WIP Parramatta Park 1952 GP 2 Mile Circuit

[Emery]

Agreed that occasionally kicking up the dust is good, but I think consistently dropping a wheel completely off the pavement is best only for rallies... it would be too hard on most modern formula cars, though, as you'd like run out of suspension travel.

 

[ed_jza80]

true... ill tailer it back a little

do note though, that what ive done in some places is make the outside edge of the road itself a separte material (dirt) but still with the road tarmac texture... so that if you get real close off to the edge of the track (like youve gone wide, or at risk of losing it) it will fick up dust, just like youve gone off the race line into the dust and debris, yet still on the tarmac

 

[ed_jza80]

and in other news...

15 people have downloaded the BTB file pack...
...soo....

feedback?

anyone game enough to have a dig through it, feel frustrated enough to fix something and send it back!?! ha

cheers
ed

 

[Lee Knight]

Gdmorn'n Ed,
I was one of the fifteen but no I havnt had a chance to look through it yet,Ive been busy fiddle'n with my own track.
I finally got my GPS data for Bungonia & have been playing with it the last coupla nights!
Im not sure if I should start my "official thred yet or wait until I have a little bit of something put together.
I endeed up using Goggle Earth embeded in 3D Route Buider (free download) to get & smooth what I needed then
opened the file in BTB & away I go.
Now it looks like Ive wasted that dosh on GPS's & wot not.
I'll let you know how the texture pack went when I get to using it ,but- thank you very much for that Ed,its greatly appreciated.
As for dusty racing lines,Im with you. Ive always treated the road as only a basic guidline, besides ,I recon if you dont have
a foot in the dirt not only are you not pushing hard enough, but your leaving the door open. Just check out the Stoner/Rossi motoGP
battle at Laguna a couple of years ago.
Besides my other theory is thats the way the builder wanted it.
Keep up the hard charging-I mean work mate.
Thanx again BLeeK

 

[Emery]

Towards improving fps, I ran some experiments...

The first low fps section is the first turn. This is borderline on whether the fps are in need of improvement. Turning shadows off helped significantly, so I'd recommend reducing the number of shadow-casters.

The second low fps section is along the river through the tunnel of trees. Surprisingly, turning shadows off did not help significantly, so I'm sorry to say that your best course of action is probably reducing the number of objects and/or texture sizes. Maybe only use a single plane for the trees in the 3rd row? Setting LODs might also pick up the pace.

Third spot is after the hairpin, after the houses, but before the road junction. Again, turning shadows off did not help significantly. This section surprises me as to why it shows a significant drop because there doesn't really seem to be more material in view than other sections.

Overall, I was surprised at how little turning shadows off helped fps on my rig. In general, it was only in the neighborhood of 10-15%.

 

[ed_jza80]

how low are your fps getting, and what specs are you running emery?

 

[Emery]

fps are 44-58 in the worst sections, typically running 75-85 fps on most of the track with peak fps over 110 going into the hairpin (not counting the 175 fps sitting in the pits staring out into space). Turning shadows off still left the identified worst sections at 55-60 fps.

For comparison, VLM's Mid-Ohio only drops to 86 fps with most of the track at 100-150 fps.

Core 2 Duo @ 3.0 Ghz
ATI 3870x2 @ 2560x1600, VSync off, MIPMAP high, AAx2, Ansio x16, full details, & shadows on high (not full) w/blur

 

[ed_jza80]

and 3500 manually removed objects later.... i hate you all

 

[Raido]

But all of us hardware-starved guys will love ya right back for it

 

[ed_jza80]

well, it didnt do HEAPS unfortunately... i think in the region of 10-15% inprovement in FPS at the slowest sections. i cant get my machine to drop below 42, and thats for about a nano second going up the hill after the old govt house. similar rates (slightly quicker) going over the bridge, and the tunnel of tress is now running around 48-51fps...

however, that now includes also all objects appearing in the rear mirrors, and i havent compromised shadows at all... i think they an essential part of this track, so important to leave them in i think. so win win really

my machine: P4 3.0 dual core 4Gb Ram (But SFF) with Asus 1Gb half size EAH4650 GPU

cheers
ed

 

[ed_jza80]

copied from another thread...

ok, im into similar territory now with my track. made entirely with BTB and photoshop, with some help from folks donating some models.

however, the 'finishing touches' just arent there, the tree textures are dodgy, and theres little 'sins' with overlapping terrain at road junctions etc etc.

obviously 3dsimed can fix these? i hate learning new software, so can someone break it down for an idiot like me? is 3dsimed easy enough to use? can you import the project back and forth between btb and 3d sim ed, or is it a 'one way' process only?

how did you get your tress looking good in 3dsimed? tips and hints?

cheers
ed

 

[Emery]

I consider SimEd to be a valuable tool, but it's primarily a one-way tool for whole tracks from BTB. Best two-way use is dealing with objects and textures that go into Xpacks.

It's primary use, apart from converting objects from one game format to another, is to reassign and fix textures, object properties in a game, and the odd break in a mesh.

Where you've got overlapping polygons (or preferably disconnected polygons), you can edit the vertex of one polygon to snap it to another. Note that this is editing the numbers, not simply using the mouse to snap them into place, so it is a little painful. For intersections and such, my preference is to bring the terrain to the road so that the road stays relatively smooth.

Trees? I rely on other people... What is it that you want to fix with their texture (which is going to be a photoshop effort more than anything else)?

Somewhere there's a wonderful dissertation on the benefits/drawbacks of using alpha vs. chroma for the transparency... I think it's in the BTB forum.

 

[ed_jza80]

yeah i have a few trees from other peoples x-packs that BTB really turns into mushy poo when it exports to rfactor. i tried switching from chroma to alpha transparency in BTB, but then the whole thing lost opacity and you can see through the trees. exactly the problem this chap was having: http://www.racedepartment.com/bobs-track-builder/31264-again-big-problems-alpha-chroma.html

so i thought great with the different shaders, 3dsimed would be the go, but having tried it now, i quickly realise i have no idea what all these shader properties are, or how to enable them? whats with the different images that youre required to upload to enable certain shader types?

to be honest, ive not made things like trees etc before with transparencies and whatnot. im good with solid images applied to walls for eg i wanted to try and erase those dangly bits of unconnected foliage from the pine trees and couldnt figure out how! i ened up just rotating them

cheers
ed

 

[ed_jza80]

think i got it sorted... much un-funs though

manwhile, i also managed to scrounge another 5% out of the FPS! hoorah... nothing anywhere under 46FPS, even on my piece-o-crap machine!

test drivers please... see new download link below (haha even zip file is 6mb smaller)

latest beta release

http://www.v-eight.com/multimedia/ParramattaPark1952.zip

38Mb download
unzip directly into locations folder

changes:
3500 objects removed
MIP levels modified
shadows tweaked
tree textures tweaked in 3dsimed
pine trees rotated (no dangly bits!)

i doubt anyone will notice/miss the 3500 removed objetcs, infact with a few tricks with tree walls etc, i think it looks better. plus the 3dsimed shader properties have improved a few vital trees, particularly at the start of the tree tunnel

feedback appreciated!

cheers
ed

 

[Emery]

Downloading now... can't test for a couple hours, though as I must tend to the veggie garden before the rains arrive in a couple hours.

 

[ed_jza80]

no probs

btw - i havent touched the aiw, so best not try your f5000 in htere yet

cheers
ed

 

[Emery]

Excllent improvement and I can't tell that you've removed any objects! I think, in some places, I can see the improved textures.

58 is the lowest fps, happens twice in the tunnel of trees (halfway through and then right before the end). Neither spot lasts for more than the blink of an eye. Otherwise, mostly 70-90 fps.

 

[ed_jza80]

excellent to hear effort not been wasted then

ive got some more objects to go in (more goddamn trees and grass) but they should be out of the danger areas.

any further suggestions (aside from those made previously ive yet to include?)

and i know a heap of people have downloaded this (about 96 by my servers stats), no comments folks?

cheers
ed

 

[Raido]

Tested the last beta last night, looks good but unfortunately still major fps dumps (about 40 --> 22) in Turn 1 and along the treelined bit with the little river on the left. Other than that, seems ok!

 

[ed_jza80]

hmmmmmm, ok