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"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." - Albert Einstein

INTRODUCTION

This document describes how snow works in Racer. The current text is based on snow in v0.6.5.

THE FILES

The following files play a part in snow:

• data/images/snow.tga - snow particle image
• racer.ini
• data/tracks/<trackname>/special.ini

TURNING ON SNOW

Snow state is decided per track. To make a snow track, adjust its textures to be more white, obviously. In the track's special.ini (i.e. c:\sims\racer\data\tracks\mytrack\special.ini), set env.snow to something between 0 and 1, where 0 is no snow and 1 is full snow (you may use 0.5 for example to get 50% snow). To enable snow on a track follow these steps:

• Add the following (or make sure it's there) to your track's special.ini file:
  
  env
  {
  ; Environment
  snow=0.7
  }
  
  The 0.7 indicates 70% snow.
  

TURNING OFF THE SUN

Some snowy tracks may look strange with a large bright sun. In the track's special.ini file, you may turn off the sun by settings gfx.sun.enable to 0 (v0.6.5+).

TUNING SNOW

The following can be tweaked:

• Modify the intensity of the projected shadows of car. This parameter is set in data/tracks/<track>/special.ini and is in gfx.shadows.intensity_projected. 0 means fully transparent (invisible) and 1.0 means fully opaque.
• Modify the snow image (data/images/spray.tga); note this is a global image and part of any Racer installation.
• Modify the loss of grip on surface in racer.ini under environment.snow.grip_factor. A value of 0 would mean no grip at all if the track's snow factor is set at 1, 1.0 is full grip. The extract below sets the grip loss to 60% for a full-snow track. Note that this global is multiplied with the track's snow factor. So if this factor is 0.5, and the track's env.snow setting is 0.5 as well, you only get 0.5*0.5 = 0.25 grip loss (25%).


   environment
   {
     ...
     snow
     {
       ; Multiply grip of surfaces for full snow (=1.0)
       grip_factor=0.6
     }
   }
  

(last updated November 13, 2012 )