The new assets, content and track rework thread

[CryHam]

Yeah cool . Pity is now gone higher, but I celebrated 1000 in that other topic.
Along with 1000 commits to SR3 repo just now .

Right, that'd be good. I'm eager to switch to SR3 completely with new content too, since merging from SR to SR3 takes some time.

Anyways I just noticed, are you driving only U6 lately? Because I just drove few new tracks like BarrelFun, MilkyWay, Oversize and this is way easier with U6. With cars (I drive SX usually) not so much. And when I was driving tracks ghost (ES always) then sometimes I needed to boost to jump, or even not fall off on Oversize etc. And underwater, man, normal cars need to boost all the time, I dislike underwater for this. Or low density fluid (I changed to it on BarrelFun and will do on MilkyWay). Challenges need to have boost: always for these tracks.
Ah I should add some info in tracks description probably (to each hmm). And I will make a challenge with only U6 on those probably too, this will need testing its drive times though otherwise could miss it.
Anyways if you could also consider testing other vehicles or adjusting tracks for them I think it'd be best.

[rubberduck]

ok, yes, I am driving U6 lately only.
I also made my first track for SR3 now, learning and testing what is possible with SR3 editor, where it may crash or other things to improve are.

And here it is

https://sebastianplaten.lima-city.de/ot ... ateaus.zip

and here 2 crash logs, one from yesterday, I was doing something with terrain

Ogre_ed_01.log

(84.43 KiB) Downloaded 69 times

and here when changing skies

Ogre_ed_02.log

(70.81 KiB) Downloaded 62 times

else there are 2 things in the editor that annoys me, first that a lot of things go a bit too fast I think, for example adusting car rotation and position, fluid scaling and moving, or moving road points.
The other thing is camera navigation feels a bit buggy, it is hard to describe, but you may know it yourself, I can't rotate infinite, it suddently stops like you can only rotate your head around a certain amount of degrees

[CryHam]

Allright great track, looks good, awesome horizon. Rather easy for a change. I'm only thinking of changing to pink crystals or such, since we have them, and these here are from Crystal scenery.
I've just added it to SR3. Also my update in Oversize track.
I'm missing OilBubblesSurface particle for the TarFields track. Otherwise it's great. Like with all, looks probably different and colors need adjusting. I can't even check yet how it looks on SR 2.8 to match it. I got lots to do lately.

As for bugs: okay, I see from .log that it's likely something gone bad with materials. Or it was missing. I can't really say more or fix it. Honestly only thing that I'd fix fast now is if you knew exactly how to replicate a crash.
But yes, surely SR3 editor now isn't very tolerant of missing resources. It will crash if track has a sky that isn't there, or some materials probably. I had a crash switching to object or particle that wasn't defined etc.
BTW I also intend to replace all .material files by .json files. This is the future since Material Editor can edit and Save all. And I think I'm close to having it working properly. It will still be possible to use both manually.

As for fast editing. Were you close or far (or in top view?). Since editor now changes speed based on distance. You can also always hold shift for small move/rotate etc. Probably start place or such may be bad still.
Also if you are on horizon (2nd terrain) etc then it's size is affecting camera move.
Otherwise yes it could be a bug, just need to know for sure. I should probably also add some slider to Gui for this speed. Only problem is that each edit mode has few different speed constants.

[rubberduck]

yes, I forgot to add the emitters to the PR, I just checked it in the repo.

Anyway, the second crash with the sky, that comes when a sky is in the presets file but not defined elsewhere, which I fixed when I added them locally, this works now
And the first crash it was only once yet, when it crashes again, then I try to replicate it, so I know what I need to to make it crash if possible

for the scaling of for example fluids, it is camera distance dependent, I like the idea with the gui slider, currently it just feels like it is a bit too high for me, especially when I compare it with doing it in SR 2.8 from typical distances. So in SR 3.0 I have less fine control, even with keys when I need it a bit more

[rubberduck]

I did some sky work again
including a planet on this one

and a version without

and a few normal too

[CryHam]

Nice. Looking good.

[rubberduck]

Here comes a big skies update
it contains all new skies, including the ones I made before, but renamed them, so you better see what they are, for example cloudy_01, sunset_03_rays, plus a list of all tracks which skies they use, to keep replacing the old skies in track, even if a track has a horizon right now.
Includes the lines for presets, updated _skies_new.txt and skies.material files
https://sebastianplaten.lima-city.de/ot ... update.zip

The only sky I have not renamed/included is space_nebula_01

Affected by renaming are Ano2-Bug, Ano3-Oversize, Apo1-TarFields, Fin3-TreeTops, Mar3-Plateaus, Spr1-Rise, Stn2-UltraFrenzy and TestC14-Anomaly

I also think I am gonna start replacing skies in some tracks, though before announcing it here, especially tracks without horizon. Just In case you plan to edit some of these tracks
These are a few I randomly picked for the next days:
Vlc8-Uncertain, Mos3-Air, Mos4-MossyMntn, Atm3-Orange, Mar1-Infinity, Wnt17-FrozenGarden, Mos8-MogFoss, Mrs1-Mars, Vlc1-Dark, Mud5-Mudflats, Isl7-Moses
I have also just updated all tracks, which I am going to do often

[CryHam]

Very good. This is definitely the way to go.
Someday all tracks will have skies replaced and that would make the biggest task from CC topic done, rest there will be quicker.
This is all for SR3 right? I think it'd be best to leave out old SR, since doing such changes for both is just extra work.

Okay, so I won't edit those tracks for sure.
Anyways I don't plan to edit tracks soon, maybe some small fixes or so. I won't do more horizons for 3.0 beta, maybe some time after, so feel free to modify SR3 tracks. There was only a problem if we edited terrain in both SR3 and old SR, other changes can be merged.
You can also do PR (pull requests) for SR3 and SR3 tracks repos. It'd be easier to apply them.

I have a lot of going on with materials though, I have almost moved them to .json. Which is just completely different.
And this .json has all of materials in 1 seriously big file (49512 lines right now ). Only have some trouble with few wet roads, alpha tilling, which I want to code in shader. There are also new material features (like detail maps) in .json possible, for roads, objects etc.
So, please don't do too much with materials until SR 3.0 RC3 which I'd like to have this .json soon.
Skies are easy, so no problems.
I can merge changes manually, and still it's possible to load old .materials and save in Material Editor (this way to convert) to .json but yeah it's tedious manual work sometimes to merge (the more of it the more materials changed).

[rubberduck]

my first iteration, though I am going to drive them soon, if I see something

I have also planned doing it with the repo, I was just a bit lazy setting the SR3 repo up, cloning it and so on

[rubberduck]

my first SR3 PR is up now, including even more skies as I had a few days before, and 8 tracks with new skies, 7 with horizons added
the 8th already had one, but I added a few objects in the background there too:

[CryHam]

Wow. This is awesome. Especially the new horizons look amazing.

[CryHam]

This does sometimes need redoing track ghost though. Moses needs it and surely Dark does, it also changes difficulty for Dark, might affect challenges etc. Recent changes on Cross did affect its difficulty a lot I'd say.
I can do ES ghosts myself, since you're busy with these updates and are driving like U6 only
But anyways, it is now possible to do track ghost yourself, I wrote how on editor page.
BTW I moved to .json, I just need to do a RC3 now.
Not sure how but you removed *Wet roads from last rainy tracks. I restored them.

[rubberduck]

yeah, I think that came, because my version was a few days older, I updated the tracks I think on tuesday. I got now a fresh update of the tracks today, which I will do more often now. Also I copy tracks before editing, having save original disabled and use to compare from time to time, but always outside editor, to be sure that everything gets copied.

I have also just tested what happens if you copy a track in editor with horizon / multiple terrains and roads, additional roads and terrains are not copied, with terrains it even leads to a crash when trying to load the track, the second terrain is in the scene.xml file, but the heightmap is missing.

[CryHam]

Right, also I just realized if I delete road 4 and do F5 I still get track with road 4.
Ugh. This all goes into a list of editor bugs in 3.0 beta.

[rubberduck]

coming tomorrow: this renewed track and some more, but this is the highlight.
I was even driving the original recently, which had a lot of vegetation causing a lot of lag, even on my machine

oh, and would you have recognized it with just the preview image?

[CryHam]

You can check out my commit here
I did recently improve garbage_bin blue and green look by adding roughness texture and reflect. Finally works and gives nicer materials. There are some issues sometimes though.
Besides that, I'll be writing now a new chapter in Materials.md with .json examples. But you could also look around other files or try stuff in Material Editor, which also needs an update (would be cool to have texture changing there).

[CryHam]

Looks very nice.
Is this Isl16-SandyMountain modified a lot? If not then I don't know.

[rubberduck]

yes, it is, and it comes soon, maybe in an hour

[CryHam]

Great improvements. SandyMountain is very cool, renamed to Can10-.
I'm missing sky/day_clouds_05_bright2 material in Wnt17-FrozenGarden.
You can add it in PR next time. I fixed that crash with missing.

[rubberduck]

ok, I will add it tomorrow morning, together with an updated version of bug,

Isl3-islands track turned into islandsdark

and many more (around 15 in total)

[rubberduck]

I added the material, I also figured out what happened, there was a merge conflict when I tried to update my branch, with all changes from the previous PR discarded.
In case it happens again this time, I added 5 new skies in total and removed 4, that are now unused (including the ones from the last PR). Plus updating the new-skies.txt and my skies.odt

[rubberduck]

ok, somehow the exporter for SR3 mesh files works, but importing fails. It looks like it searches for a mesh.xml file.
what can I do to import them?

Also what is needed to add meshes as trees?, I want to test if I can add some more rock types, maybe recolored, or some new too

[CryHam]

Sorry for delay, I started recording videos for SR3.0 and I think it consumed me, but I got like half I think already.
Hmm I never imported in new Ogre, and maybe once or twice long ago. It then didn't have normals or something.
I would avoid it. That's why we always have a .blend file and blendfiles repo.
But I tried importing and yeah it fails. This OgreMeshTool tool can convert to xml too like so:
OgreMeshTool balloon1.mesh balloon1.mesh.xml
But even with it Blender then fails.
IDK if that should work. I reported this issue here: https://github.com/OGRECave/blender2ogre/issues/187

[CryHam]

As for conflicts, well it happens since we're active recently and on same files.
Generally if a conflict happens you should be still able to either use your version, or mine or merge manually. And not loose anything. But it needs some experience.

For binary files there is (rather) no way to merge (mesh png jpg heightmap etc) have to choose your or my file.
For xml, json, txt and other text files, we can merge changes and edit them during conflict. These can get those <<<< ==== >>>> marks added inside, need to edit and remove.
Next, test merge results first, then mark files as resolved and push back to repo.

I'd recommend taking some time and getting to know this, it's useful, but needs time.
There are many videos, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... cts+in+git

On Windows I'd recommend using either GitExtensions https://gitextensions.github.io/
or VSCodium (i.e. fixed VS Code) https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/releases
which I use.
Just a few videos, I think relevant:
GitExtensions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmc39RvuGM8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk_lly0ezMM
VS Code (will apply to VSCodium too)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HosPml1qkrg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuB6hYoLozw

I used GitExtensions on Windows. I use VSCodium now for Git, and for developing SR3 code.

[rubberduck]

ok, I am gonna check this soon with git.

And when it comes to importing and / or blend files, there are some assets without any blend file related to, for example the water plane big, which I imported I think from SR 2.8.
It also feels a bit like that the blend file repo could be restructured, at least in the future,
some are under props, others under models. In many cases I chose props for like dynamic objects.