Forum Postings 2001 July

http://www.mircx.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?forum=Tracked

collected and (very little) formatted by addie walti


Threads

The start of a thread is on top right below the title

soft-hardware mode
OXE9 and Map Jip
Can you change position of start/Finish line?
Object editing
Hay block

Black Flag Removing
Venetian Effect Existence
Track only in debug mode
light source and cc-coaching
Track only in debug mode

Track Editor Crashes (jam view)
Problem with Pitlane Exit
CMagic (bump table problem)
Horizon problem
Pit entry and exit fences

Reducing Size of Horizon
Track Banking and high PO

end of file


Index

soft-hardware mode

Posted by Andrea Pinoli from 62.11.121.128:

Here i am, this track forum edit is a good idea;
Could you tell me please what is the different between software and hardware mode in gp3?

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

hi andrea

software mode means the program gp3.exe performs the grafics “rendering” by itself, hardware mode means, the “rendering” is hardware accelerated by the grafics-card (voodoo, geforce whatever). you switch the mode in the grafics-options of gp3 (if you have one of those gfx cards; else you have to stick with software mode).

addie


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OXE9 and Map Jip

Posted by Dieter C. Serowy from 195.93.65.168:

Hello, I got a problems with the markings in the pit-lane: The track I am working on has a left-side pitlane. Unfortunetly, I took Silverstone as the base for my track - and this one got the pits on the right side. No problem? I thought so, but to me it seems impossible to make the jips (Parking zone) appear in the right way now. As soon as I try to put a OXe9 for the Fence side right verge (40) in, the result is always disappointing. The jips appear in the corect way on the surface but they are warping or do not even show on the verge, depending on the rotation. I have tried all possible rotations given by the TE, but nothing worked out right. I tried to copy/paste the command from a left-side-pit track, but as soon as I put in in my track, the rotation obviously changes. Any ideas?

Posted by Hernán from 200.43.69.66:

Did you change the jip in the jam tree?

Posted by Dieter C. Serowy from 195.93.65.174:

No, I didn´t change anything.

Posted by John Verheijen from 213.84.79.68:

There are 2 jips for the pitlane markings.
1 is for the left side, the other one for the right side.
They have the same TextureID's.
Just change the jip file name in the Jam tree, then your problem must be solved.

John Verheijen


Index

Can you change position of start/Finish line?

Posted by James Lucarz from 195.93.50.188:

I noticed that at magny cours the S/F line is much closer to the last corner than it is in GP3, this is also true at Imola. Can this be rectified, I have tried it myself without success.
Thanks.

Posted by Andrew from 195.93.48.152:

yes in the track config section


Index

Object editing

Posted by Hernán from 200.43.69.66:

Does anyone knows why, when you modify an object in the TE in the window looks fine (backface cull pressed to show like in the game) but in the track some textures are missing.
Thanks.

Posted by John Verheijen from 213.84.79.68:

What kind of things you did modify?

John Verheijen

Posted by Hernán from 200.43.69.66:

Almost everything, i mean points coordinates, vertex conections, textures, a complete new shape.

Posted by John Verheijen from 213.84.79.68:

Almost impossible to tell what went wrong :(
It's better to do 1 thing at a time, then chaeck out in the game if it's ok,
then start with another part.
If then something goes wrong we can help you out better.
This way we know what's wrong and maybe we can fix the problem.

John Verheijen


Index

Changing Jam file configuration?

Posted by James Lucarz from 195.93.33.178:

In the track file, I have changed the location of the kerbred Jam file so that it reads it from a particular circuits Gp3JamsH folder instead of GenJams so that I can have different coloured kerbs for each track. Yet for some reason it wont let me do this with the seatsnear and seatsfar Jam files as I would like to have different coloured grandstands. Does anyone know why?
Thanks.

Posted by John Verheijen from 213.84.79.68:

In the TE you must point to the SW jams and not to HW jams.
If you point to the HW jams the game will crash or freeze.

John Verheijen

Posted by JackieMatra from 66.44.2.207:

Same problem as James, John. I pointed to the SW jams, so that isn't the problem. The track editor allows me to change the location of various jams such as those containing the kerb and roadsign textures, but it will not change the location of the empty seat jam files. It claims to do so, but when I go back to see why there has apparently been no change in the seat textures after saving the changes, the track editor shows that original paths and not the new ones.

Posted by Andrew from 195.93.50.157:

Its because you need to change all Jam files, as the Jam ID for the actual crowd and empty seats is the same.

someone else should try to explain this better because I cant think off a good way to explain it!

Posted by James Lucarz from 195.93.48.186:

I know not to change Hw jams only SW, Im not an idiot - as I said in my original post I have already changed many files over, and to Andrew, I have tried changing all the Jam files that are connected to the grandstands, even the clines but it still won't change to them, it says it has, but when I reload the track file it has changed back to irs default Genjams setting.

Posted by JackieMatra from 66.44.22.177:

Same here.

Chill out, James. No one called you an idiot. Andrew is just trying to help. You really should try to keep your temper in check a bit. I recall some similar comments that you made to me some time ago to me when I offered you some suggestions. Try not to infer insults when none were intended. I can understand trying to use the track editor causing frustration, but there's no point in taking it out on people that are in no way at fault. Can we please all maintain a well-mannered tone in the discourse here?

Posted by John Verheijen from 213.84.79.68:

Now I know your problems guys.
It's nothing to do with any editting or anything else.
These jams can't be changed in the TE,
because these jams are not in the track file but in GP3.exe
These jams are inserted after I ask Paul to insert them in the tree.
These jams are standard jams that are used in every track,
that's why they are not in the track file.
They are in the tree, because this way you can see which TextureID is used,
and you can see the textures when you view the objects (stands)
There are more of these standard jams, you can see the difference in the tree.
The upper part of the jams in the tree are different (standard jams) then the ones you can change (lower part)

John Verheijen



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Flashing Texture Mapping?

Posted by James Lucarz from 195.93.48.186:

I am having a problem with the L5 ribbon. I have placed a texture mapping CMD onto it and it shows up in the game, but it flashes over onto the next track section as if it can't make its mind up how far it is supposed to go on for. I have tried using stabalize texture CMDs but it hasn't helped. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Posted by Andrew from 195.93.50.182:

did you remember to turn that ribbon off, somtimes you may forget to turn the one off

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

basically stabilizing thescenery with cmds 0xd0 is the first idea, thats right. but sometimes its a bit difficult to figure out the proper location code for a specific ribbon. maybe also inserting or removing “dummy swivelarms” help, see cmds c2/c3/c4/ba ?!
on the other hand you also may want to go sure to have the ribbon switch on/off cmds at the very same position where swivelarms are (though otherwise gp3 may crash to desktop anyway IIRC). if you “forget” to switch off a ribbon, then it just will go on until the next turn off, so i’d say this is not the cause for the trouble here ?!

please post it here if you find a solution.


Index

Hay block

Posted by Isix from 200.213.73.197:

Hello

Is possible create a solid object on verges? I´m thinking about make a hay block to my (short) Avus 1959.

Best regards

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

not that i know of so far. but maybe in the add-on that is said to have included a collision-check of car debris. so maybe it also will have a collision-check on other objects ...


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Black Flag Removing

Posted by Steven from 195.93.32.172:

How can i remove black flags for slow down penalties from existing tracks?

Thanks
Steven

Posted by David Schneider from 213.3.191.233:

Look at Tracksector 0 (in the Tracktree) there are the Blackflag commands


Index

Venetian Effect Existence

Posted by Helmut from 200.227.227.223:

Hello,

What´s Venetian Effect Existence? It´s FAIL when i try convert a track from GP2 to GP3 using TE 2.0.20.

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

pit lane entrance to close to s/f line ?
(the effect itsself seem to not exist anymore in gp3, but it was caused by the mentioned property)


Index

Track only in debug mode

Posted by Drunkenmaster from 62.54.222.111:

I have made a GP3 track but it only runs in debug mode on the gpxpatch. can someone help me to find out what the problem is!!!
thanks

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

make sure gpxpatch logs the assertions and look at them afterwards. this logs may give you a hint. other hints you may find at http://www.grandprix3.ch/TEIC/index.html
follow "trouble shooters FAQ"

i hope it helps !
addie


Index

light source and cc-coaching

Posted by James Lucarz from 64.12.102.159:

Cheers.
Just a quick question or two. What does the cc-car coaching CMD do? And is there a way of changing the light source CMD so that it makes it look as though it is night time?
Thanks again.

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

the light source cmd just sets the position of the lightsource but not its intensity.

the cc-coaching cmd is a very subtle one, if at all. as you may know the cc-cars are guided primarly by the cc-line. in the cc-line they “see ahead” the next corner and therefore know when to brake etc. but this seems to be not enough, they need to know more to behave halfway reasonable in race or at all. now if you have a custom track and there you observe not very reasonable driving of cc-cars, and you go to a similar tracksection in an original track where they do better you try to find out whats the difference between those two tracks there. the only difference i found so far were those “cc-coaching”-cmds. i never could 100% describe and reproduce effects but anyway i got the impression they somehow have an influence. it was 0x94, 0x95 and a few more. that was in gp2. in gp3 it may be similar.

my advice when making a track, get rid of them first place. when testing the track and noticing extreme stupid driving (of the cc-cars) try to fix it with cc-coaching cmds, maybe by checking similar tracksections in original tracks and copying cmds or arguments ...

addie


Index

Track only in debug mode

Posted by Drunkenmaster from 62.54.222.111:

I have made a GP3 track but it only runs in debug mode on the gpxpatch. can someone help me to find out what the problem is!!!
thanks

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

make sure gpxpatch logs the assertions and look at them afterwards. this logs may give you a hint. other hints you may find at http://www.grandprix3.ch/TEIC/index.html
follow "trouble shooters FAQ"

i hope it helps !
addie

Posted by Drunkenmaster from 62.54.222.81:

I become this after GP3 crash:
Bump range too high or wrong bump table made. where can i change the bump range?

Posted by David Schneider from 195.186.169.199:

You can change this in the CMagic file for your Track.

Do you know what i`m talking about?

Posted by Drunkenmaster from 62.54.222.24:

Yes! but i don´t no how the bump tableworks. what should i put in there.

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

you always have pairs of values. one of them is the DFS (distance from start, in track length units, segments), and the other one is a value for the "bumpiness". the new bumpiness starts at the given DFS and stays until the next change.

regular values for bumpiness can be seen in original tracks, but try 15 or more to have a paris-dakar section in your track :)

you can insert or remove pairs in the magic-data file, but keep the DFS value BELOW the length of your track.


Index

Track Editor Crashes (jam view)

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 202.67.102.91:

I am in the middle of making the Twin Ring Motegi track but have come accross a big problem. Track Editor nearly always crashes my computer when I exit TE but I can handle that, although it is very annoying. What I can't handle to well is that every time I try to map a texture (0xE9) it crashes, also I can't seem to view jam files.

Posted by Andrew from 195.93.32.179:

to veiw Jam files you need the jam tree to point at the sw jams, the TE doesnt support Hw ones, I had that problem about tnhe 0xE9 but it was solved by getting the latest version of the TE, no Idea about the other problem

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 203.212.143.34:

I have the latest version of the TE (2.20).
The Jams I was trying to view were hardware ones but the E9 problem still remains with the latest version.

Posted by John Verheijen from 213.84.79.68:

Hi Brett

You can't view HW jams in the TE.
You must point to the SW jams in the tree,
not to the HW jams.
If you point to the HW jams the TE will crash.

John Verheijen

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 202.67.100.198:

Ok, I got the picture with the hardware jams. Regarding TE crashing just about everytime you exit it (including when hardware jams not used) does anyone have any solution to that one?


Index

Problem with Pitlane Exit

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 202.67.102.91:

I am making Twin Ring Motegi and I have come accross a problem with the pitlane exit. At the point where the exit should finish there is a ghost pitlane going up into the sky. It disappears when I get close to it and only appears when I get around to the start/finish line. I know that in GP2 this problem occured when the 0x87 command (Pitlane End) on the track segment occured before the end of the pitlane as defined in the pitlane segment, this doesn't appear to be the case with this problem.

Posted by Andrew from 195.93.32.179:

I had this problem before, but I cant remember what it was, i think its the Pitlane end length you need to change, but as I said Im not sure as I dont have the TE on me at the moment and it was a while ago

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

http://www.grandprix3.ch/TEIC/index.html
follow "trouble shooters FAQ" follow "grey ghostline on track"

maybe it helps

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 203.212.143.34:

Thanks for your feedback Andrew and Addie. I had already looked at Addie's website and the description for Gray ghost line on track doesn't fit. Turns out Andrew was on the right track it was to do with Pitlane end length. I was caught out by a change from GP2 to GP3. In GP2 the end length needs to be 1 or more sectors less than the remaining pitlane length. In GP3 it needs to be 2 or more (zero or longer than the remaining length crashes GP3 but 1 gives the effect that I described and 2 or more fixes it).


Index

CMagic (bump table problem)

Posted by Schubert from 203.197.43.96:

GpxPatch reports wrong bump table used. So i downloaded CMagic. But how do i go about correcting the bump table. I just want it to fit in slot 3, thats all. I tried extracting data from GP3.exe and entered track no. '3' Then i inserted the md file into my track. It didn't work. Help!

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 203.212.143.34:

The problem with the bump table is that you must be using a track that is shorter than the original/ Extractomg data from GP3.exe and inserting it won't work because you will be using exactly the same bump table. What you need to do is edit the Magic Data file in regard the bump table section by deleting all bump table commands that have a sector number greater than the number of sectors in the track you are wanting to use. If you don't want any bumps then simply replace all of the values in the bump table with one line: 0,0


Index

Horizon problem

Posted by Schubert from 203.197.54.137:

Can we make our own Horizons, because whenever i make a horizon, it doesn't work. A different sort of image shows up. The shape is similar to the one i made, but the colors are all messed up. What could be the problem? I also made it 8 - bit per pixel and set the palette to the gp3 one. Still don't work. Frustrating really!! Help

Posted by Alesi from 212.137.157.59:

You disabled the local palettes in the jam file?

Posted by Schubert from 203.197.55.18:

I have checked the box that says Local palette. Other checked items in my JAm are Trasparent, Non-std height and Flag 13.

It is id 1000 and it shows up but with distorted colors.

Can SOMEONE TELL ME THE EXACT PROCEDURE PLEASE. I HAVE THE BITMAP READY.

IT IS AN 8-BIT PER PIXEL BITMAP BECAUSE THE GP3 JAM EDITOR LOADED IT.

MAY BE MY PALETTE IS WRONG. ARE WE SUPPOSED TO USE A STANDARD PALETTE OR IS THERE SOME SPECIAL PALETTE. PLEASE SEND IT TO ME IF THERE IS.

IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SETTINGS IN THE 'EDIT PALETTE' BOX. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT IS MEANT FOR. INDEX, X ,X,X . I THINK THEY ARE RGB COLORS. ARE THEY? PLEASE TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT TO DO!

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

compare with an original horizon jam ...

Posted by Schubert from 203.197.55.29:

Addie it didn't work. I comapred the flags , tried all things.

My horizon is different. Its like what one can see from alaska, i.e like snowy mountains (up north).

should i send the bitmap to you so you can see the whats happening yourself.

Posted by addie from 194.191.82.27:

schubert
could you make a test and take an original horizon-jam, export its texture to bmp, paste your bmp into it and import it again in the jam without changin size and flags and look whether it works that way.
basically changing horizon textures work, i did it in several occassions myself HW and SW, but i never changed the size so far.
sounds like you make SW-horizon ? after setting the palette to GP3-colors please check whether the bmp is still 8bit colors.
please post the results again.

Posted by
addie from 194.191.82.27:

oh i just noticed in your other posting (hard for me to read those capitals :)
you messed up the palette of your bmp ?

dont touch the palette in the jameditor. just enable gp3palettes. but the bmp already has to have the correct gp3-palette when importing it into the jam. so you have to change the palette in your favourite painting tool.
(or did i miss something ?)

Posted by Schubert from 203.197.59.16:

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) It worked! It worked! It worked! It worked! Thanks much!


Pit entry and exit fences

Posted by Simon Donald from 195.92.194.19:

I am currently making a Portland GP3 track, but I have having problems with my pit entry and exit fences which are buggy, entry in particular. The fences seem to jut into the pit entry and the pit exit has a green texture going over it very briefly which looks like scenery or grass texture, but I can't figure out how to get rid of it and I can't find any appropriate tutorials. If somebody think they could help, I would be grateful if they could e-mail me...

smdonald_99@yahoo.com

Thanks, Simon

Posted by Schubert from 203.197.41.157:

There is a particular way of doing this. You have to try and make the pink connecting lines hidden or as small as possible. Look at Jerez for an example or most other tracks.

Posted by Simon Donald from 195.92.194.14:

Cheers for the advice, problem fixed.


Index

Reducing Size of Horizon

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 172.149.30.213:

I am trying to reduce the size of the horizon and unfortunately the info in Addie Walti's Track Command Library on the 0xCC command seems to be wrong, does anyone know how to reduce the size of the horizon (I need it at about 1/4 to 1/3 of it's current size)

Posted by Alesi from 212.137.157.176:

In what way is it wrong??

a2: Rotating scenery (similar to track start angle); valid values 0..65535
a3: GP2: Horizon height; valid values 0 .. 32767 (higher values give 0 height; default: 600-650)
a3: GP3: Horizon vertical shift; strong effect with values +-500 .. 1000

According to the cmd library you can't adjust the height of the horizon with 0xcc cmds in gp3.
That's right.
Try changing the height of the jam files.

Posted by Marc from 194.134.218.100:

you can shift the horizon down using a '0xCC' command, by making the final argument negative. i'm using values like '-500' to get the horizon down.

other alternative is to edit the jams to make a lower horizon.

Posted by Brett Knuchel (Knuckles) from 172.130.125.128:

Thanks for the reply guys. To Alesi - there are four variables and the discussion on the height in the tutorial simply didn't work in reducing the height. I don't particularly want to reduce the jam files because my intention is to use ones from original tracks.


Index

Track Banking and high PO

Posted by starchild from 62.7.90.62:

I'm working on a banked monza and avus,however when there are a lot off cc cars on the banking it goes really really slow and the PO escalates to about 400!!! Does anyone know a way round this ...? thanks in advance

Posted by Marc from 194.134.213.149:

there is no way. banking is highly unoptimized and having to draw the cc cars banked really hits the PO hard.




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