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.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Use the XPacker utility to create your own XPacks. Personally i use SU6 and collada format (DAE) but there is 3ds format available for import too. Don't know which one is best but the end product is BTB's own format (uses XML), XOacks are ZIP archives.. Open one and study it's structure...

I noticed that there is no tutorial in http://simtrackipedia.wikidot.com/bob-s-track-builder for XPacker.. Also someone should make the simtrackpedia appear in Google, awful seo atm..

 

[Drummer]

Thankyou very much for your reply. I was more looking for advice on what settings to use, what to put where, what to check/uncheck and stuff like that.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Like i said in the thread elsewhere, you need to state more clearly what you need.. It's very hard to answer a generic question: "how do you use XPacker?" as that would mean everything about it. I didn't get any help either at first until i knew what were the questions.. So start from the beginning.

In another note, i left feedback to simtrackpedia, it needs some maintenance..

 

[Kurt Lehman]

In another note, i left feedback to simtrackpedia, it needs some maintenance..

Actually, Simtrackipedia was started so it's members could interact with the content, creating and editing where it's needed so information is always being updated. That's why I created it.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

Actually, Simtrackipedia was started so it's members could interact with the content, creating and editing where it's needed so information is always being updated. That's why I created it.

Yep that's the basic concept of wiki, i've contributed and continue to do so.. It still needs maintenance, member don't have admin priviledges. Nothing huge, just to make it appear on search engines. It could be possible that it's an ancient wiki engine that has poor SEO but i doubt it.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

I need someone to check 4 trafficsigns, correct the doubleface that i cannot get rid of in Sketchup, then XPack it... It's a fast job, prolly takes about 2 minutes per object. The problem is that since trafficsigns are very thin (mine is 2cm..), the backside is shown thru in some distances causing flicker. So i've narrowed the problem down to the inside faces been shown, SimBins version of gMotor2 has about 5-10cm threshold in +50m range between two parallel surfaces before things start to flicker.. The signs won't flicker when i increase the width to 7cm but who has ever seen 7cm thick trafficsigns?

Preferably the signs should be edited so that that back side is deleted and the frontside is doublesided faces with different textures. Textures are already assigned correctly, i just need someone with a real 3D editor to do it for me. They are for Alpine Hills 2.0 so it's "creditware"..

 

[martinez]

I remember also setting Normals as "Up" helped me with flickering on thin objects.
You can send them to me and I can check them in 3ds Max (PM me).

 

[Rookie25]

Hi guys. I'm new to track building and I'm just wondering how to create xpacks. I want my track to have some white tyre walls, and some green ones, but I don't know how to make them green.

 

[KieferDJW]

There are some colored tirewalls available at the downloadsection, already.
If you want to do someone by yourself, there are several ways to do so.
One is to build the object with google sketchup, texture and export it.
After that, you can make a new xPack with the BTB xpacker, import it and set some default settings.
Please take also a look at the lot of threads about the same context. Good luck!

 

[Rookie25]

Thanks

 

[Honso]

Hi, Since I had quite many requests to share my "Polish" XPack, I have uploaded it in Dowloands section.
I know it's still not perfect and couple things are missing, but I hope you will some stuff there
I also will appreciate any comments on bugs or advices what to add, change etc.
Enjoy m.

Objects_Poland (XPack) download:
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/bobs-track-builder-37/objects-for-polish-tracks-4079/

hey martinez, could you please reupload those packages? that would be really nice if you could invest that lil time for us... cause as RD updated their site, the whole downloadsection went offline....... thanks in advance!

 

[martinez]

Here you go:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/p7knbz

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

My online XPack collection: http://Cream.Galleria.fi/BTB/XPacks

Please tell me if there something faulty.. You can also request XPacks, i don't have them all but i'll add to that collection gradually. The storage is paid for another year so it can serve as a default XPack loading location.. Sorry about the interface, it's oldschool.. At least it's fast. There is about 10 gigs reserved for this purpose, i hope it's enough. It also support direct links so you can use those freely everywhere, there are no limitations on that account.

The Default XPack has CK-Tools and working startlights included, i suggest everyone to install that. I'll include all XPacks that people are able to upload and post in this thread.

 

[Daniel Higgins]

Omg the Ennis_Objects_01 is just stupidly fantastic! Got me really fired up....and now work to get in the way

 

[Honso]

love you guys thanks buddies!

 

[martinez]

Hey, not too fast
You welcome

 

[Erwin Greven]

Question: I had to reinstall BTB. I had backed up old xpacks and projects. Now BTB has no problems to find and open those projects.
The xpacker program on the other side, can not find any xpack i have made. How can i get the xpack list back into my xpacker program.

 

[Kennett Ylitalo]

XPacker uses BTB\XPacker\XPacks. You need to unpack all XPacks that you wish to edit with XPacker to that location

 

[Erwin Greven]

Thanks, will try that.

 

[Andras Csepecz]

Hello guys!

I saw in the downloads a good xpack, but now i can't find them. I remember, the xpack has a DRS sing, because i need it!