Wet tracks in BTB

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 1, 2011

1) Is it possible, using only BTB, to attach a cubemap to a road texture, to create a wet effect like other "wet" tracks for rFactor?

2) If not, how would I go about it using SimEd v1.14b (I know nothing about the program or how to use it)?

3) I'll also need to know what lines in the TDF to edit in order to display the RAINSPRAY texture (I have a custom one in the Locations folder).

4) Also, is it the track that tells, say, an F1 mod to display the flashing rainlight? Or is it something else?

Thanks a lot for any help.

Erik Tveit · Mar 1, 2011

Try this: http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=Wet Track Tutorial

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 1, 2011

Ouch, that's for 3DS Max, and I don't have a few thousand pounds to throw away for that software. :L

woochoo · Mar 2, 2011

in 3dsimed, for Longford, i set the road materials to use a cubemap shader with the regular diffuse map. that meant no more specular or bump map on the road, so it didn't look super-fancy, but it did look wet. i don't have 3dsimed with me currently so i can't give you any more details that those. but it wasn't difficult.

if that's the 3dmax tute by the Lonely (i think?) then it has details for the text editing you'll need for tdf, gdb. so you can use 3dsimed for the texture work and the tute will give details on the text.

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 2, 2011

I've seen this tut before, but I got lost as soon as I got to 3DS Max. I have 3DSimEd now and I just had a look at my track in it, right-clicked on a piece of road and selected material. There's options for adding cubemaps. Haven't tried it yet, but it should work!
It's nice to see this tut came with a bunch of textures and the cubemap as well, thanks to SLN.

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 2, 2011

Um, how do I save? Which option do I use? (SimEd)
When I save as rFactor (GMT), the game gives me errors when loading the first road material. The dry track works no problem, so no texture size issues, and The Lonely would not supply a cubemap that did not work.

EDIT: Instead of right-clicking on the road, I went to Edit -> Materials and added the cubemap to all Ennis road materials. Export - errors for a texture that hasn't been touched (errors are in rFactor). Looks like SimEd hates pngs and jpgs.
Is there any text editing I can do to add these cubemaps instead, as SimEd refuses to cooperate?

EDIT 2: New version of SimEd (v2.6a) - re-done the cubemaps on a fresh copy of the track - now rFactor has an error STRAIGHTAWAY (the loading bar hasn't moved) but it refuses to show me the error, meaning I can't fix the problem.

EDIT 3: Found the problem. 3DSimEd reads the pngs, at first, but after export it expects to see tgas, and it tells rFactor to look for tgas. I give up.

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 4, 2011

Can anyone guess why this isn't working?

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 4, 2011

OK, let's get this straight:
The shop textures are jpgs and pngs.
The road textures are DDS.
The cubemap is DDS.

I applied the cubemap to the road - no problem. For some reason rFactor doesn't load the pngs ANYMORE because of this screwy SimEd software. The dry version of the track works fine. Pity I can't do any of this in BTB.

Any text editing of GMTs will take literally forever, there are at least 100.
Unless there are other ways of adding these cubemaps (not 3ds max)?

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 5, 2011

How would I do this batch conversion?

Kyle Puttifer · Mar 5, 2011

Using DDSC2, I selected all of the pngs and jpgs in my track folder, but the convert option is still greyed out. I have installed the nVidia utilities. I clicked the .\ button next to the output folder field (in DDSC2) - this enables the Convert button. However, if I click Convert, nothing happens.
I am running the program as Administrator.