Tracks L.A Canyons

[Phoenix77]

Landscape is sorted now (note this is from Max so not rendered in game) luckily this was totally worth doing
The white outline isn't the road yet.. I overlayed the trackmap I made before... in game, over the terrain mask and used a width section of road to smooth out a path, smoothing elevations between the road edge and mountains...

As the road bed is now much much smoother, when I select the points on the mesh for the road splines... They will have a much better flow

Be my guest if you'd like to count how many corners there are... I have no idea still

 

[Phoenix77]

The road is almost all back in and the flow has gone up massively

The corner radius' and elevations make it SO much more driftable

The road is also now Much more worthy of the awesome new Mustang...

 

[Ben O'Bro]

Well for someone who's beginning with 3dsmax... you're doing an absolutely great job!
And if you were a pro, you would still do an absolutely great job!

Congrats on sorting such a big terrain!

 

[Phoenix77]

Well for someone who's beginning with 3dsmax... you're doing an absolutely great job!
And if you were a pro, you would still do an absolutely great job!
Congrats on sorting such a big terrain!

Thank a lot mate... Max is a seriously powerful program... I had it for ages but everytime I opened it up I used to think WTF! lol

The terrain still needs a tiny bit more smoothing and tweaking... But it's SO SO SO much better now... It's great when you take a pretty big risk changing things and find out it was the best decision you could have made.

The road is like a smooth grey ribbon of ashpalt winding it's way through the mountains and canyons now

 

[aphidgod]

Can't wait to fly off it at speed.

 

[Phoenix77]

Can't wait to fly off it at speed.

I reckon you'll learn these roads pretty fast mate
There are a few corners that can catch you out but it's mostly fast sweepers..
And in the Mustang, if it looks like you're overcooking it into a corner... you just rip the handbrake up and get the back out.

Absolutely excellent feeling with the physics... Can feel the grip level really nicely... It might be my imagination... But I can almost feel the profile (sidewall) of the tyres flexing when going sideways. Awesome job mate

 

[Phoenix77]

Can't wait to fly off it at speed.

Ok it is easily possible to fly... In places my terrain erosion has accidentally made a few ramps... lol

 

[millen]

Very cool mate. Great work. Will you apply the same procedure to Pacific Coast? As, while really awesome and good fun, I felt there are a few unrealstic changes in elevation on that road.

This should be a lot of fun once we get to drive it. In relation to the need for speed mod, this feels like it would be a modern revision of a classic need for speed track.

 

[Phoenix77]

Very cool mate. Great work. Will you apply the same procedure to Pacific Coast? As, while really awesome and good fun, I felt there are a few unrealstic changes in elevation on that road.

This should be a lot of fun once we get to drive it. In relation to the need for speed mod, this feels like it would be a modern revision of a classic need for speed track.

Thanks mate I agree there are a couple of elevations that are a little bit unrealistic... But might have to practice my Max precision skills a little to avoid making something worse... The texture mask with normal maps will be getting applied to Pacific Coast... along with improved asphalt settings... and optimisations.
I need to have a further tidy up in my Pacific Coast project folder as I have a lot of redundant file versions, just to confuse me more lol

The Canyons are getting really fun now... I did have the plan for NFS type mod with Pacific... That's why I did the CHP skins for Mustang, Lambos and a few Porsches (even though they are a bit basic skins) and the California license plates. It seems like not many people are into that though as I don't think I've noticed any online servers doing anything like that... I'm still doing it though lol

Some of the corners on this track really remind me of some NFS Games.

 

[stingray_SIX_TWO]

Can totally relate to your initial expectation of 3Ds being this yuuuge and crazy application. I still think that and am procrastinating moving my model from Blender to 3Ds which I need to do for prepping it for the sim I'm building the model for primarily.

That being said respect for your learning and adapting techniques, looks like you're getting it down pretty good.

Can't wait to try this out and give you some feedback after about 30 laps .

Rock on!

 

[Phoenix77]

Can totally relate to your initial expectation of 3Ds being this yuuuge and crazy application. I still think that and am procrastinating moving my model from Blender to 3Ds which I need to do for prepping it for the sim I'm building the model for primarily.

Yeah it is pretty crazy... It's even crazier when I think how little of it I'm using.. because I've seen some of the things that it can do!
Good luck with that mate... Look forward to seeing your F14 one day mate

That being said respect for your learning and adapting techniques, looks like you're getting it down pretty good.

Cheers mate, I'm always finding little bits out, some of them are really really simple... But absolutely awesome Have found out about keeping the splines for the road with as few vertexs as possible... to keep the flow of apexs of the corners much smoother...

Can't wait to try this out and give you some feedback after about 30 laps

You do realise... If you do 30 laps... you will have almost driven 1300km's? lol

Rock on!

Thanks mate, you too... Good luck with moving your model to 3DS...

Just don't do what I did when I 1st imported my road signs into Pacific Coast...
I imported with 1/10 units... centimetres instead of metres I think... and all my signs were a few centimetres tall at the origin point of the landscape.
It wasn't easy to find out where I went wrong... As it took me a while to find them lol

 

[Phoenix77]

TUNNEL!

Will obviously come with the necessary reverb

Through experience... I know you can take this corner at over 100mph

 

[TrevorGreenfield]

So I just found out about this. Let me say, I've put in a lot of miles on this road in my mustang the last few years, it was one of our respites from the crazyness of LA. We've hiked lots of spots here and the views are incredible. You really forget you're right next to the LA basin. Did you know that Angeles Crest was supposed to be a freeway at one point but that was cancelled as they deemed it too unfeasable to build? Due to rockslides and rain, people drive this road too fast and careless sometimes and end up in wrecks. I have a 360 degree view video on youtube but its private, its an onboard on my mustang going from quite a ways up all the way to the bottom (La Crescenta), do you want it for reference? Looking forward to this! Thanks.

 

[Phoenix77]

So I just found out about this. Let me say, I've put in a lot of miles on this road in my mustang the last few years, it was one of our respites from the crazyness of LA. We've hiked lots of spots here and the views are incredible. You really forget you're right next to the LA basin. Did you know that Angeles Crest was supposed to be a freeway at one point but that was cancelled as they deemed it too unfeasable to build? Due to rockslides and rain, people drive this road too fast and careless sometimes and end up in wrecks. I have a 360 degree view video on youtube but its private, its an onboard on my mustang going from quite a ways up all the way to the bottom (La Crescenta), do you want it for reference? Looking forward to this! Thanks.

Nice one mate
You're lucky to have driven these roads as they're seriously awesome... I must admit I don't know much about the area...
I just saw a "The Smoking Tire" video and thought it looked like awesome roads.. and Assetto Corsa needed to have it
I'm not sure how accurate you'll find this track as the satellite data around the road area seemed a little bit vague... So I've averaged out the road "bed". Also there are a few junctions that (maybe for now) are corners. That video sound cool mate...
If my track making skills improve, and I want to go for more realism... could be very useful.
Really glad you're looking forward to driving this in Assetto....
I'm looking forward of getting an initial version uploaded so I can get back to Pacific Coast, and apply what I've learnt

 

[TrevorGreenfield]

Nice one mate
You're lucky to have driven these roads as they're seriously awesome...

Yeah I see you're in the UK, just amazing that you would choose the san Gabriels. I've been watching the Pacific Coast track too, awaiting both. Too much realism would be nearly impossible, it would take you years. But at least you can see the type of foliage... and a lot of rock outcroppings. A lot of Our Lords Candles, sadly although theres some stands of pines, the station fire of 2009 and later fires took out a lot of the pines.

is the video. It starts out here https://goo.gl/maps/M2dySFf4o172 . Anyway, good luck, let me know if there's anything I can help with, otherwise I will look forward to your eventual release!

 

[Phoenix77]

Yeah I see you're in the UK, just amazing that you would choose the san Gabriels. I've been watching the Pacific Coast track too, awaiting both. Too much realism would be nearly impossible, it would take you years. But at least you can see the type of foliage... and a lot of rock outcroppings. A lot of Our Lords Candles, sadly although theres some stands of pines, the station fire of 2009 and later fires took out a lot of the pines. Anyway, good luck, let me know if there's anything I can help with, otherwise I will look forward to your eventual release!

Thanks mate, I appreciate the offer of help I may call on that at a later stage.
Maybe it's because I'm in the UK that California has such an appeal... After driving these roads virtually... I really think someone in the California roads planning department has a Porsche, Lamborghini or a Ferrari... They couldn't accidentally choose to make roads like these!
As this is going to be my artistic take on these roads... There's nothing to say I couldn't put some of those pines back in I'm going for some level of realism but as you say... 100% realism would be impossible or take years!
When I learn how to get things running optimally (object wise) a whole forest of trees on this landscape would look stunning.
(I did wonder why Matt Farah said he was in the Angeles Forest)

BTW I couldn't view that video mate, I'm not sure how Youtube works with private videos.

I'm still on target for releasing LA Canyons this weekend... as my computer and things have been behaving themselves (so far)

 

[Phoenix77]

The tunnel in game..

And I think you can tell how sweeping the corners are now.. from this screenshot...

Will be releasing this early version this weekend....
Will need to work more on textures for a future update... But here's an idea of how this same section looks on Google Maps.

 

[Phoenix77]

v0.3 is on here now Hope you have fun with it...
http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/l-a-canyons.15067/

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Very nice.

Btw if you use Sas planet.

You could lift that google maps entire mountain texture in really really high resolution for texturing.

Than add shrubs and trees etc.

 

[millen]

Really really cool man. The hard work with the road has paid off, the camber and elevation changes on this look and feel so much more natural compared to Pacific Coast. What a road/s.