Converting From GTR2 to rFactor

Made by Evo Monkey

Converting from GTR2 to rFactor

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1. Unpack all the GTR files (3DSimed, Tools tab, Unpack, GTR files). There should be about 4; OBJ, CPIT, TEX, WHEELS. This can vary and more can be added but I think this is the minimum. I prefer to unpack each to a different folder, named accordingly. This way you can clearly see what is what but it is all down to personal preference.

2. In 3DSimed, click on File (Top left) and Import As Objects. Browse to your OBJ folder and select everything. Can click Ctrl + A for quick selection. You can now click open. This is the full model. Looks good, eh? Don’t worry that it is all pink; this means that no textures can be found in the folder (If you really want to see you can copy the contents of the TEX folder into the OBJ folder). Again, don’t worry that the wheels are missing, that isn’t too important yet. There are a few tweaks to be made now. Press E to open the material editor. If you find the material WC_TEAM_XXX; it might not be exactly that and it will have something else instead of XXX but it will look similar. If you move the material box out the way you should see that the car body is now blue/selected. Once you are ready you can click edit. We are not bothered about anything else on this screen apart from the material name at the top. WC_TEAM_XXX is how GTR2 handles WildCard (WC) textures – Wildcard simply means they are skinnable – rFactor handles these in a different way. Change this name to WCCARBODY. Click OK and back to the material selection screen. If you see any other WC_XXXX_XXX textures, these will also need to be changed so they can be skinned. However, for other textures they need to be changed to WCEXTRA# - Where # is a number. It might be useful to make a note of

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what number refers to what texture, it might be useful when converting the skins.

3. Well that seemed like a long step. You should be finished in here, for now. You can click OK and go back to the main 3DSimed screen. Click the export tab then rFactor, finally click on Save Objects. It will be a good idea to make a new folder, for example Exported OBJ, because there can be a lot of files that get exported. You can now close 3DSimed.

In your new folder, or all over your desktop if you didn’t make one, should be all the exported files. However, instead of being in GTR2 GMT format they are now in rFactor GMT format, great! Just a little bit of a tidy up before we move onto the next step, you can delete the old OBJ folder as we don’t need it anymore. You can also delete the Output.scn made in your new folder from the export process from 3DSimed – This file is used when working on tracks with a heck of a lot of GMT files, it creates a .SCN file to save a lot of work. The final file you can delete is the Expofloor file from your new folder, this is the showroom floor from GTR2 – It is always there in rFactor so no need for it.

4. Now it is time to see the car in rFactor for the first time. Before this high tension moment, there is a bit of preparation needed. If you use the provided files in the NewMod folder, it will be quick. This is basically a barebones set of files that mean you can get a car in rFactor without too much effort. If you move the NewMod folder in your Vehicles folder of your rFactor it is time to begin the main conversion process. Move all the textures from your TEX folder into the MAS folder. You can now delete your TEX folder. Now the fun starts. Each .GMT file has to be moved into the MAS file, BUT NOT YET. I find it much easier to move them one by one, beginning with the larger parts like the body. This way you don’t miss any files and each is added. So, find your main body part Page 3 of 9

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and move it to the MAS folder. Most files should be appropriately named, if they aren’t this would be a good time to rename things to suit as you might want to open each one. Now you need to specify the body in the GEN file. If you open the GEN file you will see an example entry. Here is a quick rundown of what it all means: 

MeshFile=XXXXX.gmt = This is the .GMT file. XXXXX is obviously replaced by the file name.

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CollTarget=False = This is short for Collision Target. This is slightly confusing but is outlined later on that not everything needs to be collide-able. The 2 options for this are CollTarget=False and CollTarget=True.

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HATTarget=False = In track editing, this means you can drive on it. In car editing, I will be honest and say I have no clue. Similar to CollTarget, the 2 options are HATTarget=False and HATTarget=True.

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LODIn=(0.0) = This is short for Level Of Detail In. Basically, 0.0 is the closest to the car you can get. The further away you get, the larger the number. I prefer to use 1000 for the LODOut because it is roughly where you can’t see the car anymore. This can be useful for different model details to reduce FPS. A high detailed model can be used for LODIn=(0.0) to LODOut=(250.00) then a lower model can be used for LODIn=(250.00) to LODOut=(500.00) then you get the idea for other models...

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LODOut=(1000.0) = See above.

Now using the information above, you can roughly figure out what the entry should look like for the main body. If your file was called MAINBODY.GMT and there was only 1 LOD then the below example might be good:

MeshFile=MAINBODY.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) Now, you may be wondering why it is CollTarget=True even though it should be as it is the body. Well, most mods use another, much less detail model to be used as the “collision box” and also the “shadow Page 4 of 9

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box”. There may be one in the mod you are converting, look in your exported objects folder for any file including the words shadow or collision or something similar. If there is then good, if not then you can change the CollTargat=False to CollTarget=True. Once this has been entered you can start rFactor, and wait through what seems like an eternity as the tension and excitement builds as you can’t wait to see your hard work actually, working. If you load All Cars And Tracks it will be in the spinner under the title, New Mod. If you click on it and it loads, brilliant! You can continue to step number 5. If not, then never fear.

There are a few shared files that GTR2 uses that don’t go in each GTR file; Similar to how rFactor’s CMAPS.mas file works in the main vehicle directory. You can tell if it is one of these files because it will be called EMAP_XXXX.dds, where XXXX is something similar to plastic, carbon or aluminium. These are all reflection files and are pretty similar. If you open the MAS folder and look for another EMAP_XXXX.dds you can copy and rename it to whatever the error was for. You may have to do this a few times until you can see the car in game.

5. Now you need to repeat that step for most .GMT files that are there. Exceptions to this are the steering wheel (Sometimes called Swheel), the Collision/Shadow box and any lights. When you are happy that you have the rest of the .GMTs in game, you need to add one more thing into the .GEN. Just below the final entry put:

Actor=Vehicle If this wasn’t there, then you would crash into each timing zone and the pit exit and it just wouldn’t work. The steering wheel, shadow/collision box and lights can be left as side for now as we want to take the car for a test drive.

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6. You may, or may not, have noticed that the car doesn’t yet load on track. This is because your car needs to have wheels defined before it will load. You may remember earlier that you extracted that .GTR into a folder. Open this folder and you should see some texture files and some .GMT files. You can move all the texture files into the MAS folder; it is also not uncommon for there to be duplicate files so overwrite them if there are any. In here should also be the callipers and discs. So, if you once again import all of these in 3DSimed as objects (File, Import as objects). No editing needed here; you can just export them to rFactor format again. As before, it would be a good idea to make another folder and delete the old one; this will help stop any confusion. Now you can add them into the GEN file. Underneath the Actor=Vehicle line, add this:

Instance=LFTIRE { Moveable=True MeshFile=XXXX_LF.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) } XXXX will be your file name, usually each set of wheels shares the same name but with the change at the end depending on where it is. You can now copy and paste this BUT don’t forget to change the LFTIRE each time. You should now have, obviously with the MeshFile=XXXX_LF.GMT..... in between: 

Instance=LFTIRE

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Instance=RFTIRE

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Instance=LRTIRE

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Instance=RRTIRE Page 6 of 9

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If you have any brake discs/callipers, read on. If not, skip to number 7. Anything that spins WITH the wheel you want to also include it in the TIRE instance, like so:

Instance=LFTIRE {

Moveable=True MeshFile=XXXX_LF.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) MeshFile=XXXX_2_LF.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) } If you want it to MOVE with the wheel but NOT SPIN, like callipers turn with the front wheels but don’t spin, you want this:

Instance=LFSPINDLE { Moveable=True MeshFile=XXXX_LF.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) } Again, there should be 4 like below, obviously with the MeshFile=XXXX_LF.GMT..... in between: 

Instance=LFTIRE

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Instance=RFTIRE

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Instance=LRTIRE

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Instance=RRTIRE

Now, finally, your car should load on track. Take it for a spin (With the slow, FWD physics). Now most of the hard work is done, only tiding a few loose ends up. Starting to look good and take shape now!

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7. Now it is time for the smaller details to be added. First, the steering wheel. Just after the Actor=Vehicle line, but just before the wheel entries, put this:

Instance=Wheel { Moveable=True MeshFile=XXXXXX.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) } Replace XXXXXX with your steering wheel object and that is that sorted. Next up is the collision/shadow. This doesn’t have a special instance and can be put in the GEN file just below the Actor=Vehicle and just before the Instance=Wheel. rFactor doesn’t need one for shadow and one for collision, one can do both jobs. The entry should be similar to below:

MeshFile=XXXXX.gmt CollTarget=True HATTarget=False ShadowObject=(True, Solid, 256, 256, UNDERSHADOW.DDS) LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0)

There also needs to be another texture added. This is the under shadow texture, it can be taken from any mod as it isn’t much different from mod to mod.

8. Now it is nearly done. The last file we need to add in the cockpit file. These should still be in the cockpit folder when you extracted the .GTR files. If you open this folder and move all the textures to the MAS folder then you should now be able to clearly see how many cockpit files you have. There normally isn’t many. You can delete the steering wheel files, these are already added. If you import the rest into 3DSimed as objects (File, import as objects) and then press E. Have a look to see if there is a material with the names WC_TEAM_XXX, as we did in the previous step change these. This is where your notes could come in handy.

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Once this is done you can export as objects. Once again, it might be a good idea to make a new folder. Once this is done, you can move your new cockpit file/files over into the MAS folder. Open the GEN file and just below the Instance=Wheel entry add this:

Instance=Cockpit { Moveable=True MeshFile=XXXXXX.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) } If you have more than one cockpit file you can copy the Meshfile=.... part. Example below:

Instance=Cockpit { Moveable=True MeshFile=XXXXXX.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) MeshFile=XXXXXX_2.gmt CollTarget=False HATTarget=False LODIn=(0.0) LODOut=(1000.0) } Now you can have 2 files for the cockpit. And that is it! Once this is done your first basic GTR2 conversion should be in rFactor.

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