Official Assetto Corsa modding support via Skype!

[Aristotelis]

We have many people asking Luca to become testers. This is NOT what Luca can answer and it is disturbing and time wasting. I this continues we will stop this kind of support

We hope that you guys will Spread the word and take care of abusers.

Thank you

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

Hey Modders, thank you for trying to enhance the AC experience!
We are now able to support you more directly and guide you better on your initial work for AC.

Here's the deal.
Our 3D vehicle lead artist has some free time (?) during the day and is dedicating this to you.
He hates writing on forums, emails, pms etc, so I will give you his skype handle and you are free to contact him for voice chat, whenever you want.

IMPORTANT
I really really ask you kindly to get organised, gather multiple relevant questions and ask them once at a time, here's a proposal on how to do this:
- Discuss your doubts, problems and projects here in the forums.
- Gather your questions.
- Decide which one of you will talk directly with Luca
- Call him on Skype for a voice chat and have fun
- Repeat and don't be afraid if he can't always reply. The actual game comes always first of course.

Also, Luca will reply as many of your questions as possible, except the ones that can't reply because of NDA, Licensing, or other professionally related reasons. I hope you understand.

Here you go, take it easy!
Luca skype handle: lucamir
skype nickname: mannaggia!

 

[Shadow Explorer]

bob track builder I guess.

 

[Dinca Andrei]

Thats a beauty

 

[Shadow Explorer]

^^

 

[Si3v]

That's awesome Aris! However, my spoken english isn't too good, so I'd like someone to be kind and ask these questions for me, please.

1) How many texture maps can be used per car, what sizes can they be used and what format do they need to be saved as?

2) This may not be able to be answered yet, but doesn't hurt to ask, will there be any kind of visual damage? Like parts falling off or bending? Scratches? etc.

3) How many LODs a car must have and what are their respective polycount?

4) About textures again, is the Ambient Occlusion map baked into a separate texture from the rest?

5) And finally, can regular bump maps be used, or just normal maps?

1) We don't exeed 20 materials per car. Each material con use different texture stages. Textures size limit is 8192x8192 but I suggest to not exeed 2048x2048 (4096x4096 only if you can't split). AC can use dds and png. Strongly recomended to use dds (compressed normal maps, dxt5_nm and 3Dc not supported)

2) under development, not sure for 1.0 (graphical damage, physical one will be included)

3) 3 lods. We use 60k for lodA, 20k for lodB and 5k for lodC

4) no AO in separate texture

5) normal maps (tangent space and object space supported)

How will files need to be structured? By name, hierarchy etc?
Can we have "digital" gauges or use animated textures?

We will provide a template scene to understand file structure.
digital gauges are supported, animated textures not supported.

how far the dev/modding tool will be able to edit? Is it close to Zanoza Modeler functions?

won't be able to edit geometry. nothing like Zmodeler.

- edit vertex, edge, polys?
- rotate, move, scale?
- edit UV maping?
- edit materials?
- calculate normals?

no. Only materials intended as shader parameters

Is there free asset like trees, and other stuffs?

no.

Is there mod sample? A real example of the basic structure or can we open Kunos's files to spy how it made?

We will provide it in the future.

Is the grass made with a tool wich is like to paint something in the map and 3D grass appear (like the Cry Engine does)?

not in the editor, it's painted in the 3d application.

Then, can we create new object managed like the grass (example : corn, wheat)?
Then how many object like that can we create if there is a limit?

no.

About one only car like the Abarth, what is the amount of memory of full ingame 3D file size, the amount of memory of full ingame 2D file size, and the amount of full ingame soud file size?

Can I ask the same for tracks, 3D and 2D full memory size?

Difficult to answer memory occupation of meshes.

And what is the environnement size limits? 16km x 16km or something around?

yes about 16km for the physical environment. Graphical one can be bigger

Another different thing, GPbikes have a distance limit to show polys/object, like a sphere around the camera wich seems to do not allow a very long distance view on a large map. Is AC the same? It can affect the way I'll choose to create and manage ressources.

There's no far plane limit.

By the way, is there any limits that you could see with the 3D engine or in creating script for new features?

Is there a way to add new input for new features in the game option?

It's not finished yet, can't answer

If I have the same rim for all 4 wheels, Can I give only 1 rim file to load and let a dummy where the rims should be into the body file?

Instances are not supported.

Oh I just thought about something I think nobody asked before (or maybe even thought about):

Can we make pilot add-ons? I mean, if we are able to choose the pilot model for the car we are gonna drive ingame, it would be great if we could add custom pilots into the game.

Our pilot will be delivered as fbx with the game, with animations included. So anyone will be able to modify it.


End of part 1

 

[Wardez]

Very amazing and thorough!
Thanks Simone, and I just wanted to say, great work on all of the tracks, they look gorgeous. Hopefully we get to see how nice Adenauer Forst looks like soon

 

[Si3v]

cut

One of the things I want to ask that nobody mentioned yet is security, aka "will every fool be able to extract my model from the mod??"

We'll try to protect contents. Obviously we can't spend all development time here...

Will there be a tutorial regarding rigging suspension system?

yes.

Other moving parts like cockpit cables possible?

Not sure for 1.0

Maximum polycount a single object can have?

65536 vertices

Will there be any damage model?, if yes will it behave like having only some visual model deformation and removable parts
or it will be closer to forza ( I think at least the older releases had predefined damage levels)

.
under development, not sure for 1.0 (graphical damage, physical one will be included)

Is it possible to create and rig a new driver or pitcrew animation to suit the car.
Driver change?

new driver yes. pitcrew and relative animations not implemented yet (not sure for 1.0)

Ever tested to see if a relatively high poly automobile
can be used in game, are there any other consequences
other than performance hit?

We never tried.

end of part2

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

For somebody that hates to write on forums you are doing a great job, thanks

 

[BanjoMaster]

For somebody that hates to write on forums you are doing a great job, thanks

I suspect overcoming a dislike of forums has probably proved to be much less hassle than having to swat away 1000 Skype calls a day...

 

[Wardez]

haha, this is Simone, not Luca. Luca's the one that hates writing out walls of text and all that. Luca's the lead vehicle artist and Simone (aka Si3v) is Graphics lead artist and Tracks creation.
So we should thank Simone for coming out and lending us his time and advice!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

 

[Shadow Explorer]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer,much appreciated!

 

[Si3v]

ehehe I don't dislike writing on forums...
Gianluca does, cars artist.
If you have questions about cars, you can ask here.

 

[William Levesque]

Do we have the choice between transmission models for road cars if true for real life version ? (Manual, Paddle-Shift Autos...)

Thanks

 

[Wardez]

Wanted to ask you a question about another part of development if you don't mind Simone: Who worked on the multi-player structure, I have a ton of questions for them

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I think this thread is for modding questions. Please make new threads for all other questions you might have here http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/forums/assetto-corsa.130/

Plenty of space left

 

[Wardez]

Np, just thought I'd ask since he was here, would've PM'ed it but thought others may want to know.

Anyway!

I found this old shot showing what seems to be the file structure and hierarchy for the car models for those interested in how it'll work! Note that I'm not sure how old this may be or not, so it could be outdated format.

 

[Shadow Explorer]

Some other Questions.

Will there be preset materials available,or we have to create them and export with FBX?

In case you have any artist working with softimage XSI,
I would like to know how to scale the model. softimage has it's own measurement units.

should I assume a grid square equals to a meter?
Thanks a lot!

 

[Mr Whippy]

So no AO in a separate texture, I guess this means we just add some shading into the diffuse channel texture... it worked for the last 20 years, so I guess it'll still look ok in AC hehe...

I'm assuming all the AC content we have seen so far (interiors especially) have AO in the diffuse map... assuming that is the case then it doesn't harm the quality look of interiors


Cheers for answering those detailed questions Si3v!

Dave

 

[Aristotelis]

We have many people asking Luca to become testers. This is NOT what Luca can answer and it is disturbing and time wasting. I this continues we will stop this kind of support

We hope that you guys will Spread the word and take care of abusers.

Thank you

 

[2CV SUPER GT]

Thanks for reply Si3v