FreeGameDev

After having a break from drawing tracks for quite while, I continued with my scotland track, that you can found in the attachement.
This scotland track was developed for STK 0.6 but soon I will start to convert to the newest Version 0.7, that I downloaded today.
I was very impressed by the new tracks with moving elements like turning wheels. I was also a bit surprised to see my XR951 with moving aliens.

Before I keep on working on this scotish track I would like to know:
-Is there still interest on new tracks for the next Version?
-If yes, what important parts are missing in scotland?
I'm planning: more ships, houses and pubs, highland cattles, different trees and flowers.

Cheers
Canis Lupus

Hi Canis,

great to have you back

Very nice work here The only thing that caught my attention is the very repetitive texture on the castle towers (visible in your screenshot), using a less repetitive texture would be an improvement

-Is there still interest on new tracks for the next Version?

Sure, there always is, our current trackset is by no mean perfect

This scotland track was developed for STK 0.6 but soon I will start to convert to the newest Version 0.7, that I downloaded today.

Little tip : open the .blend in a text editor (make a backup first of course) and search-and-replace all occurrences of .rgb to .png, makes converting a track much faster than loading all PNG versions of textures manually

I'm happy to see you again

Auria {l Wrote}:Little tip : open the .blend in a text editor (make a backup first of course) and search-and-replace all occurrences of .rgb to .png, makes converting a track much faster than loading all PNG versions of textures manually

I know that Auria has used this successfully before, but it didn't work for me (and this was with xemacs, so not an editor that would add/insert any special characters or change line ending) - I always got an error message about incomplete file or so. So I'd suggest to try, but make sure you have a backup

Cheers,
Joerg

Welcome back Canis Lupus!
You're tracks are the best!
I can't wait to see more!

Little tip : open the .blend in a text editor (make a backup first of course) and search-and-replace all occurrences of .rgb to .png, makes converting a track much faster than loading all PNG versions of textures manually

I think you should use a hex editor instead of a text editor for example GHex in Linux and UltraEdit in Windows ...

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}: I'm planning: more ships, houses and pubs, highland cattles, different trees and flowers.

It could be nice to have a loch with Nessy (as animation) and in the background mountains (like Ben Nevis). Don't forget the fog of Scotland

It's just a proposition

And name the track "Scotland Yard"... okay, I admit it, dumbest joke ever.

Hey, wolfman! Long time no c.

Thank you for the kind re-welcome!
It's like meeting an old family again and I was surprised, that still the same people work on STK.

I started to get the scotland track ready for Version 0.7 but despite the good the documentation, I've still some troubles:

-Has the track to be somewhere registered to be recognized by STK? So far I abused the directory of another track to add my one in it.
-Where can I add the track-wide attributes? I wrote the track.xml by myself so far. This track attributes seemed to be connected to objects for my opinion.
-To convert the old drive lines to the new format was simple but the thing with the lap-check-line is more difficult. Is this just a simple line accross the road with property name type and value lap? It seems to work for my driver, but after adding this lines, all pc-controlled karts got stuck.
-The animated water looks cool, my problem is just, that the ships should also move on the waves and not the waves over the ships. Is threre a simple trick to keep water and ship synchron?
-The sun light and the resulting shadows were cool, but I think it were better to switch them of for the scotland track, because it looks also a bit strange in some places. How can I switch the sun off?
-Now the biggest problem: I have planes with solid colors and no textures. Or for example: I mixed the water with dark solid blue, but after track-export, the dark blue is not included, just the texture. The sea of Scotland looks now as it were in the South Pacific.
-Is there still a zipper.ac opject?

By the way: The trick with the hex editor for exchanging all .rgb to .png pictures in the blender projects has worked work!

Cheers
Canis Lupus

Hi,

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-Has the track to be somewhere registered to be recognized by STK? So far I abused the directory of another track to add my one in it.

No, just make sure you're using the latest version of the track exporter, then put the result in the tracks folder, STK should reckognize it

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-Where can I add the track-wide attributes? I wrote the track.xml by myself so far.

Check http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Tra ... properties , I recently updated this page to be clearer

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:This track attributes seemed to be connected to objects for my opinion

I don't understand, sorry

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-To convert the old drive lines to the new format was simple but the thing with the lap-check-line is more difficult. Is this just a simple line accross the road with property name type and value lap? It seems to work for my driver, but after adding this lines, all pc-controlled karts got stuck.

Check http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/New ... _checkline , I recently updated this page to be easier to follow

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The animated water looks cool, my problem is just, that the ships should also move on the waves and not the waves over the ships. Is threre a simple trick to keep water and ship synchron?

I'm afraid we don't Joerg: can you think of any not too difficult way to achieve this?
For now, the best way is probably to keep the waves small enough so that it doesn't look weird that the ship doesn't move

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The sun light and the resulting shadows were cool, but I think it were better to switch them of for the scotland track, because it looks also a bit strange in some places. How can I switch the sun off?

This one is for Joerg; theorically you should be able to move the sun in scene.xml so that the shadows are where you want them, but I believe it doesn't work right now.

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-Now the biggest problem: I have planes with solid colors and no textures. Or for example: I mixed the water with dark solid blue, but after track-export, the dark blue is not included, just the texture. The sea of Scotland looks now as it were in the South Pacific.

Blender materials are not always taken into account; to add color to meshes, I recommend using vertex colors and not materials; vertex colors will be exported and taken into account

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-Is there still a zipper.ac opject?

No The current way is to add a textured floor and give it the zipper property in materials.xml

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:By the way: The trick with the hex editor for exchanging all .rgb to .png pictures in the blender projects has worked work!

Nice

Good luck, don't hesitate to ask for more help if you need it

Hi,

it would be good to know if we have to update our documentation further, i.e. where to find 'track wide' properties (ID-property browser in blender) and object-specific settings.
...

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-To convert the old drive lines to the new format was simple but the thing with the lap-check-line is more difficult. Is this just a simple line accross the road with property name type and value lap? It seems to work for my driver, but after adding this lines, all pc-controlled karts got stuck.

The check lines should not have much impact on how the karts drive. It's often more incorrect drivelines (duplicated points etc). Make sure that you are using the latest track exporter from the SVN repository, it detects more potential problems and prints a warning message. Otherwise just post the .blend file here, and I'll have a look.

Auria {l Wrote}:

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The animated water looks cool, my problem is just, that the ships should also move on the waves and not the waves over the ships. Is threre a simple trick to keep water and ship synchron?

I'm afraid we don't Joerg: can you think of any not too difficult way to achieve this?
For now, the best way is probably to keep the waves small enough so that it doesn't look weird that the ship doesn't move

No, I can't really think of a good way. I mean you can animate the ships in blender, but to match the water animation is (at least) difficult (though it's probably worth giving it a try - no one will look that closely at ship and water to notice some differences). So try just adding some IPOs to move the ship slightly up (or wherever you want it to move).

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The sun light and the resulting shadows were cool, but I think it were better to switch them of for the scotland track, because it looks also a bit strange in some places. How can I switch the sun off?

This one is for Joerg; theorically you should be able to move the sun in scene.xml so that the shadows are where you want them, but I believe it doesn't work right now.

Strangely enough I think it was you who disabled this (i.e. replaced the sun position from the scene.xml file with (0,0,0) - see r4166). It would be easy enough to re-enable:

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

   m_sun = irr_driver->getSceneManager()->addLightSceneNode(NULL, core::vector3df(0,0,0),
                                                               m_sun_diffuse_color);


Just replace core::vector3df(0,0,0) with m_sun_position in track.cpp (around line 880).


Cheers,
Joerg

Joerg: I remember; the problem is that what is important with the sun node is not its physical location, but its orientation, I believe. We would need to calculate the right angle given the position of the sun in blender (or document that we discard position and only consider sun angle, but does the exporter export sun angle?)

Auria {l Wrote}:Joerg: I remember; the problem is that what is important with the sun node is not its physical location, but its orientation, I believe. We would need to calculate the right angle given the position of the sun in blender (or document that we discard position and only consider sun angle, but does the exporter export sun angle?)

ATM the exporter only exports the position, but I can easily add the rotation (and/or remove the position). Just let me know what is most convenient, and I'll add this.

Cheers,
Joerg

Thanks for the quick answer

In most cases I got a bit further. The problem with the new exporter, water and main_drive was solvable, more or less.
But now Im got stuck and need help, that why I've attached the blender project file together with the track. (The license file is still in work)
Could somebody has a look to scotland.blend and tell me what I have done wrong?

-I've read the thing with the lap properties, and added a line in the tube, opposite the start, with the result, that the game crashed when the first kart crossed this line, so I changed its property a bit. Now it doesn't crash but does not count the laps correctly.

-The music worked fine on Version 0.6, but with 0.7 I'm without success.

-The zipper is a bit tricky, it worked before I added the zipper_collect.png to the material.xml

-The sun and the shadows are cool but gives some cube effective to the sky. I'd prefere less sunshine.

-How can I make screenshots of the screen for version 0.7 ?

Cheers

Canis Lupus

Hi,

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-I've read the thing with the lap properties, and added a line in the tube, opposite the start, with the result, that the game crashed when the first kart crossed this line, so I changed its property a bit. Now it doesn't crash but does not count the laps correctly.

Your blend has a line that says : "type = activate". Instead, you need "type = check; activate = lap". You can see an example here : http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/New ... _checkline

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The music worked fine on Version 0.6, but with 0.7 I'm without success.

This is because the "scotland.music" file is still a LISP file; check the other .music files in STK data dir, they are now XML

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The zipper is a bit tricky, it worked before I added the zipper_collect.png to the material.xml

See http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Materials_xml , you will need to add zipper="Y" to the materials.xml file

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-The sun and the shadows are cool but gives some cube effective to the sky. I'd prefere less sunshine.

In 0.7 it is not a good idea to create a mesh sky. Instead use irrlicht's skydome feature; you can set your track to use a skydome in the track-wide properties. Alternatively, if you really want to use a mesh sky, give the sky texture light="N" in materials.xml to remove the shadow effect on it

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:-How can I make screenshots of the screen for version 0.7 ?

I just use my system's built-in screenshot taker

Hopefully this will help you

Thanks for the support, I really need it.

It's amazing how simple some troubles are solveable.

This feature with the sky-texture is a nice thing, but how are this textures supposed to look like?
The clouds on the horizon with Sky_horiz_17.png look a bit unreal streched.

This thing with the checkline is more confusing- I followed your advise and set the properties correct, but now the game crashes again with the message Unknown other-id in checkline.

The build in PrintScreen of Windows delivers empty pictures, how bizarre! I think, I have to make the Screenshot with Version 0.6

The zipper work fine now and the the bagpipes are hearable now.

Cheers

Rolf

Hi,

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:This thing with the checkline is more confusing- I followed your advise and set the properties correct, but now the game crashes again with the message Unknown other-id in checkline.

First of all I added a proper warning message to the track exporter if the type property is set to an incorrect value. This should help somewhat (download it fromhttp://supertuxkart.svn.sourceforge ... xt%2Fplain).

Could you post the latest .blend file? After setting the activation line to have 'type=check, activate=lap' it worked for me. BTW, there is no need to use a separate start line, it is taken (by now) automatically from the driveline. So you can just remove the 'main-driveline.001' mesh completely.

Also a recommendation: could you move all driveline related meshes into one layer? It's pretty difficult to find the activation line. Having them on one layer makes it much easier to see all issues related to drivelines. I usually also try to have all items on the same mesh - again that makes it easy to see if an item is in the wrong place (e.g. to high or too low).

The build in PrintScreen of Windows delivers empty pictures, how bizarre! I think, I have to make the Screenshot with Version 0.6

This works for me, so if you can't get it to work, just insert any picture as a placeholder, and we can easily replace it.

Cheers,
Joerg

I'm sure that it's a stupid mistake I make with this driveline, but I just don't see it.
I used the new exporter but didn't get any warning. STK gave me an additional warning after crashing:
Warning: while loading track 'scotland', element 'default-start' was met but is unknown.
See attachement for blender project file.
At least I discovered today how to move objects to other layers. That's something I always wanted to know, too.

Cheers
Cans Lupus

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:I'm sure that it's a stupid mistake I make with this driveline, but I just don't see it.
I used the new exporter but didn't get any warning. STK gave me an additional warning after crashing:

Oops - how embarrassing. No, you didn't do anything wrong, it's just that the new track exporter is not compatible with 0.7-alpha3 anymore. There are a few ways to fix this:

• Use an old exporter, http://supertuxkart.svn.sourceforge.net ... xt%2Fplain should work.
• Modify the created scene.xml file: replace the string "other-ids" with "other-id" (no s) - that's all.
• Compile your own current SVN version of STK

Hope one of these solutions work for you.

Warning: while loading track 'scotland', element 'default-start' was met but is unknown.

That was another addition to the current track exporter (and I only removed the warning from SVN today ). It's safe to ignore this.

Cheers,
Joerg

The change from "other-ids" to "other-id" worked fine.

So the Scotland track is more or less finished, if there weren't the animations, I'de like to add.
It were a pitty not to use this new feature, but I didn'd have any luck with IPOs so far:
The objects moved in blender, but not on STK.

Is there any trick? (I didn't find much in the documentation about IPO animations in STK.)

Cheers

Canis Lupus

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:The change from "other-ids" to "other-id" worked fine.

Good

So the Scotland track is more or less finished, if there weren't the animations, I'de like to add.

That's even better

It were a pitty not to use this new feature, but I didn'd have any luck with IPOs so far:
The objects moved in blender, but not on STK.

Is there any trick? (I didn't find much in the documentation about IPO animations in STK.)

Have a look at http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/Tra ... ed_Objects
So you basically set 'type=object', 'interaction=...' to some of the values described in that section. You can use RotXYZ, LocXYZ, and ScaleXYZ (the latter might not yet work in 0.7alpha3, not sure when I added that).

It should also be possible to combine IPOs animations with armatures - but atm we have only one example of that, and have problems with the armature animation to work with irrlicht at all (the IPO part appears to work fine). In this case the armature animation also doesn't work with the irrlicht demo, so not sure what we can do about that.

Cheers,
Joerg

That's more or less what I've tried but I get now the strange python error:
see attachement 1

I've tried different settings:
- no Name property
- "Name"
- "name"
see attachement 2

By the way, what do your recommend for the interaction property of decorating stuff, that never will have a collision to a kart? ghost or none?

Cheers

Canis Lupus

Canis Lupus {l Wrote}:That's more or less what I've tried but I get now the strange python error:
see attachement 1

Gee, are you trying to get the bug catcher of the year award ? I've just fixed that in svn, so please download a new version of the exporter from SVN (link should be in a previous posting somewhere).

I've tried different settings:
- no Name property
- "Name"
- "name"

Lower case name is the right spelling for the property, but in this case it was a typo in the script, so actually unrelated to this And the script tried to print a warning since you declared the object to have interaction 'move', but no shape (shape is necessary for the physics simulation, since simulating the full mesh is too expensive).
...

By the way, what do your recommend for the interaction property of decorating stuff, that never will have a collision to a kart? ghost or none?

Doesn't matter, they are the same ... I just couldn't decide what name to use, so I implemented both, with the idea to get some feedback and then make one the official name.

Cheers,
Joerg

Finally Nessy has learned to dive in its lake, that means I got the animation to works for LocXY and Z in the scotland track.
It looked a bit weared until I discovere, that the Transform Properties for this objects must be Zero for RotX, RotY and RotZ.
I had also some tries with rotations and it seamed to work for RotX and RotY, but RotZ looked like mix of z- and x-rotation.
It's not so important for the scotland track, but could it be, that this is failure in SuperTuxKart?

Cheers
Canis Lupus