Reflex compiler v1

[Xtrem]

Well it was small to begin with....  i resized it to 1024 and pasted it on a 2048 tile.....  i think.....  ahh geeze.... my brain hurts from all the trial and error crap ive done in the last 2 days  lol     So far so good ......   Keep up the great work.   I have a new found respect for the people behind the development of the tools.   

[22Ryann]

Ok, i think im being forced into a corner here to buy a new tower, a new screen, and remake thrashed supercross for reflex... the more times i see the progress the worse the edge gets lol

[Xtrem]

  Thashed would look nice in reflex.... 

[VMX_SKYmx99]

Well crap... It's been a good 5 or 6 years of productivity in my life.  It's been a good run, but it's time to make some tracks!  Thanks guys!  I can't wait to try this out.

[Mace-x]

had a problem

[VMX_SKYmx99]

After a couple hours playing, I have the terrain scale and everything figured out I think.  I got a disp map in and scaled to suit me.  I am running into a problem finding what lights the scene?  I imported a base texture, chrome lum map, and a dirt overlay.  When I open the track ingame it is almost completely white.  What do I need to do to back down the brightness so I can see the texture?

[DirtTwister]

had a problem

Where is your Steam Folder? and what does the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\SteamPath point to.

A temporary work around would be to create that folder that is in your error message and then copy the files from there to your true Steam folder.

Bruce (DirtTwister)

[DirtTwister]

After a couple hours playing, I have the terrain scale and everything figured out I think.  I got a disp map in and scaled to suit me.  I am running into a problem finding what lights the scene?  I imported a base texture, chrome lum map, and a dirt overlay.  When I open the track ingame it is almost completely white.  What do I need to do to back down the brightness so I can see the texture?

Do you have a screen shot of what you are experiencing.  There are a couple of issues that would contribute to your problem.  

1. You do not have a black alpha on your MaskMap image.  This causes the compiler to give it a white alpha which will turn on the wet shiny look.
2. You do not have an alpha on your crm_lum file and this will make it be a white alpha which will intensely highlight your textures.  Look at an example crm_lum alpha on the wiki (http://dirttwister.com/wiki/ChromLumTexture).

Bruce (DirtTwister)

[VMX_SKYmx99]

I am going to assume it has to do with the alpha on both options 1 and 2.  I put one in ( I thought), but I am not very experienced with Alpha layers.  I'm sure there is something wrong.  I'll check into it this evening.  Thanks Bruce.

[DirtTwister]

What are you using for editing?   With Photo Shop/GIMP you have to make sure that you save using the extended bmp formats.  In Paint Shop Pro you can't save a bmp with an alpha, although you can save other formats with an alpha, so you can be tricked into thinking you have one.

The DXTBmp program is very useful for this.  You can just drag your image to an icon on your desktop and it displays both the image and alpha.

[DJ99X]

Has anyone had any luck getting shadows to work yet. I think I figured out the ground lighting, but the rider lighting / shadow isn't working for me.

Did a quick conversion of Millville 2008 (created by Checkerz and I for MXS). Rides pretty sweet. Just needs larger bumps






BTW, whats the wavey pattern in the dirt caused by? Its not part of my bump map

[VMX_SKYmx99]

What are you using for editing?   With Photo Shop/GIMP you have to make sure that you save using the extended bmp formats.  In Paint Shop Pro you can't save a bmp with an alpha, although you can save other formats with an alpha, so you can be tricked into thinking you have one.

The DXTBmp program is very useful for this.  You can just drag your image to an icon on your desktop and it displays both the image and alpha.

I'm using PS CS4.  I did not use the extended bmp format.  I think I just saved it as a 24bit bmp if my memory serves me correctly.

[DirtTwister]

Has anyone had any luck getting shadows to work yet. I think I figured out the ground lighting, but the rider lighting / shadow isn't working for me.

Did a quick conversion of Millville 2008 (created by Checkerz and I for MXS). Rides pretty sweet. Just needs larger bumps

BTW, whats the wavey pattern in the dirt caused by? Its not part of my bump map

I would need to look at the final default track files.  I don't think there is another level of bump mapping going on, but I can't be sure without looking.  I thought Laurie just included the 4 levels.  There may be another generic level that is left over from the base files.  If you don't include a bump map for each channel it will use the one defined in the default files.

I haven't done much messing around with lighting.   I'm hoping you guys will figure out stuff.  I know Laurie hasn't played much with it either except to get it to work.  Most of my experiments were trying to get it working better when we were using the UI Compound for the base track files.  It is quite possible that it is controlled by a piece that is not currently being included in the scene file.

[DirtTwister]

What are you using for editing?   With Photo Shop/GIMP you have to make sure that you save using the extended bmp formats.  In Paint Shop Pro you can't save a bmp with an alpha, although you can save other formats with an alpha, so you can be tricked into thinking you have one.

The DXTBmp program is very useful for this.  You can just drag your image to an icon on your desktop and it displays both the image and alpha.

I'm using PS CS4.  I did not use the extended bmp format.  I think I just saved it as a 24bit bmp if my memory serves me correctly.

24 bit means, no alpha which the compiler will then add a white alpha and it will turn on full wet and full bright.

[VMX_SKYmx99]

Thanks, that is exactly what my track appears like right now.

[Mace-x]

had a problem

Where is your Steam Folder? and what does the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\SteamPath point to.

A temporary work around would be to create that folder that is in your error message and then copy the files from there to your true Steam folder.

Bruce (DirtTwister)

thanks a lot bruce, created the folder and copyed the track contents to the mva dir and voila!
this thing rocks!

[DirtTwister]

had a problem

Where is your Steam Folder? and what does the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\SteamPath point to.

A temporary work around would be to create that folder that is in your error message and then copy the files from there to your true Steam folder.

Bruce (DirtTwister)

thanks a lot bruce, created the folder and copyed the track contents to the mva dir and voila!
this thing rocks!

You must have multiple Steam installs or it was moved or something.  What is the value of the key that I asked about.  I know that there is another way to install Reflex off a CD and add it to Steam and then it may or may not be in that location.  If your Steam and Reflex are located in different locations then it will have to be something added to the next version of the compiler. 

It would be good to know how we can identify the database folder in your configuration.

[Mace-x]

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Valve\Steam\SteamPath did nothing, just trowed me a eror, i have a cd version but i dont have steam coz i hate that thing plus i cant acces internet everytime i want so i cant login everyime i want to play.

the database folder that i use is the main game one (C:\Program Files (x86)\THQ\MX vs ATV Reflex\Database)

any tip on how to convert a .png file into a decent bmp?
im getting lots of stairs and rought terrain that makes the track unplayable :/

[Mace-x]

sorry for double post, but seems like when you have steep hills on the side of a sx track or something like that you gotta setup the height value in about 20 in order to get the correct scale, but the track is all bumpy...
*#*#*!
any toughts?

[DirtTwister]

I have created a utility that will let you view your displacement map in 3D and has the option to smooth it.   A value of 1, 2, or 3 should be good enough.

You can read about it here: http://dirttwister.com/smf/index.php?topic=3003.msg22995#msg22995