Tracks – Meshes manipulation

Ideally these things would be done in 3D editor instead, but sometimes it might not be possible, like when making a track for an existing track.

Smoothing normals

Helps to fix an issue with some of surfaces of a track not being smooth. It becomes especially noticeable with Rain FX where reflections in puddles break apart. Now there is a quick and easy way to fix it with a config.

[SMOOTH_NORMALS_...]
MESHES = mesh0, …         ; List of affected meshes
MATERIALS = material0, …  ; List of affected materials (use of these, or both)
PRECISION = 0.0001        ; Smoothing threshold
NORMAL_CONTRIBUTION = 0   ; How much normals would be taken into consideration to detect edges

The way it works, it would take all found meshes, find all vertices that are closer to each other than PRECISION and average their normals. If NORMAL_CONTRIBUTION is non-zero, it would be added to vertex position during grouping stage, thus allowing to keep some edges. Usually though, using it on something like a piece of asphalt, there is no need to use that parameter.

Example:

[SMOOTH_NORMALS_...]
MATERIALS = asph
PRECISION = 0.01
NORMAL_CONTRIBUTION = 0

Normals alteration

This one, for example, can be used to reorient normals of tree leaves so they would face upwards.

[ALTER_NORMALS_...]
MESHES = mesh0, …         ; List of affected meshes
MATERIALS = material0, …  ; List of affected materials (use of these, or both)
ALTER = 0, 1, 0           ; Optional reorientation of a normal vector (turns vector along provided vector)
; OFFSET = 0, -0.01, 0          ; Optional offset

Example:

[ALTER_NORMALS_...]
MESHES = flat.trees.?
OFFSET = 0, 1e9, 0

Meshes splitting

Splits meshes into separate elements. Use with extreme caution: it would increase number of draw calls, which isn’t always a good idea.

[SPLIT_MESHES_...]
MESHES = mesh0, …               ; List of affected meshes
MATERIALS = material0, …        ; List of affected materials (use of these, or both)
NAME_FORMAT = '{Name}.{Index}'  ; Names for new meshes
ORDER_PIVOT = X, Z, Y           ; Ordering of detached nodes would start from this position (closest
                                ; detached mesh would get an index 0)

Available substitutions for name format:

• Name: original mesh name;
• Index: index of an element (based on its distance to ORDER_PIVOT);
• Position: position of the center of its AABB in world coordinates;
• NearestPitStop: index of nearest pit stop;
• NearestStart: index of nearest starting position.

Example:

[SPLIT_MESHES_...]
MESHES = PitwallSpotLightsGlass
NAME_FORMAT = PitwallSpotLightsGlass_{NearestPitStop}

Meshes subdivision

With distant geometry some huge low-poly meshes acting both as distant geometry and underlying ground can cause issues, like on Shuto. This thing can help.

[SUBDIVIDE_MESHES_...]
MESHES = mesh0, …         ; List of affected meshes
MATERIALS = material0, …  ; List of affected materials (use of these, or both)
ITERATIONS = 2            ; Number of iterations, default value is 1

Example:

[SUBDIVIDE_MESHES_...]
MESHES = material:mat_main_background
ITERATIONS = 2

Wrapping meshes

For animating objects their meshes have to be wrapped in nodes, but if track KN5 was saved as track everything will be flatten. In general I would recommend to save dynamic objects in separate KN5 saved as car, but if that’s not an option you can instead wrap existing flattened meshes into a node:

[WRAP_MESHES_...]
NAME = node          ; Name of a new node
MESHES = mesh0, …    ; List of meshes to add
PIVOT_POS = X, Z, Y  ; Pivot position of the created node

; Optionally, node orientation can be set with vectors:
PIVOT_DIR = X, Z, Y  ; Direction of its Z axis (or use PIVOT_DIR_POINT with world coordinates for node to look at)
PIVOT_UP = X, Z, Y   ; Direction of its Y axis (or use PIVOT_UP_POINT with world coordinates)

; Or, with angles (in radians):
PIVOT_HEADING = …
PIVOT_PITCH = …
PIVOT_ROLL = …

Example:

[WRAP_MESHES_...]
NAME = windmill_spin
MESHES = windmill_spin
PIVOT_POS = -5.47, 9.178, -27.592