Softness Map Texture
The Softness Map image is 1024 x 1024 for an SX track and 2048 x 2048 for a National.
Sample Softness Map images from selected tracks:
| Grassland | Kingston Round 1 |
| Lost Meadow | Manchester Round 2 |
| Moto 448 | |
| Sugar Ridge MX | Lago Dell Orlo (Truck map with snow) |
The Softness Map texture controls how soft the dirt is and how fast it ruts. A lot of tracks have the R & B channels set between 100 and 150. Bigger is softer. Some of the tracks use 255 for max softness.
Scott (Scawn7) and John (Jvdl) did some testing and have come up with this explanation:
- Red Channel: The red channel determines the speed at which deformation happens. 0 is slow (actually turning deformation off) and 255 is fast.
- Green Channel: The green channel determines how deep the deformation happens. 0 is none (actually turning deformation off) and 255 is maximum depth.
- Blue Channel: The blue channel determines how much the ground builds up around the deformation. 0 is none, and the ground does not deform outside of your tire path while 255 causes the ground around the deformation to start increasing in height.
- Alpha Channel: The alpha channel does not appear to do anything. I tried 0, 255, and even deleted the alpha channel all together. Nothing made a difference. (update Bruce - 0 turns off the deformation. No alpha ends up defaulting to a white alpha)
Suggestions:
If you wish to give the rider the ability to carve useful ruts into your turns (and note the word "useful"!); Add 255 (white) to the areas that contain a turn on your Green and Blue channel.
IMPORTANT: Use the default 129 (grey) for your Red channel, as if you put this to 225 as well it will function as a sand section which equals destroying your turn rather than bettering it.
Sample Softness Image from Lost Meadow:
