XPacks Discussion

[Brendon Pywell]

Expansion Packs (XPacks)

BTB organises all Objects, Materials and Textures into Expansion Packs (XPacks). They are theme based so that the textures for the road surfaces, walls, trees and ground all look good together.

By bunching objects, materials and textures together encourages a more aesthetic end result – although you will be free to use whatever XPacks you like!

This encourages two things:

1. People using your XPacks will create Tracks that are more aesthetic. That is the textures will look good together. Check how well objects from the Australia Rural XPack look against the road/ground textures.

2. Game performance will be increased by re-using the same objects/textures in creative ways rather than adding more objects from a number of XPacks. Good XPacks will reuse materials/textures, eg. the Texture for a house roof may be used on several House objects. When it comes to rendering performance, texture/material reuse is good.
These points will become even more important as the library of XPacks grow. Imagine having 12 different tree XPacks and trying to find some that match your terrain/theme.

Installation

Each XPack comes in the form of a Zip file. Additional XPacks will be created over time and installing them is a simple as dropping the Zip file into the BTB\XPacks folder. BTB reads directly from the Zip file, there is no need to extract the individual files/folders.

The initial BTB installation will not include much XPack material; they need to be downloaded from http://www.bobstrackbuilder.net/pro_users/XPacks.aspx .

Adding to your Venue

You use “File … Expansion Packs” to select which packs you want to be available in your Venue.

Each Venue (project) you create will exist in its own folder and all Textures and XPacks used in your project will be copied to an “XPacks” sub-folder. If you want to edit a Texture that you added to your project, you need to edit the one that gets copied to your Venue’s folder.

Updating XPacks

Over time XPacks will gain more Objects and Materials and you will want to get the latest one. Simply download again and drop into you BobsTrackBuilder\XPacks folder.
Your existing Venues will need to be manually updated by copying the XPack into the project’s XPacks folder and overwriting the existing one.

Creating XPacks

A new utility called XPacker is included to help you create your own XPacks. It will not build your objects or textures, but it does help you to organise them into the required XPack structure.
Press F1 for more XPacker help.

Creating a community of XPacks

I am not artistic in the slightest so it’s up to everyone here to help build a library of XPacks that everyone can use. My time will be focussed on coding more BTB/XPacker functions so I am relying on you guys to help out by submitting more material.
If you have textures, objects and materials that you think would be suitable, contact me ( bob at bobstrackbuilder.net ) and I’ll be happy to organise them into a suitable XPack. All work should be your own with all copyrights respected.

These are the current themes I have in mind:
- Alpine
- Desert
- City
- Rural Australia (Ennis)
- Coastal
- Forest
- Haywood Club (WeirdBeard)
- Jungle
- Racing (I need cones).
- Savannah Grasslands (Raceking)
- Snow
- Woodland
Feel free to come up with more (ideally along with your own contribution) or make suggestions on how to better categories these themes.

Object Import Format

The importing of objects can be done using either the Collada or 3ds formats.

I would encourage anyone looking to import objects to use the Collada format as it is far more robust and isn't plagued by the shortcomings of the 3ds format. For Max, you can get a free plugin for import/export from http://www.feelingsoftware.com/content/view/65/79/lang,en/ though I think you have to sign up before you can access the downloads.

I am happy to do the organising if you wish to send the XPacks my way ( bob@bobstrackbuilder.net ). Please feel free to give suggestions on how they should be structured or into what existing XPack you think they could be added. The textures should be your own work as I cannot use other people’s textures without their permission.

Advanced Editing

Creating Content

When adding one more object/material I always create a new XPack and test just that one item making sure it works ok in all games. Once it’s ready then I copy the contents of that XPack into the destination XPack and re-zip it.

This isolates the work so that I can test many times without the possibility of adding more materials/textures than required.

Editing Content

XPacks are just zip files. If you wish to change just one item of a project, it can be unzipped and so long as it keeps the same folder structure, BTB will use the unzipped version instead (restart BTB).

Say for instance you wish to change replace the colour of the Default\Barn object.

1. Locate the [yourVenue]\XPacks\Default.zip.
2. Extract the shed01_end.dds and shed01_side.dds so that they are in a folder [yourVenue]\XPacks\Default\Textures\Objects\Building\.
3. Replace the shed01_end.dds and shed01_side.dds file with your own.
4. Start BTB.

Any of the files can be replaced using this method.

 

[gstaraz]

Scaling Textures in xPacks

In the xpack, under the tab Materials, you can find the "Per Meter Coverage" option, that goes from 1 to i think 12 meters

If you use 1024x1024 size maps, what would be the optimal "Per Meter Coverage" value to retain the texture sharpness? (in GTR2)


Another thing that confuses me is found again within the xpack under the Objects tab - "Childobjects"
There you can find two rotation values set to "2" by default ... what does that stand for ?, ...if someone can explane or point to a tutorial.

 

[Ludovic Tagli]

hello, can you create a xpack d images from jpeg, jpg, would have created signs for advertising
I thank you for the answer

 

[gstaraz]

hello, can you create a xpack d images from jpeg, jpg, would have created signs for advertising
I thank you for the answer

You can, just convert them to .dds, and than load them with the xpacker.
I would say, 128x128 size is enough for advertisement signs, but of course, this is very subjective...

 

[Ludovic Tagli]

thank you for replying so fast gstaraz

 

[kmikiwi]

Hi! I'm just a little noob jejeje.. congratulations for your work!... so, I've a question about default textures, I'm working right now in a track, ubt, I need some new materials/textures... I've already created my own but I found one wall material that I can use from the default textures but need a change, the question is... Can I edit or change the default textures or materials and use it for my track? or need to ask for permission everytime to you? Brendon? or any member that uploaded their materials? thank you so much!

 

[gstaraz]

Hi! I'm just a little noob jejeje.. congratulations for your work!... so, I've a question about default textures, I'm working right now in a track, ubt, I need some new materials/textures... I've already created my own but I found one wall material that I can use from the default textures but need a change, the question is... Can I edit or change the default textures or materials and use it for my track? or need to ask for permission everytime to you? Brendon? or any member that uploaded their materials? thank you so much!

Well, I vould say you can... the textures are there to be used, and if you find that by changing something on the default texture, your track loock nicer..., It is up to Your creativity and choice...

 

[banger]

thanks for the pm/link on nogrips m8.

 

[gstaraz]

My pleasure Banger :quiet: ...the enemy is listening LOL

Kidding

 

[nitroline]

hi
i am building some australian dirt speedways and i am looking to see if anyone has made some lights that i can be used in btb.

 

[banger]

what lights, streetlights are in the default xpack,along with pitlights

 

[banger]

My pleasure Banger :quiet: ...the enemy is listening LOL

Kidding

don't worry i silenced them for you.

 

[nitroline]

what lights, streetlights are in the default xpack,along with pitlights

what i am after is something like these. my dad has some of these type in this train game but i know nothing about converting objects.in think he was using gmax

 

[nitroline]

or like this

 

[Tonio Block]

Hi there !

Bonus from Parlesportes :

http://forum.rallyesim.fr/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=477&start=0

Have a nice tracks building !

 

[banger]

@nitroline :gmax is a freebie from discreet, www.turbosquid.com/gmax it a smaller version of 3ds max.without all the glitchy rendering,but you can still make models.

just need to register @ turbosquid ,for your unique code.

ed

**ps* you can't use it to exported to 3ds** but i looking into it.great little program but without the exports, may be another dud.

 

[Stealthy]

hey nitroline may have what you want in about a month just gotta wait till speedway season kicks off and ill be back into it and lights are toping my list

 

[nitroline]

hi Stealthy
that would be awesome if you could help me. i'll wait to see what you can do

 

[JDenker]

hey guys, maybe you know why i got these issues with my track?.
the xpack im using is called trackside_objects.. also i got the same trouble with the grandstands xpack. In btb they look well but on the rfactor track.. see yourself.
maybe you can help me out?

 

[R Soul]

It looks like the polygons are either facing the wrong way or their materials are not double-sided. Every polygon has a front and a back, with the front being rendered and the back being hidden. The idea behind that is that if you can see the front of a house, there's no need to draw the polygons at the back, because the polygons at the front would be drawn in front of them. Although you wouldn't be able to see them, the renderer certainly would.

If that's the case you'll be looking at the backs of some polygons instead of the fronts. Some 3d object editors don't make it immediately obvious which way round a face is. In BTB you can go to Venue Materials, find the materials for those missing polys (select 'Hide Unused' to make it easier) and select the 'double sided' option. That's a bit of a hack, because as I said earlier, the renderer will be drawing polys that you cannot see. The proper solution would be to implore object makers to check the orientation of the polys of their objects.

On the other hand, the creator of that object might have intended those parts of the object to be flat (you'll see in BTB whether they're meant to be flat or 3d). If they're meant to be flat, the double sided option can be used again, except that this time it'll be the proper solution.

 

[banger]

i'm making a revised version of grandstands, be patient has i only a limited time on pc theses days.should be ready for the weekend,if all goes well.

Ed