4th June 2008

Added

• Terrain Nodes now shown in 3d view.
• Terrain editing in 2d views now has new popup menu options (right-click). Flatten, Line Up and Line Height Up are very useful for adjusting the terrain shape.

See download section

Meanwhile work still continues on the next major release.

1st June 2008

The ultimate accuracy is here!!

Early in April I took a week off from everything & went for a quiet walk/drive around the local Sydney race track at Eastern Creek. I took a laser scanner, video and still camera in order to capture the track in unprecedented detail.

That track is now ready for racing. To my knowledge this make us the first group to release such an accurately built track to the public - and it's free!!

Read on ...

30th April 2008

Added

• Terrain Visibility setting now persists whist in other edit modes.
• Flat Left/Right pacenotes.

Fixed

• Yet another attempt to fix the dreaded shadow problem on terrain with multiple textures applied to the one area.
• Problem with invisible Nodes being selected.

See download section

Meanwhile work still continues on the next major release and another surprise is hopefully to be released sometime soon. ;)

25th March 2008

Fixed

• Bug saving Longitude and Latitude when importing from GPS.

See download section

Meanwhile work continues on the next major release.

9th March 2008

Added

• Integrated User Manual - press F1.
• Export / Import windows now remember their positions.

Fixed

• rFactor collision bug - most noticeable when using terrain.

See download section

24th February 2008

Some important bug fixes are included with this patch. Anyone exporting to Richard Burns Rally will need to make sure new plugin and RX_CONTENT folders are copied across.

Added

• Sped up Terrain rendering.
• When editing terrain, the merging of Track Anchors can now happen on non-active tracks too.
• RBR export now goes to a Tracks folder making sharing easier.
• Minor interface changes.

Fixed

• rFactor AIW path bug.
• Export of rF AIW path and RBR files not correct under some coutries Windows settings (when using comma for decimal place).
• Inability to place Pacenotes on unlinked track when it is isolated.
• RBR Pacenotes were not exporting properly unless they had been moved since last save.

See download section

16th February 2008

This latest version includes a number of new editing tools, the ability to add Pacenotes for Richard Burns Rally, create a basic AIW driveline in rFactor and set timing gates.

Part of this release also includes the new approach I am taking for editing. More of the editing will be performed via the 3d view instead of using the 2d views.

Added

• “ActAsGround” indicator helps BTB determine what parts of your Track / Terrain are considered when placing objects on top.
• Movement in 3d window now done with Right click. Popup menu for solid/wireframe is now integrated into menubar tool. See “Disable Left Mouse Navigation” option under settings.
• “Temporary Files” are now kept for 7 days to assist people that have suffered loss when a crash occurs.
• When importing from Longitude / Latitude sources (CSV or KML), Longitude & Latitude are stored with track to indicate the location of the first Node.
• New Hide Unselected Nodes function.
• Added smoothing operations for Nodes. Right-click when moving nodes to access the menu option.
• Nodes Transform window now has exact position buttons.
• Added very very simple AIW for rF. You will no longer get the Wrong Way message but you will still need to redo AIW if you want computer cars or pit lanes defined.
• rFactor high sky fix – thanks to Neil Faichney (Krunch)!!
• New rFactor skybox and surrounds – again thanks to Neil Faichney (Krunch)!!!
• rF export now has an OffsetType to help position track in space.
• Added Pacenotes for RBR.
• RBR export has Tyre Physics setting, be careful a Tracks.ini file is overwritten – a future patch will eliminate this problem.
• Can now edit Terrain Area name.
• Terrain Anchor merge works when using the “Split Faces” tool.
• Some Terrain Area functions are a little faster.
• Press “M” to quickly access the Terrain Anchor Merge Selected function.
• Add text to indicate how many terrain faces polys are selected out of total.

Modified

• rF grvl materials now have more grip (edit TDF file).
• rF Export properties (CreateFolder, Overwrite*) are now part of Venue project instead of program settings. Be careful when first exporting an existing Venue.

Fixed

• Track Visibility state now saved and retained when performing an Undo.
• rFactor track shadow and collision fixed for Terrain Areas containing more than one type of material.
• Copying Track with Wall would not position the new wall correctly.
• Crash when terrain fills to end of open-ended track and then the last node was split.

See download section

2nd December 2007

I am very proud to announce that the next version of BTB is now available. It's by far the biggest and most exciting addition since development began.

See download section

New Features:

• Terrain Tool - multiple tools allow quick addition of surrounding terrain areas with detailed and varied materials.
• Multiple Background Image support.
• Setting a Surface Modifier to “Set Shape” now takes current shape from the track at that position, rather than from the previous “Shape”.
• New "Multiply & Add" shader (good for grass materials).
• Shaders include Blend mode to create non repetitive landscape.
• All shaders are now supported under RBR.
• Transparency support (rF has support for Chroma & Alpha formats).
• Transparent Materials now show as transparent in BTB.
• Allow Mip bias setting (rF only).
• Modified the Material window to overcome some rendering problems.
• Ability to delete multiple tracks at once.
• Modified Surface and Wall Material selection and added Venue Only checkbox.
• Added some smarts to reduce loading times when redisplaying Materials trees.
• Material Tree sorted alphabetically.
• Drop-down listboxes allow quick select a Surface or Wall rather than scrolling through them using the arrows.
• New grass textures, all default to use the new DiffuseMultiAdd shader.
• New textures from Ennis are included with BTB.
• Gravel textures from Flagmo-T are included from the start.
• Added rFactor load screens.
• Included the RBR Material Surface Physics Editor (see Support\RBR\MaterialEditor folder).
• Removed necessity to have unique rFactor Material (TDF) names. BTB now only requires base TDF entry for the material name.
• RBR export now contains all shader types that were previously unavailable. Big thanks to “black f” for his work in getting this to happen and for teaching me the ins and out of shaders.
• New RBR plugin, again thanks to black f (still a work in progress with more features to be added over time).
• Added a more error checking to loading routine, should now trap and report missing textures.
• Better rendering of wireframe & solid in BTB.
• New example track with Pit Lane. See Projects\Examples\PitStop\PitStop.xml.
• Asks to save when performing New or closing window with unsaved changes.

Fixed:

• Problem with positioning of controls when Windows using a Font DPI setting other than the default (Normal 96 DPI).
• Setting of non-active track colour and tooltip.
• Bug that occurred occasionally when displaying different textures in the Material window.
• A Nodes Control Points were not being resized correctly.
• Bug creating larger DirectX Mesh than necessary in some circumstances.
• Undo would not undo first movement.
• Crash that occurred when adding a Wall, if “Show walls” had been turned off for 2d and 3d views.
• Switched order of sky.mas and commonmaps.mas files in rFactor scn file and removed the textures from the sky.mas file. They were not being used anyway.
• Crash that occurs when you try to add a wall and they are not visible.
• Bug in the Material window where, after editing a Material, you had to select another Material then click on the first one again to edit it.
• Bug where last camber on an open track was not properly triggering the update of walls that should have been affected.
• Problem when removing the last material from a wall or track surface.
• Better handling of lost-device (occurs when switching between games in fullscreen or when screensaver kicks in).
• Replaced most Direct3d rendering with DirectX which should help Vista users, a bit.
• Headlights not lighting up surfaces in rF.
• After loading a track, the "Active" track is not set and hence selected Surfaces don't turn red.