Featured TUTORIAL Race Track Builder - Inject elevation data and terrain texture

Thanks Les Neilson for the tutorial. Im pretty sure interpolation is needed for plain text data also.

 

I don't think Brendon will add functionality for such things directly in RTB. Available data is too different, too many variables have to be considered.

 

It would be a shame, but I think you're right. There are too many variations.

In any case, a mesh this detailed won't load into KSEditor, I've just discovered. Not sure what to do about that... Anyone have any suggestions?

 

@Pix, the project is here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/i8d50e2qg6s9d0n/Glaisdale.zip

 

yeah ! that's incredible. no reason you cant make the best country road ever with that. quite impressed. deserves some swear words tbh ! . rally tracks are a must !

RTB responds so much better with that level of detail. so much better than it can do otherwise, makes me realise that the road laying tools in rtb arnt that bad at all when given hi rez data to work on. I would love to find something myself to work on data wise if you can help me at all.

infact id be prepared to do oulton park like this. does the data need uv mapped before to get the terrain on it orr... ?

 

Ha ha, I've already downloaded the data for Oulton Park and had a look at it. Next week if you like I could send you something. Thruxton is also covered.

No idea about the uv mapping, it just seems to work.

I agree about the track laying tools, they seem pretty powerful to me. The adjustable cross sections, and the way you adjust how much it conforms to the terrain underneath

 

Still have to figure out how to deal with the mesh vertex limit though. I'm more than three times over the limit with this short loop.

 

must be split up in full 3d program., you have not tried this in game yet I take it ?

 

You mean exporting each element separately?

 

try exporting on ACexport option. it might cut it into convenient chunks. I have cut it up to try in game and realised it wasn't set on AC export. but that just might be on my system anway I forgot the spawn points. so will try it tomorrow and send the results.

the road build needs trimmed down poly wise. so for that ill just have 1 at each side, and 1 in the middle for a centre line. let the main nodes capture the terrain, each cross section node at the side and the centre needs given 0 (zero) figure for terrain snap. it must be kept flatter than captured. problem with this snap function is it snaps every panel length, and at 1 m that's way to bumpy for the ac engine.

the main terrain is over 300K poly . and well that's crazy, flat areas need no polys when you first subdivide the initial inject. but anyway theres a lot I can help with here so I shall. one thing is to see what a high poly output from rtb looks like , then pro optmised, and using the wireframe image of that as the texture would show you where to paint the very initial subdivides. only way I can think to achieve optmised scenery firstly in rtb. its certain though that without optomisation ,nothing will be that possible in rtb alone. rtb to game will result in a serious and impossible mess that will never work..

also this style of roads, I suspect needs even higher detail to get it all really right. proper M,A and some b class roads would be much better to work on. and well race tracks with this tech is the game changer rtb should have been in the first place.

 

Now that this level of data is starting to become more available, of course modders will want to make use of it. I like making country road tracks based on real locations, and being able to model terrain to this level of detail is really the holy grail for me. But it seems I'll need to rethink how to manage it. Thanks for the feedback. I'm interested to see what might be done. I was looking forward to driving that track last night...

 

the main way to manage it all is to be able to change it later on. and this means learning blender or 3dsmax, if you scratch my back ill scratch yours though. and you are right when you say you need to re think it. these days its not so much the end result visually but how its put together. this data should be considered as reference data initially. what RTB will do very well though is give you that awesome track layout, that you can use to learn in the bigger programs.


what I really need to check out given the issues, is the actual inject.. so id like to "try" make an optimised terrain from the rtb terrain.

thing is though, and I understand why you chose this area. its very very cool area to work in but it too big! these massive areas are impossible to work with for a number of reasons,

 

Top Plane Slice..easy cutty wutty meshy weshy:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/topplaneslice



For Max...not Bender

 

This one has 210,000...

But I'm seeing lots of ideas, this is good!

 

@Les Neilson , are you using Max or Bender ?

 

So far, only RTB (and sketchup)

 

well in few minuites I put up a video of it, I have to say its a seriously realistic road, its rally tastic ! I'm only interested in the capability and well this is quite amazing for RTB, the raw outcome that is. of course it needs built upon, optimised. but this is a realy cool thing afaiac.

cant record more because one falls of the track a lot. it needs to be around 25K for the external scenery. but in max that's easily done. so grab student licence for max and learn some with full access for 3 years to all autodesk products. or go the blender route.

 

btw as I stated in post #130, selecting ac export cuts the terrain up just fine. but.... it needs more, which can be achieved in rtb by dividing areas with "roads, low poly, that have the terrain scenery on them.

 

Rally-tastic indeed!

What did you have to do to get it to compile? How does the road surface seem? Realistic? Too bumpy?

I set it to 50% conformance in the tarmac part because it seemed pretty lumpy in places. 90% at the edges. I only had time to plant a few trees here and there. It needs hedges, walls, grass, weeds and some custom buildings to finish it off. But I'm happy at the outcome after a couple of night's work