BTB Improvements?

[Brendon Pywell]

Believe it or not, I get quite a few emails with suggestions on how BTB could be improved. Rather than me simply “sorting” them in my own Inbox, I’d like to openly ask the BTB community for their suggestions, allowing suggestions to be discussed and workshopped. I have a few ideas (pages of them) myself but it's always refreshing to get other people's ideas.

Aside from the next patch, I pretty much know what I am going to include in the next version. Beyond that I also have some great ideas as I address what I perceive to be BTB’s most common “annoyances”.

So please, feel free to offer your ideas on what you’d like to see in the upcoming releases. I’ll refrain from comment, but I will be taking notes.

 

[banger]

abilty to change the shader on the edge of road, new feature on btb 0.9.0.0. I like to use the terrain has part of the pitlane. so would like the ability to change the shader on it. from Grass bump to Road lerp.

 

[Brad Dibble]

Also the ability to import GMTs from 3dsimed or 3dsmax would be great.

 

[Davesta]

Also the ability to import GMTs from 3dsimed or 3dsmax would be great.

Agreed, that would be extremely useful!

 

[MrOblongo]

This is crazy, but how about having built-in zaxxon method .

Now, realistically. Track merging is essential. Its vey time consuming to create a multiple track venue.

 

[banger]

I looked into zaxxon method a few weeks back ,but the links are dead....

 

[R Soul]

It would be nice to be able to rotate background images.

 

[Simon Dove]

I would like the ability to lock or freeze objects. Maybe even layers of objects.

 

[RichardHessels]

Wow.. if all those great improvements would be realized in a future update the software would really go to the next level. Many of these improvements are not even that hard to implement.

 

[Emery]

To echo a couple others, track merging/intersections is the single most annoying thing in BTB. Pit lanes, access roads, & alternate routes all currently have to be tediously dealt with outside of BTB.

 

[Emery]

P.S. It's good to see you back soliciting input!

 

[Barbje_Keller]

I agree, first need more accurate manipulation of objects by numbers input panel - XYZ position (for scale move rotate...)

 

[jay_p_666]

1. Track merging
2. Manually add track vertices for creating detailed bumps and for doing wider road corners. (Now we have to stretch polys or add an additionnal row of polys for the entire track)
3. Ability to move track and terrain at the same time.
4. Move multiple tracks at the same time.
Extra: UVW Unwrap similar to 3dsmax.

Those are my main concerns. Thanks for listening...

 

[Alberto Montanari]

1. Track merging
2. Manually add track vertices for creating detailed bumps and for doing wider road corners. (Now we have to stretch polys or add an additionnal row of polys for the entire track)
3. Ability to move track and terrain at the same time.
4. Move multiple tracks at the same time.
Extra: UVW Unwrap similar to 3dsmax.

Those are my main concerns. Thanks for listening...

+1 !!!!

 

[R Soul]

I don't think we can expect any sort of automated track merging. The location of each vertex is based on the surrounding nodes and control points, cross section points, the width modifier and the banking modifier. But for track merging we need control over individual vertices.

This is why on page 1 I suggested the ability to change the direction of the track diagonals. Most of the work could be done in BTB and you could then use 3dSimed to delete and merge vertices. Variable points per cross section would help a lot too.

 

[Lee Knight]

the ability to change the direction of the track diagonals.

Totally agree, but preferably with the possibility to do it at a cross-section rather than the whole track.

 

[R Soul]

I think it's important to fix the alpha transparency bug. I'm surprised it wasn't fixed before the latest BTB was released.

On the left is a tree wall whose BTB material transparency setting is 'use alpha'. To get the one on the right, I had to edit each vertex in 3DSimEd and change the vertex alpha from 89 to 255.

'Chroma' is probably a better value for tree walls because it rFactor's alpha sorting problems, but for things like skid marks or road markings, alpha transparency would be best.

EDIT: See this thread for a program that can fix it:
http://www.racedepartment.com/forum...roken-transparency-for-alpha-materials.82198/

 

[banger]

we have some merger commands (ctrl+m) is there a way to move that to the Edge of the track section using the same method. then all we need to do is edit the sections to align the track and a few alterations to the track surface.

eg: edge faces editing

Aiw editing
can we also implanted . left/right aiw paths use for roll out laps., also the speed Specials nodes. to slow the aiw down in pit lane. (testing track ai seems to love Ramming me car rear end).

xpacker:
reduce the number of times the same/unused textures is called per objected. it sometimes copy's the same textures, and addeds multiply files in rfactor director and unused textures..
yes iknow the pick options there. this way it will reduced the amount of textures in rfactor mas files.
Also the background texture is saved in rfactor directory. even if it not used to blend with the terrain.

 

[RichardHessels]

Would be great if you could make a clickbox where textures would be aligned to the track.
Perfect for gravel pits, grass, asphalt and other textures that need to be the same direction as the track.
Or make a invisible track to align the textures to, for more control over the texturing.
Would also make connecting some track parts easier.

 

[R Soul]

I'm currently working on terrain. I tried to move a track anchor in the top view, and BTB took exception to it.

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at †††
††††”.†††
††††”.MoveTrackAnchor3d(†††
††††‘– v, Int32 MouseX, Int32 MouseY)
   at †††
†††‡™™.†††
†††‡™˜.†††
†††‘š(Object , Object , Int32 MouseX, Int32 MouseY)
   at †††
†††‡™™.†††
†††‡™˜.pnl3d_MouseMove(Object sender, MouseEventArgs e)

Nothing a try catch block won't solve. I don't know if people ever feel the need to move these anchors however. I only tried it out of curiosity.

A more pressing issue is the way BTB draws those triangles that are connected to the track.

This is what we normally see, including when Move, Flatten or Raise/Lower is selected:


When Pull the edges, Split the edges or the Materials tab is selected, we see this:


I find this a little confusing, which can be a problem when working with the inner triangles. It becomes even more confusing when the track's panel spacing is linear:


I would like the first type of rendering to be done as much as possible, since that's what is drawn in game.

 

[jay_p_666]

Small suggestions: A button in menu for the 3d view to reset position near the track. Sometimes, I try to zoom at something and got lost somewhere having no trademark point to know where I'm actually are. Since everything is blank, I can't click on track to get back there, thus having to restart btb again to load my track. Also, would be nice to load our project from any folder.