Modding Questions Thread

[kenken]

Hi all,

I need a hand with something. I'm trying to take a super high resolution image of each of the games circuits from a 90 degree, top down perspective. This is required for an editor I'm building which will help modders obtain game coordinates, and more specifically automate the drawing of regions over the circuit which can then automatically be exported to plaintext game compatible XML files. This is currently to help development of the Safety Car Fix mod, but my tool will possibly offer other functionality and provide useful for other types of mod (I'm thinking replay camera positioning for example).

So far I've built a custom script to navigate around the scene in 3DSimEd and take screenshots, saving them to disk (See an example here). I've then also written a Photoshop script (Here's a preview) to combine the out put of the previous script into one huge circuit image. The scripts are basically working, minus some minor rounding issue, and I thought I was home and dry except for one thing. (Here's a preview of one of the hires outputs of my tests)

I've done some tests with manually creating screenshots and aligning them and it appears that the way 3DSimEd renders the view, even when the angle is set to a dead on top down perspective all parts of the corresponding tiles don't align. It's as if there is some slight perspective/distortion problem.

Now, it seems that there won't really be a way to fix this, unless there is some hidden setting in 3dSimEd which I can use to set the view to use an orthographic projection or something which won't exhibit this distortion.

My only other option seems to be to try and use a different application to open/render the circuit map. The only thing that comes to mind then is 3DSMax. I don't have this software, but could download the trial (although it will take me a while.. slow internet). I'm wondering if it's possible, and if anyone has achieved, opening a circuits tracksplit.pssg in 3DSMax and having it shown complete with textures like 3dSim3D (A wire-frame is useless to me for this use case). If so, can you explain how to achieve this?

If it is possible in 3DsMax I should be able to modify my script to support a different application, so long as that application allows you to set the position of the view either via direct input. If it only supports moving the view using keys (instead of direct numerical input) that may also work (and perhaps even better) with some slight modification.

Failing that, does anyone have any other ideas. Figuring this out is crucial to the development of the tool. If this gets sorted, there's only one more hurdle which I'm slightly cautious about.

Any ideas let me know.

Thanks guys,
Wills

I don't know it's useful info for your purpose or not. But F1 2012 sends UDP packets and these packets include exact 3D coordinates of your car. If you used these info, you just drive car to get trace.

 

[koeloe]

So if I change every tier to 1, the top teams will still have an edge, but the tier 2 and 3 teams will be more competitive?

Yes, but they will be too close. That's why I used the player (track) ctf files for the ai as well so that any teams car is locked to the physics and performance of that car.

As default a teams performance is only determent by the ai_engine_power_per_tier and the tier charateristics. If you set all the tier levels to 1 their time differences will be too little.

I've done a lot of testing and think I understand working of it now. Check out this thread with more explainations.

http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/no-tier-career-mod-with-player-car-performance.62378/

 

[WillsB3]

I don't know it's useful info for your purpose or not. But F1 2012 sends UDP packets and these packets include exact 3D coordinates of your car. If you used these info, you just drive car to get trace.

Hi Kenken,

I never even considered to use this data, so thanks for binging it to my attention. However I don't think it will really by as useful for what I want to achieve. I really want to generate a visual representation of the circuit from a top down view which I can then overlay onto the tool I'm building which allows coordinates and polygons to be drawn on the circuit maps.

Thanks for your idea

 

[Petar Tasev]

WillsB3 Maybe you can ask ML? He seems to be getting the hang of viewing 3D models

 

[WillsB3]

WillsB3 Maybe you can ask ML? He seems to be getting the hang of viewing 3D models

Great idea Ryder - Thanks alot. I'll send him a PM

 

[sepi]

How can disable the antenna from cars.
Is it in cameras xml file? And if so which line ?
from this camera :
<View type="Mounted" ident="bonnet_ss" reverseCamera="bonnet_reverse" hidden="false"

 

[sepi]

Nobody ?

 

[ALKMNDZA]

Nobody ?

no idea bro!

 

[ENDR]

Back in F1 2010/2011 if you wanted to see the switches and other gizmos inside the cockpit, you switched the highResInteriors parameter to true. That removed the antennas from the nose as well.
Not sure if it works in F1 2012 - I think I have both pimped out cockpits and the antennas - but you can give it a try.

 

[sepi]

Back in F1 2010/2011 if you wanted to see the switches and other gizmos inside the cockpit, you switched the highResInteriors parameter to true. That removed the antennas from the nose as well.
Not sure if it works in F1 2012 - I think I have both pimped out cockpits and the antennas - but you can give it a try.

Thank you ENDR but this parameter only change the switches inside the cockpit.
Maybe only works in F1 2010-2011

 

[jbblosse]

Hi,

Does someone can tell me if buy the editing. Ctf files. We can no longer play online?

As the database can not be changed to adjust the tier of the 2013 season, it would perhaps try via the. ctf files?

but what lines to do, without change everything

have a nice day

 

[jason1968]

Can someone explain what filters or corrections should I do in the alpha channel (me2_main_specocc.tga) so that in the game look like the colors in photoshop, I'm busy trying, but can not get it right, thanks in advance

 

[Petar Tasev]

For anyone interested here's a program to view the compounds dat file. Not this is how its supposed to be read, and It has no other features, I made it in about 10 secs:

http://www.mediafire.com/?slmzcuaixeibfqj

Just put the compounds.dat file in the same location as the program. I don't have plans on continuing this project.

 

[jason1968]

For anyone interested here's a program to view the compounds dat file. Not this is how its supposed to be read, and It has no other features, I made it in about 10 secs:

http://www.mediafire.com/?flx86e28l5hngha

Just put the compounds.dat file in the same location as the program. I don't have plans on continuing this project.

I have windows 7 x64, and the program does not work, if I open task manager I can see that CTF starts and shuts down after a few seconds, thanks anyway.

 

[Petar Tasev]

Do what Kartik says below

EDIT: Fixed the zip

http://www.mediafire.com/?slmzcuaixeibfqj

 

[Kartik Sri Harsha]

I have windows 7 x64, and the program does not work, if I open task manager I can see that CTF starts and shuts down after a few seconds, thanks anyway.

Keep the Program in the location of your CTF editor it will work I too have the same problem and found this out.

 

[jason1968]

Keep the Program in the location of your CTF editor it will work I too have the same problem and found this out.

I put the program in the cars folder, which is where this the file compounds, and also proven to put the two together in a separate folder of the game, compatibility manager, etc... and does not work for me

 

[Kartik Sri Harsha]

I meant to say Keep the CTF file in the CTF Folder and Copy the Compounds.dat file in that folder you will get the job
Or Download the new File which ryder updated

 

[Kartik Sri Harsha]

jason1968 If you found what the values in the file Compounds.dat are for please let us know mate

 

[jason1968]

Keep the Program in the location of your CTF editor it will work I too have the same problem and found this out.

O k, and I re-downloaded (MiscUtil.dll was not in the previous download), now it works, thanks