AIW and CAM file Editor

[Duff]

You don't need to add alpha.
Each way point has an alpha value and an offset to the position it is drawn in (hopefully someone will correct me here if I am wrong) so where you don't see the groove it's because the alpha is a low value.

[cbuergel]

Originally Posted by Duff

You don't need to add alpha.
Each way point has an alpha value and an offset to the position it is drawn in (hopefully someone will correct me here if I am wrong) so where you don't see the groove it's because the alpha is a low value.

Yes, that?s what I just discovered. With Guitarmaen?s tool you can activate ALPHA whereever you want. Great.

[guitarmaen]

@ cbuergel

Sorry I don't have Toronto and I cannot find it in the net.
Do you have a download link for me?

[cbuergel]

Of course, here you will find 4 of the best old ChampCar Tracks (beside the offical ones, that can be found in the iNet).
I searched for them for a long, long time. The only one I did not find, was San Jose.
Tracks

Greetings.

[guitarmaen]

What are thinking about that? I also did some improvements from the 1st to the 2nd corner to the AI-Line.

[cbuergel]

Some things are better, some not.
Pit entrance and exit are better, much smoother now. Start finish straight too is better, much better.
But the ALPHAs are a little bit to heavy and too to much.
How did you speed up the AIs that much? Did you drive a new line? How can they now be as fast? BTW I don?t like it, becaus I only drive 56 high times and with 95% strenght they now drive 53 deep.
Another thing is, that the AIs in about 3 corners sometimes crash, because the line is to narrow to the walls.
How did you make the entrance/exit and the Straight?
With your programm or did you use ISI?s for driving new lines?
How is it possible that the WPs are different to the blue line (in the pits).
And what arer the new triangles in the Pits? How did you do them?
Is there anywhere an easy tutorial for all those things?
Would be nice, if you would help me a little bit.

Greetings.

PS here is mine, so you can see, what I mean whit the ALPHAs and the drivingline. I change two corners, so that they don?t crash any more, the second narrow corner after the long straigt and the left corner short before the pit entrance. But as you can see on the pit exit, I do not know very much about those programs... So it would be nice, if you could help me a little bit.

[guitarmaen]

I do a lot of things:
First I agree with you that the pit exit is too short - so I added 3 WPs to the pit exit. In this case it was very easy, because the last WP of the pitlane was also the last WP in the AIW-file. So I just copied the last WP 3 times, made some changes to the position and then started my editor where I set the WP_PERP and the WP_PTRS values. The resulting AIW-file I loaded with AIW-EDITOR from ISI and without changing anything I just clicked on "save waypoints" (with this procedure you will get a standard AIW-file, and ISIs Editor solves a lot of mistakes automaticly).
After this procedure the main track was no longer blue (which was strange to me too) but green and it generates the "triangles" to the pit positions. These triangles describe roughly how the cars drive from the pitlane to the pitposition and back.
Now I run my editor again with the last generated AIW. And a lot of handy work begins.
First I corrected the pit exit. You need a little bit experience to get a smooth line but you only have to set the first WP_PATH variable. Negative values means left of the WP, positive values means right of the WP. Additional help for a smooth line is the angle field (rightmost field line the "Create WP:" line). This field gives you a vision of the angle (not in degrees) between 3 WPs - the highlighted WP, the WP before and the WP after. Again negative values indicate a left angle(corner), positive values indicate a right angle(corner).

Next I changed the optimal path from mid of finish straight to the second corner. Of course I didn't do it by hand - this would last a week. With ISIs editor you can make comlete paths around the track only. Again you only have to change the first field of the WP_PATH variable, which describes the optimal path of the AIs relative to the WPs.
There is a special function in my editor where you can set a lot of WPs with one klick. (See help in the editor: right klick on the "Create WP" label after loading a track)

I did nothing to the track entrance, maybe ISIs editor did?
I only made the alphas a lot darker, but I don't added some (before max alpha=0.45, after maximum alpha=1.0)
I also did nothing to the speed ( with the exception of 1st and 2nd hard corner)
I tested the optimal path with the mod we (my little racing team) are driving with - its the RTC BMW M3. With the original AIW-file the AIs crashed in the 2nd right corner, after my correction they don't crash anywhere - although sometimes they are very close to the walls. This obviously depends on the mod.

I hope I answered to all questions now. But in all cases: If you have any special questions (about my tool or not) ... put it here or send me a PM.

[cbuergel]

Ok. Thanx. I try in in PN.

[guitarmaen]

New in this Version:

- AIRange Variable: Here you can change the range of the AI-cars. Values are from 0 to 1. Smaller Values = smaller range.

- FuelUse variable could be edited (someone asked for it, don't remember who)

- Some input fields in the upper area have a slightly darker background: For all these fields you can use now a special syntax (maybe known from the wp_score_cp field before):

value_amount (example: 3.45_15 )

This means that you can set the same value for more than one WP. In this example you set the value for this field to 3.45, but also the next 15 WPs are set to 3.45. This could speed up a lot of input work. Of course can also enter only a single value like 3.45 (wihout "_") where only the highlighted WP is changed.

- wp_bitfields variable included. Should have the same value as wp_PTRS_D ( I'm not realy sure about this).

- AUX positions: These are the pace car and the safty car positions. They are plotted every time ( red circle with a purple line; circle is the front of the car) and you can edit the positions in the AUX section at the left.

@DDawg : I included wp_cheat and wp_test_speed and made a lot of tests trying to change the speed of AIs at certain points, but I failed. I didn't notice any change, so I removed them again. If you or anyone else can proof that they have any effect on the speed of the AIs I will certainly intergrate them into my editor again.

I think that's all for this release.
Have fun with it.

[Greybrad]

Nice timing with this new version, I have 8 aiw's to make and edit for GTR2.

Great program for editing and putting the finishing touches to a aiw

[cbuergel]

Yes, too many thanx from my side.
You and your editor helped me several times.

Greetings.

[Woffin]

Hi there

Thanks for providing this tool I'm sure it would be fantastic if I could get my head around it, lol. Here's what I'm doing...my track is being built with BTB and I am exporting to the game. No other editor has been used. I open up your tool and locate the default cam file provided with BTB. When the file opens I dont see my track, but some different layout that isn't my track. Is there something else I need to do to be editing cameras and AI lines? I'm completely confused as this is the first ever time I've delved into it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated
-Woffin

[obmit]

You really need to get the official ISI AIW editor for making the AIW file, the new 1.255 compatible version also contains a camera editor too, just make sure you get the ISI DEVS files as well. Here's a link for the editor http://www.rfactor.net/index.php?page=devcorner not sure where you can get the DEVS files though, they arent included in the download, but I do remember seeing another thread on RSC about where they can be got.

Edit: FOund the thread for the DEVS files http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=254112 check out post #12

[Duff]

Woffin - The aiw you create defines the track layout and this is what guitarmaen's editor uses to help you place your cameras. Hence as obmit says you need the official editor to create the aiw. You can then read this in and use guitarmaen's editor to fine tune it and to create and place cameras.

[Woffin]

Thanks obmit and Duff totally new to this you see, lol. So things you may think are obvious are things I've never heard of before . It's starting to make sense somewhat now so thanks again, I'll give it all a try now and see what comes up.

[obmit]

Hey no worries Woffin, dont worry about it, everyone had to start somewhere, and this is "THE" best place to find all the info needed. Im new to all this track making malarkey as well, so I'm in much the same situation, but everytime I've had a problem, I just trawled through the forums and found all the info required, got some really talented people on these forums, who dont mind sharing there knowledge with nooobs like me

Also check this out, I found it very handy.

[Woffin]

Hehe definitely true obmit. Must say that my AIW is coming along nicely now I'm upto the stage of setting the fast path...however nothing is happening. It just says it is waiting for me to cross the line, and even though I've done a few laps, it never actually changes.

[obmit]

Aaaah, ok if it keeps saying "waiting to cross line" you havent created any timing markers yet. For any track you need 5 specially named objects, XFINISH, XSECTOR1, XSECTOR2, XPITIN and XPITOUT. Usually these are made from a simple plane object, crossing the track at, as you may have guessed from the names, the finish line , where you want the start of timing sector 1, the same for sector 2, and at the pit entrance and exit. The problem your having is because you arent driving "through" where the XFINISH object should be, and it needs that to know where the actual lap starts. Hope that made sense, I'm getting old

Do you have 3DSimED ??? if not I would highly recommend it, I made my timing objects in that and placed them on the track at the appropriate locations. Very handy tool for research as well, see how other people have done there tracks. If it wasnt for pieces of software like Bob's Track Builder by Piddy and 3DSimED by Dave Noonan, I wouldnt be able to do any of this. I'm too old to go learning something as complex as 3DMAX, and certainly dont have the cash to splash on it.

Good luck with your AIW creating

EDIT: DOH, just remembered, you can also use this method with BTB http://forum.racesimcentral.com/showthread.php?t=290794 see, told you I was getting old, just had a senior moment LOL

[Woffin]

I dont have 3dsimed, but I do have the trial version of MAX waiting to be opened. I also heard you could do timing objects in BTB? So before I progress any further with my AIW, I need to do my timing objects? Also, when I save with the ISI AIW editor it says there is insufficient garaga/pit data or something...

[obmit]

Yes, you really need those timing objects or you'll be driving around all day, and it still wont work. Ah ok, good luck with MAX. And as for the insufficient garage/pit data error, I keep getting that as well, but the AIW still works ok for me. And yes you can make the "X" objects in BTB using walls, I havent actually tried that method myself. See my previous post for the link, if you havent already hunted it down.

EDIT: 3DSimED is only ?20, a bargain. Can seem a little daunting to start with, but its definitely worth the money and the time taken to learn it.

[Duff]

Woffin - If you create the Xobjects in BTB it will allow you to go back to your BTB file and adjust them, if you do it in MAX they won't be available in BTB. (plus MAX is too scary...)

[Woffin]

Okay then Duff, BTB it is besides, I've not started the trail of MAX yet and would probably take the 30 days getting used to the interface. I would love to be able to do it though, since the results you can get with max could be far superior to any other program. Just need to find a tutorial from the ground up .

[Woffin]

Getting there very very slowly . All my ISI AIW stuff is done, it's just a case of refining it now...and here's what I have to do but dont have a clue how to do it:

- Make the pit entrance/exits smoother. They're very abrupt at the moment.
- Tweak the fast path...I made a mistake on my fast lap lol.
- Stop the cars slowing down excessively for an uphill hairpin.
- Create the cameras (I think I have the basic idea of this...but I can't move the activation radius, the Alt keys dont seem to work (I'm using a laptop keyboard btw)
- Probably lots more unforseen stuff that will crop up when it crops up

I'm sticking with this! And it's starting to sink in and make some sort of sense, lol.

[Woffin]

Regarding the branches...do I always have to connect the last waypoint of the pit path or am I allowed to join the pit path to the fast path before the pit path finishes? The reason I ask is because my pit path actually overlaps with the fast path (I was trying to get it to join to the middle path, since it was my first attempt and didn't know any better ).

I'm not actually able to try out the number lock thing right now but I will as soon as I can . Something else I remember wanting to ask...is it possible, and if so, is it wise to move waypoints to fix an incorrect fast path?

[Duff]

I've never tried joining before the path finishes, but it may be ok - you praobably want to remove the remaining pit waypoint to be on the safe side tho.

You don't need to move the waypoints to fix the fast path, just change the offset for the fast path at the relevant waypoint.