Converted Track - Issues with bumpy road

Discussion in 'Track Modding' started by delphinho, May 18, 2023.

  1. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    Hi,

    I have started to do some track modding and in my first attempts I would like to convert some track mods from AC to rF2 (for personal use). I have successfully managed to get the first track running in Dev Mode, however the track is unfortunately bump as hell. I have made sure to not use the Physics Road from AC, but with the SkipBarber the track is unfortunately not drivable because of all the vibrations. I have renamed the materials according to the naming convention and made sure the necessary gmts do have the "RaceSurface"-Prefix. Does anyone have another suggestion what I can look at? Only if I drive in the meshes that have "RaceSurface" as prefix, I have these problems, if I drive on grass or gravel, it looks okay to me.

    Looking forward to reading your suggestions, thank you and kind regards :).
     
  2. Coutie

    Coutie Moderator Staff Member

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    What is the resolution of the mesh? You'll most likely need to increase the mesh resolution and then smooth it.
     
  3. Brutten

    Brutten Registered

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    Note that the name of the material is important. In rF2 you define the reactions of the track in the TDF file. Check that the materials containing asphalt on your track start with ROADxxxxx or the prefix defined in the TDF.
    I don't know if this is the case.
     
  4. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    Thank you for your replies.
    @Brutten - TDFs and prefix are aligned.

    @Coutie - can this be done with 3DSimed or Blender? Will later search for tutorials how to do that.
     
  5. Mauro

    Mauro Registered

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  6. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    Thanks a lot, this is really interesting. So after having a look into this, I feel that the visual road from the AC track mod is not usable for driving. But I'm actually surprised that the visual road mesh is then more bumpy that the physical road mesh. Will look into it more in detail in the next days.
     
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  7. Mitch9

    Mitch9 Registered

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    This is a mistake; as the name implies the physics mesh is the one to be driven on. Ideally you would:
    - make a new mesh or subdivide the visual one to ensure you have enough vertices for the realroad effects.
    - wrap this new mesh to the original physics mesh.
    - stitch the new mesh to the rest of the terrain so you dont get any gaps in between, which can cause issues while driving.

    If the original physics mesh is dense enough you can just use that instead, but it will probably have some gaps between it and the terrain you'll have to deal with.
     
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  8. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    So, I have now switched to the Physics Mesh, which is much better. Howevrl it looks like, that the resolution is still significantly less then e.g. Loch Drummond and the track still feels too bumpy. But will continue with the conversion and try to learn more about the textures.

    The AC textures don't look good in rF2, I was thinking to reuse textures from Loch Drummond. I have noticed a couple of Mod tracks are doing this too. But when I copy/paste the materials using 3DSimED a lot of textures are not accessible. I guess they are in the COMMONMAPS.MAS. I have referenced this one in the .scn file, but when track is loaded in Dev Mod in crashes because the textures cannot be found.
    Does anyone have an Idea, auch I can fix that? COMMOMMAPS.MAS is unfortunately encrypted, so I cannot simply extract it.
     
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  9. redapg

    redapg Registered

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    Did you also check, if some of the Textures are in the LochDrummond\Assets\MAPs Folder?
    If you have linked the Commonmaps.mas properly in the SCN File and you get Error Messages about missing Textures, they are probably not in the Commonmaps.mas
     
  10. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    Thanks for your quick replies. So the textures are not in LochDrummond/MAPs Folder, that's why I initially thought, they were in Commonmaps.mas. I opened the .scn File in 3DSimed, copied the material to the clipboard and pasted it then to WIP track. After that, I re-exported the textures via 3DSimED to the MAPs Folder of my WIP track and already got an error messages indicating that textures cannot be found. I ignored it, because I thought it's in Commonmaps.mas. However, when loading the track in DevMod, it crashes asking for the same textures.
    When I copied Material from a Mod Track, e.g. Mexico Foro Sol, it worked without any issues.
     
  11. redapg

    redapg Registered

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    @delphinho @Corti had written it already, but the Post got lost, due to the Forum Maintenance.
    You must check the Material JSON Files (in the Folder ..\LochDrummond\Assets\Materials), to see which Textures get used.
    What you see when you load it in 3DSimEd are the Textures that are "stored" in the gmt.
    But the used Textures in the Material JSON Files can be different ones and the Textures in the JSON are the ones that get loaded.
     
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  12. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    Oooh cool, thank you very much - I will have a look into that :)
     
  13. delphinho

    delphinho Registered

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    Soo quick update on the bumpy road:
    The root cause was, that I marked the tiremarks as racesurface. After fixing this, the track is niw super smooth. I didn't see it, because the tiremarks were not visible as AC textures do not properly work in rFactor 2.

    Generally, I need to investigate hiw to make the AC textures working rF2. One option would to to replace the materials, bur maybe there is an easier solution.

    Question: could open and resaving the .dds textures with different settings resolve the issue?
     
  14. redapg

    redapg Registered

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    @delphinho I don't know how the AC Textures are made, but if they are not visible, you should check their Alpha Channel.
    Rule for the Alpha Channel: RGB 255,255,255 is fully visible and RGB 0,0,0 is invisible and with all grey Tones between them, you can adjust the Level of Transparency, for every Part of the Texture.
    And Textures with Alpha Channels should be saved as DXT5 or BC7 DDS.
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2023
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