Bug: In the animation editor, when I select the "wire" mode, the driver wireframe is drawn under the car model.

Quote from ivo_drifta :

Just a thought: The new button to show the view from driver's eye position can be useful for animation too, if can be added there.

Thanks, I have added that in D29.

Quote from Flame CZE :

Thanks for adding all the new tooltips in the Vehicle Editor!

Regarding the buttons "sv" and "ld" under "default setups" and "default colours", do you think you can fit the full words "load" and "save"? It would look less cryptic.

Yes, they do fit there OK.

Quote from Flame CZE :

Here are comparison images of the editor screens with notable changes from D27 to D28:

Without vehicle loaded
With vehicle loaded
Special draw mode
Vehicle Class
Transmission / Audio
Wheel Object
Suspension
Allow
Object Positions
Mass
Aerodynamics

Thanks, it was nice to look at these and see why my head was spinning a bit from the effort of reorganisation.

Quote from Flame CZE :

Bug: In the animation editor, when I select the "wire" mode, the driver wireframe is drawn under the car model.

For some reason the Z buffer is disabled when the wireframe is drawn. I'm not sure if it's for a good reason or not but I've made a note to have a look. Clearly it doesn't work well in this case when there is another object in the view.

Quote from Changes in Editor 0.7D29: :

Vehicle editor:

Included whole words "load" and "save" for setups and colours
New message on clicking "Animate" if the vehicle has no driver
Tooltips added to Steering tab and some in Object Positions tab
Question button and tip are shown for unusual FR configurations
Caster angle reduced to 2 decimal places (3 seemed excessive)

New vehicle:

Better initial values for engine and fuel tank positions
Light colours are now initialised (all were black except rear fog)
FIX: Editor buttons appeared during dialog in new vehicle screen

Animation editor:

Eye view button (beside origin and object buttons)
Keys O (view object) and SHIFT+O (options) now work

In case you wondered what this means: "Question button and tip are shown for unusual FR configurations"

It's in the Object Positions tab, in the case of front-engine RWD cars (with 4 wheels) the editor tries to indicate that it is usual for the engine to be longitudinally mounted and rotate clockwise as viewed from the front.

I couldn't see such a strong rule for any other configurations so I only did it in that case (FR vehicles). I know that the engine rotation is a common mistake so I hope the yellow question marks can help prevent that (along with the more user friendly options).

Here is a new update, D30.

It annoyed me too much that on exiting the editor it always warned "Any changes will be lost" even if you hadn't done anything. I knew the best solution for this would be an undo function (because it tracks changes). The trouble is the undo is quite a lot of work and it took me about 3 days. Sometimes it's simple but sometimes some rearrangement is needed. I was a bit shocked by the actual size of the vehicle editor source code file. Luckily most of the more complicated side of the undo function was already done for the track editor undo.

I found some bugs along the way and improved some things as I had to test nearly every button. I hope there are no new bugs!

Vehicle editor:

Undo function for all editor operations
Exit warning only if changes have been made
C key to clear selected point and selected tube
Delete key deletes a point or tube (if only one is selected)
CTRL+RMB (copy) SHIFT+RMB (paste) now work with frame point values
Hide the bottom right buttons now hides the whole settings block
Rim modifiers moved to top right in rim editor avoiding overlap
Special view no longer includes wheel mass cuboids by default
Error message displayed if a vehicle file cannot be loaded

Modeller:

FIX: Bottom right screen layout was wrong in 2D views

Animation editor:

FIX: Driver in wireframe mode could be obscured by the vehicle

Update D31, now includes REDO functions for vehicle editor and modeller.

Also modeller improvements:

Map / cutout / page selections are preserved when possible
Undo and redo deal correctly with map / cutout / page modes
Cutout mode works more like map mode and avoids button overlap
Overlay function from page mode is now available in cutout mode
Square buttons in map mode match mapping aspect ratio to cutout

D32 fixes a crash in D31 when enabling overlay in cutout mode with no texture.

Update D33 improves the screenshot that will appear in game or on the website. Also there is a warning about unsaved changes if you press the top right X button in modeller or vehicle editor.

Vehicle editor:

A sky reflection (environment map) is included in mod screenshot
Undo "edit model" is removed if no changes were made in modeller
More tooltips in Allow, Light Colours and Object Positions tabs
Unsaved changes warning on clicking the X button to exit LFS

Modeller:

Unsaved changes warning on clicking the X button to exit LFS

"A sky reflection (environment map) is included in mod screenshot"
I didnt dare to ask this, it works good.

would it be easy now, to have customizable (like M1, C1 etc...)reflection colour in the cutout's material properties for shiny and overlay types ?

As you may know, I'm trying to finish this round of test patches and release an official version so I can focus fully on tyre physics.

Unfortunately, finishing always takes longer than expected but I'm getting there. One thing to add was the dashboard version of the engine damage light. I did that on Monday, but noticed certain issues with dashboards while I was in the dashboard editor. Remembering various issues and requests for improvement, on Tuesday I started to add options for the tacho (allowing x100, steps of 5, set maximum value) and on Wednesday for the speedo (set maximum value, make mph and km/h have the same needle position). On Thursday I added several options that can be applied to all the dials. Finally today I've added the option to show and position the unit (km/h or mph on speedo, x100 or x1000 on the tacho).

I'm sure many of you will find these options useful and they will add some variety and realism to the traditional style dashboards you set up. I don't suggest that this is complete or allows all the possibilities you would like, but these are the things I could do quickly, in a semi-compatible version.

To see the effect of these options in game, you will need Test Patch D26.

By "semi-compatible" I mean that versions before D26 can still load vehicles you save with this new version, but they won't see the effect of the new options.

Vehicle editor:

Engine damage light can be enabled (in Transmission tab)
Maximum value for main body drag increased from 1.0 to 6.0
Some tooltips added and descriptions adjusted in Aerodynamics tab
Estimated max speed (in Aerodynamics) shows speed in mph or km/h
FIX: Dashboard for electric vehicles was switched off in editor

Dashboard editor:

Speedo:
- set maximum value in km/h (steps of 5)
- option to show units (km/h or mph)

Tacho:
- set maximum value
- x100 or x1000
- gap 1/2 (x1000) or 5/10 (x100)
- options to show units (x100 or x1000)

Options on all gauges:
- needle colour = text colour
- needle is long
- needle above pivot
- hide pivot
- hide numbers
- hide symbol (if applicable)
- hide marks
- smaller text

Download: https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102626-Editor-Test-Patch-0-7D34

I'm very happy with the new dashboard editor changes allowing further customization, thank you Scawen. I'm gonna test it now to see if there are any issues.

I realised that people would use (some are already using) the new dashboard updates to help with a hack or trick that is not really ideal. They create a transparent overlay with the dash designed as they want it to look, then map that over the dashboard.

But then there are two problems:

1) dashboard overlay is not self-lit
2) the needle goes *under* the numbers, etc.

Today's update should eliminate the need for such a trick. You can create a dashboard texture that goes *behind* the needles and numbers. The idea is that instead of clearing the dashboard texture to black or white, it copies your supplied texture onto the dashboard texture.

Once again, it is semi-compatible. You will need test patch D28 to see it in game.

How to use:

- only for s_clock (black) and s_clock_white dashboards
- backing texture appears *behind* needle, numbers, markings
- appears illuminated (self lit) like the default dashboards
- recommended texture size is 512 (or 1024 for future-proofing)
- load the texture in page mode in the modeller
- click the "fixed" button to mark it as "dash"
- there is a reload button in the dashboard editor
- alpha channel has no effect

Download: https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102626

im dumb and dont understand. this works only with TEXTURE dashboard ( for example simox new bike ) and not 3d modeled with tris dashboard ( like my bumer 7 )

right?

scawen i love you

Quote from superlame :

im dumb and dont understand. this works only with TEXTURE dashboard ( for example simox new bike ) and not 3d modeled with tris dashboard ( like my bumer 7 )

right?

I've looked at your Bumer, and was amazed to see the modelled numbers!

You don't have to do anything so complicated now. You can make a texture that matches the plan of your "s_clock" texture (that you created in the dashboard editor). Then load as described above.

I don't think you'll find it hard to understand. I've attached a texture that I used in testing - it aligns with the RACEABOUT's tacho and speedo. You can try loading that and see how it works.

Quote from Scawen :

I've looked at your Bumer, and was amazed to see the modelled numbers!

All credits to rubie. He did the modelled numbers.

You got it!

I tested the first dash update today and I was just going to post here about the problems and then I saw this. Amazing stuff. I guess I'm going to update some of my mods now.

https://streamable.com/jx0vyr

working very very well

thanks for the update scawen

Thanks for the test / demonstration.

One tip for people making custom dashboards:

To protect your mod from future physics changes, in the Speedo settings you should set "Max" to manual. Even if the auto value is OK right now, it's possible that future physics changes will result in a different estimated maximum speed, which could mess up your speedo accuracy.

I think it's less of an issue with the tacho as in that case auto is based on engine setting "Redline" so should not change unexpectedly. Using the manual setting could still help by allowing to you adjust the redline without changing the tacho range.

I wish the texture was appearing a bit brighter.
In the editor looks fine, but in LFS appears a bit too dark.

Looks a lot better with edited Car3.vsh "Out.VCol = In.LitCol + 0.3;" which is not ideal solution.

That's probably due to current LFS shaders / graphics.

Are you looking forward to do the same thing to formula and f1 clocks?

Quote from Evolution_R :

I wish the texture was appearing a bit brighter.
In the editor looks fine, but in LFS appears a bit too dark.

I agree, I'm having a look at this to see what sort of results I can come up with, to make the public LFS dashboards have a similar brightness to the ones in the editor, without making older ones excessively bright. I think it's a few hours to carefully figure this out, maybe can release an update tomorrow with better brightness in game.

Quote from Yasso7up :

Are you looking forward to do the same thing to formula and f1 clocks?

I'm not really looking forward to that, no!

I don't have plans to update those clocks at this time. I felt the dial clocks were in serious need of an update for all those reasons. People were forced into either accepting a look they didn't want, or doing workarounds that would not be the proper way to do it. I didn't even plan to do this but sort of fell into it because of the need to add the damage light to the clocks. I don't regret it though, as I'm happy to see what results people can come up with. But it has been surprisingly intense work for the whole of last week and already two days this week.

All I really want to do is get this official update finished so I can leave it and work on the tyre physics. I want to get to the situation where everyone has the new graphics and I can work on one version of LFS instead of copying all the updates into two divergent versions of LFS.

Quote from Yasso7up :

Are you looking forward to do the same thing to formula and f1 clocks?

I've been thinking for a few minutes about this, for example what would happen if I simply enabled a background texture for s_clock_formula / s_clock_f1 / s_clock_f3 / s_clock_fbm (or some of them).

The thing is these clock textures are very hard coded, without adjustment. So I think a proper job for these clocks would be to provide adjustment sliders and many other forms of customisation. And that is what I really can't do at this time.

But... in theory it could be easy to enable a background texture for at least some of them. I'm not sure how much use you could make of it, with these current non-adjustable versions of the textures.

But maybe it's more useful than I think. Do let me know, please.

Quote from Evolution_R :

I wish the texture was appearing a bit brighter.
In the editor looks fine, but in LFS appears a bit too dark.

In Test Patch D29, dashboard brightness should now look the same as it does in the editor.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102117