Work on version 0.8 continues. As well as some bugfixes and changes to AIW editing, there are some cool changes to track and wall surface editing. Here's a quick preview ...

A patch for BTB Pro and BTB Evo has been released.

Bugfixes:

• Evo AIW checkpoints not working.
• Some texture mapping on SObjects not correct when exported to rFactor / Evo.

DOWNLOAD BTB Evo HERE and DOWNLOAD BTB Pro HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

Create tracks for SimBin games as easily as you did for rFactor with a new version of BTB.

A new application has been developed to allow the creation of tracks in a number of the SimBin titles. GTR2, GT Legends, Race 07 and GTR Evolution are now opened up to the rapid track development using BTB Evo

Read more ...

Changes:

• Slight improvement to complex object rendering speed in BTB.
• Changed camera panning rate to make moving closer to object easier.
• Added full access to rFactor shadow option for Walls, Objects and String Objects.

Bugfixes:

• Wall/SObject LOD values not kept when changed.
• Cameras not showing up in the right place.
• SObjects not immediately displaying their randomness properties.
• RBR Shaders updated, fog can be controlled using the scattering.h (thanks again to black f).
• RBR Pacenotes – add two more (Flat Left/Right), fixed bug with Variation.
• Wall cross-section point “grounded” flag not immediately activating.
• Shadow properties not read in from old v0.6 projects.
• BObject planter would not work correctly near last node of closed circuit.
• XPacker not showing light properties for LightGlow object.
• Adding Terrain by click and drag would not finish off last terrain area properly if mouse dragged away from the terrain.
• Older graphics cards that don’t support instancing were not showing Complex Objects.

DOWNLOAD HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

23rd April 2009

Added/Changed

• Racer support http://www.racer.nl
• Hierarchal Objects. Allows things like:
• Complex objects.
• Lights (Normal, Start, PitIn, PitOut).
• LOD Objects.
• Invisible Collision Objects surrounding a more complex drawn object.
• New Object planter tool that makes adding thousands of objects to the whole track easier.
• Material now has a “Render Normals Up” property that is used for tree leaves in Hierarchal Objects.
• Track Nodes Smooth by height formula refined.
• Function to smooth Control Points by height only, leaving their direction unchanged. It’s in the popup menu when editing the control points.
• Reduced redundant information in rFactor GMT’s.
• RBR plugin
• now supports Level Of Detail resulting in large frame rate increase
• Support for long long tracks.
• RBR plugin faster loading
• Fog
• Some Shadow properties moved to within XPack control, not BTB user.
• Save format now occurs in binary format instead of XML.
• This is faster.
• Uses much less disk space.
• Improves load/undo times.
• Reduces memory required when loading a project.
• Using the middle mouse button to scroll will now float over the landscape making it easier to navigate rough terrain.

DOWNLOAD HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

* User manual to be updated soon.

22nd April 2009

A new technology demonstration track is available for Richard Burns Rally. Stats:
- It's 33kms long.
- took less than 3 days to build, including the coding of a new BTB planter tool.
- takes about 26 minutes to drive with a few stops along the way to hug a tree.
- contains ~25,000 trees, a mixture of the new complex ones and some regular ones.
- over 250,000 objects.

On my machine it:
- loads in less than 28 seconds.
- the new LOD system keeps the frame rate above 60fps at 1920x1200

More information and download links here at the RaceDepartment forums

15th April 2009

An update to Oran Park has been made that will fix issues that occurred with some ATI graphics cards and some minor mods to the track.

More information and download links here

14th April 2009

Bugfixes include:

• Garbage collection occurs just after loading a Venue in order to free up memory that otherwise does not get freed until BTB closes. Most noticeable on large Venues.
• Flag to prevent rendering from occurring when track is still loading. This might help some Vista users that are getting failed display messages when the Venue is loading.

DOWNLOAD HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

5th April 2009

Coming to BTB v0.7 .. due out the end of April.

4th April 2009

Bugfixes include:

• Walls not visibly resizing with rest of Venue.
• Loading of some SObject instances failing.

DOWNLOAD HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

2nd April 2009

With the support & help from Ruud van Gaal, BTB version 0.7 will have support for Racer.

Racer is a free cross-platform car simulation project (for non-commercial use), using professional car physics to achieve a realistic feeling and an excellent render engine for graphical realism. Cars, tracks and such can be created relatively easy (compared to other, more closed, driving simulations). The 3D, physics and other file formats are documented. Editors and support programs are also available to get a very customizable and expandable simulator. OpenGL is used for rendering.

Version 0.7 will also feature Complex Objects that allow groups of objects to be combined in a hierarchal manner. This can be used for creating interesting shaped trees (see below), and with the additional material properties can create Start, Pit & Street lights for rFactor.

This is in Beta test now so expect delivery around the end of April.

29th March 2009

Please make sure you upgrade to the latest version. If your license is not running, please make sure you are generating the HardwareId.txt using the latest HID.exe in your BobsTrackBuilder folder. Do not submit old HardwareId.txt files as the license will not work.

Bugfixes include:

• Track would not load when the Surface name had been cleared.
• A SObject being used when the materials for the BObjects in the SOBject were not being used elsewhere caused the track not to load.
• Coordinates on cross-section not showing decimals under some Language settings.
• Export of an empty SObject to rFactor would fail.
• RBR Collision for Instanced Objects.

DOWNLOAD HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

23rd March 2009

Check out the next major feature that will be added to Bobs Track Builder ... Hierarchal Objects. They allow complex objects to be created from a number of simpler shapes.

20th March 2009

Brendan Elliot and Chris Larmour and Brendon Pywell have finally released their Oran Park LiDAR track after many many many many hours of work. We hope you enjoy!

More information and download links here

16th March 2009

Thanks to the hard working guys at RaceDepartment, Bobs Track Builder now has a new home for its forums.

9th March 2009

The next version of BTB has been released and it contains many changes including the new SObjects, Camera and Terrain tools. Here's a couple of videos showing how they can enhance your track.






More tutorials coming soon ...

DOWNLOAD HERE (you need a BTB login - free to join and try the demo)

Added/Changed:

• SObjects – a string of objects. New examples now available in the Default XPack.
• Sped up some of the Material icon display.
• Sped up Track calculation and decrease memory requirements.
• Three new checkboxes on main window control Visibility of Walls, Objects and SObjects. Switching them off also stops them being recalculated thus allowing faster track/terrain updates.
• RBR terrain export improved.
• RBR Objects rendering speed improved. Older cards still supported – “Disable RBR Instancing” on export screen.
• RBR Objects can cast very basic Shadows. Works best with closed mesh objects.
• Materials now have a double-sided flag. By default materials are single sided to improve frame rate/flickering in rF. Current projects may require this to be set for any fencing.
• Walls
• Improve ability to select particular nodes when they are close to each other.
• Added LOD In/Out values.
• Using arrows on Walls form to select a new wall will jump the 3d view to that position.
• Copy Wall – hold C whilst in Move Node mode.
• Move entire wall – hold M whilst in Move Node mode.
• rFactor VisGroup settings.
• “Is Tree Wall” option for better lighting on walls.
• Objects
• rFactor VisGroup settings.
• Better control over movement when objects are moved into the distance.
• Copy selected object by holding C before moving.
• Terrain
• Editing of terrain can be done using the 3d view.
• New method to add terrain that automatically collapses in tight bends and overlaps.
• New method to add terrain using an edge pull.
• Selection of Terrain Anchor points is now performed by lasso instead of by rectangle.
• Can unselect Anchor points by holding Control when lassoing.
• Face selection now occurs on anything that is visible (before the Terrain Area also had to be selected).
• New Flatten terrain tool.
• New Fill function.
• Three modes of update, Immediate, Partly Deferred and Deferred. See View…Options. This will eventually apply to Track edits as well.
• Cameras for rFactor.
• XPacker
• Support for SObjects
• Show’s Object Materials, click on one to display that Material.
• Load buttons for SObject/Object icons.

Fixed:

• RBR driveable terrain would cause loading problem if the polygons were of vastly different sizes. Export now auto cuts large polys a bit more smartly.
• RBR Collisions.
• Adding single object was slow when lots of objects already added.
• RBR Clouds.
• Adding a wall using Spline tool, removing it then trying to add a enw one would cause a crash.

7th February 2009

Oran Park has been captured using various techniques including Aerial Laser Scanning.

14th January 2009

See download section (you need to be registered)

Fixed

• Removing a track would sometimes cause a crash.
• rFactor material chroma blemd amount now set correctly. Improves the look of trees.
• After a “Save As” material changes were still being done in the old venue.
• “Unselecting” XPacks only removed upon saving.

17th December 2008

Take a look at the next big thing coming to BTB version 0.6.

See download section (you need to be registered)

Fixed

• Couldn’t grab wall spline control point in 2d view.
• Track randomness not working properly.
• rFactor export “Clear Folder” flag not being reloaded.
• Terrain that is blended with another material was not always being exported properly.
• Changing the Material’s rFactor Material name was not triggering the OK button to be enabled.
• Some material changes not triggering update in terrain.
• UV values for Terrain using DiffAddMulti material with blending were incorrect.
• XPacker removes empty folder when a material is deleted.
• XPacker “Zip To BTB” would sometimes keep a lock on large files, preventing their renaming in XPacker.
• Bug with Terrain Export to RBR not working when one Terrain Area had a duplicate polygon.
• XPacker not displaying images on some video cards.

XPacker improvements.

• Import Collada (*.DAE) objects. Get Max plugin Here.
• XPacker – Materials without textures are replaced with a 16x16 texture of the Diffuse color for that texture, instead of the ReplaceMe texture.
• Make changes to Multiple Objects by selecting the tree branch.
• Change multiple Materials by selecting the tree branch.
• Can make changes to multiple textures by selecting the tree and altering the path.

25th November 2008

See download section (you need to be registered)

Added

• Objects.
• Expandability via the use of XPacks (for Pro Users only). These are easier to install than previous Add-ons.
• New XPacker application used to help build XPacks.
• New Project structure to allow easier sharing of projects and textures.
• View change, press 1, 2, 3, 4 to switch between Views.
• Press T to cycle through Tracks without opening window.
• Press W to cycle through the Render modes (Solid / Wireframe / Both).
• Camera “Fly” position rises up over terrain. Fly/Drive will start from nearest point on Active Track.
• Camera Zoom To – double-right-click in the 3d window to move about or press J in top/3d view.
• Multi-threading support.
• Can now create/edit Walls in the 3d view.
• New Wall types Spline and Curve.
• Walls now have shadow casting settings.
• New “Draw” method of adding a wall.
• Track and Wall Cross-section randomness - uses a Seed for consistancy for each load.
• Terrain “Show Track Anchors” option.
• Auto-splitting of large terrain polygons when exporting to RBR.
• A second collision model for RBR that allows a column to be used for collisions instead of the Object mesh. *Note: there is still some work left to be done on the RBR graphics engine.

Changed

• 3d view camera rotation centres around the click position.
• Removed the DisableLeftMouseNavigationIn3d option.
• You can no longer create walls that are attached to a track, instead you need to use the Align tool.
• Undo files are now zipped to save space.
• Background Image, when first loaded, is automatically positioned in the Top view rather than you dragging it.
• Removed the Track Shadow.

Fixed

• Made Pacenotes and Driveline balls easier to select, especially at distance.
• “Drive/ Fly” no longer flips direction when nodes are close together.