Blender Importer/ Export for rFactor (1) GMT's

I was hoping for sweat equity, if you will, but after two years I've come to conclusion that it's not going to happen. Oh, well.
 
I lack the time and probably the ability to help with development, but I could test things when you get to that stage.
 
Are there some news to this project? It will be awesome to get an prog/tool what can handle reading aiw`s and gmt`s.
It`s terrible to jump everytime between btb and 3dsimed. Max is great,but very expensive. This project sound like an milestone for blender and development. Pls keep up the work on this.
 
Work continues. I made two changes this past week which 1) decreased load times for large SCN's and 2) will hopefully prevent-- or at least lessen-- 32-bit Blender from crashing. Pynodes won't make it into Blender trunk until after the release of Blender 2.66 next week--maybe. If I'm ready by then I might download a version from Graphicall to get a head start on using them-- as opposed to waiting for the official 2.67 release in the April-ish time frame. In the meantime I'm going to go through the data dumps of GMT's to try to verify my assumptions, or to correct them if something is found amiss.
 
I received a PM asking about editing a mesh while the other meshes of a SCN or GEN are present. The answer to the question is "yes". In the attached image, the carbody mesh is selected for editing, while the windows and other meshes of the car are present. It's not the best example, and it is from last summer, however it does show the capability.

View attachment 6395
 
Yea, progress. I haven't got this far before. Still a fair way to go, though.
 
Keep it up, Traveller! I was hoping to use your Importer/Exporter for some experiments :) Really wish you will be successful.
 
Hello Traveller, I've got a few questions that I may PM you about later tonight or early tomorrow, but one that comes to mind is, do you have plans to release a manual or tutorial? and if so, Are you, or someone you may be working with, working on it at this time? Or is it too early in the process to start doing that yet? Anyway, hope things are working out well in the mean time.
 
I've made some documentation for the scripts. I had to do this to be nice to my beta tester, and to help me remember where everything is. It is currently around thirty pages, mainly because it has a good number of screenshots. There may be a web page for support of the scripts.

Right now, I'm on what I call version 0.54 of the combined rF1/rF2 scripts. This is my rough guess as to how complete I am on support for GMT's of both games. Skeleton support is included in that estimate, though not necessary for most GMT's, and so could be left out of any initial release.

0.53 to 0.54 was a fair amount of code change that occurred during a short period of time, and introduced a fair number of problems. rF2 materials/ shaders needs a fair amount of clean-up. They work to a degree-- message #46 above shows my rF1 track "MilanoFactor" drivable in rF2-- though RealRoad and the like is not implemented. I've held off on making the corrections for a 0.55 version in order to explore the possibility of using the new Pynodes for textures and materials/ shaders. The graphical representation of the nodes and sockets would be more intuitive for requirements than the current text-based properties method. However, I've run into a problem that I can't resolve. I do not know if it is currently resolvable. It is post #12 of this thread at Blender Artists.

More than beta testers, right now, I need someone who really knows the workings of rF1 and rF2 GMT's to provide info or answer questions. Someone who can code in Python with Blender would be welcome.
 
Thanks for your detailed answer, Traveller. I know little to nothing about Python, so I probably could not help you there, and it's probably not something I can learn overnight or in a months time (but would it be useful for me in the future? well probably, but not at this time I believe). But I have been more interested in the inner workings of rFactor1 and rFactor2. I think I have most, if not all, info related to modding in them, but when it comes to actually doing something of importance, 3ds Max is needed. That's where Blender would definitely come in handy. So, keep up the great work, and hope you can get past your latest problem soon!

Scott
 
I have thought of a workaround. Actually it was what I was hoping to avoid; but if I can't, I can't. A Blender Texture node feeds into the socket of a custom rFactor texture node-- basically a repository for the custom properties of a texture, which feeds into the appropriate socket of the custom rFactor material/shader node. It's not pretty, but it will allow me to further pursue this particular line thought for the scripts.
 
You are doing an excellent job Traveller, I would not know where to start such a project, but I am slowly getting to grips with Blender and really appreciate the possibility your work brings to those of us that cannot afford 3DsMax, and cannot legitimately use the student version at 50yrs of age! besides, Blender seems to be a very good tool and deserves to be capable of use by the Sim Racing community. Thank you :)
 
cannot afford 3DsMax, and cannot legitimately use the student version at 50yrs of age
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My problem too kmw & Traveller is doing all this hard work in his own time & we applaud you :).
 
Thanks Jello and yifter for providing those links if that is what helped Traveller. I know Jello's link is going to provide very useful info to me personally, so Thanks for taking the time to post them.

Scott
 
Traveller said:
A Blender Texture node feeds into the socket of a custom rFactor texture node-- basically a repository for the custom properties of a texture, which feeds into the appropriate socket of the custom rFactor material/shader node. It's not pretty, but it will allow me to further pursue this particular line thought for the scripts.
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Maybe im wrong, but wouldn't you feed from Blender Texture to rF Shader, because UV Texturing would be used in both rendering engines (Blender Internal or cycles, as well as rF's Rendering)? So you could cut short on the "rF-Texture-Node"? Now that's of course just guessing on my side.

Just in case you havent seen it already, Traveller:
http://projects.blender.org/scm/vie...es.py?root=bf-blender&content-type=text/plain
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Phonybone/Python_Nodes
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Extensions/Python/Properties
 
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Thanks Jello and yifter for providing those links if that is what helped Traveller. I know Jello's link is going to provide very useful info to me personally, so Thanks for taking the time to post them.

Scott
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No problem at all Scott :). This is what a sim racing community should be all about :)
 
I've known of those pages for some time now. But, thank you.

rFactor has custom properties for all levels of a GMT-- object, mesh, material and texture. A few have Blender counterparts. The majority do not. However, Blender 2.5x+ has the capability of storing and accessing custom properties. I've made use of that in my scripts.

Now, the primary focus of my scripts is for the import and export of rFactor GMT's. However, if they should happen to be shown in Blender as they would in-game, then so much the better. Blender internal can not do that during editing-- only in a full render. Though I understand that is being worked on. Anyway, along comes Cycles. A faster rendering system-- more so if you use your GPU-- and it renders in editing mode. I thought, "Great! This is should work nicely." Alas, Cycles materials and Blender internal materials are not one and the same. I cannot access my custom material properties in Cycles and textures not at all. I've inquired as to a work around to that at Blender Artists. I never received a reply.

Then the talk of Pynodes starts-- custom nodes and custom properties for nodes. I follow along with development. They finally going into Blender trunk with version 2.66.6. I finally manage to get a hard coded test set up. It's rough, but I can refine them as I go along. The biggest stumbling block is that it appears that Blender nodes and Pynodes don't mix at all. That is, it seems I can't add custom properties to a Blender texture node. So, my thought was to add a node image selector to a custom texture node. I can't find anywhere where that is doable.

My next step was to add a custom group consisting of a custom node and a Blender texture node. I can do it in Blender. I have yet to be able to code it. So, I've fallen back to a Blender texture node being tied to a custom texture node-- I should write "texture level node" which then tie into a custom material node. Remember, there are custom properties associated with each texture. Also, the whole point of my scripts is for import and export. So, if I can walk the nodes to read just custom properties and names, then I can perform the export. Likewise I can create nodes and plug in the values on import.

In the end I'd want to show the textures and such during editing. Some recent reading indicates that isn't possible yet. Unless I'm misunderstanding what I'm reading. If it turns out that Pynodes was a wild goose chase, then all I have is time lost, with a bit of learning something new. I'll go back to the 0.54 scripts in my Blender 2.66a install and continue the work with Blender internal renderer and associated data.
 
Thanks Traveller for providing us with an update, it is always welcome no matter if it's good or bad news.

Scott
 
No. I've got my custom nodes in Blender, but have two issues: 1) I can't find them via scripts, yet; and 2) I don't have them tied to my material. Both may be my lack of understanding nodes-- certainly the first, perhaps the second. Anyway, I've asked at BlenderArtists. No replies yet, which keeps my 0 for everywhere streak intact. Pynodes may be a dead end after all.
 
Traveller said:
No. I've got my custom nodes in Blender, but have two issues: 1) I can't find them via scripts, yet; and 2) I don't have them tied to my material. Both may be my lack of understanding nodes-- certainly the first, perhaps the second. Anyway, I've asked at BlenderArtists. No replies yet, which keeps my 0 for everywhere streak intact. Pynodes may be a dead end after all.
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Can you link us to that thread on BlenderArtists?
 
It doesn't matter, now. I had an idea that could take care of both of them. For a quick and dirty, I'd search the scene for the default cube. Now I receive an error that the scene doesn't exist, though it does. I'm looking at it. I verified my code with other scripts and it matched and they work. So, the Pynodes detour has taken me to my limit, so I'm going to leave it for now. I dug up the old 0.54 scripts from a few months back and will resume from there.
 
Started up work again in late June, then got side tracked. So, same old story. I keep telling myself that "tonight is the night I'll get back on it". Maybe I'll actually get back on it one of these nights.
 
Results after two good nights. It doesn't appear exciting, but it's a good step forward if you know where to look... export is an issue, though.
View attachment 9097
 
The track that's been my guinea pig for a decade is now drivable in rF2 using the real road shader from build 240. This week's focus-- getting a car in the game.
View attachment 9251
 
Potentially one of the greatest contributions and an afterburner for rf2 modding content :cool:

Really looking forward to this!

Keep on Travelling ;)
 
speedster said:
Potentially one of the greatest contributions and an afterburner for rf2 modding content :cool:

Really looking forward to this!

Keep on Travelling ;)
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Considering the differential in costs between full blown software packages like 3D Studio Max, a Blender plugin could be an incredible boost. I'm keeping a significant amount of focus on this to see what happens with it. If it develops far enough, would love to see ISI continue support of it and/or maybe some form of Kickstarter deal can get put together to help wire you cash for your efforts to make it more worthwhile for you. I think every person on here couldn't thank you enough for this if and when it comes to pass.
 
SPONGEZILLA said:
Considering the differential in costs between full blown software packages like 3D Studio Max, a Blender plugin could be an incredible boost. I'm keeping a significant amount of focus on this to see what happens with it. If it develops far enough, would love to see ISI continue support of it and/or maybe some form of Kickstarter deal can get put together to help wire you cash for your efforts to make it more worthwhile for you. I think every person on here couldn't thank you enough for this if and when it comes to pass.
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Indeed! Keep it up Traveller! I really wish you can give us something to work with for rF2 in Blender.
 
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