Tutorials

Making New Camera Files:

This tutorial will try to assist you in quickly creating new camera files for your ICR2 tracks. It describes the method I developed while making camera files for my scratchbuilt tracks. But the info could of course also help you create camera's for existing tracks or edited tracks. This file has been updated since it was available at Lightning. I have changed it to use OPE instead of 3doEd todetermine camera positions.
Information was taken from my own experience with camera's, Bob Seaman's tutorial and the file by Turtle of TWI at www.simcyberworld.com. Reading those files might lead you to believe that it's pretty complicated to make new camera's for a track when really it is not. Once you get the hang of it, it should only take you half an hour to create new files for a medium sized track. Of course, as with any edit, it always involves a little bit of trial and error.

[all the tools you need are in this archive they were written by BB&B Editing Group]

To save some time while editing you can drive a couple of laps and save a replay. then when you are testing your camera's all you have to do is load the replay file.

The first thing you should do is open the camtools.rar file linked above and extract its contents to some temporary folder on your hard drive. I will first explain you which files are which in this folder.

Cam_writ.exe	by BB&B, needed for writing a .cam;
Scr_writ.exe	by BB&B, needed for writing a .scr;
Filewrit.bat	Saves you the time of typing in a DOS window when you write the new files
Track.ca_	The .cam file in .txt format, we will make our changes in this file..
Track.sc_	The .scr file in .txt format, we will make our changes in this file...
Track.cam	We will use this to write to so keep it in the folder ! Cam_writ can NOT write a whole new file. You will get a .cam file when you try compiling, but it will be corrupt.
Track.scr	Keep this in the folder as well, although scr_writ IS able to make a functioning .scr from only the .sc_ it will avoid confusion.

You can open the ca_ and sc_ in Notepad, they are standard text files, you might even want to consider to select "Always open with this program" the first time you open them so you can just double click on them and instantly make those changes you had thought of. It's not very likely that you already have a program associated with the .ca_ en .sc_ file extensions anyway...
Preparations:
1 - Draw up a little map of your track. Just a single line that roughly has the shape should be enough. Draw in all the TV1 camera's where you want them, also mark where you want the camera's to start and stop viewing the car. Where your previous camera stops, is where the next one will begin. In other words, no overlap ! If you don't know the layout of your track, open up its .3do in 3doEditor and view it from above.

2 - Maybe using a different color pen draw in the TV2 camera positions as well, also mark where you want THESE camera's to start and stop viewing the car. A word of advice here, for your first camera experience to be a succes you would be better off avoiding problems when you can. So you can use different camera positions but it's smart to keep the same amount of TV1 and TV2 camera's and also to use the same points where they switch on and off. As soon as you're comfortable with editing these files the sky is the limit.

3 - Go into your track in OPE [with or without objects does not matter]. Manouver yourself to the middle of the racing surface and go into Track Drive Mode by pressing M and choosing the apropriate number. Now you can drive back and forth on your track with your joystick or pedals/wheel. In the top part of the screen some information will be displayed as to where you are on the track. The important thing to look for is the position from the S/F line. So look for the one that is close to 0 when you pass the S/F line. You will need to write down the value it displays [which is given in 500ths, the same measurement as the .scr and .cam files] by going around the track and filling in the numbers for the camera's start and end viewing points [in the map you made]. Do that for both the TV1 and TV2 views.

The .scr File:

Open up the track.sc_ file in Notepad, you will see this:



Then you will see the next bit of data:



There is one for every camera. You only need to make adjustments to the New_value column. The other one is only there for reference.

In the file I provided with this tutorial, there is a total of 10 camera's. 5 TV1's and 5 TV2's.... The sc_ file lists the 5 TV1 camera's first, then the 5 TV2's. For every extra camera there is in your track, add one set of data as seen above. Don't forget to adjust the numbering of the camera's you're adding (this bit : "TV1 Camera # 1")

Here's a quick explanation of my comments in the image above:

(*1) = This value can either be a 6 or a 7. According to other documentation about this subject it would be used to identify either outfield camera's (Mark 7) or infield camera's (Mark 6). But since I just put the camera's where I want them (in- or outfield) by their coordinates, which seems to do the trick quite beautifully, I personally thought a 7 is used to specify that this camera is a stationary one. A so called 'speedcam' as mainly seen on ovals. I have just tested this theory and it seems this is correct. But a stationary camera is very hard to get right (a lot of trial and error involved) so to make life easier we will stay with panning camera's for now. When the whole file is finished you can try your luck on some Mark 7 stationary camera's. More info on this later in the file.

(*2) = The Cam # value should start counting at 0 for TV1 cam # 1, 1 for TV1 cam #2, etc...just keep counting up for every camera in the file. If your last TV1 camera has a Cam # of 8, start counting at 9 for the first TV2 camera.

(3+4) = Now we can look at our map we drew with the numbers in it. The first TV1 camera probably tunes in on the car before the S/F line, as you can see in the example file. Go around the track and fill in the 'coming at' values and 'going away' values for each camera. As I told you before, distances are all relative to S/F line, measured in Papy units (1 meter = 20000 units). Keep in mind that the 'going away' number of the first camera is the same as the 'coming at' number of the next one. This means that the 'going away' number of the last TV1 camera is the same as the 'coming at' number of the first TV1 camera. Then do the same for the TV2 camera's.

Now, lastly, we need to take care of the formatting of our sc_ file. The scr_write.exe is very picky, formatting needs to be perfect. Please make sure there aren't any extra lines or extra spaces at the end of lines. In your .sc_ file, select all text and make sure that this :



Will look like this:



Once you're done you can save the file and close it. If your camera's act weirdly when you test them, the .sc_ file is the first place to look for errors.

The .cam File:

1 - Open up the ca_ file in Notepad. The first line will look like this :



2 - For every camera you added to the .sc_ file, add one to the line above. So let's say you now have a total of 8 TV1's and 8 TV2's in the sc_ file, then replace 10 with 16. It really is that simple :)

3 - Next you will see this :



One set of these for every camera.

Again, you only need to adjust the 'New_value' column, the other one is there only for reference. Once you're done adding sets of data, adjust numbering. I should tell you that this is only to help you identify camera's, the tool doesn't look at it. In fact, BB&B made a slight mistake here. They thought they were putting the first of the TV1 cam's in here, followed by the first of the TV2 cam's and then around the track. When in fact, the tool just extracts all TV1's first and then all TV2's. So when you indeed would have 8 TV's and 8 TV2's, edit the ca_ file as if the first 8 camera's are all TV1's and the last 8 are all TV2's.

Also, this tool was written when all meanings of the values weren't very clear yet, so please look at my comments on the right instead of the ones in the first column.

As you can see from my comments above, we are only going to change Value 2, 3 and 4. Which hold the coordinates of the position of this camera on the track. The other values (Value1 and Value 5 to Value 9) probably don't need changing. Unless your camera has a weird zoom that you don't like. In that case try playing around with the zoom Values. The best thing you can do is read the file by Turtle, he explains the zoom values in there. I have never changed anything other than the coordinates and while writing this bit I have made new camera files for five different tracks. On the other hand, I'm not very picky... I can give you some sort of quickfix though, look up a camera in your track that does have the kind of zoom you would like and copy over its Value 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

4 - But first we're only going to change coordinates. Again, open up your track OPE, it helps in this stage if the objects are loaded as well to see if a camera has unrestricted view on the track. Look at your map and determine the position where you want your first TV1 camera. Now find that point on the track by flying around using your joystick or pedals/wheel. You can have a good look from that point to see if it's a nice spot to put a camera. When you are happy with the position and height of the camera you need to determine what the coordinates are of that point. Write down the X, Y and Z values displayed in the top of the window for that camera and move on to the next one.

5 - Go around the track and fill in every camera, looking at your map and the track in OPE.

6 - Lastly, just like in the sc_ file, adjust formatting. Again, select all the text and take out or add extra spaces.

7 - Save the track.ca_ file.

Wrapping It Up:

1 - Run the filewrit.bat file and your new camera files are ready. Copy (!! don't move !!) them to the track, renaming them of course [unless your track is called Track] and test your new camera's !

2 - If you're lucky, the camera's are just where you wanted them and are looking fabulous...good job...but minor adjustments might be needed.

Now there is just one thing left to tell you. Remember those stationary camera's I was telling you about ? If you want to try your hand on making one, backup your .cam and .scr file and put them in a safe place. You wouldn't want to mess them up :)

Let's say you have 7 TV1 camera's...and you want the middle camera (number 4) to become a stationary one. Go into your .sc_ file and change the Mark value of TV1 camera number 4 to 7. Now change the Cam # line of this camera back to 0. Go to the next camera (camera number 5) and change it's Cam # back to 0 as well (the Cam # value just counts all sequential camera's of a certain mark, so the sim knows when to switch from panning to stationary mode and back - and thus how it should treat the .cam file info for the camera's). Now you have to adjust Cam # of all the other camera's after that as well. Let's see a simplified chart of how your .sc_ file should look before and after....





That's the sc_ file. Now you need to edit the corresponding .cam values for the Mark 7 camera in your .ca_ file. So open that one up in Notepad and lookup the camera (should be camera number 4 in our example track here) and start editing it's values. I have not tried this myself yet so I can't tell you much about it here. As you can see from the next bit of info that I took from the N99 camera help file by Turtle is that a Mark 7 camera still has the same number of values, but some will have no effect and the others will have a different meaning :


Value 1:	No known effect.
Value 2:	Controls forward movement.
	a. In order to regain direction, zero out value 5.
	b. The lower the number, the more forward it moves.
Value 3:	Rotates actual camera.
	a. The lower the number, the more right it turns.
	b. Try rotating the camera in the desired direction, then use Value2 to walk it forward.
Value 4:	Elevates Camera.
Value 5:	Rotates Camera Head.
	a. Rotation will start to show change at about 10 million.
	b. The higher the number, the more left it turns.
Value 6:	Has camera look up- or downward from its tripod.
	a. 100million mark gets results best.
	b. The lower the number, the lower it looks.
Value 7:	No known effect.
Value 8:	Wide angle zoom and or wide zoom lens.
	a. Zooms view way back in negative numbers.
Value 9:	No known effect.
Value 10:	No known effect.
Value 11:	No known effect.
Value 12:	No known effect.

As I said, I haven't tested these values and what they do yet.

As a final note, there is one extra camera position that can be edited. You will need to go into your <track>.txt file and find the BLIMP line. Here you can define the blimp camera position. You can only change the X and Y coordinate here, the Z-coordinate is fixed. In OPE, find a good place in about the middle of the track and change the values in the BLIMP line.