SpecialFX tec for Race07 GTR2 and related games 202402

SpecialFX update:

Added "undefined, unidentified" materials, that their names start with
MAT,TEX,OBJ,ELEM,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,#,_
They use the definition of low grip road LGROAD.
The "definition of undefined" materials is an experimental feature, but it works correctly.

Added materials:
SIGN (sometimes used) added to WOOD
ALU - added to metal
WFALL - waterfall is restored, although it caused unexpected water splashes on dry roads in the past. if it happens again, the definition must be removed or reworked.
Added a material name FOUNT to waterfalls.

WATER - completely rearranged, when driving through water, the bumping is almost real, the skid effect is finally looking good.
Sound restored to "grass", the custom sound "water" was incorrectly played.
A white spark texture named spark1wht is assigned as "spark effect" for "water", but the game still displays standard, yellow sparks.
Even if the RGB is changed, red colors reduced. I cannot understand this.

driving through water
Water, the material looks like a normal road in the Surface Test track.
It was intended. To see how the reactions and effects change, on the same road.
The track will be re-textured when the reactions for selected materials are sufficient.
So, water may be textured.

Water is a complicated term. There is water that you drive through (a river or a puddle), water where you fall to (with a big splash) and water that you crash with (waterfalls, fountains).

There is a problem with "sparkwhite" effect in the materials: MARBLES, WATER - sparks are still yellow.
It is possible that the game engine understands "sparkwhite" and "spark" as the same effect.
I renamed "sparkwhite" to "whtspark" = no progress.
If there are are whitesmoke, blacksmoke and shardsmoke defined separately, and they work, why sparkwhite (or whtspark) does not work?

Added emissive RGB to "fire" and "flame".
FIRE and FLAME are newly added as drivable materials, there are no visual effects yet.
The goal is:
your car driving THROUGH flames (fire, stronger effect) and OVER flames (flame, low on the road).
or variant 2
FIRE = constant effect, as long you drive on the material. FLAME = effect only when you collide with the material.
Time will tell if the goal can be reached. Doubtful.

Material VLGROAD (very low grip road, skidpan effect) a little reworked.

Looking for the definition of TERRA material. Terra is Earth, it may refer to the whole planet Earth (or just ground roads).
Temporarily added "terr" name to Terrain MRSB (Medium Resistance Small Bump)

Added a new material: ICEA
ICERD already exists. This is a ROAD, completely or partially covered with ice.
ICEA is frozen water, not a road. It is more slippery, lower grip.

Starting to differentiate similar materials - selected different textures for dust effects, more yellow for sand, more red for offroad terrain.

Dust growth on sand.

The next step will be separating materials that you drive on, from materials that you only collide with.
You can drive on fences, walls, bridges, buildings if your car "attacks" the surface at low angle.
This is why such materials as: build, stone, house, tree, car*, bus*, truck*, barrier** are added to drivable materials.
These material names are very common on tracks, they were not included in specialfx.
*cars parked on a track, not the race cars.
**barrier as material name is shortened to BARRI in specialfx. This name is safe, for a "barrier, barricade",
but not shorter, not BARR because there are also barrels, barracks...

Separated materials: STONE and STN. "Stone" is a drivable stony road, based on the definition of "marbles".
"Stn" is a stone that can be crashed by your car, the material is not drivable (theoretically).
Any object with any material name is drivable, if HatTarget=True, but it depends from specialfx if you can really drive on this.

These variables define if a material is drivable: Dry= Wet=, probably also CollFrict=
If they are absent, the material is not drivable.
The others are optional, they define visual and sound effects.

Restored the most of original sounds. The custom sounds caused unexpectable reverbs (or I don't know how to tune them).

This is still work in progress. Every release is experimental.
Now I see that the spray2 effect in the rain is too strong (original values, not modified by me).
A few types of road use the spray2 effect, it requires more work.

Many effects do not work, as we expect, for example:
Textures assigned to some materials are not displayed, or the game displays other (default) textures.
If a dedicated texture exists in a track folder, it is not used. The texture from GameData\Teams is used instead.

I still don't know what some parameters in specialfx mean:
Legal, Spring, Damper
Max - is this the maximal size of the texture file or the maximal size of the visual effect on the screen?
ASDEnvelope - does it define texture growth or sound effect? Or both?

In this case, what parameter is responsible for frequency - 5 sparks or 1000 sparks for a second?
Is this possible to define the visual effect size in meters?
Scale (X,Y,Z) says nothing in the 3D world.

It seems that Ai cars partially ignore the terrain definitions. They jump on bumpy terrain, leave skids and clouds of smoke,
but they go through every surface like it was a smooth road, they do not slip, do not lose speed as the player car does.

Please test tracks, just play, share screenshots and impressions.
I am not able to test all tracks. I test the effects mainly on Surface Test track and newly converted tracks.
If anything does not work, as it worked before (visual and sound effects), please report it.

For track developers: if you want to test a visual effect on a selected material,
replace (temporarily) the texture to camglow01.dds
it will display a large red dot when you collide with this material.

The big red dot on a tested material.
It is removed from the release version of SpecialFX.tec

-------------- -------------- --------------

TRACK SURFACE TEST update:

AIW reworked, added fastline, now AI cars are faster.
More types of roads, more objects.
Added Loading screen.

The track is interchangeable between GTR2 and GTR Evo.
All required objects and textures are in the track folder (sky too).

It should start in both games without modifications.

Problems:

1 - Jump on the road - only my car jumps, other cars pass through it. New hat was generated. The jump will be removed in the next release if Ai cars ignore it.
2 - The hook in the right lane, after start. Probably caused by Bobs Track Builder terrain generator or/and HAT generator. Cars flip on this, no idea how to remove it, because there is no object there.

AI cars ignore the jump.

This helicopter can really fly ... away

The 2nd race is at night (GTR Evo)

You can make the sky blue, if you remove the Clouds object from .trk

Animated stormy sky is not used (and probably not usable).
I wanted it to be visible only when it rains, adding the layer to "rainy"
instances: DayR, NightR, SunriseR and SunsetR.
When I added the objects, they were visible during sunny weather too.
rFactor uses VisGroups and what about GTR games?

DOWNLOAD:

ownCloud - A safe home for all your data

ATGT_Track_SurfaceTest.7z is publicly shared

185.216.182.132

I think that specialfx should contain two types of reactions "drive on material" and "crash with material".
Crashing with concrete, metal, glass causes different visual effects that driving on a material with the same name.
Unfortunately, the effects for crashing are stored in car audio files, different for every car.
I will take a look if it is possible to add these basic crash effects to specialfx.tec.
These effects should not have priority over car .aud files.
Whatever can be done, soon a new release of specialfx together with Surface Test track.

Minor updates of spark textures
Added a few textures that may be usable
List of all materials (a text file)

SpecialFX pack (file + textures + sounds) will be distributed together with the test track Surface Test

The pack may be used both in GTR Evo and GTR 2
If it asks to replace files - what to do?
specialfx.tec - make a backup of the original, then replace.

Textures - the original specialfx uses .tga textures, this one uses .dds only.
Leave all .tga textures in GTR2 (the game is known for crashing if a single texture is missing)
Delete (or backup) .tga textures from GTR Evo.
Replace .dds textures.

The track
It works both in GTR2 and Evo.
For GTR 2 there is a different .trk file only (in a subfolder, to replace the Evo .trk)

It is unfinished.
There is a bug at start (some cars may jump up right after start). I cannot remove it, because there is no object there.

Specialfx.tec for GTR game series
Tested in GTR 2, GTR Evolution, Race 07, Alltimer GrandTour
Not tested in GTL, GTR, Race, Power&Glory, Ultramod, RaceRemaster

This 2023 version features .dds textures instead of .tga
Textures go to GameData\Teams
Sounds go to GameData\Sounds
The file specialfx.tec goes to GameData\Locations (make a backup of the previous version)

Not all textures are used.
This is possibly the very beginning of building a versatile specialfx.tec
Some textures are numbered, for example spark, dustbrown, raceline, rainspray, smokeblack, smokewhite.
They were found in various tracks - the same name, different texture.
They are numbered this method:
without number = the original texture (or this one that looks the best)
number 1 is the lightest effect, higher number is stronger.

By default the texture without a number is used (or no 1)
but if you want stronger or lighter effect on selected tracks,
copy the numbered texture to a track folder and rename it (for example spark3 to spark)

These numbered textures may be also used to split the defined materials in specialfx.tec
For example: smaller sparks on road, larger on stone, white sparks on metal

3 variants of Dustbrown, numbered.

Textures numbered with two digits 00 to XX are animation sequences.
They should not be used as a single texture effect.
If you want to use snow05 for a new effect, copy it and give it a new name, for example snowfall

Different games:
rFactor uses different textures for effects.
They are also converted to .dds and placed in a folder
GameData\Locations\Shared\Commonmaps
So, if you want these effects on a track, add this link to the .trk file
SearchPath=GameData\Locations\Shared\Commonmaps
before
SearchPath=GameData\Locations\Shared

I haven't seen a noticeable difference, not sure if they are usable.
They may be added to Teams, with a new number, but there will be no effect, if they are undefined in specialfx.tec

Previous versions of specialfx and .tga textures are in the folder backup.
They don't go to the game

The question
The textures working with specialfx are in the folder Teams, with shared parts of cars.
This is why every car uses <Teamdir> in SearchPath.
But, the textures refer to effects on tracks, however caused by cars.
Then... why aren't they in the folder Locations?

There is still a problem with the water definition.
Here is static water, material named water, hit by a car.
It displays the texture Roostertail dedicated for waterfall. Waterfall effect is now only for the material named s64, with the texture Roostertail.
This texture should not appear here, for material water, it should be Rainspray.

Other effects for water are ok, but I see them for the first time as static screens.
There is still a lot to do. The skid marks are for snow or ice. This is visible on screenshots, that for water the texture should be softer, without tire trail.

This is really strange. The texture Snowsplash is displayed here, in water.
It is also not used in water definition. For water the defined texture is Rainspray not Snowsplash.
What is wrong here?

Added texture: camglow02, because there were textures for "effect on" and no "effect off".
Camglow (camera flash) is unused in specialfx.tec yet
View attachment 638431
Everyone is welcome to participate and update.