BTB Pro 0.8.9.1 Beta

[Brendon Pywell]

Any current BTB Pro user wishing to help test the latest release, please follow this link.

http://www.bobstrackbuilder.net/pro_users/beta_test.aspx

Please give feedback into this thread rather than emailing/PMing me.

The licenses for this Beta release are now being generated daily.

The main new features are:

• 3d window now renders the Add/Bump/Specular materials so what you see in BTB will be very close to what you get in game.
• More advanced materials blending and editing.
• Reload textures by pressing F5. This allows you to edit a background image in one application, save it, then load the changes into BTB without having to reload the entire project.
• Global smoothing of track and terrain. This removes the sharp edges that form between the track and terrain, or between adjoining terrain areas.

Let me know how you go.

RBR Installation

This install uses newer shaders so RBR needs to be updated. Copy the following files and folders from BTB into your Richard Burns Rally folder, and overwrite if prompted.

• BTB\Support\RBR\Plugins
• BTB\Support\RBR\RX_CONTENT
• BTB\Support\RBR\d3dx9_35.dll

Bugs Fixed for release 0.8.9.1:
- Blend Background image not selected in combo box when re-opening the surfaces window. This causes other crashes if not reselected.
- Changing blend type in the surfaces/wall window not working.
- When blend type is background, confusing left/right/foward/backward options to be disabled.
- Wall blend rotate not working.
- Fix bug that allows you to delete the background image even when it is used in materials as a blend image.
- Fix when background image is moved, surface and walls that use them as a blend image are not immediately recalculated.
- Allow scale/offset when blend is Globally mapped.

To Do:
- Look At/Fix RBR specular export.
- Fix AIW path so with is limited to drivable track surface.

UPDATE: 28 April 2013

I am back working on this once again (finally) but I have numerous hurdles to overcome. Old PC died, so I now work on a laptop and need to reloading all development software. The good news, it's a Win 7 64 bit laptop so next version of BTB will HAVE to work on Win 7. The bad news, I have to install new versions of the development software and possibly make changes to the code - this will take time and I've no idea how much.

 

[marcobost]

WELCOME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please Brendon,
do you like I resume here all reports I sent you by mail more than 1 year ago following your steps, or did you yet fix them?

Thank you in advance!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[marcobost]

to Rojola...
If you haven't solved your problem... I had the same one because of I still have on my PC the first beta of 2009... no way to install this beta also deleting the last one, but but but...

if you go to START, BOBSTRACKBUILDER FOLDER and then you click on the BTB icon like if you want to run the software... et voilat, magically it installs itself!

I run Win 7 64 bit... hope this can help you

If in this way you aren't able to install... try to remove the old installation by ASC

 

[Greg Wyatt]

PM sent Brendon.. Cheers for looking into it.

 

[Brendon Pywell]

PM sent Brendon.. Cheers for looking into it.

Thanks. Some progress.

All objects and sobjects removed = still a problem.
All objects and sobjects and walls removed = no problem.
All objects and sobjects removed and walls set to no shadows = problem.

The next step would be to remove half of the walls and test again, saving each time as a new BTB project. HOWEVER, I notice when there is a problem with the terrain, the background pic appears to be overwritten with another file - zoom up high and look down.

Then I realise you are using two files:
Canberra.dds
Canberra.tga

rFactor is being confused by this as it is not differentiating between the dds and the tga. I recommend renaming one to a unique name and the problem will be solved. I also suspect this is a current problem with rFactor, not one introduced in this BTB beta.

 

[marcobost]

thanks again Brendon for going streight to the STATUS OF ART sotware!!!!!!!!!!

 

[marcobost]

Corridors width

Hi Brendon, I see the AIW Corridors feature seem to be the same of version 0.8.0.3 and I think a good idea could be to modify the width to match the new incoming version, due to the fact that now part of the track is terrain. In other words the 0.8.0.3 has the default track X=5.00 left and 5.00 right side and the beta has X=8.00 left and 8.00 right side, where the asphalt is still 5.00 + 5.00.
The "green" part of the corridor now must be at the end of the asphalt sides and not at the end of the track sides, otherwhise we must manually move every control point of the corridors!

Second thing... could be a good idea to improve a feature like a kind of "autofit" corridors? It means that if you edit (changing) the width of the track (thing that happens usually), the corridors automatically follow it side by side, just to avoid to move all them manually!

Thanks a lot in advance for your attention.

 

[mianiak]

rFactor is being confused by this as it is not differentiating between the dds and the tga. I recommend renaming one to a unique name and the problem will be solved. I also suspect this is a current problem with rFactor, not one introduced in this BTB beta.

rf has an order of thingy with images, first it will use dds, then tga, after that I don't know cause I haven't gone that far. But I can 100% confirm that if you have a tga and a dds with the same name, even if tga is set in the material, it will pick the dds first.

[ED] I don't think its an error or a bug with rf, I believe it is designed to work like that.

 

[Johannes Rojola]

rf has an order of thingy with images, first it will use dds, then tga, after that I don't know cause I haven't gone that far. But I can 100% confirm that if you have a tga and a dds with the same name, even if tga is set in the material, it will pick the dds first.

[ED] I don't think its an error or a bug with rf, I believe it is designed to work like that.

There is at least a "bug" in loading textures as Brendon said, that if there is two dds files named similar, it will cause problems. I ran into this with Cannonball track where I used 'police.dds', it has been conflicted with one vehicle mod, which also had file with the same name.

 

[mianiak]

There is at least a "bug" in loading textures as Brendon said, that if there is two dds files named similar, it will cause problems. I ran into this with Cannonball track where I used 'police.dds', it has been conflicted with one vehicle mod, which also had file with the same name.

Ahh yeah, I get around that by giving all my textures a unique name, ie, trackname_road.dds, that way there is much less chance that a conflict will come up.
Infact, there is food for thought Brendon, would it be worthwhile to have the export rename the textures like this?

 

[Pangaea]

from a guy whos worked extensively in tunnel boring, & underground areas, ide like to see an option to un-link the camera from the terrain/road, so it can be positioned freely.

 

[catboy]

Hi Brendon, I see the AIW Corridors feature seem to be the same of version 0.8.0.3 and I think a good idea could be to modify the width to match the new incoming version, due to the fact that now part of the track is terrain. In other words the 0.8.0.3 has the default track X=5.00 left and 5.00 right side and the beta has X=8.00 left and 8.00 right side, where the asphalt is still 5.00 + 5.00.
The "green" part of the corridor now must be at the end of the asphalt sides and not at the end of the track sides, otherwhise we must manually move every control point of the corridors!

Second thing... could be a good idea to improve a feature like a kind of "autofit" corridors? It means that if you edit (changing) the width of the track (thing that happens usually), the corridors automatically follow it side by side, just to avoid to move all them manually!

Thanks a lot in advance for your attention.

I report that problem in my post http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-track-builder/57371-btb-pro-0-8-9-0-beta-4.html#post850561

My sugestion is: Two numeric fields, with two widths (Green line and Red), before adding the AIW.

 

[Erwin Greven]

You could also copy the original track and make it invisible before you widen up the original track. You could use the copy to build the aiw.

 

[Brendon Pywell]

Can people with RBR please let me know their graphics card and whether or not they get this problem ...

http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-track-builder/57371-btb-pro-0-8-9-0-beta-3.html#post850377

Thanks!

 

[Brendon Pywell]

Hi Brendon, I see the AIW Corridors feature seem to be the same of version 0.8.0.3 and I think a good idea could be to modify the width to match the new incoming version, due to the fact that now part of the track is terrain.

Thanks, yes I understand the problem.

 

[Greg Wyatt]

Then I realise you are using two files:
Canberra.dds
Canberra.tga

That I never noticed, wonder why it's a problem now and not before.. Will start with this and progress to more testing

Cheers

 

[mianiak]

Found a possible bug.


To reproduce, start rfactor whilst btb is still open, alt tab back to btb and all the mesh goes funny after a long 'refresh' delay. But reopening the project brings it back to normal.

Looks like this could be related to this screen refresh thing I have brought up. Once again, it could be my system or win7, it would be interesting to know if anyone else experiences it.

[ED] Make sure to have some objects in the project and not just track and grass. I had about 400 objects in the project when that happened.

 

[zaxxon]

I tested the beta with a project (no BTB-native terrain to be exported. A set of XPack objects were used as terrain).
When exported to RBR the objects were not visible (may be a problem with LOD Out or did I make a mistake?) but the car could drive on the invisible objects.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/onw8me83pj49qo1/waste809.7z

Almost the same project exported with 0.8.0.3 worked as expected (the terrain-objects were visible).

 

[marcobost]

mianiak, what you reported happened quite often during the first beta testing in the past, but I never cared for it because of I suppose to be a memory trouble not related to BTB... sometimes, working on heavy projects, it happens also with the current version... OS Win7 64 with 4 Mb RAM here

 

[martinez]

Something like that happened to me with a test track - 300 meters long and with no objects On XP SP3, 4 Giga RAM... I quess after I switched back to BTB from RBR, not sure though... It looked like a net made by 5000 spiders

 

[DeepJKL_FIN]

Can people with RBR please let me know their graphics card and whether or not they get this problem ...

http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-track-builder/57371-btb-pro-0-8-9-0-beta-3.html#post850377

Thanks!

Yep! Same thing with me... tried to export and got this problem which did't hapened with the same project and previous BTB.

GeForce GTX460
Driver: 8.17.12.7061

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/nTVtvkXI3t-RonbSFuYECel3aXxmDvu820DBf4mDY6g?feat=directlink