Rocky Pass track, 18 jan '09: beta2

well, with an agreement achieved with tomte, he gave me 10 minutes to give to this forum the prerelease for our first big track.

I'm so excited, and tomte and thesnail are too, i can write.

Rocky Pass is the name we gave to our first track. A track not a circuit. On ASW forum we played on this, cause all of you was waiting for a circuit. Something already existing, you never started the idea of something just born from fantasy.

During a game, I asked tomte to give me his time for a project. We would to make a track based on gameplay experience. We didn't care about real circuit, but we searched what make amazing and thrilling a Redline race.

We took a note about slow turn being from faster straights, then faster turns, and short straight in which we can challenge our gearboxes, but also at the end, we would to make it more hard eliminating straights.

And at the end, we wondered: how faster car can be faster as slower one: the answer was playing on physics. The fast turns and higher speed is took on hills (ZR1/XLR-V first example), all the track is cornering (C.P. Frost got it), the track is 5,8 kms (trabant example and brook got it); the track will be in "english language" and is based on somewhere in europe (jaguar/mini example) and will feature some old stylish items (not yet revelated) (both jaguar/mini are old cars).

Then with tomte we decided to give help: the track is tiring. Yes, cause the cars will be at limits while driving, in every single area.

Now, I annoyed you so much and its time to release our creature.



say welcome to Rocky Pass beta 2.

enjoy

My dear...

yesterday i said you all are artists. i am speachless today.

Rocky Pass is a slammer. It reminds me very much of the swiss alps, where it could actually be situated.
Great work. Smooth curves at the beginning (not too easy, but well balanced), and then - that TUNNEL - oh my. i never had actually such an accident as in my first lap here. a slammer.
Wooden bridges... and then the most difficult curve downhills, where breaking next to the ice becomes a really hard job.

i had 5 laps, with the SEAT Léon of course. Greeeaaat rocking fun.



I feel somehow displaced in this forum with the genius brains all around.
My only ever effort was albert park, which is drivable, but i lack the knowledge of having a scenery all around it...

GREAT WORK AGAIN.
congrats,

alphonse

you sneaky bastages ... can't wait to test the track, thanks ladies

thx for comments, tomte released a 'sketch' of the track. I will do the same here, with all infos on corner names and so on

Can't wait to test, hardly can even wait to write this. 1st post for me, yay.

Edit: I just tested it, and it looks great. While I was racing, I realized why it seemed familiar: It is from Need for Speed 3! I did notice some Hometown in there though, so if you are going for accuracy, that might need to be taken out. Overall, nice job, and the edges for launching your car into a barrel roll were quite enjoyable.

Speeddemon wrote:It is from Need for Speed 3! I did notice some Hometown in there though, so if you are going for accuracy, that might need to be taken out.

nice! you got it, but we just get some areas, here and there. The scenery has something got from Country Woods, but its just the concept.

Can't wait to see the full thing. Are you going to make the canyon track too?

Speeddemon wrote:Can't wait to see the full thing. Are you going to make the canyon track too?

Well, let's finish this one first. Anyway, there should be some elements or at least inspirations from Canyon in Rocky Pass as well.

BTW, what do you lot think of the name "Rocky Pass"? We pondered several names, always with something mountain or snow in it. How about Bilboa Bridge?

Tomte wrote:BTW, what do you lot think of the name "Rocky Pass"? We pondered several names, always with something mountain or snow in it. How about Bilboa Bridge?

I like Rocky Pass.

how about Rocky Mountain Pass?

leoantix wrote:how about Rocky Mountain Pass?

That sounds like a nicer tittle imho.

SF

leoantix wrote:how about Rocky Mountain Pass?

Hmm... Then it would have to be in the Rockies.

Tomte wrote:

Speeddemon wrote:Can't wait to see the full thing. Are you going to make the canyon track too?

How about Bilboa Bridge?

Crap, I ruined my joke. It was supposed to be Balboa Bridge...

interesting add, will take me a while to get used to where i am on this track, perhaps im slow or maybe i need objects!

leoantix wrote:perhaps im slow or maybe i need objects!

I vote for needing objects.

Most of the track does a pretty good job of giving you references though (I thought! ). The only bit I can't seem to get is the first hairpin. No matter how many times I've been around it I can't get the braking point right. Keep having to accelerate into it again!

ok good people. There will not new car release in the next future. I gave to CTS-V the priority on RP project, in first cause it was started early, but now, RP is on my todo list. Apart for updates on some plug cars, the main efforts are on this track.

So, prepare yourself to answer at my boring questions about the new track. In my schedule I have the environment modelling, like houses, trees and other scenery items. Well, instead modelling complex cars, I now need to model cubic things. I will reduce polygons at minimum, avoiding to impact on track performance. If anyone want to help providing their experience in scenery modeling is welcome.

I wrote my priority is RP, but I already choose the next project and the .car is done.

i'm fighting with entities...

I placed the item (or object) in the track space, saved as .obj and imported with MI. Then, I created a new .ent file, including the item.mdl. Placed this into TE as position {0,0,0} and helped by C4D I created the collision Box.

Noway for me to crash into the object. Perhaps, the game dont accept the item as position {0,0,0} in TE?

The collision box will be centred around the position you enter, so 0,0,0 in this case.

with thesnail we find a bug in the collbox.

If I place an item in the scenery via the 3d app (with right coordinates in the 3d space), save as .obj, import in MI, and then adding the mdl to the mapinfo with origin {0,0,0}, the game cannot add the coll box at right coordinates. I got coordinates from 3d program; placed cones at the coordinates, lights (thesnail), the numbers are correct, but the collbox is not showed.

Well, apart this annoying problem, the scenery is going well. I imported and edited the environment from snow track, making it much more realistic. I now need to find a good spheremap and the images for environment; I don't like the pinkish one.

Assuming you understood DANDY (box coordinates are given with respect to the object's center) there are a couple of things that could be happening.

1) You got the order of values wrong (check wiki)
2) You forgot to flip the sign of the y values

Either way, I'd suggest using the lights solution - position a different coloured light at each corner and see where they appear in game... Check the wiki to cut and paste some lights into your .ent file.

Pax-raider wrote:2) You forgot to flip the sign of the y values

flip Y values?

This mean if i have 12,73 on Y axis, it will become -12,73?

DonaemouS wrote:
flip Y values?

This mean if i have 12,73 on Y axis, it will become -12,73?

Yup. Don't ask me why this is so. It just is.

EDIT: after further review, ignore that.

Sign reversal only applies to placement of objects. The collision box will have standard left, right, front, rear, top, bottom coordinates relative to the object center (but make sure all are in the right order). If you haven't sorted it out already, try the lights method. It should let you figure out where the problem is.

thesnail, yesterday, wrote me the coordinates in .ent file are XZY, instead XYZ as I used with the .car files.

I now have not time to test it, cause I'm at working, but i can work on files via remote. Can someone confirm that Jonas was drunk when working on .ent files?

Yes! Read the wiki here. Jonas was definitely on something when he did this bit of coding. For example, the coll.tfl set (top front left) is actually in the order left, top, front...

Pax-raider wrote:Yes! Read the wiki here. Jonas was definitely on something when he did this bit of coding. For example, the coll.tfl set (top front left) is actually in the order left, top, front...

Code:

# 0 coll.tfl {-0.2,4,0.2} ;top front left (NOTE: the order of the numbers is left/right, top/bottom, front/rear)

Ok, from what is wrote here the {0,0,0} mean {x,y,z} and not xzy. top/bottom is in the middle, and top/bottom is Y axe.