AIW in crossover tracks

[Kyle Puttifer]

I have a track where the pitlane goes over the main track, as shown in the screenshot. The trouble is, whenever the AI cars go under the tunnel while racing, they slow down to about 20/30mph, when I can easily go through the tunnel at about 100/120mph. I've tried the ISI AIW editor, along with layman's guide, but it's just too complicated.
When racing the AI on the track, I have to set the strength to 120% just for their lap times to be similar to mine. However, this means they are overpowered in the corners, and this tunnel issue cancels that out. I get left trailing about 5 seconds during a lap, and when I get to the tunnel I am suddenly only a second behind. This really ruins the racing for me, and as I don't play online, AI is important. I don't want to change the layout of the track, because this was my original plan and I really like it.
If you want to have a look at the AIW, the track can be found here: http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=Croydon Grand Prix
Download v1.6.
There are no nodes under the tunnel, so there are no sudden changes of direction.
This has been a problem right from when I started this track, and I still haven't found a solution. Help?

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

If anyone is willing to take a proper look at the AIW, the track can be found here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7UQEI1XF
Just make sure you are careful going through the temporary chicane on the back straight! Best way is to aim for the centre of it, full throttle, going as straight as possible.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Anyone?

 

[chub_pearson]

I've downloaded it - just about found my way in and out of the pits so far

I'll have a look with the AIW editor over the weekend and see if I can do anything - I can see the fault by the skidmarks going up in the air on the underpass

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Thanks chub, hopefully it can be fixed. I guess ISI never thought of layouts where pitlanes cross over the track.

 

[chub_pearson]

It's a BTB AIW problem not an ISI one.

I just did a quick redo of the main path, pit path and fast path in the ISI editor and there's no problem with the underpass area, each path stays on the right track level.

I'll do it again with a bit more care and then give it a go with the AI and let you know how it turns out.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Thanks a lot!
I'll just have to make sure that I don't export the AIW from BTB.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Any luck?

 

[chub_pearson]

Here you go, try this. They go flat out through the underpass now.

I redid all the paths, then spent a bit of time editing the fast path to try and get a good flow [and miss the barriers!]. If there's any problem it's quite easy to edit the fast path in the ISI editor, or let me know what's wrong and I'll try to fix it.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do that, I couldn't for the life of me work out why there was a problem!

 

[Erwin Greven]

I cannot get the ISI editor working (if this is the rFactorAIWCAMEditor1255 program). i get a blinkw32.dll error.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

Check in your rFactor main folder for:
1) a folder called DEVFILES
2) a file called binkw32.dll

The DEVFILES folder doesn't come with the editor, but it is essential for the editor to work.
binkw32.dll is BINK video, in other words the intro videos seen in games use the BINK (.bik) format. If this DLL isn't present, the game won't run.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Pretty much Alex, yes.

You just have to watch that when you export, to back up your ISI/BTB hybrid, otheriwse it will be overwritten every time.

Also, if you move any of the track, kerbs or anything else that would render your drive line useless, then you have to do it again.

So I've taken the plunge, got my hands dirty etc (to mix my metaphors), and I'm trying the hybrid method and attempting to do the fast line only in RFactor itself using the ISI tools.....




I have a question about the corridors. What exactly is the blue bit? Can AI drive in the blue? In the screenshot it shows a centreline and corridor as written in BTB, opened in the AIW editor inside RF.

You can see the white and red corridor lines don't meet the track edge (the main white line at edge of main track surface). You can also see that, if the blue lines denotes the area that the AI are not allowed to drive in, then they would not drive through this curve and clip the rumble strip (blue/white strip on left of car), because as shown above, the white and red corridor lines to do not meet it.

Can anyone provide any pointers and explanations as to which bit of the corridors does what? Does this correlate to the BTB hlep file explanation below? Should I just drive a new centreline?:

"The Green and Red lines can be widened or narrowed by clicking on their ends and moving them from side to side. Only the brighter lines can be edited, the duller Greena dn Red lines show the interpolated values that will be exported.

The Green lines represent the driveable road where the cars should try to be contained within. This should match the edges of the road.

The Red lines show where the cars could run off to before they hit something. Move them in so that they are inside and collideable object such as a wall or tyres."

 

[Kris Vickers]

And to add to the explanations Alex, the blue bit is meant to represent 'off-track' that the AI can drive on.

One thing you need to make sure though, is that the blue line DOES NOT touch the barrier/wall/whatever is used as crash barrier, as i`ve noticed that when they do, the AI can drive straight through those said walls.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Thanks alot Kris. EDIT: Can the fastline pass through the blue zone and the AIW respect it?

And as to why the red/white corridor lines did not meet the track edge..... When BTB makes the corridors, it seems it only makes them to the default track width of 1.0. So if you make a wider track (say 1.2 for example, a 12m wide track) when you add the corridors in BTB, they'll be 1.0 wide. This is what happened in my image above - the red/white are 1.0 wide, the main track is 1.2.

If I then use the ISI tools to "find corridor", on the track shown above, it makes the corridors wider than the main track, becuase I have built my track with two additional tracks on either side of the main track, as a sort of border zone. Becuase these have the 'roada' material type, the "find corridor" command thinks these are racing surface also and makes the corridor super wide (sigh :facepalm.

So next question is, which materials does "find corridor" count as road out of these:

Roada -> road
Rdax -> Roads Bumps LVL1 //small bumps washboard
Rdta -> Roads Bumps LVL2 //Road Crack Sharp short bumps
Rdcp -> Road Cement Patchs
Rged -> Dusty berms
Gras -> grass
Grxs -> rough Grass
Grvl -> Gravel
Dstg -> Dusty Grass
Gtrp -> Gravel Trap
Rmbl -> Rumblestrips (fake bumping added)
Twall -> Tirewalls
Wall -> Wall
Grdr -> Guardrails
Safer -> SAFER Walls

This list from a post by NuNiTo 2nd march 2010 'Some help with Rfactor Material Names'

 

[Kris Vickers]

I`d take a guess at all the ones begining with 'R'.

I dont know if its as anal as choosing everything that can be driven on at all, i doubt it, but you never know.

 

[chub_pearson]

I cannot get the ISI editor working (if this is the rFactorAIWCAMEditor1255 program). i get a blinkw32.dll error.

It is the rFactorAIWCAMEditor1255 program.

There's a copy of the Devfiles folder here: http://www.filefactory.com/file/agb595c/n/rF_AIW_Editor_DevFiles.rar - put that in your main rFactor directory if you haven't done so already.

 

[chub_pearson]

So I've taken the plunge, got my hands dirty etc (to mix my metaphors), and I'm trying the hybrid method and attempting to do the fast line only in RFactor itself using the ISI tools.....
[/B]

Personally I'd advise against just doing the fast path in the ISI editor. I have a suspicion that there is some kind of mismatch between the waypoints as calculated in BTB and those calculated by the ISI editor. I know that in previous versions of BTB [before it did the AI] you always had to delete the centre line as calculated by BTB when using the ISI editor and replace it with a new one in the ISI editor or you got problems with missing corridors and stuff like that. Better to use BTB to set up pit, grid and garage positions, then delete all waypoints in the ISI editor and do all the paths and corridors from scratch with the editor.

As I understand it, the blue areas are no drive zones, AI cars may get onto it due to skidding or collisions, but they will then endeavor to get back onto the red/white sections as soon as they can. If you don't want the drivable area to go outside the double white line on the right of your picture, the simplest way is to put a temporary wall around the track there before you do the corridors and then remove it later.

 

[chub_pearson]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do that, I couldn't for the life of me work out why there was a problem!

You're welcome, I enjoyed doing it

One thing, you might need to move the barrier back a bit on the left at the entry to the pit lane - it's a very narrow entrance and the cars do tend to bash into it!

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Cheers Chub.

Just Rs, yeah kind of obvious now you say it...!.. :facepalm:

Will have to make the side tracks gravel, then find corridors, then do centreline and fast path in isi. Will keep btb for pit boxes etc. Then re export the track from btb with the side tracks reverted to road materials. Then tweak corridors to allow a bit of slip onto the side tracks. then merge aiws as per Kris method. Phew.... Big process.

 

[Kris Vickers]

It is a big pain int'harse, but seeing as BTB wasn`t quite finished to perfection, i think its the best we`re getting lol

Also Alex, when you`ve done your cut 'n' shut, i`d be interested to know if the map plugin works with your track.
I`m trying to find a reason why it doesn`t with mine, and i`m guessing its this AIW method, but not been able to test it as of yet.

Care to be my guinea pig?