Project CARS Modding Questions & WIP

[Bregel]

Very interesting progress on modding this game, thanks to all who make this happen.

 

[Gambit74]

Download link... http://www.mediafire.com/download/nypktjbqfr1mbdo/RUF_RGT8_GT3_Wheel_Mod_NoBadge.rar
I've only included the new bonnet files and new dummy BFF files (place BFF files in "Pakfiles\Vehicles\" folder of the mod). Just overwrite existing files with these new files. Remember to de-activate and re-activate the mod.

The reason for the new BFF files is that I supplied you with "experimental" BFFs in original mod. When I was running a test of edited bonnets with 19 AI in the rain, my save game corrupted. Just to be on the safe side, I supplied you with more typical dummy BFF files in this bonnet modification.

Great work JDougNY. I put a Porsche badge on the livery this morning but not tested it yet.
I tried the custom livery installer that you suggested but for some reason I had a pig of a time getting it to load the skin into the installer, every time I clicked the "load from this file" nothing appeared in the middle window??? Do the folders and files have to be a specific name?
I had a quick look at zmodeller but it would seem I have to purchase it before it will import.
Might have another look at the importer and the modeller.
Last question if I may. Yellow headlight lens; is this done by colouring the alpha layer on the lights.dds?
Thanks again for your work.

 

[Bregel]

I might be wrong, but afaik the alpha channel for light glass, window is controlling the level of transfarency, while alpha channel in specular texture its controlling level of specularity.

 

[Gambit74]

I might be wrong, but afaik the alpha channel for light glass, window is controlling the level of transfarency, while alpha channel in specular texture its controlling level of specularity.

So what do I have to mod to get yellow headlight lenses?

 

[JDougNY]

@Gambit74
The front light covering is part of Body_lodx mebs. The material assigned is a "windows" material, which is also used for the side/rear windows and rear light coverings. Glass has several layers of UV mapping. One mapping chooses the color of the glass (via combi glass texture). A second mapping is how the glass will layout over a paint/skin template. A third mapping exists for wiper mask/trails.
So, you can't just color a texture and have only the front covering change color. The reason being that front, rear and fog glass UV map for color are just piled into roughly the same spot.

So, after a ton of work, I pulled the second mapping layer into first layer, then had to add a new black_glass material, along with correcting the positioning of the front glass covering (SMS screwed up the positioning and using a color showed the error). Also, after exporting, I had to recover all of the extra mapping layers for glass, paint, and wiper mask/trails and get that stuffed into the new mebs.
Here are the files.... http://www.mediafire.com/download/7cc2we750eyyq2s/RUF_RGT8_GT3_Wheel_Mod_Light_Glass_v1.1.rar

I setup the glass that uses the ruf_rgt8_gt3_windows.bmt material to work with a texture like a skin. There are 2 new textures RUF_RGT8_GT3_windows_diff.dds and RUF_RGT8_GT3_windows_spec.dds
On the diffused(diff) texture, you will see where I've colored the light covering yellow. Feel free to adjust color to your liking. To adjust the opacity/transparency, go to alpha channel, the darker the color the more transparent, the lighter the color the more opaque. I also tossed in a simple BMP of the glass mapping in the texture folder.

Regarding liverys:
The car is unlocked via the mod. To add a new livery, just add in the new entries. You must make the same edits to both RCF files (xxxx.rcf and xxxx_hr.rcf). You don't need to use the mod from Crowtrobot, when I have unlocked this car for you.

 

[JDougNY]

Revised download in post above to V1.1
I forgot to add in new texture and edited material for front window

 

[Gambit74]

Revised download in post above to V1.1
I forgot to add in new texture and edited material for front window

That's excellent JDougNY, I really didn't expect you to go to all that effort, but I'm very glad you did. Thanks loads.

 

[Hobbnob]

Hey Doug, have you got any info on where KERS code is kept and how it's operated? I'm about to start work on a car that uses nitrous IRL to fill a torque gap created by a turbo, and I would like to see if the KERS system is capable of accommodating this. I could use a second smaller turbo that kicks in lower to fill this gap and do the same job, but the KERS system would allow a more versatile power output as well as an actual limited supply of 'power' that would run out after extended use just like a real nos bottle.

 

[JDougNY]

@Hobbnob
In my public folder, you'll find the translation for the VehicleVDFM. In the VDFM, there is a pointer address to set for KERS, which performs a file name lookup in the string data section. In the VDFM, address 0x018-0x01B dictates the total byte length of the string data section. So, should you need to add more bytes to the string section, you would increment address 0x018-0x01B accordingly.

I've been working with vehicles without KERS. But, just did a quick test. The VDFM requires more than just setting the pointer for KERS...there's other registers at the top of the file to manipulate....I haven't quite made total sense out of everything that needs changing. The easiest thing to do is grab a donor VDFM which provides the base options you want (such as a turbo with KERS). Then edit the string data section for correct file names of your physics files, change values in the various pointer addresses, set all wheel offset/sizing, etc. Once that is done, choose an existing KERS file (BBFbin in Turbo folder) with base options similar to what you want, renamed for your car, then edit from there.

In my test, I took an addon car that just had a supercharger, added the Formula A KERS and got 6.6 seconds of boost, with one time use per lap. HP boost was 27.7 %
The BBFbin decode looks like this (didn't test anything to determine function, though)...

[20 DA 4E FB A7] 03 = 3
[28 8A A4 53 E0]
[28 61 CF 84 0D]
[22 40 D5 E4 95] 3333D340 = 6.6
[20 0E 17 DD 9A] 01 = 1
[20 67 F2 7D 57] 01 = 1

28 08 FF 48 18 A1 44 23 F7 79 80 1A 06 00

[22 F9 28 F9 98] 00004843 = 200.0
[21 D8 8E A3 C8] F4010000 = 500
[28 15 CA 60 13]
[22 8E AC AD 13] 3333D340 = 6.6
[22 3A 74 A8 35] 00007042 = 60
[22 03 3E B2 09] 0AD7233C = 0.01
[A2 02 D8 6A 19] 00007042 = 60.0
[28 E1 61 23 AE]
[22 13 38 E1 69] 0000803F = 1.0
[A6 D5 2A 50 24] 00
[22 CB FA F2 0D] 0000803F = 1.0
[A1 E3 1A 9A 4E] 90010000 = 400
[A8 2A AA 13 F5]
[24 45 76 35 7A 82] 00, 0000803F = 0, 1.0
[A0 7E F3 93 B1] 01 = 1
[22 3C 89 BF 32] 00007842 = 62.0
[22 92 8F 52 41] CDCC4C3E = 0.2

21 13 12 3E 7D 80 1A 06 00 0B C5 66 C9 E5

In that decode, I see the 6.6 in there twice, which is probably the Boost time (time to fully drain). However, the 27.7% HP boost is not obvious in any of the decode. The 200.0 value is probably the time to refill...I was on the test track counting off the seconds in my head to see how long refill duration was taking.

 

[Hobbnob]

@Hobbnob
In my public folder, you'll find the translation for the VehicleVDFM. In the VDFM, there is a pointer address to set for KERS, which performs a file name lookup in the string data section. In the VDFM, address 0x018-0x01B dictates the total byte length of the string data section. So, should you need to add more bytes to the string section, you would increment address 0x018-0x01B accordingly.

I've been working with vehicles without KERS. But, just did a quick test. The VDFM requires more than just setting the pointer for KERS...there's other registers at the top of the file to manipulate....I haven't quite made total sense out of everything that needs changing. The easiest thing to do is grab a donor VDFM which provides the base options you want (such as a turbo with KERS). Then edit the string data section for correct file names of your physics files, change values in the various pointer addresses, set all wheel offset/sizing, etc. Once that is done, choose an existing KERS file (BBFbin in Turbo folder) with base options similar to what you want, renamed for your car, then edit from there.

In my test, I took an addon car that just had a supercharger, added the Formula A KERS and got 6.6 seconds of boost, with one time use per lap. HP boost was 27.7 %
The BBFbin decode looks like this (didn't test anything to determine function, though)...

[20 DA 4E FB A7] 03 = 3
[28 8A A4 53 E0]
[28 61 CF 84 0D]
[22 40 D5 E4 95] 3333D340 = 6.6
[20 0E 17 DD 9A] 01 = 1
[20 67 F2 7D 57] 01 = 1

28 08 FF 48 18 A1 44 23 F7 79 80 1A 06 00

[22 F9 28 F9 98] 00004843 = 200.0
[21 D8 8E A3 C8] F4010000 = 500
[28 15 CA 60 13]
[22 8E AC AD 13] 3333D340 = 6.6
[22 3A 74 A8 35] 00007042 = 60
[22 03 3E B2 09] 0AD7233C = 0.01
[A2 02 D8 6A 19] 00007042 = 60.0
[28 E1 61 23 AE]
[22 13 38 E1 69] 0000803F = 1.0
[A6 D5 2A 50 24] 00
[22 CB FA F2 0D] 0000803F = 1.0
[A1 E3 1A 9A 4E] 90010000 = 400
[A8 2A AA 13 F5]
[24 45 76 35 7A 82] 00, 0000803F = 0, 1.0
[A0 7E F3 93 B1] 01 = 1
[22 3C 89 BF 32] 00007842 = 62.0
[22 92 8F 52 41] CDCC4C3E = 0.2

21 13 12 3E 7D 80 1A 06 00 0B C5 66 C9 E5

In that decode, I see the 6.6 in there twice, which is probably the Boost time (time to fully drain). However, the 27.7% HP boost is not obvious in any of the decode. The 200.0 value is probably the time to refill...I was on the test track counting off the seconds in my head to see how long refill duration was taking.

Thanks! I have a reasonably good implementation using the turbo system but I'll tinker with it and see what I get. On the percentage/output front, KERS in pcars usually works as an absolute increase in power rather than a percentage increase, so it might be worth looking for a BHP increase in the car when pressing the button and then working from that.

On the turbo front, 22 3A 0E E6 71 and 22 84 8A A5 E6 seem to be absolute power values of the turbos, likely efficiency or maybe air intake volume. 22 2C 79 F2 D0 is some sort of turbo lag figure, possibly spool time or some such. 22 12 ED 52 1A is similar to engine RPM, it helps define how early turbo power comes in but it works across the two turbo units rather than individually. 22 9E 46 BA 12 is a puzzling one. It's got something to do with wastegate blowoff, but I can't work out what the actual value is changing. All I know is that setting it too low for the power output of the turbos will result in the wastegate opening too much at the redline and if it's far too low then it won't close again until you let off the throttle. It might actually not be wastegate at all but turbo surge instead, I don't know enough about the mechanics to say for sure.

 

[Hobbnob]

OK I'm a moron, where's the value for whether the car has fake kers? There's a 1/0 somewhere for whether the kers bar is displayed ingame or not, it's described as hasfakekers I think but I can't remember where it is. I've tried bringing Mclaren P1 chassis, statistics, KERS (P1 is my base for kers anyway) and CRD file with relevant info implanted but the KERS bar is invisible even though the debug files say the BBFbin is being loaded and the mclaren P1 ingame has a visible kers bar

EDIT: I should also mention I'm already on a P1 VDFM. The project car is a scion rocket bunny. I've now also tried putting P1 turbo as well as kers on it but still no luck

EDIT2: Never mind, I'm even more of an idiot than I thought. I'd put a typo in the turbo name at some point and it stopped loading the BBF halfway through troubleshooting XD

 

[Hobbnob]

While the unlockers are broken by the new patch I thought I'd share my pet projects

1: Ford Mustang RTR driven by Vaughn Gittin Jr in formula drift
2: Scion Greddy FRS driven by Ken Gushi in FD with its nitrous system properly modelled (thanks for the help Doug!)
3: Caterham SKAR, a fictional amateur level race car with a Rover K-series engine and slick tyres
4: Caterham 360, an upgrade on the classic with a 180bhp engine, better tires and a limited slip diff
5: Caterham R620, caterham's most powerful road car. Supercharged variant of the R500 with the chassis upgrades needed to handle it

 

[JDougNY]

@ those interested
V 9.1 unlocker in public folder https://www.mediafire.com/folder/cy3jl6679k7i1/Public_for_PCARS

Just a reminder that you should routinely backup your save game, when using invasive things like the unlocker.

 

[TheSloth]

I had a look at the RWD P30 engine files...
Edit:
Next post...

 

[JDougNY]

@TheSloth
Since I'm the publisher/decoder and maintainer of the engine translation in collaboration with Shiimis, I'd appreciate it, if you only provide any new hex strings you may encounter and/or discover any "unknown" entries through testing. Just a simple post with a few notes.
I don't want to see my translations rewritten and hosted elsewhere. Just creates confusion. Plus, I need to determine if the info is simply redundant to what already exists.

Regarding hex strings endings. In the various translations, I provide a small sample. The intention being that the reader understands that hex strings will vary, based upon the data type and amount of bytes, floats, decimals to follow the strings. There are many other combinations, especially when the data changes from typical floats to decimal (happens in the chassis files a lot).

///////24 BF 84 7C F1 83 00 from RWD //////
That is still EngineBrakingMapRange, which is redundant to original translation. The only difference is that the data following is byte, float, byte. No need to include.

////// RWD found //////
240571C719A200 float float 100000 50000 between LifetimeOilTemp and LifetimeAvg
24C1F4543C8302 float float float 2.6192365e-034 // 0.52999997 0.76999998 before Engine Emission
Do you know the function of this data?...or do I remark as Unknown?
EDIT: The data is actually Byte, Float, Float for the parameter you found before Engine emission, so your float values are incorrect.

 

[TheSloth]

Sure. Just didn't know how to gave you the info. PM would have done I guess. Sry for that, edited the post.
To the last values: I had no time yet to look into it so: Unknown

 

[JDougNY]

@TheSloth
You could just post the new chunks of code you found, like I did in my prior response to you.
If you're marking up my translation text, you could send that via p.m.

Thank you for the notes. I'll slip in the new items (with credit to you) on next rev I place to public folder.
I just want to check your findings on the engine layout...see if I can include any additional comment.

 

[JDougNY]

@TheSloth
@ others reading our exchange

Regarding the engine layout. I mention in the translation that address 0x20 defines how many bytes are assigned to engine layout. For the RWD P30, there is only 3 bytes for engine layout, not the four that was noted by TheSloth.
I'll explain what's in the code at the end of the file...
[24 63 23 3A 14 A3 00] 00504348, 00401C46, 06 // Waste gate range with 6 adjustments allowed
[20 DF 86 64 FC] 06 // Waste gate setting, which is preset to 6
1F B6 27 // Engine layout 15, 182, 39, which means V6

 

[maxx2504]

Hi !

Are the unpacked boot files for patch 9.1 out yet ?

 

[JDougNY]

Hi !

Are the unpacked boot files for patch 9.1 out yet ?

Yes, I posted them hours ago..scroll up a few posts for the link to my public folder.