Tracks Have any track modders made their source Blender or 3DS Max files available to the community?

Once you can get basic track in game.

Than you can read this thread.



And than start learning from here. Shaders/tips etc.

 
Thanks for doing this!.

Just few thoughts after watching.

-wish it was all blender 2.8 :(
-there is really nice addon that can turn two curves into mesh. its pricey but nice time saver
https://blendermarket.com/products/curves-to-mesh

-the part where you made two bezier curves on the flat plane that you projected photo how precise are you being?
(curve resolution and z up?)

-las data from US is in imperial units.
most people that attempt this will be doing it in 2.8 and everything in default is metric in 2.8.
so scales will be off in 2.8 using US lidar data when imported

-how did you import raw point cloud (what format from cloud compare was saved?)

-trying to match google satellite data doesn't work as their images are not flat top view.

-when it comes to road course how are you breaking track into chunks and importing?
(what are the limits for physical mesh for AC import?)
 
-las data from US is in imperial units.
most people that attempt this will be doing it in 2.8 and everything in default is metric in 2.8.
so scales will be off in 2.8 using US lidar data when imported
No, imperial units are only the default. You can metric select units when downloading the data from US govt sites.
 
No, imperial units are only the default. You can metric select units when downloading the data from US govt sites.

Where do you see that option?
gQe8ORG.png
 
Ah, they went and changed the National Map's download since I last used it. Well, easy answer at this point is to just scale it in CloudCompare. 0.3048 on all the axes.

If it was in https://coast.noaa.gov/dataviewer/#/lidar/search/, I'd send you there because they let you change units before you download. And you can pick your boundary box so you aren't stuck downloading entire tiles.
 
Thanks for doing this!.

Just few thoughts after watching.

-wish it was all blender 2.8 :(
-there is really nice addon that can turn two curves into mesh. its pricey but nice time saver
https://blendermarket.com/products/curves-to-mesh

-the part where you made two bezier curves on the flat plane that you projected photo how precise are you being?
(curve resolution and z up?)

-las data from US is in imperial units.
most people that attempt this will be doing it in 2.8 and everything in default is metric in 2.8.
so scales will be off in 2.8 using US lidar data when imported

-how did you import raw point cloud (what format from cloud compare was saved?)

-trying to match google satellite data doesn't work as their images are not flat top view.

-when it comes to road course how are you breaking track into chunks and importing?
(what are the limits for physical mesh for AC import?)
I'm just showing my process. You can choose to do it whatever way you want. As for 2.8 I'm just still comfortable with 2.79 and as I mentioned the same theories still apply with 2.8. I plan to move to 2.8 at some point. Probably after Road America is finished I'll look deeper into it.

With this method curve resolution and Z up and not really important so the defaults of 12 and minimum is fine but you can increase it if you want but you will end up removing doubles anyway once you convert to a mesh.

As for the LAS scale I had the opposite be true and why I used 2.8 as the middle man with the FBX. In the past when I used the STL format I never once messed with scale units so that part is fairly new to me with the FBX format. In any case I would think it would be common sense to make sure the scale is correct. I should have mentioned that it should be checked in the video but I can't think of everything and this is my first try at this.

The raw point cloud format is shown in the CC section of the video and it's PLY. And the process to import it is simple so I didn't cover it. There are no options so you just import it.

And yes I know google earth imaging will not line up perfectly and I mention that in the video. But it is still useful for object placement and is more clear to see sometimes over the intensity data. The beauty of having the data is you can manipulate the google image plane to make it fit the layout best it can.

With larger road courses with a dense cloud you will want to segment out the track alone. Then the land part of the track you can do a subsample in CC to lower the resolution so it can be imported into the blender without taking it to its knees. But that being said all the previous road courses I've done I've been able to import the entire track in one shot without major segmentation. The only one I had to cut up was Calabogie which was a ground scan with billions of points.

An example of a segmented track. (not my project)
1573525264181.png


As for anything related to importing to AC that will come in later episodes.
 
Okay thank you.

Btw something that you should mention for next episode if possible.

What is suitable quality of LIDAR data required to even attempt this.

Last night playing around....I noticed this random small track I found on USGS when segmented out had only ~500,000 points.
(4770 Waterford Rd, Village of Clarkston, MI 48346, United States)

When I shrink wrapped the curves to the raw ply file it didn't have much verts to catch on and couldn't align to track lines.

pEr0VkJ.png

I38dqmy.png



..........


btw will you cover in the next video. on the surrounding of track like grass or infield for that case.

How much do you remove of data.

.....

If this is asking to much from you sorry....this first video was good enough for someone to figure out rest by trial and error.
 
Okay thank you.

Btw something that you should mention for next episode if possible.

What is suitable quality of LIDAR data required to even attempt this.

Last night playing around....I noticed this random small track I found on USGS when segmented out had only ~500,000 points.
(4770 Waterford Rd, Village of Clarkston, MI 48346, United States)

When I shrink wrapped the curves to the raw ply file it didn't have much verts to catch on and couldn't align to track lines.

pEr0VkJ.png

I38dqmy.png



..........


btw will you cover in the next video. on the surrounding of track like grass or infield for that case.

How much do you remove of data.

.....

If this is asking to much from you sorry....this first video was good enough for someone to figure out rest by trial and error.
As I sort of mentioned before the whole point is to just document my process. It won't work in every case, but it should give you a general idea as to how the process works and you can work on your own from that. In the case of a lower resolution cloud you may have to just stick to the smoothed mesh version of the data and shrink to nearest surface point and not vertex. Any data is better than no data you just may have adjust your approach depending on what you get. I can't go over every single process or the video would be hours long and I wouldn't have much of a life.

And yes I will cover just about every aspect of building the outside/inside land using subsample in CC to lower the resolution and bring that into blender. I will also likely show examples of my finished tracks as well and explain what I did for certain aspect of road course design.
 
It is excellent video @LilSki. Lots of neat little tricks. I never thought putting the beziers under the lidar mesh. So simple trick but makes perfect sense. Although I prefer to use the projected shrinkwrap which can be limited to just z movement. Are you planning to include some of the shaders patch magic in later episodes?
 
It is excellent video @LilSki. Lots of neat little tricks. I never thought putting the beziers under the lidar mesh. So simple trick but makes perfect sense. Although I prefer to use the projected shrinkwrap which can be limited to just z movement. Are you planning to include some of the shaders patch magic in later episodes?
Sure but that won't be until much later. First will be to finish the core track model and sort out the physical mesh and get it in game. I'll show some laps with different levels of displacement to show how it all works.
 
As I sort of mentioned before the whole point is to just document my process. It won't work in every case, but it should give you a general idea as to how the process works and you can work on your own from that. In the case of a lower resolution cloud you may have to just stick to the smoothed mesh version of the data and shrink to nearest surface point and not vertex. Any data is better than no data you just may have adjust your approach depending on what you get. I can't go over every single process or the video would be hours long and I wouldn't have much of a life.

And yes I will cover just about every aspect of building the outside/inside land using subsample in CC to lower the resolution and bring that into blender. I will also likely show examples of my finished tracks as well and explain what I did for certain aspect of road course design.

That sounds great.

Can't wait for next video.

........

Just a tip for Blender 2.8 users.

Shrinkwrap should be project surface (negative/positive) z direction.

Using nearest vertex will cause problems.


Shrinkwrap project (negative/positive) z direction option here
gKvbo2F.png



Shrinkwrap vertex
xOzEwY7.png
 

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