Turning a Day Track to night?

[Elijahroberson]

Hello all, I originally made this post on Delta Sim Racing, but they said people here would be a bigger help, so I am going to simply copy my post there to here:

I am currently doing an offline 1970 season (which I have mentioned before here) and am looking to Columbia for the next race. I did a decent amount of research to discover that in 1970 Columbia was run in the evening, or night. I had not realized it was held on a Thursday until I went to make the drivers list for that race. I had always mentally pictured some dirt race on a Sunday afternoon. In order to make things accurate, I decided to turn the stand in Columbia, Monroe Fairgrounds, to a night track. I couldn't find a comprehensive guide anywhere to do it though. I know they existed at one time but all the links are dead. I am not looking to do a total conversion, I just want the sky to look like an evening or night sky. I set the track to a night track in sandbox, and while that did get the desired effect sky wise, now the cars are all pitch black. What do I need to do to fix this issue?

 

[J.R. Franklin]

Hello all, I originally made this post on Delta Sim Racing, but they said people here would be a bigger help, so I am going to simply copy my post there to here:

I am currently doing an offline 1970 season (which I have mentioned before here) and am looking to Columbia for the next race. I did a decent amount of research to discover that in 1970 Columbia was run in the evening, or night. I had not realized it was held on a Thursday until I went to make the drivers list for that race. I had always mentally pictured some dirt race on a Sunday afternoon. In order to make things accurate, I decided to turn the stand in Columbia, Monroe Fairgrounds, to a night track. I couldn't find a comprehensive guide anywhere to do it though. I know they existed at one time but all the links are dead. I am not looking to do a total conversion, I just want the sky to look like an evening or night sky. I set the track to a night track in sandbox, and while that did get the desired effect sky wise, now the cars are all pitch black. What do I need to do to fix this issue?

What you need to do to is get some light poles from an existing night track and put them in your track. That will "turn the lights on" the cars. I might suggest you get them from one of the original "retail" Papyrus night tracks to start with.

 

[Rufio2031]

Two ways you can do about it.
1. Night sky on Day track: If all you want is a night sky, then you can simply drop in the "nsky" mips from the shared folder into your track folder. You will have to rename them though by removing the "n". What you're doing here is keeping everything Day (lighting, reflections, shadows), except replacing the skybox texture. Note there are also cloudy versions of these skies ("c_nsky.mip").
2. Conversion to night track: This is quite a bit more complicated than approach 1. You're on the right track (no pun intended) by flipping the track to night in sandbox. The track depends on the track creator to define how the track lighting looks, but the cars depend on the game engine to render the shading. As you can imagine, a night track with no lights would obviously be dark, hence why your cars are dark. Another tricky thing is that there are day light poles and night light poles. So although it might appear that you have lights in the track, they need to be scripted correctly to actually emit light onto your cars. This is what @J.R. Franklin is describing. You need to find light poles that are already scripted for night and put those in the track.

 

[Elijahroberson]

Two ways you can do about it.
1. Night sky on Day track: If all you want is a night sky, then you can simply drop in the "nsky" mips from the shared folder into your track folder. You will have to rename them though by removing the "n". What you're doing here is keeping everything Day (lighting, reflections, shadows), except replacing the skybox texture. Note there are also cloudy versions of these skies ("c_nsky.mip").
2. Conversion to night track: This is quite a bit more complicated than approach 1. You're on the right track (no pun intended) by flipping the track to night in sandbox. The track depends on the track creator to define how the track lighting looks, but the cars depend on the game engine to render the shading. As you can imagine, a night track with no lights would obviously be dark, hence why your cars are dark. Another tricky thing is that there are day light poles and night light poles. So although it might appear that you have lights in the track, they need to be scripted correctly to actually emit light onto your cars. This is what @J.R. Franklin is describing. You need to find light poles that are already scripted for night and put those in the track.

Thanks! I believe I tried the first option you described, but maybe not to a T. I took a sky I liked from the 4K Skies mod and simply renamed it to replace the horizon files in the game. This did not have the desired effect, as the track still had the day sky, but the horizons in the distance were now changed to my sky.

 

[Elijahroberson]

What you need to do to is get some light poles from an existing night track and put them in your track. That will "turn the lights on" the cars. I might suggest you get them from one of the original "retail" Papyrus night tracks to start with.

If I add these to it, will they work automatically or will I need to do some finagling? I am assuming I need to copy the mips and 3dos over to that track.

Edit: So I did this using the lights from the Richmond night track, and the pole won't even show in the object placement drop down menu. That used to work for me...

 

[Rufio2031]

Thanks! I believe I tried the first option you described, but maybe not to a T. I took a sky I liked from the 4K Skies mod and simply renamed it to replace the horizon files in the game. This did not have the desired effect, as the track still had the day sky, but the horizons in the distance were now changed to my sky.

The sky and the horizon are two separate things. You can find a night horizon from another night track and should be able to plug it in without too much trouble.

 

[Elijahroberson]

The sky and the horizon are two separate things. You can find a night horizon from another night track and should be able to plug it in without too much trouble.

Ah that makes sense! Thanks! Do you have any tips on fixing the light problem I mentioned up above in my edited comment?

 

[Rufio2031]

If you find a night light that is the same name as the one you currently have in your track, you should be able to just copy and replace the file in the folder. When you say you've added the light but don't even see it in the objects placement menu, I'm not real sure what would be going on there. I guess make sure you've added both the .3do AND the appropriate mips that the .3do needed. I'm just making a random guess that you've only added the .mip files as that could be why you don't see the object in the list.

You shouldn't need to do any extra work to the light aside from positioning it properly. Just know there is quite a bit of unknowns about the lighting system. You could do everything seemingly perfect and still might get weird lighting artifacts when you load up the track in the game.

 

[Elijahroberson]

If you find a night light that is the same name as the one you currently have in your track, you should be able to just copy and replace the file in the folder. When you say you've added the light but don't even see it in the objects placement menu, I'm not real sure what would be going on there. I guess make sure you've added both the .3do AND the appropriate mips that the .3do needed. I'm just making a random guess that you've only added the .mip files as that could be why you don't see the object in the list.

You shouldn't need to do any extra work to the light aside from positioning it properly. Just know there is quite a bit of unknowns about the lighting system. You could do everything seemingly perfect and still might get weird lighting artifacts when you load up the track in the game.

I have done this before, so I knew to copy the mips as well as the 3do. I opened the 3do in notepad and searched for all the mips, wrote them down, and copied them over to that track. I also tried using the "eclairs" from Ona after the Richmond lights didn't work. Neither appeared in the object placement drop down menu. Interesting thing to point out, your sky trick did work. I then changed it out for a second night sky, and the sky went back to day. I need to just leave stuff alone...

 

[Zak103tv]

Two ways you can do about it.
1. Night sky on Day track: If all you want is a night sky, then you can simply drop in the "nsky" mips from the shared folder into your track folder. You will have to rename them though by removing the "n". What you're doing here is keeping everything Day (lighting, reflections, shadows), except replacing the skybox texture. Note there are also cloudy versions of these skies ("c_nsky.mip").
2. Conversion to night track: This is quite a bit more complicated than approach 1. You're on the right track (no pun intended) by flipping the track to night in sandbox. The track depends on the track creator to define how the track lighting looks, but the cars depend on the game engine to render the shading. As you can imagine, a night track with no lights would obviously be dark, hence why your cars are dark. Another tricky thing is that there are day light poles and night light poles. So although it might appear that you have lights in the track, they need to be scripted correctly to actually emit light onto your cars. This is what @J.R. Franklin is describing. You need to find light poles that are already scripted for night and put those in the track.

i dont have a c_nsky.mip in my shared folder

 

[Zak103tv]

ive tried changing the sky
ive tried adding lights

i still havent found success with making my track night