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.

GTAce · Feb 22, 2015

banger said:
Assetto corsa can be supported in 3dsimed. if you make the track in BTB Xml/gmts files you can imported to btb xml Via 3d simed and re-exported back to Assetto corsa.

www.theuspits.com

You have to manually adjust all materials and shaders then though.
A direct .kn5 export with the correct filenames and structures from inside BTB would save you hours of work. That would be especially useful when you want to test something, currently it's tedious if you just want to check how a small change looks like.

I'm sure it'll never happen though. Assetto Corsa's engine is too different and I think many things are encrypted.

EDIT: For example: I currently have a track in BTB I want to export to Assetto Corsa.
I export it in the typical rFactor format (so it's playable in rFactor) and import it into 3DSimED.
Now I have to delete the skybox, delete all timing gates, rename all materials so they behave like they should (roads, walls, gravel etc.) and add starting positions, pit positions and so on. Then I can export it as .kn5.

Chris Steingen · Feb 22, 2015

I just recently purchased a license and what immediatley came into my mind:
I want to rotate all the control points in the front / side view! I build a track based on a background image and now I want to add an overall slope to the whole track (as it is sitting on a slight downhill terrain in reality). Editing all control points one by one is very time consuming and also difficult to get smooth in the end.

tom-duff · Feb 22, 2015

Great to see BTB still going strong. I've just requested a new license for what must be the first time in over 5 years having picked up a copy of AC.

My request is therefore a direct AC export.

banger · Feb 23, 2015

and you guys want to added new Sims to btb for no extra cost...it takes time and effort to make btb. so i don't want to see is another Sim taking presence from other tasks (Sims) all ready supported by btb and you want to added more new sims whenever they come out. you are asking way to much from Brendon there a still a lot of work to be done for Rf1,rf2.gtr2.gtl,rbr,gpl.racer.also he has to make a living out of working a real job.
yes 3dsimed is a good program to converted too.and has a lot of different formats.but the idea is to learn from BTB and simed/3ds max to make your tracks. not for a one click automatic track maker.which is where i think you guys want it to be...

tom-duff · Feb 23, 2015

banger said:
a one click automatic track maker.which is where i think you guys want it to be...

I appreciate I have been out of this for 5 years for various reasons, but the above describes what BTB always was for me when using it with rFactor. I think I used simed a few times to add some of the required start/finish objects back before BTB supported them, but only grudgingly. I'm no modeler, but BTB allowed me to create complete tracks that were at least drive-able in rF right from V 0.0.1, or whatever the first version Brendon released was, and gradually became more and more complete. Although re-reading the bit of your post I quoted I certainly wouldn't want to take away the design and build stage as that is where the fun is!

I would also happily pay to get any additional functionality. To be honest I was both surprised and pleased to see BTB was still active and after all these years and given my initial investment paid off a long time ago in terms of value gained it is probably time to chuck some more cash at it.

Perhaps the ideal solution would be for Brendon to provide an export plugin framework that would allow others to build and release the export functionality for a particular sim.

GTAce · Feb 24, 2015

banger said:
and you guys want to added new Sims to btb for no extra cost...it takes time and effort to make btb. so i don't want to see is another Sim taking presence from other tasks (Sims) all ready supported by btb and you want to added more new sims whenever they come out. you are asking way to much from Brendon there a still a lot of work to be done for Rf1,rf2.gtr2.gtl,rbr,gpl.racer.also he has to make a living out of working a real job.
yes 3dsimed is a good program to converted too.and has a lot of different formats.but the idea is to learn from BTB and simed/3ds max to make your tracks. not for a one click automatic track maker.which is where i think you guys want it to be...

Who says we demand anything for free? I'd re-purchase a BTB 2.0 which works for AC as the current one does for rFactor.

banger · Feb 24, 2015

BTB 2.0? it only goes to 1.0.0.1

it not a generalizel rule... but there are a lot of new people here demanding the latest game to be included. BTB was orgnally design for RBR,RFACTOR, and other simbin games. the new people here seem to want to make BTB into the next 3dsimed . which will not happen has they are both helping each other out. Don't take things personally it was generalize assumptions that too much demand will make the software programmer disappear again.

Lee Knight · Mar 3, 2015

Just thought of another 'would be useful feature', besides a warning that comes up 72hours before license expirers...
The ability to save several differen t shape/material settings for ether road shape tool or Wall Tool...
Example; building kilometers of stone walls beside the road that have frequent but irregular breaks in them.
Each wall has 3 different shaped cross-sections at each end.
It would be so much easier if instead of copy/pasteing & jumping back & forth across the project each time for each cross-section to 'Copy As...' & a 1 or 2 etc is automaticlly added, then when a fresh cross-section is created we could then select 'Paste As' & the desired number & required cross-section can be implemented...
Dunno if that makes much sence, but I can elaborate further if required...

banger · Mar 5, 2015

added suggestion , to fix the edit road materials camera.(bunny hop one)

) to may be a slightly higher over the track and looking slightly on the z axis to be looking down. on the road.

has the currently one is alot too close to the road materials, and you can't see the full road unless you swivel it around.util the next jump to road surface or zoom out slightly.

picture how i would like to see it. (example)