Project CARS Modding Questions & WIP

[LamboMantisMan23]

Cool...I guess I don't need to bother making a new website for that game or waste my time decoding any files.

They did say that about the first game...

 

[JDougNY]

They did say that about the first game...

I'm going to take it as they pulled out the mods.txt and tiremod.rg...leaving us to do a possible "back door" method again.

 

[Elahraiarah]

Maybe someone can advise me or point me to the right direction. I am playing around with some mods and I was wondering how I can stop flickering of the windscreens during rain? The strange thing is this only appears during rain or is at least only vissible during rain and only when I run the game with directx mulithreading (-directxmt ) :s ...
The flickering are flashes of light that make the windows light up bright for a millisecond.
You can also see it from the outside when driving behind the car in another vehicle.
Any idea where I should look?
I am a n00b by the way, no experience in modding so sorry if I come over stupid.

 

[LamboMantisMan23]

Maybe someone can advise me or point me to the right direction. I am playing around with some mods and I was wondering how I can stop flickering of the windscreens during rain? The strange thing is this only appears during rain or is at least only vissible during rain and only when I run the game with directx mulithreading (-directxmt ) :s ...
The flickering are flashes of light that make the windows light up bright for a millisecond.
You can also see it from the outside when driving behind the car in another vehicle.
Any idea where I should look?
I am a n00b by the way, no experience in modding so sorry if I come over stupid.

Could we see some screenshots?

 

[JDougNY]

....I was wondering how I can stop flickering of the windscreens during rain?

If the following isn't the problem, we might need to see pics as LMM23 suggested.
Generally, flickering is caused by.....
1) missing textures. Look at each material and make sure you have all textures called out for by the materials, including the wiper mask and wiper trails textures, which are called for when it rains.
2) other odd graphical things can happen when mebs are not edited properly....missing data sections, 2,4,0 and 2,5,0 not blanked out. Not including UV channels when needed (1,3,1 and/or 1,3,2 and/or 1,3,4)

 

[Elahraiarah]

If the following isn't the problem, we might need to see pics as LMM23 suggested.
Generally, flickering is caused by.....
1) missing textures. Look at each material and make sure you have all textures called out for by the materials, including the wiper mask and wiper trails textures, which are called for when it rains.
2) other odd graphical things can happen when mebs are not edited properly....missing data sections, 2,4,0 and 2,5,0 not blanked out. Not including UV channels when needed (1,3,1 and/or 1,3,2 and/or 1,3,4)

Thank you for the advise guys. I will check that out (the texture part as it is the only thing I actually can do, no experience with editing meb files, even no idea how to open them) and see if it works. But isn't it strange that it only appears when using direct x mt?
By the way I do not think a screenshot is a good idea. Its a mod that I got from a google search download from someone who cloned or copied or however you want to call it from AC to Pcars. Its the 488 GTE. And I do not want to break any rules here. I also have no website or place where I put up the car for download. Its pure for my own usage, I am an oldtimey Le Mans fan who loves to recreate the le Mans field as realistic as I can.

 

[GethemaAT]

Hi guys,

I've got a couple of questions regarding modding in pCars and would be very grateful if someone could help me with the following:

1) I've noticed that certain mod cars (like the 488 GT3 in the pics below, or e.g. the Nissan GTR GT3) exhibit reflection issues, meaning that their paint looks almost like a mirror in certain conditions, showing way too much gloss and specular reflection.

Now, I already tried experimenting with different paintjobs on the affected cars, giving them matte or metallic paints to reduce the general glossiness - to no avail.

Strangely, not all mod cars have this issue, the McLaren 650S GT3 for instance is perfectly fine.

Is there anything I can do to reduce the glossiness on these vehicles? Moreover, is there a general way to reduce overall vehicle reflection intensity? I sometimes have the feeling they are quite overdone in pCars anyway.



2) Now this looks like more of an engine limitation than something that could be corrected via editing files, but I was just wondering whether there is a way to improve the reflection quality of the puddles/standing water?

Both the reflections of cars and trackside objects appear to be rendered very low-res and rather simplistic, lacking AA and details.

All graphic settings were at ultra when taking the following screens (incl. reflections, environment mapping, the "insane" parameter in the steam launch options and High MSAA + SMAA).



3) I honestly don't like the images of the cars in the car selection screens/menu, being somewhat low-quality, bland and generally not pleasant to look at due to the different angles /conditions that were used.

Replacing the images of mod cars is not a problem, but how about the standard cars? I already tried placing an image formated the same way like the mod cars' images in the appropriate directory, named after the respective vehicle, but that obviously would've been too easy and thus didn't work.

Thanks in advance!

 

[JDougNY]

@GethemaAT
1) using a darker colored specular texture should reduce the mirroring/shinyness...that's the main cause. Adjusting some of the other parameters in the paint material(s) can also have a minor improvement.

3) I guess that I have to be offended that you don't like the vehicle images on the cars my team released.. there's always that one person out there I suppose. Anyway, to change the images of original cars you would need to run GUIVEHICLESHAPELOGOS.bff unpacked.

 

[GethemaAT]

Hi JDougNY, thanks for your quick reply!

1) Makes sense, I haven't thought of that!

3) I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to offend you in any way, I love the work you're doing, so please don't take this as an insult. I wasn't aware that you were the one who created those images, which are perfectly fine!

However, on a 4K display, some of the vehicle images of primarily the cars the game shipped with can look just a bit low-res. Therefore, I merely would try replacing them with higher resolution alternatives that follow the form and style of the original car selection images.

Edit: I have absolutely no clue how to unpack the GUIVEHICLESHAPELOGOS.bff file.

 

[LamboMantisMan23]

1) For the shinyness, it's due to the modder making bad Vertex colours. They clearly tried to bake some AO, but it didn't work. You can remove it by going through every MEB and fill the 4 6 0 section with FF FF FF FF but that takes time.

2) Try using the -insane parameter for your launch options in Steam properties.

 

[GethemaAT]

Hi LamboMantisMan23,

thanks for your suggestions!

1) Ah, that might actually be the explanation! Unfortunately, however,I seem to be unable to open the MEB files with the basic programs I have at my disposal (Notepad++, Editor, Paint.net etc). I figure I need some kind of 3D software to edit these? Any hint which might do the trick?

As a temporary workaround, I was able to reduce the shinyness by creating a specular texture (apparently the car came without one) and linking it to the liveries, just as suggested by JDougNY.



2) Pics were already taken with the -insane parameter on (as stated in the OP), so I guess I'm all out of options on this particular issue - hopefully PC2 will show some improvements in this area.

 

[LamboMantisMan23]

Hi LamboMantisMan23,

thanks for your suggestions!

1) Ah, that might actually be the explanation! Unfortunately, however,I seem to be unable to open the MEB files with the basic programs I have at my disposal (Notepad++, Editor, Paint.net etc). I figure I need some kind of 3D software to edit these? Any hint which might do the trick?

As a temporary workaround, I was able to reduce the shinyness by creating a specular texture (apparently the car came without one) and linking it to the liveries, just as suggested by JDougNY.

2) Pics were already taken with the -insane parameter on (as stated in the OP), so I guess I'm all out of options on this particular issue - hopefully PC2 will show some improvements in this area.

Open the MEB files in a Hex editor. Search in Hex Values for 04 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00, then select the following section of data all the way up to 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00. Fill this section with FF.

And sorry, didn't read the OP properly then. My reflections seem to be perfect, so I don't know whats going on there.

 

[Stig campagnard]

Hi,
Could you explain me why the MDMT website and Twitter account is down ?
Is it because of the tweet from Project CARS where they say they don't accept modding or it's because the website of max ?
Where can we download the MDMT's mods now (If it is still possible) ?
Why there is this now ?

 

[LamboMantisMan23]

Hi,
Could you explain me why the MDMT website is down ?
Is it because of the tweet from Project CARS where they say they don't accept modding or it's because the website of max ?
Where can we download the MDMT's mods now (If it is still possible) ?

MDMT is no longer a team. I eventually became the only team member as people either left due to lack of time, or wanting different things from the team. I drove some people away by expecting them to do stuff when I should be doing it myself. But there are no hard feelings and we still contact each other over modding, you just won't be seeing the website with cars on from 'the team'

I am working alone now on my own mods, and will hopefully release them once they've been completed. I've spoken with JDoug and in the future we may work together to get the mods on his website, but nothing concrete yet.

I've learnt from my mistakes and I'm fully motivated to finish cars myself, already done stuff now I couldn't dream of doing.

 

[GethemaAT]

Open the MEB files in a Hex editor. Search in Hex Values for 04 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00, then select the following section of data all the way up to 02 00 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00. Fill this section with FF.

And sorry, didn't read the OP properly then. My reflections seem to be perfect, so I don't know whats going on there.

Just wanted to chime in and report that this worked wonderfully, even had less work as some of the files already contained the correct Hex strings.

Now that I'm finally making progress (hurray! ), would you mind if I ask advice on another topic?

From inside the cockpit, the windscreen glass appears to be too dark, I can barely see through. I already adjusted the cockpit exposure in the CPT file to only end up with an overlit cockpit and even less visibility through the windscreen.

It's a pity to hear that you guys decided to go seperate ways, your mods are among the best and I was so looking forward to that gorgeous BMW M6 GT3/LM!

 

[LamboMantisMan23]

From inside the cockpit, the windscreen glass appears to be too dark, I can barely see through. I already adjusted the cockpit exposure in the CPT file to only end up with an overlit cockpit and even less visibility through the windscreen.

It's a pity to hear that you guys decided to go seperate ways, your mods are among the best and I was so looking forward to that gorgeous BMW M6 GT3/LM!

Could possibly be the texture it's using? I'm assuming you're still talking about the 488, which uses the material called 'generic_windscr.mtx', which uses the texture 'common_glass_inside_smoked_diff.dds', so that could be your answer. The mod is pretty messy and not made very cleanly, so it's gonna be hard to pin point the issue.

 

[GethemaAT]

Spot on. Thanks again!
(yes, still the 488)

 

[robi3381]

Both the reflections of cars and trackside objects appear to be rendered very low-res and rather simplistic, lacking AA and details.

All graphic settings were at ultra when taking the following screens (incl. reflections, environment mapping, the "insane" parameter in the steam launch options and High MSAA + SMAA).

I think I know why the reflections are bad: if you are close to the car the reflection is ok but if you get farer and zoom on the car, the reflection's quality will decrease. Here is an example, 2 pictures with the exact same settings (not as good as yours!), during the same race:

Close to the car:

Far from the car, and zoomed on it:

 

[GethemaAT]

I think I know why the reflections are bad: if you are close to the car the reflection is ok but if you get farer and zoom on the car, the reflection's quality will decrease.

Interesting findings, will do some further investigation, thanks for sharing!

One more for the experts:

Some mod cars (but also standard ones), like the 650S GT3 in the pics below, seem to have parts that are not properly occluded (hidden) in rainy/hazy/foggy conditions, in this case illustrated by the windscreen as well as the side and rear windows sticking out of the fog on long camera shots.




Is this something that can easily be rectified?

 

[galaxymess]

Off Topic:
When SMS released the complete car list of pCARS2 we learned that some cars from pCARS1 would not return(Ruf, Aston Martin DBR1-2, Audi R18 TDI, Gumpert Apollo, Ariel Atom, Alpine A450, Lykan, McLaren 12C, Formula B etc)
Do you think it will be possible to convert these cars to pCARS 2?