Race Track Builder available on Steam

Race Track Builder available on Steam

After Brendon Pywell’s “Race Track Builder” successfully passed the Steam Greenlight system, the track building tool is now available for purchase.

RTB is an advanced track creation tool aimed at game developers. In his Brendon’s own words, Race Track Builder has been redesigned from the ground up to incorporate new technology and a new methodology that make creating race tracks easier. A software design tool that has a simple, easy to user-interface that allows you to build fantasy race tracks or use Google Maps data to create real-life terrain and roads.

Brendon is planning to release a helpful set of tutorial videos covering the basics of track development using the RTB tool. The first set of 6 tutorial videos can be found on the bottom of this post.

Get RTB at http://store.steampowered.com/app/388980. RTB is available for 54,99€


Together with the initial release, RTB also received its first official update patch featuring some minor changes.

Update v1.0.0.1

  • Updated Help file (yes there was already a minimal help file – press F1 from the main window).
  • Change to AC material properties no longer trigger any unnecessary recalculation.
  • FIX: Reloading of updated texture was not always firing after editing in external software.

Race Track Builder Features:

  • RTB taps into Google Maps to retrieve images and height data resulting in accurate, beautiful looking landscapes on which you can lay your vision for the perfect race track. Add more detail to the terrain and RTB automatically retrieves height data from Google.
  • Whilst Google Maps can be used for the creation of the terrain, optionally you can create your own mountains using a number of built-in tools. Use the inbuilt materials, tap into a vast library of expansion packs, build your own textures.
  • The interface is now ultra fast with all calculations done using background threads. Even on tracks with a length of 50+ kilometers, changes to the track or terrain take milliseconds, and the detailed calculations are delegated to background tasks. No more waiting for the screen updates in order to make your next move.
  • Advanced features allow easy modification of the terrain and the layout of the road, modification of cross-section and manipulation of materials. Make adjustments to the track, and the terrain is automatically adjusted in just seconds.
  • Rapid cross-section editing allows interesting, detailed sections of track to be created in just minutes. Make adjustments to camber, create bumps or ditches or explore the advanced terrain hugging features for even finer control.
  • RTB goes to great lengths in order to blend road edges with the terrain. Materials are blended to form great looking transitions, angles are calculated for outside edge to consider the slope of the terrain and cross-section points are adjusted to account for the underlying terrain.
  • Whilst the initial world can begin with more than 1300 square kilometers, that’s no limitation. Terrain can expand as required to give more room for longer tracks or external scenery. If Google Maps is used, then extended terrain automatically retrieves height data.
  • RTB is a work in progress with loads more features in the pipeline. The best is yet to come.

Free Upgrades

Additional functions will be added as free upgrades as they are developed. These include many of the more popular BTB items integrated into the new interface.

  • Objects
  • String-Objects
  • Walls (with proper ends 😉 )
  • Intersections
  • Expansion Packs (Xpacks) including additional textures, materials, objects, cross-sections definitions.
  • … and a few surprises. 😉

RTB will export to the Autodesk FBX format which can then be loaded into 3d modelling tools for export into games with a little more work. This opens up RTB to more game developers and this in turn will generate more RTB content (XPacks) for people to use across all types of games. In time export direct to game may be added for some titles but initially the focus is on supporting many titles.

The first title with specific support is Assetto Corsa with materials and shaders created to replicate the shading used. The landscape uses Multi-layering shading with support for direct modification of the underlying texture. When targeting Assetto Corsa the export prepares the objects ready to be imported into the AC Editor, generating the Configuration file so that materials and textures are applied as they appeared in RTB.

Official Webpage – www.racetrackbuilder.com

 

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