All posts by Dave Noonan

3DSimED 3.1c Released

A new version of 3DSimED is available which includes the import of F1-2015 tracks & cars. All cars and tracks included in the games can be imported directly from the game ERPs without any need to unpack, which should be useful to those creating new skins, decals and other mods.

With the new Material Batch Edit function Version 3.1c continues to build on its ability to easily create models for games such as rFactor1/2, Assetto Corsa, GTR2 etc. and its plugin architecture allows it to be able to import and export to an ever-growing  number of other formats including other 3D editors such as 3DS Max and Blender.

For a full list of the new features and fixes in 3.1c please see 3DSimED 3.1c release notes.

For more details and to download a free 20 day trial please visit http://www.sim-garage.co.uk

12-04-2016 10-32-43 12-04-2016 10-34-10 12-04-2016 10-42-09

Importing F1-2015 Cars & Tracks

Version 3.1c of 3DSimED includes a plugin to import cars and tracks from F1-2015, below is a short guide to importing.

  • Locate the F1-2015 folder which should be a sub-folder of your Steam installation, for example:
    "N:\steam\SteamApps\common\F1 2015“.
  • Tracks will be found in the f1_2014_environment_package folder and then within the track folder find the wep folder.
    Most tracks will have three wep.erp files. For the 2014 version choose the 2014.wep.erp; the other two will open the 2015 version.
  • Car folders can be in either f1_2014_vehicle_package or f1_2015_vehicle_package\teams. As with tracks, the sub-folder required of the cars is the wep folder.
  • The 3DSimED3 plugin will import from ERP archives which are packed files which need to be decompressed. For this reason importing from tracks may require some patience even on a powerful system.
  • If importing tracks a 64-bit operating system is very useful because 3DSimED will then have 4GB of memory to use by itself whereas on a 32-bit system the 4GB has to be shared with other applications, services etc.
  • Textures are written to temporary sub-folder of the 3DSimED3 folder, if 3DSimED3 crashes you should find and clear these temporary folders.

3DSimED 3.1c

New:  Plugin to import F1-2015 tracks and cars.

New:  Import by plugin is now included in Import – there is no longer a separate function.

New:  Batch Material Edit function allowing selected attributes to be edited for a group of materials. Pasting from another Material is also supported.

New:  Exporting to Nr2003 .3DO includes an option to set the object to be a ‘minimum’ object which will be seen at all times.

New:  The Vertex Edit pane includes an option to update near vertices.

Enhanced: Better viewing and picking in zoom view.

Enhanced: Quicker import of models consisting of a large number of objects.

Enhanced: Primitive->Add Object can open the same objects as Import.

Enhanced: Double-click for setting the view centre will can down the object tree if there is no geometry in the top level objects.

Enhanced: Collada Import has improved with better handling of external objects.

Enhanced: The zoom multiplier has been reduced to make zooming in/out easier.

Enhanced: Exporting and then importing .3DS preserves the ‘V’ texture coordinate.

Fixed: Converting to png within the texture browser could fail.

Fixed: Importing Wavefrot Obj without texture corrdinates no longer crashes.

 

 

3DSimED 3.1b (gJED support)

The enhancements in version 3.1b are to improve support for ISI’s new editing tool gJED.

  • RF2 GMT files exported from gJED (which always have 32-bit vertex indices) can be imported by 3DSimED3.
  • Models with a very large number of vertices are now exported to rF2 .GMT using 32-bit indices. Note that these models will require a recent version of rF2 to load successfully (as do gJED gmt) but smaller gmt (anything with less than 64K vertices) will still open in older versions of rF2.
  • FBX Export has had the UV channel naming changed to allow UV coordinates to be imported by gJED.
  • FBX Export has a new option to enable models to be exported with the Z-axis as Up. This is the default for gJED, previously FBX data was always exported with Y-axis Up.
  • FBX Export has an option to include the vertex RGB.  When exporting to 3DS Max it is advised to switch off the vertex RGB as it causes issues with textured geometry.
  • FBX Import handling of FBX saved with Z-axis UP has improved.

Go to the 3DSimED3 Download page.

3DSimED 3.1a

New:  Axis Layout function to change the display of the xyz axes.

New:  Polyline paths can be traced over geometry and the vertices saved to .csv.

New:  Animated objects and skins of Assetto Corsa cars can now be visualized.

Enhanced: Assetto Corsa v2 shaders support included.

Enhanced: Edit Object by Name includes the object position and rotation.

Enhanced: FBX Export now includes editable face data.

Enhanced: DDS ati1 & ati2 formats now supported.

Enhanced: rF1 materials with more than 4 texture maps can now be exported successfully.

Fixed: Dirt2 and Dirt3 cockpit models had misplaced objects.

Fixed: Collada Export could incorrectly name materials.

Fixed:  A few generic materials from Grid Autosport cars had missing textures.

Fixed: Mirrors in exported Assetto Corsa car models did not work.

Fixed: Assetto Corsa skinned meshes such as gear sticks assemblies were missing after export.

Fixed: Saving an F1 .MTS object which included an animated material would crash.

Fixed: Importing a Dirt Rally car would crash.

Fixed: If the Ribbon bar was minimized the animation frame-rate slider was not updated correctly.

 

 

Go to the 3DSimED3 Download page.

3DSimED 3.0x

New:  Vertex RGB support for FBX Export/Import and Collada Export/Import.

Enhanced: Assetto Corsa importing/exporting car models. The object, texture and material names are no longer forced to lower case, this should allow car models to be successfully imported and exported. FBX Export will also preserve the case so working with KsEditor should be improved.

Enhanced: Assetto Corsa import, empty objects are now replaced with a simple cube. This should help with the editing of the special objects for pit positions, timers etc.

Enhanced: FBX Export, Collada Export, 3DS Export, and  rF1 .GMT export will all convert rF2 billboard stamp quads to upright rectangles.

Enhanced: PSSG (Codemasters games format) Import improved, greater stability better handling of object tree.

Enhanced: Support for latest rF2 shaders.

Fixed: FBX Export writing of persistence file for KsEditor;  nested object names were not correctly formatted so KsEditor would not find the object attributes.

Fixed: Change of object animation in Edit Object Pane could cause crash.

Fixed: Objects imported from FBX exported by 3DSMax were displayed with the z-axis flipped.

Go to the 3DSimED3 Download page.

3DSimED 3.0w

New: Assetto Corsa Car LOD Export Plugin, for writing car LODs. These LOD models do not include the textures in the .KN5 (it is assumed that the textures are archived in the detailed object .KN5) .

New:  Edit Material Set Shader allows the shader to be set for multiple materials.

New: Two new functions, Reverse Faces & Make Double-Sided, have been added to the Object Instance Edit pane. These functions are also available in the Edit->All Visible->Objects menu.

New: Rename Objects has been added to the Edit->All Visible->Objects menu.

New: The Vertex alpha and RGB can be set for multiples faces from either rectangular selection or Edit->All Visible->Faces.

Enhanced: FBX Export has option to write an .INI file for the Assetto Corsa KsEditor.

Enhanced: Assetto Corsa Export Plugin writing of objects which have transparent materials.

Enhanced: Assetto Corsa Export & Import Plugins improved support for the Ks shaders. FBX Export Plugin for KsEditor also includes these enhancements.

Enhanced: rF2 headlight shaders included.

Fixed: Assetto Corsa Import Plugin could crash when loading third-party tracks.

Fixed: Incorrect geometry selection after using the cursor keys to pan the view.

Fixed: Set Tags dialog mishandling of Shadow options.  

Go to the 3DSimED3 Download page.

Improved Assetto Corsa & FBX Plugins.

The Import and Export Plugins for Assetto Corsa have been enhanced to include better support for the KsShaders used by the Assetto Corsa materials.

The FBX Export Plugin has the same improvements for exporting to the KsEditor.

Please follow this link for a short guide to using the KsEditor with FBX exported from 3DSimED3.

Go to the downloads page for the latest version of the Assetto Corsa Export/Import and FBX Export Plugins.