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

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

yesterday I watched the 1st episode, it's really exciting how you guys do all these tracks (well, at least @LilSki)specially with the lidar data.
I don't know how on earth do you learn all that, using blender (or 3dmax), of course it should be some working deviation, some of the most experimented I guess they work on 3d for living (or for some other reason) I know A3DR does it. But it's remarkable task. I'm really looking forward to watch next episodes, even if I'm not into modding perse (just some cameras which require no 3d knowledge at all) it's really enjoyable

 

[Ghoults]

It really depends a lot. Sometimes vertex shrinkwrap is the best. For example joining edges. Some surface snapping is best like in the video when the surface snapping also scaled the object to fit. Projected vertical snapping is the best for stuff like white lines and any road markings (decals) in my opinion. At least the way I do white lines is that I move them to correct positions in x/y in top view and then let the sw match it vertically to road surface. If you use surface snapping in that example the object can move a lot in x/y direction as it snaps to closest surface which is not always closest in z direction (road camber, bumps).

The projection has super nice bonus that you don't really need vertex groups with it if you want to sw to multiple other objects. If the project sw can't find anything to snap to it does nothing so you can easily have multiple targets and multiple projected sw modifiers without any vertex groups without issues. Even the modifier itself supports two targets which is great. Vertex and surface sw always move your verts somewhere so everytime you need to limit the effect to some area or vertices you need a vertex group for it.

 

[Stereo]

Shrinkwrap projection limited to one direction (up or down) is also good for avoiding noise like border fences, if it can't find anything at all it doesn't move and you can just manually put it below the bump in the source data.and it stays there (without applying the entire projection)

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Yeah projection shrink works way better than vertex. Atleast with 2.8.
It won't start attaching it self to trees or barriers.

......
I managed to build the physical mesh and visual.

Used google satellite photo just for visual reference. (wasn't used to build bezier outline, used cloud compare screenshot for that)

Now waiting for next step how to add bumps and build rest of land.

Driving it as is....exactly like LilSki said like glass. Way too smooth.


I wonder if there is some way to clean up the mesh in cloud compare...like remove trees. Just to get the ground data out. Gonna look into it.
Doing smoothing by hand on the mesh seems like lot of work.

 

[Emery]

I wonder if there is some way to clean up the mesh in cloud compare...like remove trees. Just to get the ground data out.

Yes there is a way. You'll want to highlight your cloud(s), then use the properties window (lower left) to change Scalar Fields "Active" dropdown to Classification. Using the main menu, click on Edit, Scalar fields, Filter By Value.

The following are the classifications, but don't be surprised when points aren't classified or are classified incorrectly.

0 Never classified
1 Unassigned
2 Ground
3 Low Vegetation
4 Medium Vegetation
5 High Vegetation
6 Building
7 Low Point
8 Reserved
9 Water
10 Rail
11 Road Surface
12 Reserved
13 Wire - Guard (Shield)
14 Wire - Conductor (Phase)
15 Transmission Tower
16 Wire-Structure Connector (Insulator)
17 Bridge Deck
18 High Noise
19-31 Reserved
32-63 Reserved (available in LAS 1.4 only)
64-255 User Definable (available in LAS 1.4 only)

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Great Tip!!!

Very interesting!

By picking range of 2 to 2. filter by type.

You can remove everything but ground.

Than when you convert to mesh it comes out just ground. Very nice!

There shouldn't be need now to do any mesh smoothing by hand like LilSki showed.

here you can see red color being ground

green being everything else.

 

[LilSki]

I honestly completely forgot about classifications. Some earlier data I looked at wasn't classified so I never thought about it again. I looked at the North Wilkesboro data and it is properly classified. So I'll go over that in the beginning of the next video.

 

[Emery]

I'm noticing how much more data has been released in the past two years since I was actively following releases. Seems California is using lidar to help fight fires, which has led to the frustrating situation of Willow Springs almost having complete coverage. Here's how much of the tracks are available (there's equally fragmented shots of the surrounding terrain, but first things first!):

Since the data was released in October, I kind of suspect the rest exists and just hasn't made it through to public release.

 

[Emery]

If you're really desperate to remove everything except ground data when the points were never classified, you can use the command line utility called LAStools to just save ground points.

 

[Emery]

By picking range of 2 to 2. filter by type.

You can remove everything but ground.

I usually take a couple extra steps and also grab 10 & 11, then 17, and finally merge them with 2. A separate pass for 13-16, since adding power/telephone poles and wires at the right height helps bring tracks to life.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

I usually take a couple extra steps and also grab 10 & 11, then 17, and finally merge them with 2. A separate pass for 13-16, since adding power/telephone poles and wires at the right height helps bring tracks to life.

I am thinking its better to import everything seperate and not merge with 2.

And import it after the driving road and land is built.

So far classification works well with every track I tried.

It can find the difference between trees and buildings and walls.

Such awesome trick.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

lol how nice.

my hard drive went to shitter today.

western digital you suck. AC was 100+ gigs.

starting from zero.

fml.


only plus side installing windows 10 again on new drive, computer so much faster now.

 

[mclarenf1papa]

lol how nice.

my hard drive went to shitter today.

western digital you suck. AC was 100+ gigs.

starting from zero.

fml.


only plus side installing windows 10 again on new drive, computer so much faster now.

Hard drives are bound to fail, that’s why you do frequent backups and pay attention to Event Viewer.

 

[Paul Clark]

Hi guys - interesting thread. I built my first track a year ago - very basic version of Lotus test track at Hethel.. it was a labour of Love, as I wanted to drive Hethel in AC in VR. I had a computer crash and lost my tools, but still have the source files and fbx. There are a couple of things I need to change on the track , basically just changing out some recessed Kerbs for some standard Kerbs (having visited the track this year for some real driving). Is anyone out there willing to amend about 4 sections of Kerb if I provide my source folders and a markup track image to show which Kerbs need replacing. ? I would really appreciate the help to ‘finish’ a project which I know I will otherwise never get back to? I could provide a dropbox link to the files.

 

[Paul Clark]

Hi guys - interesting thread. I built my first track a year ago - very basic version of Lotus test track at Hethel.. it was a labour of Love, as I wanted to drive Hethel in AC in VR. I had a computer crash and lost my tools, but still have the source files and fbx. There are a couple of things I need to change on the track , basically just changing out some recessed Kerbs for some standard Kerbs (having visited the track this year for some real driving). Is anyone out there willing to amend about 4 sections of Kerb if I provide my source folders and a markup track image to show which Kerbs need replacing. ? I would really appreciate the help to ‘finish’ a project which I know I will otherwise never get back to? I could provide a dropbox link to the files.

Track looks like this

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

finally back to square 1 again.

took forever to get everything downloaded/setup.

this random track I chose doesn't have enough points to it will need manual bumps so will wait to see how lilski does it.

latest video its repaved and super smooth here.

so might not be too hard to add bumps by hand for this one.

 

[LilSki]

I got a bit behind on my videos as I was not happy how it came out. I worked on a new system last night and will hope to be able to record EP 2 and 3 tonight and put them up. If all goes well I should be able to bang out videos much faster than before. Also I found some of my tools I use have been moved to 2.8 so I will likely be looking into that more sooner than later.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

I got a bit behind on my videos as I was not happy how it came out. I worked on a new system last night and will hope to be able to record EP 2 and 3 tonight and put them up. If all goes well I should be able to bang out videos much faster than before. Also I found some of my tools I use have been moved to 2.8 so I will likely be looking into that more sooner than later.

Take as much time you need.

I ain't in rush.

I am experimenting/learning a lot with this.

I am just scratching the surface with this and I am getting huge appreciation for your work and everyone else that does this.

 

[LilSki]

 

[MCBRISKET]

Thanks for churning these out. Much appreciated.