Brendon: xPacker/BTB 2 Frame Animation Limit Problem... New Clues

Hi,

The Problem:
Animations in xPack only work if they are two frames long (base texture.dds for material, texture00.dds & texture01.dds for animated sequence).

ALVAZ found this problem in Nov '09... here is his thread:
http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-track-builder/25680-animated-textures.html

This was probably not found in beta testing because most of the (scant) info about xPack animation points you to exploring the default xPack in which the Pit In Light, track lights etc... are only 2 frame animations.

The only other animation specific info I have found is one post here, and an old post I saved from RSC some time ago.

The Test:
I create a 3 frame animation in 3dSimEd. The object is a simple 2 triangle plane. The textures are a 'base' texture, texture.dds which ends up being assigned to the material, and the 3 textures to be animated texture00.dds, texture01.dds, and texture02.dds. This animation works fine within 3dSimEd (albiet slowly).

In xPacker, I bring the object in, and the 'base' texture.dds is automatically assigned as the Diffuse texture in the Materials tab. I put the other 3 textures into the texture tab maually. Back at the Materials tab, with the material (mat0... assigned by 3dSimEd..?..) highlighted, I check the 'animation' check box, select 'cycle', enter 3 for the number of frames, 5 for the frame rate, and enter 0,1,2 in the sequence box. Then... zip to BTB.

In BTB, the test track is a simple short single segment loop, no objects.... just some grass around the outside and inside (loads real quick). I place the animated object in front of where rFactor will have the car pointed when the track loads (where you are looking 'out of the garage' before clicking 'race'). Then I save the scene, and export to rFactor. [I always start with the last test completely cleaned out of the xPacker, test track, old xPacks cleaned out of the btb xpack folder and project folder].

In rFactor the track loads, and then crashes about a half second into the first screen you see once a track loads.

If I then go back to the xPacker and look at my animation object, back on the Materials tab, the 'number of textures in animation' tab has mysteriously become 2 (rather than the 3 initially entered). This was also discovered by ALVAZ (see link above).

New Clues:
1. The XML file that the xPacker creates under 'materials' part of the tree in the xPack itself shows the sequence correctly (0,1,2).
2. Once the BTB project is exported to rFactor, the Gamedata/Locations/BobsTrackBuilder/testtrack folder for the test above is MISSING the final texture (texture02.dds).
When I manually copy the missing final texture into the testtrack folder, the sim still crashes like it did above.

As Per Your "Reporting a Problem" Thread:
BTB ver 0.8.0.3
3dSimEd 2.0.1.2
rFactor 1.255
Max 2010
Recently loaded directX
PC is HP workstation,
Dual Quad Xeons,
GeForce GTX 285
raptors etc...
xp64 pro
Above programs running under Program Files x86

rFactor runs ok...
BTB otherwise runs great (thanks agian, Piddy!!)

[I have not looked in the event viewer, or run dx diags, but will if you want.]

Like ALVAZ, I can get by with a 2 frame animation on simple things, but I prefer to do most of my track work (a 30 mile track) in BTB until I am close to the edge.

Any workarounds that anyone has found would be appreciated.
[Can you use a bik animation file in the xPacker (probably not, but hoping...).]

If I have been unclear or left anything out, please let me know.

Thanks in advance..
 
BTB won't let you use .bik, if you have 3Dsimed when you export track load your scene file and find that object, then select Home-New then Import that object as a primitive, repair your animation sequence and export the .gmt back to your track folder, don't forget to save it to a safe folder for next time you export the track.
 

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