Tracks Pacific Coast 1.0

[ALB123]

Am I understanding you correctly, @Phoenix77, are you starting over on the Pacific Coast Highway track?

 

[Phoenix77]

Am I understanding you correctly, @Phoenix77, are you starting over on the Pacific Coast Highway track?

Crazy as it is... You could say that... After refining L.A. Canyons flow.... A few people suggested Pacific could do with the same treatment... and I have to say I pretty much agree with them

Crazy as it sounds... Some of the corners need their bankings / cambers / elevations and radii smoothed... I have a feeling the non-constant radius corners and "not quite right" bankings may have been contributing to people falling off as the road isn't currently "telegraphing" where it's going.
L.A. Canyons is basically one 42km long spline with as few bezier "nodes" as possible and tightened... The same thing has to happen here...

The sections of road next to the gas stations will be staying the same... So the gas stations & parking lots will be staying...
The barriers may translate... and possibly the cams... But the AI will need to be re-recorded, FFB mesh re-done (if I can remember how again lol)...

The trees and bushes need to be re-sorted anyway and optimised... so that's not really a loss.

The terrain textures needed looking at anyway... So again no loss there.

If this track wasn't being dedicated to my Brother, I probably wouldn't be doing this... But it has to be as good as possible to be worthy
Even though I'm trying not to think about the work involved, I'm just cracking on with it!

 

[SS454]

I think you need to take a trip to the real pacific coast highway and do some recon's with a gopro

I like that the road isn't "telegraphed". It feels like a highway, not a race track. In my opinion, the more it feels like a public highway, the better it gets. Thus by using textures, objects and land markings, etc.

 

[Phoenix77]

If you're offering to pay for my flight and the hiring of the Mustang 350R I will need to check it out accurately ... Count me in lol

Or more cheaply...
If you skip to 26mins 45seconds that's the start of this track.

I know what you're saying mate... But also factor in that possibly most people are using an unrealistic FOV and probably not getting all the visual information you would get in real life, including not being able to look to the apex etc... For gameplay reasons I think the telegraphing is totally valid IMO.
(Trust me... If I didn't feel I had to do this... I wouldn't be)

What I'm changing is going to be relatively minor in someways... Probably a few inches in height difference across the width of the road.
I think the real road has a bit more banking than the current track has... Also the radii are smoother (less double apex's)... Also I'm taking this opportunity to put in some roadside panels to use for texture transitions, as currently the geometry doesn't allow for this, it's unaligned tri's atm.

Trust me... I sort of know what I'm doing

 

[SS454]

Very cool video. Is the real road slightly narrower?

 

[Phoenix77]

Very cool video. Is the real road slightly narrower?

Very possibly... Hard to tell as I think it's a big SUV driving along it... I won't be making it narrower in game for playabilities sake... There will always be differences... until Kunos get their laserscanning car down here...

or until you sort out my flight and hire the Mustang
I'll supply the tape measure for free!

 

[A3DR]

Not sure if it was brought before on the 15 pages of this thread (just picked up the track yesterday) but the AI seems to be driving only on the right lane? not sure what the differences are with the "cruise" versions.
It's an enjoyable drive, reminds me a lot of games like Test Drive, NFS, and so on, with the A to B roads. I'll save my rating for the 1.0 version, as I figure if you give it the same treatment of L.A. Canyons, this track will be really awesome (needs work on asphalt texture mostly, and lacks that atmosphere you gave to your latest track).

 

[Phoenix77]

Nice one mate
The difference is... The Cruise layouts... the AI keep right and overtake on the left... and are slowed down to 80% by the ai_hints.ini
It's best to give them a few mins head start... this gives them some time to sort themselves out.... Then hunt them down.

The normal layouts the AI line uses the whole road... and run at 100% speed or power (whichever the ai_hints controls)

I'm glad it reminds you of games like Test Drive, NFS etc... as that's what I was going for... That's why the gas stations are Test Drive...ish
For that reason I imagine this track in the 80's or 90's.... Miami Vice kind of era... with Testarossas, Countachs, Diablos, F40's, 959's etc

It's getting the same treatment, flow wise... which is more work than I'd like... as have to re-do a number of things... especially with the terrain shader/textures/mask... also the objects need a good sort out.... both in number and in blocking them up into 300 - 400m chunks. If you get any performance issues... rename 41.kn5 so the bushes don't load... they're really crappily optimised!

And yeah I've learnt a few things with the asphalt textures... plenty more to go.
also if you spotted the side road... there will be a location up there... which will be the start location for some pursuit layouts... If there are ever any online servers... I'll make some "addon" pursuit layout mods.

 

[ALB123]

When I would drive this Pacific Coast road (and I do the same with LA Canyons), I drive it as if I were in a real car and truly driving on PCH 1 in California. I will cross the center divider intentionally only if I have clear visuals up ahead, as I would in real life. Of course, I'm still trying to drive as fast as I can...but I'm still trying to obey some traffic laws as I break many speed related laws.

 

[Phoenix77]

That's cool mate, that's a good way to use this road...
Have you tried the cruise mode?
Select some everyday cars in front of you... (I normally start from last place on the grid)
give them a few minutes headstart... (they're running at 80% of their speed) and then chase them down mate...

If you give them a few minutes headstart they will get themselves filtered in the right lane and sorted. It's also cool because while you're sitting at the start for a few minutes... It feels like you will never be able to catch them up... But you should as they're at 80% of their top speed (separate to their actual difficulty level) , but it adds a sense of pressure where they've disappeared off into the distance (this was my intention).

 

[SS454]

it would be super awesome if there was an "add traffic" option to these tracks. Cars doing the speed limit in both directions.

 

[Phoenix77]

That may be coming mate, after all the more important things get sorted.
They won't be doing the speed limit though... you can limit the AI with an ai_hints.ini, but that's a percentage of top speed, it all depends on your car selections...

 

[Phoenix77]

Just to update this thread on the progress (or lack of) on this track...

I managed to get a 1/4 of the road / terrain smoothing done before I got a load of commitments I need to attend to... So my free time has pretty much been non-existent. If you've tried LA Canyons you'll know what a difference this will make to the flow of PCH... I'll need around a solid week or so to do this... Then equally as important... I will need to get the scenery in and optimised.

I now know how to put a ton of objects in and keep it fairly well optimised using the KSLAYER object naming system... and blocking together 500m groups of bushes... instead of the way they are now...
(all 15,000 bushes are separate objects with each object asking the graphic card to draw it, drawcalls)

As I probably stated before... If anyone has any performance issues with this track... rename 41.kn5 to something else so the bushes won't load... They're the main performance drain!

Hopefully I can get on with modding again soon, as it's really bugging me that I haven't been able to...
Still that's life for you!

 

[Phoenix77]

I'm managing to find some time to try and get this track to v1.0
Smoothed out a 1/4 of the track before I thought I'd have a look at some of the terrain textures to make them more arid... It should be something like this...

 

[Phoenix77]

Also looking in to getting better transition textures...
These are looking a bit sh** at the moment... as not the proper textures.
But at least this time I will be allowing for "side panels" which I didn't do before

Hopefully I'll get a nice big block of time at the weekend to, hopefully, smooth out the rest of the terrain, so when I put the road spline in they flow more like LA Canyons.

 

[ramthecowy]

I need some help installing this track, I opened the rar and there's a TON of files and I've no clue what goes where... any help please? :3

 

[guidofoc]

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/mod-installing-tutorial-video.135781/

 

[guidofoc]

double post

 

[Phoenix77]

I need some help installing this track, I opened the rar and there's a TON of files and I've no clue what goes where... any help please? :3

Extract the rar to a Temp folder.... You'll have a folder called pacific_coast with the tons of files in... Make Sure you copy the pacific_coast (check it has all the files directly behind it) folder into your assettocorsa/content/tracks folder... That's it job done

Cheers for giving ram the link @guidofoc

 

[ramthecowy]

Extract the rar to a Temp folder.... You'll have a folder called pacific_coast with the tons of files in... Make Sure you copy the pacific_coast (check it has all the files directly behind it) folder into your assettocorsa/content/tracks folder... That's it job done

Cheers for giving ram the link @guidofoc

Thanks guys!