Cars floating above track

[jbbrown]

Hello,

I recently made my first rF track and I'm very happy that I can get it to load in the game, however I can't drive on it because as you can see, the car floats in the air above track. I have played around with moving the track up and down in 3DSimEd. Originally the cars were about 10m above the track, if I move it up too far the cars are underneath it and in the screenshot the car appears to be about 1m above the track. Note that the pit crew guy seems to be standing perfectly on the track, because the elevation is different there.

However, even if I move the track so that the wheels touch the track, I still can't drive (and because of the aforementioned elevation, other cars next to it will be either above or under the track).

What is the problem? I think it must be something with the materials, but I can't figure out what. I use a custom terrain file, which is basically a copypaste of the default terrain file but with the names of my materials substituted for the original ones.

What am I doing wrong? Anyone have any idea?

 

[Mangoletsi]

Hi,

The aiw file controls where the cars spawn when you load the track. In practice, it's best to spawn a few center metres above the surface, so it just drops onto it, so it doesn't drop through.

The names of the materials are important in terrrain file. you need to change your surfaces names in your 3d model, to match the exhisting names in the tdf, or rfactor won't know how to respond.

 

[jbbrown]

Hey Mangoletsi! Thanks for your quick reply.

I tried removing the AIW file and editing it in the AIWCAM Editor, but there I get the same problem. The car spawns at 0,0,0, which is above the track, and it just keeps floating in the air.

So I'm fairly sure the AIW is not the problem, I think it must be the materials. I checked and double checked, but the material names are the same in my terrain file as in the 3D model, and the GDB file is pointing at the correct terrain file. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Are you sure there aren't any restrictions on what names materials are allowed to have?

 

[Mangoletsi]

Yes, there are restrictions on material names. they must be the default materials recognised by rfactor.

If the default tdf file specifies ROAD, your 3d model must also specify ROAD as its material.
You cannot just edit the names of the materials in the tdf files.

Generally, you don't edit anything in the tdf. They are mostly standard values across all tracks.

The aiw file, specifies the landing/spawning point. without it, it will 0.0.0. you need to specify the new value in the aiw file.

 

[jbbrown]

Hi there,

Thanks again for your reply. I've now renamed the materials so that they match the materials named in the default TDF file, and I changed the GDB file so that it points back at the default TDF file and not the new one I had created.

Also, while researching the SCN, I found out that the surface the car is supposed to be on wasn't a HAT target. This might have been contributing to the problem, so I changed it.

But now the track won't load at all. It gets stuck at about 80% loading and rFactor freezes. The SCN and all the objects load fine in 3DSimEd. What am I doing wrong? I'm starting to get really confused now.

 

[Mangoletsi]

80% is around the loading of the tdf file. some where within the parts relating to the tdf, its either missing or there's a typo.

 

[jbbrown]

Hi Mangoletsi,

After much work I finally got my track to load and I have been making an AIM. Everything functioned correctly, apart from the formation lap. I wasn't sure whether I should make a new thread for this, but I guess there shouldn't be too many threads so I'm replying in this one.

This is a very strange track because it's an oval that has the pit lane in the outfield next to turns 1 and 2 (as you can see in the screenshot). Moreover, the pace car isn't located in the pit lane during the race but in the infield (I noticed this while watching races on the track on YouTube).

To solve the first problem, I used the trick of making timing objects with multiple planes. This all works (the timing objects are marked in red in my screenshot).

To solve the second problem, however, I decided to add the path that the pace car travels (down into the infield between turns 3 and 4 and back to its position in the middle of the infield, indicated by the red arrow in my screenshot) and mark it as a second pit lane. This didn't work because the pace car kept pulling into the outfield pit lane. Thinking there was a problem with corridors, I manually edited all the corridors in and around the pit lane so that they didn't overlap with the corridors of the main path (there was quite a bit of overlap). Unfortunately this didn't fix the problem.

Then I decided to mark the pace car "pit lane" as pit lane 1 and the outfield pit lane (where the pit spots are) as pit lane 2. Now the pace car actually does what it's supposed to do, it drives into the infield between turns 3 and 4 on the formation lap. However, the formation lap never ends and the race never starts.

What am I doing wrong? I can't figure it out. The pace car passes xsector1 and xsector2 before pulling into the infield, and then xpitin when it is in the infield, so I don't understand why the race doesn't go green. I double checked and there are no cars still crossing the finish line at the point the pace car pulls into the infield.

 

[Mangoletsi]

Hi,

rFactor as far as Im aware, is supposed to only support 1 pitlane only, plus a branch which comes off that pitlane.

I don't know which track this is, so i don't know what to search for on youtube. Probably after watching the YouTube video, I will understand the diagram a little more.

 

[jbbrown]

Hi there,

The track is Tours Speedway in Tours, France, where the NASCAR Euro Series raced until 2018. In this video

you can see around 2:57 and again around 7:30 that the pace car pulls into the infield on the formation lap. Between 8:39 and 8:51 you can see the position where the pace car is stationed during the race and where it enters the track during a yellow flag period.

Around 5:59 you can see a car enter the outfield pit lane for a pit stop.

I didn't know rFactor only supported one pit lane. If that is the case, I wonder why the AIWCAM Editor has the option to create a second pit lane? I seem to remember that someone made a version of Bristol Motor Speedway with two pit lanes, but that might've been for rFactor 2, I'm not sure.

 

[jbbrown]

I checked again, and I noticed the timing isn't working at all. (In the bottom left corner of the screen, the line representing the track, it doesn't show my car moving on it. Normally this happens as soon as you set the main path.)

I think I had some extra planes in my timing objects that shouldn't be there, so I removed them, but it still isn't working. rFactor can't figure out where my car is on the track. It must be something with the timing objects. Maybe they are placed too close together?