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Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 14 Feb 2013, 17:40
by curseofmifan
I found the file which is causing the problem: lightmap-ground-devel.png . After renaming the track works!

Thank you for all the help!

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 14 Feb 2013, 23:55
by hiker
curseofmifan {l Wrote}:I found the file which is causing the problem: lightmap-ground-devel.png . After renaming the track works!

Try loading this texture in your favourite image editor (even just paint in windows is fine), and save it again (still as .png file). That might just solve the problem.

Though in case of this particular texture it might be that it is too large - to test this resize the texture to make it (e.g.) 4096x4096 (or even smaller, but it has to be a power of two).

Cheers,
Joerg

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 15 Feb 2013, 08:39
by curseofmifan
hiker {l Wrote}:
curseofmifan {l Wrote}:I found the file which is causing the problem: lightmap-ground-devel.png . After renaming the track works!

Try loading this texture in your favourite image editor (even just paint in windows is fine), and save it again (still as .png file). That might just solve the problem.

Though in case of this particular texture it might be that it is too large - to test this resize the texture to make it (e.g.) 4096x4096 (or even smaller, but it has to be a power of two).

Cheers,
Joerg


After skaling the lightmap down to 4096x4096 with the help of GIMP 2, the track works now fine.

Thank you very much!

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 21 Feb 2013, 20:19
by Wolfs
I have just uploaded a new version of the track that features (among other things) a new second path. Its purpose is to give an easier but also longer alternative to the narrow road after the highway.
Please give feedback about the new skybox, the performance (which should have improved) and all other things that annoy you. Unfortunately, the track is still rather heavy on resources, but at least some of those weird graphic bugs should be fixed now.

city-lights.jpg

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2013, 10:42
by Ludsky
Wolfs {l Wrote}:I have just uploaded a new version of the track that features (among other things) a new second path. Its purpose is to give an easier but also longer alternative to the narrow road after the highway.
Please give feedback about the new skybox, the performance (which should have improved) and all other things that annoy you. Unfortunately, the track is still rather heavy on resources, but at least some of those weird graphic bugs should be fixed now.

city-lights.jpg


Whaaa, It's very Wonderful ! I wait your last version .....

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2013, 12:19
by Wolfs
Ludsky {l Wrote}:
Wolfs {l Wrote}:I have just uploaded a new version of the track that features (among other things) a new second path. Its purpose is to give an easier but also longer alternative to the narrow road after the highway.
Please give feedback about the new skybox, the performance (which should have improved) and all other things that annoy you. Unfortunately, the track is still rather heavy on resources, but at least some of those weird graphic bugs should be fixed now.

city-lights.jpg


Whaaa, It's very Wonderful ! I wait your last version .....

It's already uploaded to STKAddons (should have mentioned that, sorry :)), but it has not been approved yet.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2013, 13:18
by Ludsky
Wolfs {l Wrote}:
Ludsky {l Wrote}:
Wolfs {l Wrote}:I have just uploaded a new version of the track that features (among other things) a new second path. Its purpose is to give an easier but also longer alternative to the narrow road after the highway.
Please give feedback about the new skybox, the performance (which should have improved) and all other things that annoy you. Unfortunately, the track is still rather heavy on resources, but at least some of those weird graphic bugs should be fixed now.

city-lights.jpg


Whaaa, It's very Wonderful ! I wait your last version .....

It's already uploaded to STKAddons (should have mentioned that, sorry :)), but it has not been approved yet.


I look forward, can you put a files, please ?

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 22 Feb 2013, 16:22
by charlie
Wolfs {l Wrote}:I have just uploaded a new version of the track that features (among other things) a new second path. Its purpose is to give an easier but also longer alternative to the narrow road after the highway.
Please give feedback about the new skybox, the performance (which should have improved) and all other things that annoy you. Unfortunately, the track is still rather heavy on resources, but at least some of those weird graphic bugs should be fixed now.

city-lights.jpg


Looks better but I still don't think you should be using a skybox with skyscrapers in it.

Skybox should just be night sky (stars etc). Put some distant unreachable flat polygons as skyscrapers in the background. /0.02c

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 08 Mar 2013, 19:39
by Wolfs
charlie {l Wrote}:Looks better but I still don't think you should be using a skybox with skyscrapers in it.

Skybox should just be night sky (stars etc). Put some distant unreachable flat polygons as skyscrapers in the background. /0.02c

Sorry for the late answer, and thanks for your feedback. It is true that the skybox-skyscrapers can look weird, especially when you are driving on the highway. However, I hesitate to add those polygons. In the rendered skybox there are more than 3000 skyscrapers. I do not feel comfortable to add so many more faces to a track which already suffers from performace issues. Additionally, adding just one polygon per skyscraper would look bad for skyscrapers which are not directly in front of the player. There would have to be more faces per skyscraper in this case. But maybe I am wrong here or there is a better solution, I have virtually no knowledge of 3D designing after all ;).

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 08 Mar 2013, 20:57
by charlie
My suggestion would be to just try it with a few. Make them far enough away so that they are always mostly-facing the player. 3000 is definitely too many - there's no way to see most of them. You could get a nice effect with 2-3 layers of flat polygons and using the same (or several) textures. If you're concerned about some looking flat, you could use 4* polygons for the more significant ones; I'm sure STK could handle 50-60 x 4 polygon distant skyscrapers.

* or 3 or 2:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}
                            |_   2 here

     .=============.
     |             |         _
     |    track    |        |_   3 here
     |             |
     '============='

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 13 Mar 2013, 14:31
by Wolfs
charlie {l Wrote}:My suggestion would be to just try it with a few. Make them far enough away so that they are always mostly-facing the player. 3000 is definitely too many - there's no way to see most of them. You could get a nice effect with 2-3 layers of flat polygons and using the same (or several) textures. If you're concerned about some looking flat, you could use 4* polygons for the more significant ones; I'm sure STK could handle 50-60 x 4 polygon distant skyscrapers.

I understand, this is worth a try.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 24 Mar 2013, 10:46
by ChemBroTron
At the end of the highway, I think, you need to adjust the hard right turn, because, well, I have problems, but the AI drives straight into arrow sign (with a imidiate recovery by the thunderbird mascot). I recorded it, so if you need a video, I could upload one to youtube.

Also I tried to do a video of this track, but it seems that even for my pc the track is too demanding, which results in bad video quality.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 24 Mar 2013, 21:02
by Wolfs
ChemBroTron {l Wrote}:At the end of the highway, I think, you need to adjust the hard right turn, because, well, I have problems, but the AI drives straight into arrow sign (with a imidiate recovery by the thunderbird mascot). I recorded it, so if you need a video, I could upload one to youtube.

Thanks for posting this, I noticed that too. Tbh, I do not really know what is the best way to handle this. There used to be a slowdown texture, but I did not like it a lot. On the other hand, it is rather easy to drive along the turn by braking a bit first and then skidding around it. Maybe the AI should be able to do this?

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 25 Mar 2013, 02:12
by hiker
Wolfs {l Wrote}:Thanks for posting this, I noticed that too. Tbh, I do not really know what is the best way to handle this. There used to be a slowdown texture, but I did not like it a lot. On the other hand, it is rather easy to drive along the turn by braking a bit first and then skidding around it. Maybe the AI should be able to do this?

I agree, a slowdown texture for that is not the right solution. I can have a look why the AI is not braking, though it will be a few weeks (with hopefully GSoC coming) before I can get to that. Could you open a ticket?

Cheers,
Joerg

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 25 Mar 2013, 21:11
by Wolfs
hiker {l Wrote}:I agree, a slowdown texture for that is not the right solution. I can have a look why the AI is not braking, though it will be a few weeks (with hopefully GSoC coming) before I can get to that. Could you open a ticket?

Done (#902). Thanks for looking into this!

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 25 Apr 2013, 09:49
by Ludsky
Possible this track replace a normal city track ? (Auria, hiker, samunle ....) ?? for 0.8.1 ?

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 25 Apr 2013, 13:38
by tavariz91
If #902 is done, then I think it should be implemented in the official game too.

But what about small config players? Maybe there could be a big and a small texture, using old-age-computer settings could make the game choose smaller textures.
I think this could be done for other tracks too.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 26 Apr 2013, 15:23
by Totoplus62
This track is really good but need optimizations and another music :) this one doesn't really fit

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 26 Apr 2013, 21:50
by 0zone0ne
If this is going to get integrated into the core game (do it!) then I could try to do some music for it.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 26 Apr 2013, 21:56
by rubberduck
when do you upload the next version for testing or to addons
i can't wait :think: :o

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 14 May 2013, 12:21
by Ludsky
rubberduck {l Wrote}:when do you upload the next version for testing or to addons
i can't wait :think: :o


It's same for me, i would like this track remplace "City" ^^^for 0.8.1.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 14 May 2013, 20:37
by rubberduck
i think, that the lighting must be a bit better, not so dark and with some colors

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 25 May 2013, 22:38
by Wolfs
Totoplus62 {l Wrote}:This track is really good but need optimizations and another music :) this one doesn't really fit

Thanks :). I agree with you, the track is really heavy on resources. The problem is that I currently do not really know why that is so. For example city lights has for me roughly 13-28 ktris while driving with one kart and the old tux tollway track at least 40 - 60 ktris. Nevertheless tux tollway runs smoother.

rubberduck {l Wrote}:i think, that the lighting must be a bit better, not so dark and with some colors

The lighting is something I am working on. I am plannig to make the lanterns shine in a slightly yellow light and I want to add lights to the buildings so that the windows shine onto the road. I was actually thinking that the track is too bright in its current state and I was thinking about making it darker :), but apparently the brightness is depended on the screen.

rubberduck {l Wrote}:when do you upload the next version for testing or to addons
i can't wait :think: :o

I'm sorry but this will take some time :(. As usual I do not have a lot of time to work on the track, and there is also green valley where I am currently experimenting with a lightmap and improving the texture colors to fit the skybox better.

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 26 May 2013, 04:06
by jpenguin
Well, this track didm't work at all with 0.7.3, but it works fine with 0.8.0 on both my computers

ATI Radeon HD 4670
GeForce GTX 650 Ti

Re: New Track: City lights

PostPosted: 29 May 2013, 13:55
by rubberduck
Wolfs {l Wrote}:and there is also green valley where I am currently experimenting with a lightmap and improving the texture colors to fit the skybox better.


don't forget to remove the shortcut i found in green valley

see it here:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4530