Cars NFS Tournament Class A 1.6

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

yeah, Ferrari F40 and AE86 and M3 E30 have all the blinkers and stuff.

 

[AccAkut]

Maybe a good idea to let "experts" do these very specific updates and have them integrated in the patch release itself (many mod cars like mine have config files bundled in the patch)

 

[A3DR]

Well been checking out some of those files and found a couple of interesting features. Not going to do all of them but at least I'll include in these cars what I consider useful.

So far I'd like to include:
- Interior lighting (gauges / instrument glow at night)
- Working wipers (still not sure if there's anything specific I need to do to have raindrops on the glass)
- Reverse lights
- Adding that "lag" effect to incandescent bulbs

Also not sure what I need to do with the pop up headlights or what's the improvement there, but that's about everything I've found useful or worth spending time with.
If you guys think of something else worth adding let me know, maybe i'm missing a feature or two.

Maybe a good idea to let "experts" do these very specific updates and have them integrated in the patch release itself (many mod cars like mine have config files bundled in the patch)

I guess I must be the one doing those files to include them in the patch itself

 

[aphidgod]

Also, before you release the update I'll send you some physics tweaks.

 

[Davide Nativo]

Couple minor (but needed) updates on the 512, replaced reflective instrument cluster glass for a non reflective dirty glass, looks much more convincing than having the road reflected on it. Also rearranged the small gauges to proper spec, and implemented Kamil Gwiaździński's (@9kret9) high res texture on all of them

Also, before you release the update I'll send you some physics tweaks.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Thanks, will do, but no Discord for me, so the templates will have to do. I've been browsing some of those files but still couldn't figure out some things without opening and closing AC all the time (saving the ini files don't work in real time at least for me).
Anyway, I'll spend a little more time on this and see what I can figure out if there's no other way.

Well been checking out some of those files and found a couple of interesting features. Not going to do all of them but at least I'll include in these cars what I consider useful.

So far I'd like to include:
- Interior lighting (gauges / instrument glow at night)
- Working wipers (still not sure if there's anything specific I need to do to have raindrops on the glass)
- Reverse lights
- Adding that "lag" effect to incandescent bulbs

Also not sure what I need to do with the pop up headlights or what's the improvement there, but that's about everything I've found useful or worth spending time with.
If you guys think of something else worth adding let me know, maybe i'm missing a feature or two.

I guess I must be the one doing those files to include them in the patch itself

The best way of building the car config files is:
- first make sure your lights.ini in your data.acd is clean and working perfectly (you can verify this in the Content Manager showroom real quick and properly confirm in session in game)
- build a basic car config ini using the settings from template files but deactivate it (just rename the file to something different from your cars folder name)
- go into a session in game (I usually load just my single car and a quick loading track
- now move through the cameras while you verify all settings from your lights.ini work
- now activate your basic car config file by renaming it to the proper car folder name

The car config files do refresh the car while live in session, so any changes to the file (on saving) will imediately show in game in session.

- make all changes to teh car config you feel like then to verify everything is working as designed, restart the session (sometimes changes in session are not taken over while in session and you may break a feature and you may not see the feature breaking as it is not showing in session).

So always as a final test restart the session with both lights.ini and car config finalized to test all features.

For your cars the emmissive lights for cockpit, head lights, tail, brake and reverse lights are all super interesting.
Interesting for your cars is also to already implement blinkers + hazard lights (these need designated vertices to be created in your 3D model - just look at how the Kunos Ruf Yellow Bird template is structured with it's car config and it's additional KN5 file including all necessary extra light vertices to understand how it works).
The popup headlights of the Testarossa are interesting as there is a feature in the car config that will allow for a more realistic light animation - look into that.
For more realistic ambient shadows make sure to build and include the wheel shadow definitions in your car config as well (they need to be built for each car as of different track width, tire width, etc.)

I can only encourage you to get into discord as there are a handful of really knowledgable and super nice and helpful guys on the discord that are happy to help ;-)

Any questions, ask away!

 

[Stereo]

The main non-obvious part of lighting is that for it to automatically detect popup headlights, you need your lights.ini VERSION=2 and also

[LIGHT_ANIMATION_0]
NAME=lights.ksanim
TIME=1

(there's an advanced version that takes light direction straight from a specific named node which iirc the Miura's config demonstrates because its lights pop down instead of up)
The rest should be able to just paste your own object names into what the yellowbird does, and ignore model replacement code fully cause you can just replace the base kn5s.

 

[Some1]

Well been checking out some of those files and found a couple of interesting features. Not going to do all of them but at least I'll include in these cars what I consider useful.

So far I'd like to include:
- Interior lighting (gauges / instrument glow at night)
- Working wipers (still not sure if there's anything specific I need to do to have raindrops on the glass)
- Reverse lights
- Adding that "lag" effect to incandescent bulbs

Also not sure what I need to do with the pop up headlights or what's the improvement there, but that's about everything I've found useful or worth spending time with.
If you guys think of something else worth adding let me know, maybe i'm missing a feature or two.

I guess I must be the one doing those files to include them in the patch itself

You can also find the documentation here: https://github.com/ac-custom-shaders-patch/acc-extension-config/blob/master/_doc_config_cars.ini

Most notable improvement for the popup lights was that the "TIME" variable started working. So now you can change how quickly the popup lights animate.

For wipers, all you need to do, is to make sure, you have the correct AC shaders applied to the windscreen and other windows (ks_windscreen?) and make sure to separate the wiper arm and blade. The shaders patch detects the length of the blade to make correct wipe animation (amazing, right?). You also need to have the BLM car app, so you can activate the rain and wipers (actually, I'm not sure, if it is needed anymore now with WeatherFX and stuff. Things change quite quickly there...)

 

[A3DR]

Ok, I'll ask away, be prepared, though

The car config files do refresh the car while live in session, so any changes to the file (on saving) will imediately show in game in session.

This just doesn't work for me, I need to restart AC to see the changes. Is not like using the "set observeDigital 1" on the console for example (to adjust digital instruments LIVE).

For your cars the emmissive lights for cockpit, head lights, tail, brake and reverse lights are all super interesting.
Interesting for your cars is also to already implement blinkers + hazard lights (these need designated vertices to be created in your 3D model - just look at how the Kunos Ruf Yellow Bird template is structured with it's car config and it's additional KN5 file including all necessary extra light vertices to understand how it works).
The popup headlights of the Testarossa are interesting as there is a feature in the car config that will allow for a more realistic light animation - look into that.

Figured out how to make lights work with the fade, license plate, reverse, etc. but couple of things:
- No idea what triggers blinkers on or off
- Not sure what changes the intensity of the instrument lights glow (other than the obvious lights.ini)
- I have NO idea what all this does:

[LIGHTING]
INTERIOR_FAKE_UPPER_SHADOW_HEIGHT=-0.02
INTERIOR_FAKE_UPPER_SHADOW_FADE=0.02
EMISSIVE_HEADLIGHTS_MULT=1.4
EMISSIVE_PARKINGLIGHTS_MULT=2.5
EMISSIVE_BRAKELIGHTS_MULT=0.5

For more realistic ambient shadows make sure to build and include the wheel shadow definitions in your car config as well (they need to be built for each car as of different track width, tire width, etc.)

I suppose these values have something to do with it, but again, no idea how they're supposed to be set up:

[SHADOWED_WHEELS]
DISTANCE=3
WIDTH=0.1
OPACITY=0.75
EXTRA_AMBIENT_BRIGHTNESS=0.1

[SHADOWED_WHEELS_FRONT]
ANGLE=10
OFFSET=0.05

Still not sure what to look for, I mean, what's the purpose of that and how those values affect anything?

You can also find the documentation here: https://github.com/ac-custom-shaders-patch/acc-extension-config/blob/master/_doc_config_cars.ini

LOL Honestly, I don't know what to do with all that. Is not like each parameter is explained, is only a bunch of values. I can make out the obvious, but some things don't know what they do.

For wipers, all you need to do, is to make sure, you have the correct AC shaders applied to the windscreen and other windows (ks_windscreen?) and make sure to separate the wiper arm and blade. The shaders patch detects the length of the blade to make correct wipe animation (amazing, right?). You also need to have the BLM car app, so you can activate the rain and wipers (actually, I'm not sure, if it is needed anymore now with WeatherFX and stuff. Things change quite quickly there...)

Still couldn't figure out what's missing for the rain thing. Are there any special shaders needed other than the usual ks_windscreen one? as it is, it doesn't do anything.
For the wiper animations, yes, found it easier to separate the wiper blade from the arm, but do I need to name the dummies in a specific way to make this app detect them?

The BLM app is activated on CM, but so far it doesn't do anything in-game, at least none of the shortcuts work:

At least at this point, I've already improved all the lighting aspects. Blinkers seem useless to me except like what I've done with the Viper using the pit lights (hazards), but I've got the rest of the features working. Still need to figure out this whole rain thing though.

 

[Please Stop This]

https://github.com/ac-custom-shaders-patch/acc-extension-config

mentions example files for cars configs:
https://github.com/ac-custom-shaders-patch/acc-extension-config/blob/master/_doc_config_cars.ini

mentions example files for tracklight configs:
https://github.com/ac-custom-shaders-patch/acc-extension-config/blob/master/_doc_config_tracks.ini

 

[Some1]

This just doesn't work for me, I need to restart AC to see the changes. Is not like using the "set observeDigital 1" on the console for example (to adjust digital instruments LIVE).

For me, it only seemed to work, if I put the car config to the <ACfolder>/extension/config/cars folder (path from memy, cannot double check right now) and renamed the ext_config.ini in the <CAR folder>/extension to something else. Then modifying the ini in <ACfolder>/extension/config/cars worked live.

 

[Ben O'Bro]

For me, it only seemed to work, if I put the car config to the <ACfolder>/extension/config/cars folder (path from memy, cannot double check right now) and renamed the ext_config.ini in the <CAR folder>/extension to something else. Then modifying the ini in <ACfolder>/extension/config/cars worked live.

yeah i asked Ilja about this,
the ext_config.ini in your CAR folder will take over the your_car_conf.ini in the /extension/
so you have to rename your ext_config for the time being, and work on the one on the extension folder.
Live update is a must have to set up all this things...

 

[A3DR]

Great so that was it! that should make things easier

 

[A3DR]

Well finally it worked. But I guess it shouldn't rain inside the instrument cluster

 

[Some1]

Well finally it worked. But I guess it shouldn't rain inside the instrument cluster

View attachment 294163

It's not rain, it's sweat

 

[Dirk Steffen]

You can also find the documentation here: https://github.com/ac-custom-shaders-patch/acc-extension-config/blob/master/_doc_config_cars.ini

Most notable improvement for the popup lights was that the "TIME" variable started working. So now you can change how quickly the popup lights animate.

For wipers, all you need to do, is to make sure, you have the correct AC shaders applied to the windscreen and other windows (ks_windscreen?) and make sure to separate the wiper arm and blade. The shaders patch detects the length of the blade to make correct wipe animation (amazing, right?). You also need to have the BLM car app, so you can activate the rain and wipers (actually, I'm not sure, if it is needed anymore now with WeatherFX and stuff. Things change quite quickly there...)

I would rally love to learn all about animating wipers but so far I am clueless. Is there any tutorial you may link to?
Thanks for sharing those first bits - it makes for some serious food for thoughts for experimenting!

Ok, I'll ask away, be prepared, though


This just doesn't work for me, I need to restart AC to see the changes. Is not like using the "set observeDigital 1" on the console for example (to adjust digital instruments LIVE).

I think you found a solution already with the post above ;-)
If not - just make sure that you create a car config ini file in the assetto corsa/extensions/config/car/mods/a3dr folder and name the config file EXACTLY as the actual car folder inside the content folder.

example:
- you car folder is named "a3dr_car_123"
- your car config file inside the extension folder must be named: "a3dr_car_123.ini" to work and to update live while you are in session

Figured out how to make lights work with the fade, license plate, reverse, etc. but couple of things:
- No idea what triggers blinkers on or off
currently as I understand blinkers are restricted to be triggered only in the pitlane (there is a setting in Content Manager Custom Shader settings related to that) and there is a max speed limit for them to be triggered so they are not triggered accidentally.

In later builds of the patch I understand these will also be able to be mapped to actual controls - THATS when they really become useful, so we will be able to use them say around Touristenfahrten around Nordschleife or running around the epic LAC track.

It would be cool if you could figure them out (all it takes really is for you to create separate vertice objects as blinkers behind the actual blinker glass objects and they can be activated at a later point once the shader patch is further developed). Don't break your head about these just now ;-)

- Not sure what changes the intensity of the instrument lights glow (other than the obvious lights.ini)
To change intensity of lights in the lights.ini in data.acd you have to increase ALL THREE color channels in value and keep the color mix in proper relation so the color you want is preserved.
example:
you start with a red light like:
5, 0, 0

To make it brighter in intensity simply increase all three channels:

6, 1, 1 or
15, 10, 10
etc...

Watch for colors washing out at some point making it look less realistic and loosing any texture details you may want to preserve.

- I have NO idea what all this does:

[LIGHTING]
INTERIOR_FAKE_UPPER_SHADOW_HEIGHT=-0.02
INTERIOR_FAKE_UPPER_SHADOW_FADE=0.02

No idea about the above ;-)

EMISSIVE_HEADLIGHTS_MULT=1.4
[B][I]Multiplier to increase emissive head light intensity (higher values will increase ALL headlight related lights brightness).[/I][/B]
EMISSIVE_PARKINGLIGHTS_MULT=2.5
[B][I]Same as above but for parking lights.[/I][/B]
EMISSIVE_BRAKELIGHTS_MULT=0.5

Same as above but for braking lights.

Watch out for overdoing the intensity of brightness of emissive lights!
You define intensity of each single light definition in the car config file (the 4th number is intensity in the car config light definition:

1, 2, 3, 4
Red, Green, Blue, Intensity

It is best to test all light intensities in day light condition, then in foggy daylight, then in twilight and definitely also in total night time lighting - if you skip this elaborate testing and you have mucked up one of the intensity figures (either in each single light definition or in the global multipliers) you end up with NUCLEAR lights ;-)

So, go easy on the lighting effects and only increase them gradually when you find them too subtle in all lighting conditions (you cannot define them depending on different lighting conditions but only one definition for ALL lighting conditions - only weather PP filters can deal with influencing lighting render somewhat but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND to only use Peter Boese's SOL packaged PP filters as they are overall by far the most polished and designed to work hand in hand with Ilja's Shader Patch.

I suppose these values have something to do with it, but again, no idea how they're supposed to be set up:

I have not yet built wheel shadows with config ini files but use the "update ambient shadow feature in Content Manager Custom Showroom to define properly retraced ambient shadow renderings (it is not without downsides, as ambient shadows created this way do look incredibly good but do render visibly through certain track objects such as certain grass textures or objects such as pitfalls unfortunately) - when seen in on track, following other cars or in replays through these ray-traced (static) ambient shadows look incredibly realistic though, hence I have not tested the car config defined wheel shadows just yet - take my following comments with a whole sack of salt ;-)

[SHADOWED_WHEELS]
DISTANCE=3
[B][I]distance between wheels presumably (front - rear)[/I][/B]
WIDTH=0.1
[B][I]either track width or shadow width per wheel (experiment while in session, alter value and observe changes)[/I][/B]
OPACITY=0.75
[B][I]shadow opacity[/I][/B]
EXTRA_AMBIENT_BRIGHTNESS=0.1
[B][I]ambient brightness increase in shadow area (?) probably to find a good balance between opacity and extra ambient to render track texture details in shadow area while looking realistic (need experimenting in live session)[/I][/B]

[SHADOWED_WHEELS_FRONT]
ANGLE=10
[B][I]probably an angle of light source to render shadow around wheel (larger angle = bigger shadow area) - need experimenting in live session[/I][/B]
OFFSET=0.05

Offset from track surface to prevent shadows clipping into tarmac texture.

Those above are the wheel shadow definitions. You really can only meaningfully adjust them when live in session and then one by one move the shadows around to fit your car's wheels.
When properly done the add tremendously to an overall realistic look, preventing the car from visually "floating" ;-)

Still not sure what to look for, I mean, what's the purpose of that and how those values affect anything?



LOL Honestly, I don't know what to do with all that. Is not like each parameter is explained, is only a bunch of values. I can make out the obvious, but some things don't know what they do.


It really is best to start with each new feature one at a time.
Just copy ALL features you can find and that may be useful for your cars and deactivate ALL of them which you still are unsure about (just comment them out with a ";" in front of each line) and then when you get to them re-activate them and experiment with different settings ;-)

The private mods I am doing for myself and friends have config files littered with ALL kinds of experimental settings I experimented with until I finalize a car and clean up the config file ;-)

Still couldn't figure out what's missing for the rain thing. Are there any special shaders needed other than the usual ks_windscreen one? as it is, it doesn't do anything.
For the wiper animations, yes, found it easier to separate the wiper blade from the arm, but do I need to name the dummies in a specific way to make this app detect them?

The BLM app is activated on CM, but so far it doesn't do anything in-game, at least none of the shortcuts work:
View attachment 294160

You can contact Davide (the maker of the BLM app) here on RD - he is a super nice guy who is happy to help you out with any issues with BLM - I understand he is very busy currently though, so be patient.

I had an issue in the past where I couldn't get the keyboard shortcut mappings with the BLM lights app to work and only a complete clean up and reinstall of the app helped.
I ended up though not using the actual app key shortcuts at all but have deliberately defined the apps behavior so it will randomly rain when I use rainy track conditions (any "WET" track variant) and most importantly I ALWAYS use fully manual wipers like in older real cars - you can define wiper shortcuts in:

Content Manger / Settings / Controls / System or Shader Patch (I forgot, and am typing form memory).
There you can define control mappings for all kinds of additional features, such as wipers, replay cam controls, etc, … Content Manager is pretty awesome ;-)

At least at this point, I've already improved all the lighting aspects. Blinkers seem useless to me except like what I've done with the Viper using the pit lights (hazards), but I've got the rest of the features working. Still need to figure out this whole rain thing though.

Blinkers really only will be properly useful once the actual keybindings work AND the whole blinker rendering is ported into the online aspect of the custom shader patch - give Ilja and the gang some time for that ;-) So far they are only a cosmetic gadget but surely will get properly value once working online and working with key maps.

View attachment 294162

Well finally it worked. But I guess it shouldn't rain inside the instrument cluster

This is a bug related to the glass shader shared between instrument cover glass and windscreen glass I remember (very early when Henter implemented the windscreen rain texture effect I remember vaguely many, many builds ago).
I do not know the workaround for this - could you try to use different shader values for the instrument cover glass and windscreen glass? I do not remember how Henter defines the shader patch defining which glass surfaces will receive rain textures - if it is object naming or shader setting boundaries?
For this it would be best to ask directly in the Discord channel.

View attachment 294163

 

[Please Stop This]

yup its the ksWindscreen shader, dont use it on the instruments glass

 

[A3DR]

I would rally love to learn all about animating wipers but so far I am clueless. Is there any tutorial you may link to?
Thanks for sharing those first bits - it makes for some serious food for thoughts for experimenting!

Not sure if there's any specific tutorial but is as simple as rotating a dummy. In a simple way to explain it:
What I do is to place a dummy in what would be the pivot of the wiper arm, then link the arm to it.
Make another dummy in the center of the wiper blade, and link it to it. Then link the blade dummy to the arm dummy so it'll move along.
Set the frames to 20 and rotate the arm dummy (with auto key enabled) so on the 20th frame it goes to the full extent of the windshield. You'll need to adjust some keys in the middle.
Once it's good, select all those keys and scale them down from 20 to 10 frames. Clone each key in the opposite direction, so the arm will return to it's origin.

That's a QUICK way to explain it, assuming you know your way around 3dsmax. Feel free to ask, I can find some time and take screenshots if needed.

On the other hand, the rain shows on any material that uses the ksWindscreen shader. I was using it on the instrument cluster glass, so replaced it with a normal one to avoid having rain into it

 

[9kret9]

.

On the other hand, the rain shows on any material that uses the ksWindscreen shader. I was using it on the instrument cluster glass, so replaced it with a normal one to avoid having rain into it

Use it on the paint then, we'll have a raindrops on the car

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Not sure if there's any specific tutorial but is as simple as rotating a dummy. In a simple way to explain it:
What I do is to place a dummy in what would be the pivot of the wiper arm, then link the arm to it.
Make another dummy in the center of the wiper blade, and link it to it. Then link the blade dummy to the arm dummy so it'll move along.
Set the frames to 20 and rotate the arm dummy (with auto key enabled) so on the 20th frame it goes to the full extent of the windshield. You'll need to adjust some keys in the middle.
Once it's good, select all those keys and scale them down from 20 to 10 frames. Clone each key in the opposite direction, so the arm will return to it's origin.

That's a QUICK way to explain it, assuming you know your way around 3dsmax. Feel free to ask, I can find some time and take screenshots if needed.

On the other hand, the rain shows on any material that uses the ksWindscreen shader. I was using it on the instrument cluster glass, so replaced it with a normal one to avoid having rain into it

Thanks for sharing this info - it really seems 3DSMax is the only way to go :-(
I tried to prevent using it so far (I find if one wants to use it the only way to go is to pay for it).
I rather always tried to (mis)use the CAD systems I am using for work instead but some features are simply not well supported when porting files over or things as animations are simply not supported at all.

I;ll have to see what software to use instead (I hear Blender is good but its user interface opposes ANY UI functionalities I have learned over the last 25 years in established CAD systems - it's just soo different).

Re - wind screen rain effects - @Please Stop This beat me to it ;-)
I asked in teh discord and that is exactly what it is - use ksWindscreen shader exclusively for windows you want the effect to show on and a different shader on instruments ;-)