .xml specifications.
3. Auto - merging (or on demand) materials in Xpacker - optimised XPacks give up to 15% better track's performance.
Thanks again!

Davesta · Feb 1, 2014

The most useful feature to me would be the ability to add or remove points from the cross section at different points along the track. I tend to use the track surface to include the track edges and kerbs to give a smooth transition without flickering textures or gaps. Currently this leads to huge polygon wasteage as any points I use to add detail to kerbs are carried for the entire track including where they're not necessary. It's also not ideal for creating access roads. I've attached example pictures.

FerrariMan96 · Feb 2, 2014

martinez said:
1. I think if there would be a possibility to "add" a physical "surface" to objects - only for BTB? Say I import a scenery (object) to the project and I would like to plant trees or raise Walls on it. Shortly said - something like "BTB Ground" option for objects. At this point - an improvement for managing huge objects (like skies or sceneries) would be also a great thing.

I like this one

Davesta said:
The most useful feature to me would be the ability to add or remove points from the cross section at different points along the track. I tend to use the track surface to include the track edges and kerbs to give a smooth transition without flickering textures or gaps. Currently this leads to huge polygon wasteage as any points I use to add detail to kerbs are carried for the entire track including where they're not necessary. It's also not ideal for creating access roads. I've attached example pictures.

I like this one too, similar to one of my points.

R Soul · Feb 2, 2014

I'd like to be able to set the .gmt filename for certain items. Rather than t0_s0.gmt, StartGrid.gmt would be nicer. The same for objects. Currently there's a sort of hack where to state that it's moveable, and the moveable type is in the filename, but it requires manually editing the scn to remove the moveable setting.

It would be nice to be able to set up a point to point track without having to do all this. Perhaps BTB could allow us to designate a wall as a timing gate. It would look messy to the track creator, but in game it would of course be invisible.

R Soul · Feb 2, 2014

Another one: It could be easier to select huge objects. One thing I've been experimenting with is heightmap objects (using an image in a 3d object program to make an object with hills/valleys). These have to be bigger than the whole track, but selecting such large objects is harder than it could be. It's necessary to zoom out to select the whole object, but to move it, one has to zoom in to get close to the red handle. And then it's hard to position it.

Graham Simmons · Feb 2, 2014

Hello Brendon,

Edit: Sorry just found a description in the Help that solved my issue

It might just be an age thing

Lee Knight · Feb 2, 2014

Thought of another...
Being able to see & select track Nodes in 3D window, even if they can't be moved there, would make finding a Node that needs 'tweaking' SO much easier- especially in larger tracks.
Maybe they could be made to disappear again when the wireframe is turned off in 3D window....

gamer19 · Feb 3, 2014

Ability to import vertical positions of nodes when importing from Google Earth. I was so excited when I import my local road into BTB and start making some rally track but imagine my surprise when I found that the whole track, although in real life has some impressive

height changes - all of sudden become completely flat !?!

And manually, click by click, node by node, height adjustment of some 322 nodes to their exact positions is really pain in the *ss.

Brad Dibble · Feb 3, 2014

The biggest deficiency in BTB today is making track intersections and merging tracks. It would be nice if BTB would have the tools to join track sections and delete the overlapping polys.

I would also like to have parametric input of object location and height as well as terrain elevation. Drag and drop works well most of the time, but sometimes you want an object in a specific place.

eno72 · Feb 4, 2014

I support the idea of Brad: ability to enter x y z coordinates for objects, and also for vertices of the track, when defining the shape of a cross-section.