I try to use the camera editor, but the chat commands described in doc/hedit1.htm do not work for me:

Quote from hedit1.htm :

4. In edit mode you can control the TV Director by typing letters into the chat, similar to step 2. With letters 'p' and 'n' you can cycle through all existing camera positions. Move the camera with your mouse and keyboard to a new location, e.g. at the end of s/f in turn 1 and press letter 'a' into the chat. This adds a new camera position to your cam file. If you want to change the position of a camera, then cycle through the cameras until this camera is selected, then move the camera to a new location and type letter 'm' into the chat. All possible letters are:
a - add a new camera position
n - switch to the next camera position
p - switch to the previous camera position
m - move the selected camera to the current position
d - delete the currently selected camera
x - exit the edit mode

So my LFS does not react in those chat commands...i have mpr running and typed "e" to chat for putting in edit mode - no response. Choosed edit mode from Director gui and tried other commands, no response. What to do? EDIT: Ok heard later that it doesnt work in replay mode, only single user mode.

Another thing (maybe mentioned already (?) is that in manual camera mode only front camera works. Rear camera and in-car camera doesnt work

yw

edit: i always ended up editing the cam files. Each line is a camera with three coordinates as hex values (with a weird period system) and the start and end point for the activity range of the cam

Quote from n3ox :

yw

edit: i always ended up editing the cam files. Each line is a camera with three coordinates as hex values (with a weird period system) and the start and end point for the activity range of the cam

Thanks! I did not got it yet all...in GUI there is 4 values (X,Y,height, position - btw I can only modify height in the GUI..). But in the cam file there are only three hex columns. So the cam file columns corresponds for what?

im not sure, but i think its x,y and z, where z is the height. The other 2 columns are for the start and end (for what part of the track the cam is responsble). I think you can change these values with the program.

Ok I got it, of course camera angle not needed to save (i was wondering where that data is stored) because it automatically follows a car.

Quote from n3ox :

I think you can change these values with the program.

That would sound logical, however in my program only Height is editable, others value are not. Nevermind, I will use notepad in future.

well if you work with the camera ui, where you also have the trackmap, you should see the start and end points of cameras with red lines on the track map.

Having same problem as Lucaf seem letters explained don't react in Gui
Maybe tvdirector need an update so soeren come back to LFS

And trying to make an cam file for new WE1 so if anyone else can do that that would make my day

Anyway still great program

Quote from RC-Maus :

Having same problem as Lucaf seem letters explained don't react in Gui

Don't know what I am doing different than previous times, but today the camera editing works for me, tried on several tracks, everything works :o hmm...this is weird. Would be too scary to tell if Storm/Maus hadn't same experience.

edit: pfff...false alarm, but now I'm able to modify start and end nodes in GUI (though that is already much, can update old BL1R cam...), still cannot modify x/y, neither chat commands work, only "x" works.

#camfile BL1R

I've tried it, chat commands work only in single player mode, "a" add new camera, "m" move selected camera, "d" delete selected camera ...

Quote from K0Z3L_43V3R :

I've tried it, chat commands work only in single player mode, "a" add new camera, "m" move selected camera, "d" delete selected camera ...

Thats what I did wrong I tried it using a replay

Anyway thanx for we1

Thank you Lucaf for sharing that BL1R.cam. With that, I was able to make BL2R.cam which uses pretty much same cams that your BL1R.cam has, but I added one more camera to the last corner area. I also modified slightly camera immediately before that new camera.

Attached this BL2R.cam-file. Feel free to modify it

Oh and quick reminder: Remember to rewrite your current BL2R.cam-file, the one which is supposed to work in RallyCross Reverse

Folks if you want to find more my camfiles, do a search on full forum with keyword #camfile

After I have used LFS TV Director, my free view mode remains weird, and I cannot use it anymore for editing layouts. How I can fix that?

What's weird? Missing buttons? Press SPACE if so

no, the FOV is manipulated, kinda everything is displayed through a camera very far with huge zoom, so the TV cam mode is somehow remained.


edit: oops it was just about dragging the FOV slider from the left end to the center

Can anyone explain how to do cam file for custom layout? I want to do a camfile for next RTFR event wich is held on FE4X config.

It wasnt as easy as copying FE4.pth -> FE4X.pth and FE4.cam -> FE4X.cam...so I should modify FE4X.pth but how that is done?

(first it looked I managed it that way, ofc FE4.pth didnt give me the full custom course but I managed to edit cams using my imagination how to deal with start/end points. However when I run the cam file, Director stays on one single cam during the whole lap)

I think it needs a .pth that suits the layout because TVdirector uses the track-node-things to see where cars are.
This post links to a zip with .pth files, maybe something useful in there:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1677349#post1677349

Quote from Gutholz :

I think it needs a .pth that suits the layout because TVdirector uses the track-node-things to see where cars are.
This post links to a zip with .pth files, maybe something useful in there:
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/1677349#post1677349

Yes exactly. I checked that pth package made by Eqworry, it didn't contain any FE4 implementations... Would be nice to know how to modify such files

The PTH fileformat is available in the downloads section somewhere, I think it's in the SMX download. It's basically a list of nodes, which are a point, a heading and a track width (IIRC there's two widths, one for the actual track and one for the drivable area - there might be more data in there too).

I could whip up a program that converted a layout file with a bunch of chalk arrows into a PTH file with a fixed track width if that's any help, but probably not until the weekend. I've not really looked at playing with PTH files, so I don't know if there's other considerations I've missed

Quote from Racon :

The PTH fileformat is available in the downloads section somewhere, I think it's in the SMX download.

It should be, at least the page itself claims, but there is not. Or am I just blind. Download contains only SMX files. Neither I see any documentation of PTH fileformat. Or am I just getting old.

Ahhh, it was hidden in the SMXs at https://www.lfs.net/programmer. Pasted in its entirety below to save a download or two

I'll need to have a play around with a real .PTH file to compare as I don't understand the heading/direction part from this info. (It says the node is considered a line perpendicular to the heading, so I was only expecting a heading - how does another X,Y and Z fit? I'd guess that this means a node's heading is 3D rather than 2D, and found by drawing a line between the node coords and the 'dir' coords, but it's definitely tinkering time )

Quote :

PTH VERSION 0 - Path files for Live for Speed S2
=============


The nodes are given by a fixed point position (X, Y, Z) and a
floating point direction (X, Y, Z)

The node can be considered as a line perpendicular to its direction.

Outer and driving area left and right limits are given.


TYPES :
=======

1) X,Y,Z int : 32-bit fixed point world coordinates (1 metre = 65536)

X and Y are ground coordinates, Z is up.

2) float : 32 bit floating point number


FILE DESCRIPTION :
==================

num unit offset description
--- ---- ------ -----------

HEADER BLOCK :

6 char 0 LFSPTH : do not read file if no match
1 byte 6 version : 0 - do not read file if > 0
1 byte 7 revision : 0 - do not read file if > 0
1 int 8 num nodes : number
1 int 12 finish line : number
......NODE BLOCKS


NODE BLOCK :

1 int 0 centre X : fp
1 int 4 centre Y : fp
1 int 8 centre Z : fp
1 float 12 dir X : float
1 float 16 dir Y : float
1 float 20 dir Z : float
1 float 24 limit left : outer limit
1 float 28 limit right : outer limit
1 float 32 drive left : road limit
1 float 36 drive right : road limit

Yea, you are correct, The direction (X,Y,Z) is going to be a normalized vector in the direction the node is pointing. I don't know where exactly it is, but there was more documentation somewhere, probably InSim.h that probably explains a bit further.

To get rotation around a particular axis you could use that axis and a dot product with the direction vector. (1, 0, 0) dot (X, Y, Z). With normalized vectors this will give a result from -1 to 1 with 0 being perpendicular to the axis, and 1 or -1 being parallel.

Quote :

I could whip up a program that converted a layout file with a bunch of chalk arrows into a PTH file with a fixed track width if that's any help, but probably not until the weekend

Or maybe something where you just drive the track and it records the line to generate a pth. (Actually I was somewhat certain that having seen that already, but could not find it now)

Quote from blackbird04217 :

Yea, you are correct, The direction (X,Y,Z) is going to be a normalized vector in the direction the node is pointing. I don't know where exactly it is, but there was more documentation somewhere, probably InSim.h that probably explains a bit further.

To get rotation around a particular axis you could use that axis and a dot product with the direction vector. (1, 0, 0) dot (X, Y, Z). With normalized vectors this will give a result from -1 to 1 with 0 being perpendicular to the axis, and 1 or -1 being parallel.

Thanks Tim. I think that's all I need (this is not going to be much more than a quick hack )

Quote from Gutholz :

Or maybe something where you just drive the track and it records the line to generate a pth. (Actually I was somewhat certain that having seen that already, but could not find it now)

Yeah, I could break it into two parts: one to plot chalk arrows to LYT as you drive, one to convert LYT chalk arrows to PTH. That way you could produce the PTH either way, and you get the chance to clean up if you mess up the plotting drive

Sounds like a plan!

It's a plan.. Which "my brother" already tried... But... It's a lot of work.



[TC] does it also but for cruising it's easier because it doesn't need to have this amount of detail.

This amount of detail is not really needed for racing you would say, but wrong way driving detection would be less easy to spot with less detail.