0.27 WIP Release of the Assetto Corsa Modding Manual 3.0

January 21, 2023

0.27 WIP Release of the Assetto Corsa Modding Manual 3.0

First release of 2023! Wohoo!

Probably one of the biggest updates for this project. But more will come during this year!

Was it worth the wait? Definitely.

Done with one of the exams of this month, hoping I passed it (23/01/23 EDIT: I did yay!) . Two more to go (01/02/23 EDIT: second one passed!). (EDIT 19/02/23: the third one is taking longer than expected, see you in a week!)

Wandering the forums of the AC communities, it's crazy seeing how the dreams of people became reality.

Someone few years ago was wondering about 3D procedural grass. Now you have it with CSP.

Maybe the next release will actually complete some things instead of just adding stuff. But I can’t make any predictions. Writing an entire book is hard, you know? You just get the final product of many choices, thoughts and decisions.

Any good manual for a complex software is in the order of hundreds of pages. And sincerely I believe I can do whatever I want. If you want powerpoint presentation slides, you’re free to write your own guides. I have other interests. I know who I’m talking to. Speaking in hindsight is just too easy.

Heh, that's the end of the rant 😌. If you like this project, I hope you’re having fun with the book 😋.

Anyway, I decided to reduce my expectations for the paragraph dedicated to conversions; there are controversies in the community about them, however since some are legal (because they have an authorization from the authors of the models; this actually happened quite often for track conversions), I will keep the example already provided, that shows basically which software to use and how to use it (to the necessary extent) but I don't plan to expand that section much further with many other methods. What is fair is fair.

I went back to the user manual and rewrote the paragraph about V-sync almost entirely. There were few misunderstandings (the original text, taken from an old post on RD, was a bit sketchy). I hope the new one will be clearer, for those who read it.

The paragraphs about the SDK editor have been re-ordered, following a logical progression. Obviously they are not finished.

Very important corrections and additions also in the section for config files of vehicles. Some of them were too cluttered (especially engine.ini ), so I cleaned a bit, moving many descriptions to the LITTLE EXPLANATION sections. In the future you should be able to navigate with more ease, while I feel allowed to make the font and the images bigger.

Another one: I guarantee that from this release 0.27 onward, those who have not yet gotten or even tried Assetto Corsa will certainly do so. Once you see them, you can't unsee them 🔎😁😏.

Moving on, there is always a lot of work behind the scene; here you have few of the colour corrections I did for various images (thanks to Ilja Jusupov for the comparison tool):

https://acstuff.ru/u/comparison/ko9

https://acstuff.ru/u/comparison/8F1

https://acstuff.ru/u/comparison/imj

https://acstuff.ru/u/comparison/1X0

I honestly believe they look a lot fresher. I tried everything I could to improve some poor quality shots, but many people probably won't notice. It doesn't matter, really.

And the research for AC continues.

Keep in mind that this is a WIP (Work-In-Progress) project. You can consider these releases early betas.

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EDIT 11.05.2023: Links removed due to limited cloud storage and to the fact that nobody is downloading this release.

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The package includes (in separate downloads):

Useful tools (same as 0.26)
Useful tracks for car debugging (same as 0.11-0.26)

[DOWNLOAD 0.27 RELEASE (manual only)] ~829 MB PDF (2400 DPI):

-Manual with lots of images, descriptions and extended coverage of topics. High quality because I can.

[DOWNLOAD 0.27 RELEASE (manual only) LOWRES] ~173 MB PDF (96 DPI):

-Low quality version for ~~people who don't download tons of mods~~ very poor Internet connections. You don't get what you don't download.

[DOWNLOAD TOOLS for car/track modding] ~81 MB ZIP:

-ksEditor (vanilla)

-ksEditorAT v6 (by x4fab)

-QuickBMS, with related scripts to unpack models and pack/unpack vehicle .acd data files. Be aware that this tool may not work every time, especially with UNOFFICIAL encryptions.

-Lotus SHARK v4.03c, suspension analysis tool by Lotus.

[DOWNLOAD TOOLS for sound modding] ~301 MB ZIP:

-FMOD Studio 1.08.12 (Windows 32 & 64 bit, Mac OS installers for those who don't want to make an FMOD account)

-FMOD Bank tools (extracts wave samples from pre-existing sound banks)

[DOWNLOAD TEST TRACKS] ~205 MB ZIP:

-Suspensions test track (by chuky500)

-Special Route Vmax (by Stereo)

-Test Pad (by Stereo)

Redefining music genres.