Track editing progress notes

[checkpoint10]

Here's what the numbers mean:

Color, width, start DLONG, start DLAT, ending DLONG, ending DLAT

All numbers (aside from color) are in 500ths. So 1 ft = 6000.

Thank you- that's exactly what I needed to see...

Switching gears- when you made your horizon, how did you do it? I assume you used google "street view" pictures?

I used Google Earth to find a nice spot without too many tall buildings obstructing the view, and rotated the view, taking screenshots of the horizon and stitching them together. It was kind of a tedious process.

[checkpoint10]

I have a new problem that I spotted when trying Nashville with AI. I noticed that in the places where the track dips down ahead of me, I can see the cars ahead through the track - see screenshot attached. I am hoping there is a solution because I believe there are default ICR2 tracks with similar elevation changes where there is no such problem. Any advice out there?

[samsepi0l]

I have a new problem that I spotted when trying Nashville with AI. I noticed that in the places where the track dips down ahead of me, I can see the cars ahead through the track - see screenshot attached. I am hoping there is a solution because I believe there are default ICR2 tracks with similar elevation changes where there is no such problem. Any advice out there?

This happens in nearly all of the tracks I have seen that have been home-made or converted.  I know for a fact it happens at road atlanta, and tjerks glenboot.  I believe Dennis brought this up in one of his "dennis tracks" posts.

Here is the post I found: https://www.icr2.net/forum/showthread.ph...27#pid7927

[checkpoint10]

I have a new problem that I spotted when trying Nashville with AI. I noticed that in the places where the track dips down ahead of me, I can see the cars ahead through the track - see screenshot attached. I am hoping there is a solution because I believe there are default ICR2 tracks with similar elevation changes where there is no such problem. Any advice out there?

This happens in nearly all of the tracks I have seen that have been home-made or converted.  I know for a fact it happens at road atlanta, and tjerks glenboot.  I believe Dennis brought this up in one of his "dennis tracks" posts.

Here is the post I found: https://www.icr2.net/forum/showthread.ph...27#pid7927

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. I wonder if it has to do with DYNO: Dennis tracks (icr2.net)

[samsepi0l]

Here's what the numbers mean:

Color, width, start DLONG, start DLAT, ending DLONG, ending DLAT

All numbers (aside from color) are in 500ths. So 1 ft = 6000.

I was trying to think of an easy way to do this without having to use trial and error.

Does it make sense to go into SFE, and then make "pretend" lines to get a better feeling of how the TSDs would look for placement on different DLATs?  I would not actually save the SG file here, I'm just saying to get a better idea of the DLATS I need.

Starting to pay more attention to sunny.pcx. I have looked at several palettes for default tracks and noted the following:

Index: Description (Length)
0: Black (1)
1-24: Reserved for menu (24)
25-34: Bluish grayscale (10) - some of these may be used for skid marks as well
35-175: Car and general use (141)
176-181: Track specific - wall (6)
182-191: Track specific - other (10) - armco typically goes here if applicable to track
192-197: Track specific - typically grass (6)
198-207: Track specific - other (10)
208-223: Track specific - horizon (16) - color 208 is usually the sky
224-235: Track specific - other (12)
236-239: Track specific - asphalt (4)
240-245: Track specific - other (6)
246-255: Reserved (10)

I found it surprising that all the default asphalt textures, which I'm quite fond of, have no more than 4 colors. Grass usually has 6 colors, walls have 6 colors, and armco may have around 6 as well.

So I think if we were to follow the original Papyrus process, first you paint the asphalt, walls, grass, and horizon separately, and reduce each of them to 4, 6, 6, and 16 colors, respectively. Then you take the resulting palettes and stick them into the sunny.pcx at their dedicated locations. You are now left with approximately 38 more color slots that you can customize for the track - of course you can use any of the colors between 25 and 175 as well.

Of course anyone can ignore all this and let the converter determine the colors or take one from a default track, but if you want more control over your palette, this is a good starting point.

I wanted to post this up, so I could make sure I had a good understanding before I jumped in head first.  If I am right, hopefully this will help others also.

[Dennis]

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. I wonder if it has to do with DYNO: Dennis tracks (icr2.net)

I don't think so, because in my case all the cars disappeared at once.
But today I've got an idea for a workaround. It's possible to reduce the drawing distance by making shorter track segments. Splitting your track segments right before and after the top of the hill into shorter segments could make the cars disappear earlier.

[checkpoint10]

Thanks for pointing me to that thread. I wonder if it has to do with DYNO: Dennis tracks (icr2.net)

I don't think so, because in my case all the cars disappeared at once.
But today I've got an idea for a workaround. It's possible to reduce the drawing distance by making shorter track segments. Splitting your track segments right before and after the top of the hill into shorter segments could make the cars disappear earlier.

Your idea worked as you predicted - cars ahead will disappear along with draw distance, but the side effects are that the draw distance of the track looks noticeably weird on the approach to the hill, and the visible track shrinks even more noticeably on the external replay views.

Continuing to look for a solution, I ruled out MATERIAL GROUP (which I thought might communicate the type of object to the game) but it doesn't affect visibility. Then, I found this section near the bottom of the .3D file, for example:

sec46_l0: LIST { sec46_s0_HI, sec46_s1_HI, sec46_s2_HI, sec46_s3_HI,
  sec46_s0_MED, sec46_s1_MED, sec46_s0_LO,
  DATA { 63956218, 64264482, 64572746, 64881010 }
};

Specifically DATA - I believe these numbers have to do with the DLONG of the player position when a track section will become visible. I tried to mess with the DATA numbers for a few sections and it made those sections disappear, including the opponents' cars. I haven't got enough time to play with it any more, but I will be focusing on this when I have more time.

[Pavel 69]

I have a new problem that I spotted when trying Nashville with AI. I noticed that in the places where the track dips down ahead of me, I can see the cars ahead through the track - see screenshot attached. I am hoping there is a solution because I believe there are default ICR2 tracks with similar elevation changes where there is no such problem. Any advice out there?

I've checked my old notes. And, I never tried to fix such problem. I know about it and I think papy it exists on papy tracks too.

What I've fixed was the problem with pitwall on the hill at Road America. When car was running up the hill pitwall far away on horizontal part was visible through asphalt. I fixed this problem by manually rearranging drawing of walls and surfaces in every track section there.

[samsepi0l]

If this problem exists on the original papyrus tracks it will probably be easiest to recreate on the hills going through mid-ohio's twisty section or going uphill at laguna seca.

[checkpoint10]

If this problem exists on the original papyrus tracks it will probably be easiest to recreate on the hills going through mid-ohio's twisty section or going uphill at laguna seca.

This problem doesn't occur on the default tracks - going towards the corkscrew at Laguna, the uphill at Mid-Ohio, or uphill down the front stretch at Elkhart Lake. The opponent cars disappear appropriately at the top of those hills.

It may also have something to do with the order in which the walls and asphalt appear in the .3D (and in turn the .3DO) file. I believe the drawing order in the game is: trackside objects, track surface, farther walls, cars, closer walls... obviously I'm not sure about the walls part but definitely the game has a way of knowing whether to draw a wall on top of a car, because if a car is rounding the corner ahead, it doesn't bleed through a wall generally.

It may also have to do with the use of BSPF and related commands. I admit I have only used BSPF but it may be the others have a different effect on the drawing order as it relates to when the car would be drawn.