Hi guys.
I've seen a lot of mods being converted to GSC lately, but although some of them are working fine inside the game, it seems they aren't receiving the proper treatment to *fully* work as intended.
I am not an expert modder, in fact, I recently started to convert (privately) using the
excellent tool that Grumbel provided.
So far, I've converted HistorX, Alpine A364, F1 1967, Eagle, Legends Cars, Endurance Series and DRM.
I didn't release any of them because their authors still gave no permission to do so.
During the conversions, I've made a lot of small utilities to handle the work of altering/adjusting the veh files in batch. These steps are necessary because Grumbel's tool does 99% of the job, but not the "refining part".
Anyway, for those willing to convert mods for personal use or release (please get proper authorization before releasing), I can offer some advice based on what I've learned so far. Others are welcome to complement or correct my infos, as I am still learning.
Thanks.
EDIT: all files referenced below, like .veh or .sfx files are normal text files, use Windows Notepad or similar to edit them.
1. As you may (or may not) know, FFB is adjusted inside GSC by settings located in RealFeelPlugin.ini file, which is in the main game folder. Every car/series inside the game has a corresponding section inside this file, i.e., Stock Cars use the settings from [Stock] section, as Formula V12 uses from the [F_V12] section, and so on.
The important thing is that this section name is composed by the
first five characters found in the "Description" entry inside the corresponding .veh file, for *every vehicle*. So, if you're converting a mod, and you don't properly tweak the .veh files, every single car from the mod will generate a new entry inside this file, and you'll have to tweak it by hand, for every new car you drive, if you want to feel FFB properly. Worst yet, if you happen to drive a car where description's 5 first chars are identical to another car (from another mod, perhaps), it will automatically find and use that section settings, and chances are that you'll feel the FFB to be all wrong.
So, when converting a mod, pay attention to the description inside the .veh files, and alter each one of them to be consistent to their classes, specially in multiclasses mods, like Endurance, BlancPain, etc. After that, provide along with the mod the file containing the proper adjustments that must be added to the realfeelplugin.ini file, according to the tips from the original mod developers (or your own).
For instance, for my conversion of Endurance Series, I've altered all descriptions to have one of these strings at the beginning: ESGT1, ESGT2, ES_P1, ES_P2 or ESLMP.
The accompanying file (with proper FFB settings pulled straight from the original mod) is below:
[ESGT1]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-2400.000000
SteeringDamper=11500.000000
FFBMixerRealFeelPercent=100.000000
SmoothingLevel=0
[ESGT2]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-2400.000000
SteeringDamper=11500.000000
FFBMixerRealFeelPercent=100.000000
SmoothingLevel=0
[ES_P1]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-2700.000000
SteeringDamper=11500.000000
FFBMixerRealFeelPercent=100.000000
SmoothingLevel=0
[ES_P2]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-2700.000000
SteeringDamper=11500.000000
FFBMixerRealFeelPercent=100.000000
SmoothingLevel=0
[ESLMP]
MaxForceAtSteeringRack=-2700.000000
SteeringDamper=11500.000000
FFBMixerRealFeelPercent=100.000000
SmoothingLevel=0
I could have made only two different entries, because you can see that there's only "two types" of FFB on this file (-2400 and -2700), all the rest being equal. Anyway, I prefer to give players more room to customization between cars/classes, like the original developers did. This also preserves the developers attention to detail, and a conversion should aim to honor this at all costs.
2. Classes. If you want to be able to race different cars from same classes, or mix classes on the same race, you must check the "Classes" entry on the .veh files. Cars whose "Classes" entry matches can race against each other.
Every "Classes" entry must contain one of these classes: reiza1, reiza2, ... up to reiza10. Every "reizaX" class corresponds to a car inside the game, i.e., reiza5 corresponds to the Minis. (That's why most of the mods converted using Grumbel's tool are found under the Mini's section of the game, unless you change this during conversion).
Besides having this "reiza" class, each car can have several other classes associated, taking for example this entry for an Oreca that I converted (Endurance Series):
Classes="reiza5,EnduSeries,ES_ALMS10,ES_LMPC"
This car pertains to all these classes (separated by commas), and so, it can be raced against all cars inside the mod that pertains to the same classes. Cars that have more classes than these can also race against it, but cars that doesn't have all these classes, cannot. This is why this car cannot be raced against a GT2 Panoz Esperante, which classes are "reiza5,EnduSeries,ES_ALMS06,ES_GT2". See? There are two different classes that prevent this: ES_ALMS06 and ES_GT2.
3. Categories. Categories entry on the veh files determines how the cars will appear on the menu, so it is important to group them correctly to avoid cars being separated or outside the mod's name when looking at the GSC's car menu list.
4. Finally, the sounds. You need to check if all the sounds references are correct. For this, open the .sfx files (usually one per car found inside the vehicles folder) and make sure all references point to a valid folder/file. Some mods use sounds from original rFactor, so you may want to grab the original sounds package, available for rFactor light, and complement the mod (or, better yet, provide new sounds/subtitute from GSC).