Track editing progress notes

[checkpoint10]

Thanks. I think we have a consensus then that drawing lines all around a track is better to do in SFE as an fsection. Dennis, that is good info to be aware of which sides the TSDs are assigned to.

[Dennis]

Dennis, that is good info to be aware of which sides the TSDs are assigned to.

After I thought about it again, maybe it's nonsense. A TSD is between the trackside walls, so left and right side doesn't make sense. Till now I didn't use TDSs, so I don't really know, how they appear in the .3d file.

[Pavel 69]

Running into a bit of a problem here. So I am trying to draw the white lines around Detroit, leaving a little margin to the wall. Because the track width varies, I am making them as TSDs. So I created a .TSD file, part of which is here:
...
As you can imagine, this is a very long TSD file with 112 rows, but it still loads in OPE (with occasional crashes) but usually I can still save it and see it in game. The problem is, the lines don't seem to draw very well, it depends on which direction the lines are going, but is especially bad when driving in the opposite compass heading than the start-finish straightaway. I attach some illustrations of what I am seeing.

This is problem of conversion from N3. Some polygons (tsd polys, fences polys) after conversion to icr2 will appear as double polygons. It can be fixed. You need to do some changes to n3 3do before conversion. I need to find my notes Will return later.

[Pavel 69]

So, problem is with Flavor 21 lines in N3 3do. You need to replace Flavor 21 index with 02. It can be done with hex editor. But I do it other way.

First I convert n3 track 3do to N2 3do. I remove MRON section and change 3do size with hex editor and change 3do length (hex address 8):
a. new length = {hex address of last symbol in 3do} - B
b. new length = {length old} - 1C

Now when I have 3do in N2 format I decompile it with N2 3do2def tool. I open FLAVOR.DEF file with WordPad and replace all F21 marks with F02. Then I recompile new track 3do and it is ready to conversion.

This trick will eliminate all double polygons.

[checkpoint10]

So, problem is with Flavor 21 lines in N3 3do. You need to replace Flavor 21 index with 02. It can be done with hex editor. But I do it other way.

First I convert n3 track 3do to N2 3do. I remove MRON section and change 3do size with hex editor and change 3do length (hex address 8):
a. new length = {hex address of last symbol in 3do} - B
b. new length = {length old} - 1C

Now when I have 3do in N2 format I decompile it with N2 3do2def tool. I open FLAVOR.DEF file with WordPad and replace all F21 marks with F02. Then I recompile new track 3do and it is ready to conversion.

This trick will eliminate all double polygons.

Thanks for sharing this process. I think it is too advanced for me right now but I will keep this in mind if this becomes the only solution possible. Someone should make a tool that does this!

[Pavel 69]

Nothing difficult is there N2 3do2def and especially def23do are great tools. Because you can edit, add or remove points and flavors (polygons, textures, drawing order) there and def23do tool will recalculate all indexis and make proper 3do file. Sadly def23do version for icr2 couldn't do such things. You need manually calculate all indexis and it's too hard. One of the reason is that icr2 3do file is not as optimized as n2/n3.

[checkpoint10]

I should look into this then. I have actually never used 3DO2DEF and DEF23DO but now it sounds like they can be quite useful.

[checkpoint10]

So, problem is with Flavor 21 lines in N3 3do. You need to replace Flavor 21 index with 02. It can be done with hex editor. But I do it other way.

First I convert n3 track 3do to N2 3do. I remove MRON section and change 3do size with hex editor and change 3do length (hex address 8):
a. new length = {hex address of last symbol in 3do} - B
b. new length = {length old} - 1C

Now when I have 3do in N2 format I decompile it with N2 3do2def tool. I open FLAVOR.DEF file with WordPad and replace all F21 marks with F02. Then I recompile new track 3do and it is ready to conversion.

This trick will eliminate all double polygons.

I've been working on a version of the new Nashville street circuit and it is going to use TSDs quite extensively for roadway markings. However, I am now facing the problem that some of the TSDs look wider upon conversion and I suspect it may be the problem described by Pavel in this post. I will try this solution and report back whether it works.

[checkpoint10]

Happy to report that the procedure described by Pavel 69 in post #134 has solved the problem with my TSDs. I was just slightly confused by the description of "new length" but I believe the number in the 3DO file at offset 8 is the file size minus 12 (which I guess represents the number of bytes in the header), converted into a little endian hexadecimal number.

I ran Tjerk's MRON utility first before running the 3DO2DEF tool in DOSBox, making the edit in Notepad, and then running the DEF23DO tool in DOSBox. I then compiled my ICR2 version as usual using the N2 to ICR2 converter with no problems. I would love to automate this because it's a lot of steps, but it is not too bad to do manually if you just need to do it infrequently.

[Pavel 69]

Happy to report that the procedure described by Pavel 69 in post #134 has solved the problem with my TSDs. I was just slightly confused by the description of "new length" but I believe the number in the 3DO file at offset 8 is the file size minus 12 (which I guess represents the number of bytes in the header), converted into a little endian hexadecimal number.

I ran Tjerk's MRON utility first before running the 3DO2DEF tool in DOSBox, making the edit in Notepad, and then running the DEF23DO tool in DOSBox. I then compiled my ICR2 version as usual using the N2 to ICR2 converter with no problems. I would love to automate this because it's a lot of steps, but it is not too bad to do manually if you just need to do it infrequently.

Great that it works for you!  Yes, it's a bit long process. But I usually do it when final track 3do is ready.