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A track is a collection of geometrical objects and physical descriptions.

INTRODUCTION

This document describes how Racer tracks are structured. There is a Track Editor available which deals with a lot of issues when generating tracks (actually, the name may suggest that you can create tracks from scratch, but in fact you create tracks in 3D packages like 3D Studio Max or Maya). For information on how to use the editor, see the TrackEd documentation.

CONVERTING FROM OTHER FORMATS

If you want to learn how to import tracks from SCGT, go here.

For a rough explanation on how to convert rFactor tracks to Racer, visit this page.

TRACK COMPONENTS

I've split this text into various parts:

• What is a track?
• Files that make up a track

WHAT IS A TRACK?

A track consists of:

• Track models; the road (and grass/fences) are split up into multiple models. For example, the Carrera track has about 30. This is done for performance reasons (when a model is not near the car, it is not drawn; when it is partly visible, it is entirely drawn).
• Trackside models; things like houses, pit buildings, grandstands, trees etc.
• Sky models; the sky is like a roadside model, but it's special. Some sky models may move with the player (like is done in SCGT), or just be plain big and encapsulate the entire track (like is done in GPL). I like the latter better, as it may help getting nice moving clouds in a huge-looking sky. The sky also knows a clear color; the screen is filled with this to paint in places where the sky models doesn't fill the view.
  Newer Racer version (v0.8+) need a sky model that encapsulates a track; no movable sky should be used (due to atmosphere calculations). Also, no clear color is used anymore; the sky should fill the entire screen. Using a simple clear color isn't necessary anymore these days, and it's often uglier.
• Track camera definitions; track side cameras (multiple groups of these may exist, like TV1 and TV2 in Grand Prix Legends for example). These focus on (a part of) the car or are fixed, just like on television.
• Grid and pit positions; the places where cars are located when in the pits or on the grid.
• Timelines; lines to determine where start/finish is, and where other subtimes are located. You must have at least 2 timelines in a track to avoid the player just reversing over the start/finish line after just crossing it (and doing a 5 second lap).
• Object properties; for example, flags that indicate whether models (objects) are surfaces (where you can drive on), if you can collide with them etc.
• Surface spline definitions (click for more detailed information). These define the track's slopes in mathematically smooth curves. These may be omitted, but they are necessary since just relying on the polygons will make the grade changes be too sudden, and your track will be very hard to drive at a bit of speed.
• Surface type definitions. The different types of surfaces, like road, grass, gravel, kerb etc.

Important is the subdivision of the road objects. This has a big impact on performance, since it is used for surface collision detection (on what triangle is the car located) and painting (if a model isn't in the viewing frustum, it isn't painted).

THE FILES INVOLVED

You'll find tracks in Racer's data/tracks/ directory. Every track has its own directory, with most files directly underneath that.
The most important start is track.ini.

The files you will probably find in a track directory are:

• track.ini - describes general track information
• geometry.ini - enumerates the 3D objects that will be loaded to make up the track (and their attributes)
• special.ini - grid & pit positions, sky clear color, track cameras, timelines, surface types.
• spline.ini - spline definitions.
• bestlaps.ini - a list of the best achievements.
• movables001.ini - a list of movable objects (feature is in beta)
  

SOME OLDER TEXT FOLLOWS; SOME OF IT IS INTEGRATED INTO TRACKED BY NOW...

TRACK CAMERAS

You'll find the track camera's in special.ini. You can edit most of them using TrackEd, however, some attributes are only accessable through the ini file. The features are:

• Start and end location, which allows moving camera's
• 2 types of camera's; fixed (stationary), and following (tracks the car).
• 2 types of zooming; based on the distance to the camera, and based on the projected distance along the driving direction.
• Ability to dolly (moving camera's, based on the car distance)
• Each camera has a driving direction indicator (which way the cars more or less when crossing the camera).
• Multiple groups of cameras can exist; this allows you to give the user 2 or more track views (like switching channels on your TV).
  

Creating a camera is easy; enter TrackEd, load your track and select 'Track cameras' mode. The operation buttons will switch to camera editing. Now click on the track where you want the camera to start, and draw a line in the car's driving direction. This direction is used to calculate if the car is currently before or after the camera point, if you use the (default) projected-distance type camera.
You'll be requested the camera number. The camera ordering MUST be right along the track; if you don't have camera's placed along the track in the right order, Racer will have a hard time finding out which camera should be currently used. The camera is selected as follows:

• The first track camera is always camera 0.
• While driving, Racer looks at the NEXT camera and looks to see if the car is within the radius (as indicated by the circle in TrackEd). If so, that camera is selected.
• If the next camera is not yet active, Racer checks to see if the current car distance is still relatively ok (a margin is used to avoid accidental flipping of cameras). If so, the current camera stays active.
• If not, the PREVIOUS camera is checked (you may be driving the wrong way). If it turns out the previous camera is within range, it is selected.
• If none of the camera's really seem to match, all cameras are checked and the one closest to the car is selected.

After creating the camera, you may want to edit the radius. If the car is within the camera's radius, it is selected (but only if this is the NEXT camera to watch out for). Check the view to see your radius visually.

Use the keys PageUp and PageDown to move through your cameras (in TrackCam mode).

TRACK CAM ATTRIBUTES

A track camera has additional properties you can use to give some live into it.

• A destination position; use this as the end position of the camera. For a default camera, the closeness of the car is calculated by taking the distance of the car ALONG THE DRIVING DIRECTION that you specified when creating the camera (in TrackEd). As the car moves along the camera, the camera location moves from the start position (where you clicked first in TrackEd) to the destination position.
• To modify start and end heights, edit the ini file directly (pos.y and dpos.y).
• The group (tcam.cam0.group for example) gives the group to which this cam belongs. This allows you to create 2 or more sets (maximum is 10) of track camera's. Now all I need is a Director Mode. :)
• A start, middle and end zoom (zoom_edge, zoom_close and zoom_far) is used to set zooming values (=angle in degrees of camera view) at the radius edge, closest to the camera and far away (for projected-distance, when the car has passed the camera). Values like 10,30,15 are typical. A value of 1 will select super-zoom-in, a value of 40-50 will render a normal view. Try larger angles for special effects.
• The flags field determines the characteristics of the camera. Bits are or-ed together, where:
  1=ZOOMDOT; the camera will do projected-distance, meaning that the camera knows whether the car is still approaching the camera, or is driving away from it (has passed it).
  2=FIXED; the camera will not follow the car, but rather stay at a fixed orientation (tcam.cam0.rot for example).
  4=HILITE; used internally only in TrackEd to highlight a camera.
  8=DOLLY; this indicates the camera must move from pos to dpos depending on how far the camera is located relative to the car being tracked.
  To create a flags value, add the numbers of the features you wish to include, so 9 (a typical value) means 8+1, thus a dollying camera that knows where the car is relative to the camera.

KNOWN PROBLEMS

• Inserting a camera is still a pain and has to be done by editing the camera ini file (tcam.ini).
• Editing the flags/camtypes is not yet possible from within TrackEd.

(last updated December 30, 2014 )