Using SGE:

In the next two tutorials I am going to try and lead you through the proces of making a simple roadcourse using the Nascar 3 Sandbox, in this tutorial we will only be using SGE.exe and in then next we will be using SFE.exe. Using these tools is a lot of fun right from the beginning when you get to know how you can use them. But beware that mastering them completely is a question of time and experience.

[You will need the Nascar 3 Sandbox, this is a set of DOS tools so you need to have that installed. All tools work from Windows on a DOS prompt so you do not have to be in a clean DOS environment.]

I always name my new tracks icr2. This is because it is easier to set up my selection of editing tools and related .bat files to always use the name icr2. So from now one I will refer to the track as icr2. [I always copy a completely new editing folder for a new track so that I never accidentally overwrite an existing track, that way my track can still be named icr2 and I can use my .bat files and other things for that track as well].

Preparation:

1. Extract the contents of the N3 Sandbox .zip file that you downloaded from Tim McArthur's forum to a folder on your hard drive. I'll refer to this folder as sandbox. It does not matter where this folder is as long as it's easy to find for you.

2. I use two .bat files to start the SGE and SFE tools, the two main track creation tools. Then I don't have to start a DOS prompt and type the name of the track every time. You can make those yourself or download these ones I use. The sge.bat file will start SGE.exe with the icr2.sg and sfe.bat will start SFE.exe with the icr2.sg. Extract the .bat files to your sandbox folder.

Getting To Know SGE:

Launch the sge.bat file. If there is no icr2.sg in the folder yet it will be created. A file called icr2.mrk will also be created. This is a script file of some description. I might make a tutorial about it but I don't know the exact use yet and I don't think it is really necessary altogether. The .sg file holds all the geometry, wall and surface information.

Okay so you have started SGE.exe. The G in SGE stands for Geometry. SGE.exe is used to build your track's centerline, define the number of height lines and the height difference/banking of the track. Now that you have started SGE you will get the following screen :

	1 = Top view of the whole track;
	2 = View from the side of the whole track;
	3 = Active track section from left to right. This shows the banking of the track.
	4= All the function keys with below it room where among other things, the stats about the track will be shown.

So far so good. So what are all those functions in that menu... what do they do ? Well you can activate an edit function by left-clicking on them. It will be highlighted white and you can then use it in the appopriate editing window. The MOVE POINT and MOVE SECTS functions have expanded functions. Right click on them to cycle through those functions.

There are some more things you need to know. You can move the view around by holding the SHIFT key and clicking [and holding the mouse button] somewhere on the view that you want to move [windows 1, 2 and 3] and just moving the mouse. Also, another way to Zoom in other than the buttons is by pressing the , and . keys on your keyboard.

Building The Center Line:

Okay, let's make a pretty basic roadcourse. Nothing fancy, this is just meant to get us going. All our editing in this first phase will take place in window 1. Let's start with making a straight by using the NEW STRAIGHT function. Just click in the window and put down a straight. Now, length [as well as some other useful info] is displayed in the stats window [below the buttons] in the units you choose in the UNITS button. But, you don't really need to pay attention to the length at this point, just the layout. That is because of the SCAL SECTS function that we will use later on the make the track of the desired length. Now make a curved section by using the NEW CURVE function. Again, while putting in your curved section some info on what you are doing is displayed in the stats screen. So, go wild but keep it nice and simple at first. I have made something simple by this point, looking like this:

You can see that I have done a couple of corners and a couple of straights and I am gradually working back to where I started, because you need a closed loop. Notice how the windows 2 and 3 show nothing at this point, not until we close that loop and add the S/F line. Next up I am going to try and close the track. this part can be tricky because the angle at which the last section approaches the first section needs to be within a certain margin. Try to get them lined up as best as you can and then try joining the track with your last section. If a curve does not work, try a straight and vice versa. This is all a bit of experience and trial and error. SGE will help you a bit luckily, because when it can help the joining of the sections by making a section slightly larger or smaller it will do so. I managed to close my track pretty easily, here is the result:

Now to complete the loop you only have to add the Start/Finish line. Click on the section where you want the S/F line to be and then click the START/FINISH function. You will see a big L being added. The short leg of the L will point into the driving direction of the track. This direction should be the same direction in which you built your last section. If you change your mind and want the S/F line to be on a different part of the track just activate another section [click on it in window 1] and hit the START/FINISH function key again. Here is my finished loop with the S/F line in it.

As soon as I clicked the S/F line button the two other windows [2 and 3] were filled with data. That is our next objective now that we have a finished loop. But first I am going to show you some other things you need to take care of first :

1. I split the long straight section in half to be able to put the S/F line in the middle of that straight. I did that with the DIVIDE SECT function.
2. I checked the curved sections for their radius. You see, a curved section has a maximum angle it can have. I always make sure they are 90 degrees or less. If they have bigger angles that they span the track build tools will crash. So go through your track and DIVIDE SECT any curved section with an angle of more than 90 degrees.
3. I checked my tracks length [will be shown when you zoom in or out] and it was quite long. So I used SCAL SECTS [right-click on MOV SECTS twice and it will appear] and made the track smaller. I made it about 3.7 miles.That will make this a pretty boring track :)

I used the DIVIDE SECT function a couple of times as you saw. I don't want you to think that more is better by definition in SGE because putting in too many small sections in one stretch of track will cause annoying pop-up effects in the game. That is because the game will only draw so many sections at a time so if those are very short ones you won't be able to look very far down the track.

Creating Some Elevation Change:

This editing will primarily take place in window 2. You see the track from the side here. This can not be shown as a loop but it still represents all the sections of your track. It starts where the first section begins and ends where the last section joins the first one again. In this window you can now left-click and drag a point up or down. This will move the whole section begin/end point up and down. First let's create some cool ups and downs, like so:

Nice hey ! But, take a look at this detailed shot of how these lines look now :

Do you see the weird wave-like curves. this will be the same in the game and it will make the drivers slightly sea-sick. So what can we do about it? Well, we can change the rotation of the points. At this moment the lines still go through the point at a straight angle. The way we can adjust this rotation is by left clicking the point and dragging the cursor to the left or right. At that point moving the cursor up and down will not change the height of the point but its rotation. That way you can adjust the curvature to make it more gradual. If anything it's a case of trying for yourself to see how it works.

Awesome ! We are about done with that window number 2 now, let's move on to window 3. there you can add heightlines and adjust their height for individual sections. That is used to make banking in an oval or camber on the corners of a roadcourse. You can also put in elevated kerbstones like this or just make the grass or dirt or whatever on the sides lower or higher. The possibilites to vary height on your track from section are endless as long as you have grasped the basics. So let's move on those basics.

First I want to make sure that you can see your measurements in feet, so click on the UNIT button as many times as you need to to have it display the units in feet. Now take a look at the detailed window number 3 the way it looks at the moment:

There is no elevation change in any section here yet. Well, there is of course, from first to last section because we defined that in window 2. But there is no change between left and right. The two points you see on both outer sides have a triangle beneath them. These are the two height lines that are needed for a track to work. Two is the minimum number of height lines, ten is the maximum number.

At this point I should tell you that of course when you want to make a real track [or even a fantasy track where you have a good idea about what you want] you will know just about where you want banking or kerbstones. You can then also make a guess at the number of height lines you will need and where they should be. If you want kerbstones in both the left and right part of the track in some sections you have to add four new height lines. Where should you add them ? Well consider the above image again and click on the first point first in SGE. You will see in the stats about the section a DLAT=50,000 which means that that line is 50 feet left from the centerline. Click on the second point and you will see DLAT=-50,000 which means that this line is 50 feet to the right of the centerline. This means that our track is 100 feet wide. This is the default track width. The track centerline is at 0 feet and both edges are at 50 and -50 feet. So now you should decide how wide you want the future racing surface to be and put two new heightlines at both sides of it. Like this:

In the above image I had decided that I wanted my track to be 30 feet wide. So I left-clicked underneath the line which added a new point and then I dragged the triangle until the DLAT said -15,000 [or the closest I could get]. Then I left-clicked underneath the white line again and dragged the triangle until I had another point, this time with DLAT=15,000. There you go ! Now we need to define where the kerbstones end on both sides and we do that the same way. Just think how wide you want them to be, 3 feet sounds alright to me [which means at about DLAT=18,000 and DLAT=-18,000] so that is how I made them:

It's important to know that adding the heightlines to one section will add them to all sections, removing them [might be necessary some times, right-clicking on a triangle will remove the line] from one section will remove them from all sections. The same thing goes for changing the DLAT by dragging them sideways, this gets edited in all sections when you edit it in one section.

Now that we have these 6 height lines we could add another 4 [because as we saw earlier 10 is the maximum] but I'm going to stick with these 6 and move on to changing their height to bring some more elevation into the track.

Most roadcourses have banking in the turns. So that is what er are going to add as well. In window 1 select the first corner in your track. You can raise and lower the height lines by holding doen the CTRL key on your keyboard, clicking one of the points on the line and dragging it up or down. That will raise or lower that point in the section that is activated in windows 1 and 2. Again, the stats screen is your best friend here, especially the "Bank:" stat. While dragging the point up or down you can see how many degrees of banking you are putting into the track. Although you can do a lot by just estimating and using 'your carpenters eye' looking at the banking is very useful. You can also see how many feet you are lowering or raising the track. This is what I came up with for the first corner :

Play a little with this or take a look at the included .sg file to see what I have done in some of the corners and the straights.

Here is a screenshot of one of the corner exits. It's a right hand corner so I have added some height to the [future] kerbstone on the left of the track:

This is a good time to have a good hard think about your track. What will you need ? You can start dividing your track into smaller sections by using the DIVIDE SECT function. Because when you have a very long straight section after a corner but you don't want the kerbstone to be just as long you can divide that section into smaller parts and have only the first section have elevation where the kerbstone is. When we move on to SFE we will see the need to sometimes come back to SGE and divide sections even more but that is for later. I'm just telling you that you can always go back a level and change something without having to start over completely. So, go around the track and go wild with making elevation changes. Bank the corners where you want them, put in some hills to the side... whatever you want ! You can take a look at my own .sg of this track but I have put more time into writing this tutorial than making the track so don't copy everything you see :)

The .ini File:

Then there is the sge.ini file and this I think is the right time to mention it. You can [but don't have to, they will work normally without it] use this file to tell the program some things. Things like to load a .pcx image to use as a background to your edits [so you can use it as a blueprint to make your track] and other cool things. Download the ini.rar file here so you can have a look yourself. Inside the archive is an example sge.ini, a track.pcx [of Sebring] that will work right out of the box and a readme.txt explaining all the settings [except for some unknowns].

Conclusion:

That is about it for SGE, there are some things we did not cover yet, some of the function keys but now that you have a basic track to experiment with why don't you go ahead and start messing with those functions yourself. As I said when we started this tutorial, there is a lot you need to find out yourself, at least do on your own to get what it does and how you can use it. But I think I have now given you a good enough start in SGE to get there yourself. Besides, I'm still learning as well :D Let's move on to the next tutorial on using SFE to learn how to add walls and surfaces to your track !