Getting started with a new track, few questions.

Discussion in 'Track Modding' started by Sam Moss, Jan 16, 2012.

  1. Michael Juliano

    Michael Juliano Track Team

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    Here's a MAX file showing the Belgium clock hands and how they are named/animated. This SHOULD get you going in the right direction.

    And, last time *I* checked, the clock tower hands at Belgium did work--are you sure you didn't have time accelerated? Please double check that and let us know. If time was set to normal then it's a bug that crept in at some point.

    Thanks :)
     

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  2. Tommy78

    Tommy78 Registered

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    Many Thanks Scott!

    Yes, i was wrong. I left the time acceleration in 5x.
     
  3. Nibiru

    Nibiru Registered

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    I too have a problem with flag material texture animation. I have pin pointed it down to the material animation cycle not being used in the .gmt file

    My track is a conversion and I don't use max so it has been far more work than I anticipated to get the animated workers working. I now have all workers moving with their animations but now the flag doesn't change colour. I usually used 3dsimed to add these animations but as we know 3dsimed doesn't support bones animations yet. I have opened a working flag animated gmt in note pad and compared it with a non working one and can see some difference but as most of it is jibberish not sure what to change. I have tried changing the texture name and some other things to no avail. Somewhere in the jibberish is the animation on and the cycle that it does.

    To get the officials I got a friend to convert them from max into .gmt for me to use. He is away for the next month so cant ask him to check the ISI max files to see if this animation is attached to the material.

    It took a lot of hours for me to get all officials onto track so Im not looking forward to having to do it again!!...if I get a fixed file. So does anyone know how to adjust this manually in the .gmt file?

    Regards
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 30, 2012
  4. mianiak

    mianiak Registered

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    I think that might be the textures don't exist, check inside another ISI track and copy all the flag textures over to your track.
     
  5. Nibiru

    Nibiru Registered

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    no I have the textures. I can place the object into 3dsimed and turn animation cycle on and change the texture to marshalflag and the cycle begins. Just can export out of simed but can use it to test.
     
  6. Nibiru

    Nibiru Registered

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    ok I have a trial version of max 2012 now. As I have never used it or seem it before can anyone steer me in the right direction for a tutorial for the process needed to check the marshalflag material and set it so it animates the flag colours.

    Have a Happy New Year Guys
     
  7. Nibiru

    Nibiru Registered

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    please anyone? surely all you max users know how to get this happening. I understand it's holiday season, but that should mean you have more time :) I have searched and watched many and read many tutorials but none that I have seen or read seem to talk about how to set the material and have multiple textures attached. I would like to be able to adjust the gmts that I have but at worst I have to re position them with the working animated cycle. I only have the trial of max to do this so at the end of this month (Janurary 2013) the trial finishes and I hope I have completed what I need to.

    So any help is much appreciated
     
  8. Jka

    Jka Member Staff Member

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  9. ~IsR~Barabba

    ~IsR~Barabba Registered

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    The program used to be the 3dsimed3, or you have to use another?
    I brought the stewards in the right position on the track, but do not understand what you mean by Be sure you've selected the Marshall istance and all its relatives Bones / Root.
    Then to run them, I must be all in place, or you just need one?
    I I put the Starterworker, but remains stationary.
    I entered the string in the file Scn, and the animations in the folder anims.
    Then I would like to know how to see the movie on the screens of the track.
    Thanks in advance for any help.

    Babs:)
     
  10. Jka

    Jka Member Staff Member

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    I must say that I'm not familiar with 3dsimed and I always work with 3dsmax, so I cannot help you with that.

    Generally speaking, animated object (like track marshal) always contains polygons and bones. You can think it like skeleton with skin. When you want to move your character arm, you actually move bone(s) of your skeleton and skin will "follow".

    Now, it's essential that bones and skin link remains untouched. If you move only skin and not bones of your character around the track, skin will be "ripped" to apart and your animated character will look like horror movie scene (because bones are not placed inside skin anymore). Therefore it's essential to make sure that all bones/root will be selected with skin before moving character around your track scene.

    In rF2, animated character needs also anm - file to make your animation work in game. In 3ds max you can export this file from exporter, but I'm not sure if it's possible with 3dsimed. If you use ISI's track marshal (for instance), you can also use ISI's anm - file for that. This anm file is linked to the character in track's scn file. Check out some ISI's tracks for exact parameters. They are pretty straightforward and easy to understand.

    Hope this helps...:)

    Cheers!
     
  11. ~IsR~Barabba

    ~IsR~Barabba Registered

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    Thank you for your answer.
    With 3dsimed and can take the marshals,say all the GMT.
    then export it and import it into my track, so put where you want.
    so I guess now complete the marshals.
    Maybe if someone know how to use 3dsimed, please kindly explain thanks.
    The rest I have done, I created anims folder, put all the files exported from a runway ISI, in this case I took it only those of the marshals, since the folder path file in the SCN.
    Added chapter to operate in SCN.
    Further question I put only one to try,is sufficient or I have to put all the others in the various sectors of the track?
    Maybe that's why it does not work.


    Babs
     
  12. Jka

    Jka Member Staff Member

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    Try one marshal(s) first and make sure it's named "CornerWorker_000". When you got it working, just copy/move/rename rest.
    CornerWorker uses following animations:

    CW_FLAGDOWN
    CW_FLAGHELD
    CW_FLAGWAVE
    CW_SAFETYCAR
    CW_VICTORY

    StarterWorker uses:

    SW_PRESTART
    SW_START
    SW_VICTORY

    ExitOfficial uses:

    EXITOFFICIAL_HOLD
    EXITOFFICIAL_IDLE
    EXITOFFICIAL_WAVE

    Cheers!
     
  13. Tuttle

    Tuttle Technical Art Director - Env Lead

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    I don't use 3dSimEd.

    As Jka said, the most important thing is to keep safe the bones/instance relationship...so when you move your marshals you've to move all the related bones. Dunno how it works in 3dsimEd so I can't follow you in that practice...:)
    BTW you don't need to export any ANM file as you can just extract all the animations from original ISI .mas files. Same for textures and flags.
     
  14. Fabio Pittol

    Fabio Pittol Registered

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    Guys, just a quick question to you:

    How do I know the right (hardcoded) mapping channel to each slot of the shaders?
     
  15. feels3

    feels3 Member Staff Member

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    If you are asking for real road shader it works like this:

    Diffuse map - map channel 1
    multi map - 2
    normal map - 1
    racegroove - 3
    specular - 2
    marbles - 2
    reflection - 3
     
  16. ethone

    ethone Registered

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  17. Fabio Pittol

    Fabio Pittol Registered

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    About RealRoad I figured out looking at the Joesville's file.

    I meant for any of the shaders. How do I know if it has hardcoded map channels? Trial and error?
    Or most (all?) of them are free to work with any map channels we choose?

    Example: T1 add T2 mul T3 shader

    I can set T1 with map channel 1, T2 with channel 2 and T3 with channel 3?
     
  18. ethone

    ethone Registered

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    Hardcoded mapping channels should be the exception and probably only occur within special rF2-specific shaders.
    T1 add T2 mul T3 is a standard DX9 shader (AFAIK) and should have the mapping channels freely configurable.

    Browsing through the shaders list, these that might/probably have hardcoded map channels :
    Road Shader Two Diffuse Maps (RealRoad, confirmed)
    Blended Grass *
    Bumpy Clouds
    Bump Specular Map AO Map T1 Stamp Vertex
    Bump Specular Map T1 Billboard Normal
    Bump Specular Map T1 lerp T2 add T3 Vertex Alpha Mask T2 (Bump stage uses same channel as T2)
    Car shaders like Car Paint with Damage, Deformable Tire, Shiny Carbon, etc.
    Dirt Road Shader Two Diffuse Maps (although I believe that one is still WIP)
    Gravel Traps
    T1 Stamp Vertex * (although those currently only use one mapping stage, so not an issue)
    Water
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 12, 2013
  19. Fabio Pittol

    Fabio Pittol Registered

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    Thanks ethone! Really appreciated! :)
     
  20. feels3

    feels3 Member Staff Member

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    Ethone is right.

    I'd expand his list - some shaders designed for trees have also hardcoded map channels.
     

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