RF2 dev mode help

Hi I have always built tracks with BTB so I have barely no idea of how to use dev mode.
I have achieved to open my track in developers mode and I am able to drive on it with some problems (of course):

1) The grip in the main track is poor: tires of the testing mod formula do not heat up at all. How do i change this?
2) The grip in one of the terrain materials (sand) is 0. I think I will be able to solve this by changing the terrain in the original project, but I would like to have some idea of where the problem is. The grip was OK in rf1.
3) If I select rain, everything is seen very bad (and it does not rain). This is not so important right now but maybe it has an easy solution.

When I pack it and install it in normal mode it does not work. :-(

I guess it is because .AIW file is not OK yet. Am I right? I have been able to copy the different positions from rf1 .AIW but I have seen that the waypoint has different format. How do I edit this and how many waypoints should I define? Any tool to convert from rf1 to rf2?
I guess I can use the same .CAM file as in rf1. Am I right?
I have used the default tdf from Joesville. Do I need to change something from this file?

Thanks for your help...

 

1/2 - Make sure your driving surfaces have correct materials. If you feel sand is too slippery, you can increase the grip level of it from TDF. I don't think that is a crime...
3- I am experiencing the same, there is no clouds and I am not sure if not raindrops either. I asked about this some time ago but no reply.

IF you have working AIW in devmode then it should not be the problem in single player mode. AIW and cameras work directly from rF1 to rF2. Though I feel that something has changed in the code because AI cars behave little different even with the same AIW (rF1 - rF2).

 

The only thing that's relevant for materials to receive proper surface properties is the Material Name. Shaders don't matter.
If the material is named IamNotSureWhatSurfaceIam then using Blended Grass Infields will still be slippery, as no surface will be defined in the .tdf for a material named IamNotSureWhatSurfaceIam.
Same thing for Real Road. Shaders don't make surfaces, material names associated to .tdf entries do!

 

1) I will check it in BTB, especially for the sand which makes sense for me since the grip is absolutely zero. I guess I can do it also with 3dsimed. Am I right? I think is better in BTB so that I don't have to do it everytime I export the circuit after corrections. I ask just to know and reafirm concepts. For the road, I am confused since I am sure BTB exports it as road material. I will try changing the tdf file for it. I don't know either if real road is implemented in the road or how to do it. I have seen a menu in dev mode editor but I don't how to use the program yet. I will talk about that in response to another member's reply

I do not agree on that. At first, I made the track work in dev mode without any AIW file in the track. After entering and exiting, the program generates one. I was able to copy in it, the pit positions from old AIW since the format was the same but I did not complete the fast line, centerline, .... and I think it must be necessary to be opened in single player mode. I opened the AIW from another rf2 track to check about pit position format. However, waypoints had different parameters. Unless, of course, rf2 devmode automatically converts the AIW from rf1 to rf2 which I don't think so. I still need to check cam files.

 

Thanks for your reply. I make some comments to them...

I guess it's a waste of time when you know how to make it work in single player mode, which is not the case. At this moment, what I know, is that it does not work in single player mode and it does work in dev mode. Maybe I packed it wrong, but I didn't try again since I supposed that the fact that it worked in dev mode doesn't mean that it will work in single player mode Please confirm this point. In fact, dev mode does not need AIW to load the track . My problem is that I don't know how to setup AIW and CAM files, wchich, I think, is the only thing missing to have all the files an rf2 track needs.

Sorry, but I don't know what a shader is. With which program(s) can I change these things?

I will reread track tech pdf to see if I understand something this time. In my opinion it is written for people that already built tracks in rf1 and are used to the program to be used to change all the things. As an example the first paragraph in the "First Export of a Track" page mentions the "exporter" anddoes not even metion which program is referring to. Maybe you can clarify me which program is the exporter. Probably the same one as inthe above question...

If I use the original AIW, will dev mode be able to open it and change it into rf2 format?

I don' think I have a problem with the tdf file since I renamed the one from joesville, as you say.

 

I have no idea how 3DSimed works, I've never used it. But for track surface properties you can always just edit TDF file. In there you have line e.g. "Materials=road". The 'road' there is the name of the material (or first 4 letters of it) used in the track. Try to look in 3DSimed for material names, should be different for road surface, grass and sand. Then look for corresponding material name in TDF file and change it values for desired effect.

Yes I believe devmode does make some changes to AIW if it is not compatible, or if it is missing it will create one. But AIW's from rF1 work directly in rF2 devmode and single player, as long as they are proper to begin with. I don't know if single play requires fastlines and centerlines etc, I should test it as my current project doesn't have fastline.

Shader is compilation of mathematical functions that affect how materials look in the game. Material is combination of texture(s) and shader that is applied to a 3D object. You can't edit shaders I believe, but you can work with materials in 3DS Max. You need ISI's gMotor tools also.

Exporter comes with gMotor tools and is used with 3DS Max modelling software. gMotor tools include rF2 materials/shaders and the exporter tool that exports your models to GMT format used in rF2.

Yes.

 

Thanks to everybody for the bunch of info you provided to me. Yesterday I posted to tell you that I had alreaddy made the track "properly" work in single palyer mode. i don't know why I am having problems to post in my own thread! i have fixed grip problems (now road has excessive grip and I dont know if real road is implemented or not. I wil keep on learning). Sand trap zero grip was caused by a bad material assignment in BTB. I will review all my xpacks to correct from the origin this unconmfortable problems which happen quite a lot). Old AIW and CAM are easily converted via dev mode. HDR does not work (everything in phosphorite) and some things need to be corrected. However I have clear lots of things now. As i said in another thread of this forum I wil,l make an easy to follow tutorial to convert tracks from rf1 to rf2 via 3dsimed for the ones that have no clue about 3ds max, specially BTB users like myself. It takes less than half an hour to do a basic conversion

You can find a video of the track and download it in www.racerfactor.com.

 

The important bit is the end of the second quote. When your track loads in Dev Mode but not Single Player, the AIW would be the first place I'd look.
Dev mode, quite by definition since it's the place where the AIW editor is placed, has little requirements for AIW files. Single Player however would crash if e.g. there were no pit/garage spots. Dev Mode would just place you at 0/0/0.

Which would turn the corrected first quote into:
If your track is working in dev mode, it should work in single player mode as well (if it's packed correctly and has a working AIW).
And perhaps: If no setting dependent files/features that are turned on in your single player mode but turned off in dev mode would cause a crash (like corrupted .gmts that are only loaded for given track detail levels).

Sorry to be pedantic again.

 

It is important to be pedantic when explaining technical stuff like this. Thanks for the very good comment! In fact you were describing my problem: it did not work in single player because of the AIW. I did not use the original at first. I would not imagine that devmode would trasnlate AIW and CAM files. The question is WHY NOT DO THE SAME WITH GMTS AND AVOID PEOPLE SUCH HEADACHES. 3dsimed would turn unnecessary!

P.S. By the way, has anybody tried to load with old GMTs? (only changing the tdf and gdb with the vbs script described in "bare minimum ...." thread.

 

Because dev mode is a real-time simulation environment and not a 3d editing program. Two entirely different things. Loading all the gmts (and not just those displayed using the settings of your current session) in their 3d world description state is not something you'd do in a live real-time environment. 3ds max or 3dsimed are far from a real-time simulation environment. Different pair of shoes so to speak.
Also, the shaders (wikipedia) aren't the same between rF1 and 2. You could just "convert" them using default settings (say for the fresnel reflection settings), but that will probably just cause much more of a headache than expecting modders to do a proper re-export using updated materials. Default settings might make your model look much different than you might want it to. If it was auto-converted, you'd have to track down the specific setting first.

Again, I think it's better to stop worrying about the politics (or economics) of this and just get on with it. What you have come across so far is probably not even close to the weirdest thing about rF modding.

 

In my opinion, converting old gmt and scn into rfactor2 standards or whatever 3dsimed does, has nothing to do with a 3d environment. it is just execiuting a script that converts formatsI dont care which program you use.

 

It's not really a matter of opinion but of accepting the reality of the technology you want to work with. Or do not want to work with.
You have a program for "converting formats" in 3d simed, so why are you unhappy again?

I tried to explain to you why expecting Dev Mode to be able to modify the .gmts is missing the point of the whole development chain setup. If you prefer to ignore that and complain about completely trivial stuff (just use 3dsimed then!) instead of actually modding, I wish you good luck with your future projects.

 

I am not unhappy at all ! I just was asking for a free tool to convert gmt from rf1 to rf2. I already said I didn't care if this script would go in dev mode or not. Actually, it should be indepednet from dev mode for the reason you mentioned of loading just a layout in dev mode. I do accept reality of what tools are for. I was asking for something which I think could be very useful. I don't have the problem any more but I was thinking on other people. I do not mean something to edit gmts but just to make a simple conversion as 3dsimed does. I am not a professional modder and like me there is a lot of people. Thanks to your help I have been able to make my track work online and we will hold an event soon in it after testing it several days. I didn't mean to annoy you. Sorry if I did. You can download the mod and test it. I think it is very funny to drive and for being done in BTB is not so bad in quality. Black Hole Ring mod

 

Does anybody know any reason that prevents devmpode from loading? I have succesfully converted 3 circuits from rf1 to rf2 using the "bare minimum" method + 3dsimed. I have no idea why in this circuit it gets stuck when 75% of the loading is completed. It does not appear any message of error. I have tried to detect an incorrect gmt+text by erasing instances from scn (first half of them, second the remaining half) with no success. I have no other ideas to check. Please help me!

 

Could be two unrelated "incorrect" gmts from different halves of the .scn. Corrupted .gmts would have been my first guess as well.
Perhaps a missing/misnamed .tdf reference in the .gdb?
Corrupted .aiw? Have you tried loading without one?

 

It was actually what you say. By the old method of trial and error, I made it work. Thanks a lot ethone.
I solved that but now I am having huge problems with RealRoad. I don't undesrtand what I am doing when implementing RealRoad. If some one can help I would appreciate it. This is what I do but does not work properly:

1) I change track object names to Racesurface_X.gmt (where X is a number)
2) I change material shader to "Road 2 diffuse"
3) I reuse marbles.dds, racegroove.dds, asphalt_spec.dds and asphalt_mult.dds as secondary textures for channels 1,3 4,5,6 (copied from an original rfactor2 racesurface of brianza)
4) I use the original bump texture for channel 2
5) I implement alpha channel to original primary texture. I have tried all white, grey and copied from brianza's alpha channel without good results.

The problem is that if I open the track from devmode I see the track completely different from single player mode. I have seen that there is a menu where you can touch some parameters that make the road aspect change. I turn evertyhing to manual and i can adjust the marble, groove ... The are load and save buttons but I don't know how to use them. I can only create a new rrbin file but when I adjust something and press save, nothing changes. it would be appreciated some kind of message like when you save an AIW or CAM file I am also capable of changing scene parameters as fog to linear instead of exponential, it looks much better. The problem is that I don't know how to save those parameters.