This is Mulholland Drive, an 11 mile (17.7km) long mountain-top road in Los Angeles above Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, and the San Fernando Valley. Driving enthusiasts should not confuse this with Mulholland "Highway" however, which is further to the west near Malibu (although I DO have plans to create some of that road as well). This is the stretch between the 405 and 101 freeways, a two-lane road traversing a mix of both residential areas with narrow curbed streets and twisty scenic sections with dirt shoulders. A lack of guardrails in many places will leave you in constant danger of going over the edge if not careful, and the varying shoulder conditions will require some exploration to discover which corners can be cut and which curbs should be avoided!
Like my prior track release, Topanga Canyon, this too has been a bit of a back-burner project over the past 2 years just waiting for it's time to see the light of day. I've finally sat down and made a big push to get it buttoned up and released, as I have more projects (more canyon roads) in the works that I'm eager to focus my attention on.
Those who enjoy my Topanga Canyon track will hopefully find this one fun as well, and even better in many ways. It will have a familiar feel in terms of how it's constructed, but there is a lot more variation in the shoulder and curb types which I find to be important for a road to feel realistic. I've done without most of the hill climb event stuff on this one, stripping it back to really just a paddock at both ends and some road closure barriers along the route. There are some caution signs and corner markers throughout though, so if you see one of those you should probably take care!
There are three track variations available:
I'm by no means an AI expert though, so while I did my best to ensure they're working reasonably well, no perfection or guarantee is implied! Your mileage may vary.
Requirements / Recommendations:
A note to people familiar with the road in real life: I've set a custom sun heading angle which rotates the map's northerly direction to a position I felt was most aesthetically pleasing in a variety of lighting conditions. If you'd prefer to use the actual lighting conditions that the road sees in reality, simply delete or rename the lighting.ini file within the data subfolder of each track variation.
Future To-Do:
Like my prior track release, Topanga Canyon, this too has been a bit of a back-burner project over the past 2 years just waiting for it's time to see the light of day. I've finally sat down and made a big push to get it buttoned up and released, as I have more projects (more canyon roads) in the works that I'm eager to focus my attention on.
Those who enjoy my Topanga Canyon track will hopefully find this one fun as well, and even better in many ways. It will have a familiar feel in terms of how it's constructed, but there is a lot more variation in the shoulder and curb types which I find to be important for a road to feel realistic. I've done without most of the hill climb event stuff on this one, stripping it back to really just a paddock at both ends and some road closure barriers along the route. There are some caution signs and corner markers throughout though, so if you see one of those you should probably take care!
There are three track variations available:
- East (default) - Suitable for Hotlap, Track Day, or Race modes. 21 pit boxes, 21 position starting grid, and an AI racing line.
- Reverse - Same as above, but begins on the opposite end.
- Freeroam - This has two way AI traffic circling the map, and should be used in Track Day mode ONLY. There are 21 pitboxes. Suggested use with CSP's New Ai Behavior with "Flood" + "Return To Pitbox After Race" both enabled. To reiterate, this should only be used with Track Day mode. You will get a "Wrong Way" warning in any other mode due to the two-way AI traffic setup
I'm by no means an AI expert though, so while I did my best to ensure they're working reasonably well, no perfection or guarantee is implied! Your mileage may vary.
Requirements / Recommendations:
- CSP - This has only ever been tested with CSP installed.
- GrassFX - The ground textures were built with GrassFX in mind, so please make sure to enable this for maximum effect.
- Sol - I definitely recommend using Sol weather set to either Haze or Dust for the most authentic LA driving experience. In my videos and screenshots I'm using Haze with the Sol_Extra PP filter, with the time of day set to about 17:00.
A note to people familiar with the road in real life: I've set a custom sun heading angle which rotates the map's northerly direction to a position I felt was most aesthetically pleasing in a variety of lighting conditions. If you'd prefer to use the actual lighting conditions that the road sees in reality, simply delete or rename the lighting.ini file within the data subfolder of each track variation.
Future To-Do:
- Create a night version. I very much do plan to place street lamps and re-texture the background environment to have a night-time or dusk effect on the city below.
- Lap times. I don't think the A-B timer is working in some circumstances. Sorry about that, I ran out of time to troubleshoot. I'll try to fix it in the next release.
- Revise some textures and details. The paddock areas especially are extremely basic, as I rushed to slap them together in order to get a release out to keep me from sitting on this any longer than I already have. Most intersections are also pretty bare. I hope to find time to revisit some of this stuff in the future.
