stuck on what to do

[Turnip]

ive done buxton raceway for SOD. all i have is the 3ds file but i dont know what to do to get it in game. could anyone tell me in really simple terms how to get it into SOD thanks

[Razor]

________________________

Here's a text-only tutorial. I'll try and make one that has pictures if this is too confusing...

Once you have your SketchUp model done, create folder named whatever

your level will be i.e. "MyMap"

- Export >> 3D Model into it.

That will put a 3DS file and all the textures that go with it in the folder.

- Import the 3DS file into 3DS Max. Just to make sure everything got imported ok, do a render. If it looks good

- Export as .ASE into the folder you created.

In your "MyMap" folder create a TIFFRGB folder and drag your textures in there. They need to be TIFs at either 64x64, 128x128, or 256x256 pixels

If original textures are not square, in PhotoShop go to Image >> Image Size and uncheck "Constrain Proportions" to force it into a square.

Use Cesm's ASE2ASC to convert to ASC.

- Click the "Indicate and analyse 3d scene file" button and locate your MyMap.ASE file

- Click the "Target filename and path" button and locate your MyMap folder and name the file MyMap.ASC

- Click the "Start Process" button.

In Plaything 2 import your ASC file

- File >> Import >> ASCII Model File

You'll need to resize your level if you built it using Google's scaling.

Carma's scaling is much smaller (0.4%)

- Objects >> Modify model >> Modify Geomtry

- Click Scaling button >> Whole model and type .004 into the input field

To get it back into view, go to the Overview window and expand the heirachy and double click on your model.

In the lower pane Material Grps, double click each of the textures to bring up the Materials Editor and make sure the 'True Color' is white, if not, click 'Select' and pick from the color palette. Click OK, Apply and OK again.

- Save >>

In your "MyMap" folder you shoud now have an .sdf, .dat, a tiffrgb folder and a pix16 folder. as well as the other files you created along the way, 3ds, ase, asc, etc.

Download this EmptyRack.txt file and rename it to "MyMap.txt", put it in your MyMap folder also open it up and go to the last line and change it to "MyMap.txt" (no quotes)

Drop your MyMap folder into your games RACES folder and edit your RACES.txt to point to your new file.

If you did everything right you should now have your map ingame.

_____________________

Thank coffeycup.

[coffeycup]

How 'bout try using the search we have on the site, it does work

[Turnip]

when i import it into plaything it asks for a .MAT file but i have not got it so what do i do? thanks

[coffeycup]

I'm assuming you put the TIFs into an TIFFRGB folder inside your map folder

When you import ASC you get 2 dialog boxes. One for the ASC and then one for it's MAT



You probably won't see anything in the viewports once it's been imported. Until you scale it down (see above)

[Turnip]

ive got the tifs in the tiffrgb folder and ive got the asc file but i cant find the mat files anywhere. is there an application that makes it or do i download it?

[coffeycup]

Oh fer chrissakes ASE2ASC makes the MAT.

Are there not 2 files generated by ASE2ASC for you?

[Turnip]

ive been trying to get it in game all day but havnt succeeded when i try to convert ase to asc it comes up with a message saying 'input past end of file' and closes itself down. ive seen the post dalags put up about it and ive done everything coffey mentioned in that thread about ticking certain boxes while saving it in 3ds max. ive attached the files which i have at the moment. please help as i really want this track in SOD. thanks.

[coffeycup]

I don't know why you guys are having a hard time. Though if you've never edited Carma2 files then I guess it'd be confusing.

The .ASE dalag had given me gave the same error for me in ASE2ASC.

So, I tossed it and used the .3DS to export a new .ASE which worked fine.

So, are you SURE the correct settings are being used per the gif?

The reason it only takes me 10 minutes to get one of my sketchup models into the game is because the models are set up properly and use textures that are already pre-sized tifs. What I am finding in doing conversions for other people is that I am spending over an hour:

- flipping reversed polys (blue polys should be on the backside)

- resaving and resizing the assorted bmps, gif, jpg, png textures as tifs

- renaming the materials that have invalid characters and/or are too long

- creating new tifs when people use colors from the color wheel instead of bitmaps

So forgive me for not jumping up and yelling 'send it to me!'

How about posting a screenshot of your track? That's not asking too much now, isit?

[Razor]

Screenshot not showing

[Turnip]

this is a screenshot

[Razor]

looks pretty cool.

[Turnip]

thanks it was just a shot off google earth which i put walls and kerbs on. once ive got this into game, ive got a couple of others which ill do.

[coffeycup]

Download: http://coffey.polygonized.com/files/buxton_SOD.zip

Ok, I spent quite a bit of time getting this to work and look decent. Again, same issues:

- flipping reversed polys (blue polys should be on the backside)

- resaving and resizing the assorted bmps, gif, jpg, png textures as tifs

- renaming the materials that have invalid characters and/or are too long

- creating new tifs when people use colors from the color wheel instead of bitmaps

If you plan on doing more, take care of these before sending it for conversion

[Harmalarm]

Geez guys, you really do a lot of work lately. Nice to see this new track coming to the game. And Coffey, great patience .

by the way, I also had that same error, when importing the ase into ase-asc. I believe, but it doesn't sound logical, that I lost the error after converting all poly's to editable poly's, and by putting all the object is just one layer. At least, at a certain point in time, the error was gone, so something in Max is causing it. (my tracks were made only in 3d-max)

anyway, nice work.

well some coments;



next time husky, I think you cold better round off these corners. They're funny for splitting cars, but annoying for the gamer himself.



and I allways believe in detailing, these stairs are more for Giant peds.

but overall, pritty good job.

[Freddy]

I don't want to sound too negative, as its good to have new peeps doing stuff, but it suffers the same issues Brampton does, the scaling is totally out, everything seams too big compared to the size of the cars, the fence, grandstand, infield etc are all far too high, the whole track needs squashing! plus it does not look like Buxton much at all...attention to detail is so important.

If someone wants to send me an un-preprocessed version of the track there is a few simple things that can be done in Plaything2 that would improve it alot, rescaling, retexturing things etc.

[Turnip]

thank you coffeycup i know i must really be annoying but with my future tracks could i send you the track untextured so you can put your textures on it and add noncars please, also freddy look a few post up at an attachment on one of my replies, its a pack including sketchup file, 3ds file and a couple of others.

[Razor]

i really give coffeycup major kudos for what he does.

[coffeycup]

@Turnip

I don't want to texture your model, I want you to do it correctly. I'm trying to do less work, not more.

@ Freddy

Heres the unprocessed version:

http://coffey.polygonized.com/files/Buxton_unproc.zip

@Harm

Actually Turnip did this model

@Razor

[Harmalarm]

@Harm

Actually Turnip did this model

I knew that, don't worry. I was talking to husky.

[Turnip]

ok. would i be able to use the textures in the buxton track, say i was doing another track with grass on would i be able to use the grass files out of buxton?

[coffeycup]

Yes, use the .tifs from the buxton/tiffrgb folder.

There's also 2 sets of Maxine's textures paks that are already correct size and format.

[Turnip]

thanks mate. heres a screenshot of warton raceway, its nearly finished and ive made sure that i did the walls smaller lol

[Razor]

hm, that looks a lil awkward.

[coffeycup]

take advantage of the clues like buildings in the photo for scale. include them in the model, all you have to do is trace their outline.

[Turnip]

how do you import stuff into sketchup like lorries and stuff?

because when i do it there really big

[Razor]

just resize them

[coffeycup]

You should only be putting immovable objects in your map at this point. Later on we can add wrecks and trucks that you can shove around.

Using models from sketchUp's library introduces all the old same problems, bad polys, etc. so don't bother.

Regarding size. They are not too large. You are too small. SketchUp has measuring units, has a tape measure tool and all the google models use the same scale so that they work together. I use this car for scale to get the map the right size and then delete it when done. This one has all it's color stripped away so as not to introduce unwanted materials.

[Freddy]

Warton it looking better Turnip, the infield looks messy though, I would tidy it up a bit plus use more polys to smooth bits out, like the fence, you can get away with using alot more polys on small tracks such as this. Don't rush it!, make sure it is spot on before releasing it, like Coffey said don't worry about scenary too much yet just get the basic track to look as near the real thing as possible, ie the right size/scale and textured well.

[Turnip]

just a quick picture to show what ive done, i just need to add tower thing in middle and one on outside

[Turnip]

its come up with the error 'input past end of line' while i was trying to convert it to asc file again. is there any way of checking whats wrong with the file? i have all the textures in tiff format and have not used any colours from wheel. all the colours and extures i have used are from other tracks, everywhere has a texture so there is no blue showing at all and i have renamed the materials.

[Razor]

*points to edit button*

[coffeycup]

re error: all I can say is what I said on wednesday . Make sureyou have the correct settings when you export the ASE.



On another note, I took some of the SketchUp vehicles and converted them to tippable noncars to use around the raceway parking lots.



I might do a few more today. Its kinda fun in a dorky kind of way.

[Razor]

well, i like the look of the caravan :P

[coffeycup]

ok, I know they're blocky. But they're just parts of the scenery and need to be lo-poly