Track editing progress notes

[samsepi0l]

They look really good. I will probably need to learn that method for tamiami. I am close to being done with SFE for that track (I hope).

[Wolf_pd]

That's a smart idea. WOuld have save me loads of time back in the day.

[checkpoint10]

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.

[samsepi0l]

I have not gotten far enough to understand what you are talking about but I hope it will make .ore sense to me soon.

[samsepi0l]

- To save time, I made a script to automate the following after I am done with the N3 tools and want to try it in the game: 1) Copy MRON to the working folder. 2) Run MRON. 3) Make a packing list for the working folder. 4) Pack the working folder into a .dat in a "fake" Nascar2 track folder. 5) Launch N99 to ICR2 converter and convert the Nascar2 track directly to my ICR2/tracks folder. 6) Restore the 3DO files that MRON copied to the 3DOBackup folder.

I am at the point where I have my tracking working in OPE and I am trying to follow your suggestion. I want to just "drive" it a little bit and make sure things work like I expected them to. Do I need to follow these steps I quoted you on above?

[checkpoint10]

- To save time, I made a script to automate the following after I am done with the N3 tools and want to try it in the game: 1) Copy MRON to the working folder. 2) Run MRON. 3) Make a packing list for the working folder. 4) Pack the working folder into a .dat in a "fake" Nascar2 track folder. 5) Launch N99 to ICR2 converter and convert the Nascar2 track directly to my ICR2/tracks folder. 6) Restore the 3DO files that MRON copied to the 3DOBackup folder.

I am at the point where I have my tracking working in OPE and I am trying to follow your suggestion.  I want to just "drive" it a little bit and make sure things work like I expected them to.  Do I need to follow these steps I quoted you on above?

Yes, those are the steps. Let me know if you need clarity on any of them. I would advise backing up your files first, especially your SG file. You also want to make sure you have the latest N2 to ICR2 converter (not N99 like I wrote previously) because it helps minimize crashes during the conversion process.

[samsepi0l]

..........You also want to make sure you have the latest N2 to ICR2 converter (not N99 like I wrote previously) because it helps minimize crashes during the conversion process..........

Is this the link to the n2->icr2 converter you suggest?

http://trackshoppe.com/utilities/utilities.htm
http://trackshoppe.com/utilities/n2-icr2.zip

[checkpoint10]

..........You also want to make sure you have the latest N2 to ICR2 converter (not N99 like I wrote previously) because it helps minimize crashes during the conversion process..........

Is this the link to the n2->icr2 converter you suggest?

http://trackshoppe.com/utilities/utilities.htm
http://trackshoppe.com/utilities/n2-icr2.zip

Yes, it should be version 1.01c.

[Eddie500]

What is the preferred procedure out there to put a scratch track lenght to official mesurement down to the last inch please ?

For my last two tracks, I scaled and measured the aerial photo and modified the scale in SGE.INI accordingly before tracing the track in SGE down the centerline. This way I do not rely on SGE’s scaling function which I find inexact.

I remember the game tracks being at the official lenght, I'll have to investigate further.

[samsepi0l]

Wow- I feel like I am being a pain by asking these questions, but I hope these benefit someone else someday that may have the same questions.

I am assuming that these are the files I will need when I run MRON.  I have backups, I created a folder for this stuff in-case anything goes wrong.

Also - what is the best way to pack the DAT?  I have doodat at home, which I find difficult to use.
*** EDIT- I am an idiot, I figured out how to use doodat very easily.  I needed to run the configuration with admin privileges.  ***



I also downloaded the N2-> ICR2 converter you suggested. I'm having a problem. When I was browsing the inside of the downloaded ZIP it looks like there are a bunch of different converters. I obviously selected "N2->ICR2". It looks like there are several tracks that have ZAR files and since I don't have N2 I can only assume these come with N2. When the converter asked me what track I wanted to convert, I just moved to the folder which contained my tamiami. I told it where my ICR2 was located, and it seemed to convert it super quickly but I didn't do anything by establishing a "fake" N2 folder. I'm a little confused by this step. When I went into the game and selected the track, I get a "problem loading track" error.