Tracks Pacific Coast 1.0

[guidofoc]

Yes I love the idea of the ocean enhancement , still at work (China!) will test your track this evening.

 

[AccAkut]

@kiirtan To give you an answer to your review, if your earthquake joke is related to the jitter of the scenery, that is nothing the modder can influence on a track of that size.

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

Yeah, I don't like the name either, pch, but you can change it though

 

[SteffenLS]

A cruise in the GTO 250 a perfect combination. The track looks really good.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

Really nice update, the rework paid off Really made a big difference to how it flows as you said.

I still think things are generally too dark, i can put together some screenshots to explain better if you would like. Particularly anything in the shade, doesnt respond to the ambient light enough, some parts feel practically pitch black (auto-exposure would boost it to look brighter but it shouldnt be necessary to that degree).

Road mesh feels nice. there were maybe 3 or 4 corners where my g27 went very loud with its characteristic cog crunching sound, which doesnt normally happen suggesting maybe a couple of areas could be fine tuned. I can probably locate the corners if you are interested to have a look. lotus 3-11 is a good car to test this.

Anyways thanks for sharing, will be sure to send a donation your way

 

[SS454]

Holy crap it's way different. The trees really engulf you and makes it so much more enjoyable. All your rework makes it feel likely a completely different highway as a lot of corners are quite a bit different. My first drive on the usual 88% grip and street tires was pretty hairy to say the least.

I will say I think I like some of the cameras better before. On the South track, I loved watching the cars fly down the hill towards the top speed. Camera was at the bottom so you'd get a nice long shot of the speed climbing up.

Then there was about half way through, when the road comes downhill to a hairpin and then steep back up hill. It used to be this panoramic shot as you entered into the chasm and then left, meanwhile the car's exhaust note was echoing between the mountains.

 

[guidofoc]

Thanks for the update! I drove the 288 GTO north to south, my impression was that the usual "dusty" setting I used before had too little grip, not sure if it's the car or the cold tires but the car was sliding all over the place. In any case I ended up driving on "fast" grip (98%). The tarmac looks better, I am not sure about the real road but I would definitely like a little more bumpiness. I can feel the central line when the wheels are on it. Overall the road seems a bit less difficult than before? I felt there is less dramatic camber in some corners. Fun drive anyways! Keep up the good work!

 

[Phoenix77]

Yeah, I don't like the name either, pch, but you can change it though

No worries mate, I made the decision of renaming it because North and South were a little unclear in someways... South could have meant starting in the South or that you will be heading South... Southbound clarifys that... And Pacific Coast - Southbound is a bit too long for the UI - hence PCH Southbound

 

[Phoenix77]

A cruise in the GTO 250 a perfect combination. The track looks really good.

I do love the 250... but the GTO is probably even better along here IMO...
It's a really nicely balanced car for getting the back end to step out around the sweepers
Also I think the Corvette C7R is pretty fun along here...
Had a practice and managed a messy 8:18 in the C7R...
I think it will be my AI recording car of choice to get some decent lines done for a future update, both the current AI lines are ok... but they're no way using the corners to their full limit.
Glad you're liking the progress so far Steffen

 

[Phoenix77]

Really nice update, the rework paid off Really made a big difference to how it flows as you said.

I still think things are generally too dark, i can put together some screenshots to explain better if you would like. Particularly anything in the shade, doesnt respond to the ambient light enough, some parts feel practically pitch black (auto-exposure would boost it to look brighter but it shouldnt be necessary to that degree).

Road mesh feels nice. there were maybe 3 or 4 corners where my g27 went very loud with its characteristic cog crunching sound, which doesnt normally happen suggesting maybe a couple of areas could be fine tuned. I can probably locate the corners if you are interested to have a look. lotus 3-11 is a good car to test this.

Anyways thanks for sharing, will be sure to send a donation your way

Awesome mate, really glad you like the new road... It was a TON of work tidying up the meshes... But I'm really pleased with the end result...
When you re-learn the corners and just how fast they are now most of them are single apex's and the slight banking makes anticipating the corners far easier...
When you really get on the pace (might take a while to re-learn all the corners)
then it gets even more fun...
When the Salmon Creek chicane is taken at over 100mph.... that's fun!

I think I'll have to disagree with you on the darkness thing... It seems fine on monitors... Do you only use the Occulus for AC?
I really think there is some setting I must be missing with the materials / textures that needs to be different for VR...
Inside the Material settings in Max there is a choice of shading setting
Blinn, Phong, Anisiotropic... and a few others... maybe it could be that?

Great that you're mostly liking the FFB mesh... Strange how it gets too strong in a few corners...
The displacement maps I used were all pretty similar... In different patterns... and I think the highest bump is about 15 - 30 mm's at the most and that's the centreline.... If you have a wheel on the centreline it can get a little bumpy?

And thanks for any donation you decide to make mate...
I appreciate the support, with all these files everywhere a coffee now and then comes in handy

Here are some screenshots in various lighting conditions from my game for comparing lighting conditions... Default filter... 100% exposure 100% Saturation

 

[Phoenix77]

Holy crap it's way different. The trees really engulf you and makes it so much more enjoyable. All your rework makes it feel likely a completely different highway as a lot of corners are quite a bit different. My first drive on the usual 88% grip and street tires was pretty hairy to say the least.

I will say I think I like some of the cameras better before. On the South track, I loved watching the cars fly down the hill towards the top speed. Camera was at the bottom so you'd get a nice long shot of the speed climbing up.

Then there was about half way through, when the road comes downhill to a hairpin and then steep back up hill. It used to be this panoramic shot as you entered into the chasm and then left, meanwhile the car's exhaust note was echoing between the mountains.

It's pretty much a total rebuild, like I said on the update description... I wasn't joking
There's still a ton more props to go in.... The trees that are in at the moment is only the KSLAYER3 trees... not that I've set them up as that yet... There are layers 4 and 5 to go in yet... But I'm roughly planning how crazy to go with those two layers ... I can't do those layers until I fine tune my mesh / adjust normals... mostly between the terrain strip under the road edge transition and the terrain mesh itself... and the annoying normal seams between the various terrain panels (each panel has to be below 65,536 edges to get it into the editor)

Those cameras were from my camera set by the sound of it (TV2)?
Where my cams were medium/far range... mostly they were in amongst the trees... It would have taken a whole ton of fine tuning moving them... @dodz27 's awesome cams are almost all close up to the action... and mostly avoided the trees... they were the easiest to tweak, so the road has cams at the release of the update.
You can always try copying the camera_1.ini from the previous version if you want to try them... remember the previous version had no where near the amount of trees 0.95 has... also the terrain has moved enough to make redoing TV2 cams a total PITA. More cams will come in time... A little down the priority list though.

The grip of the track is now 0.95 as someone mentioned before it's a road so should have a little less grip...
I'd recommend putting the grip up and picking a car with downforce for a few sighting runs before lowering the grip and picking a road car... Once you learn the various radii... and you get fast... It gets really really fun.
The corners where they're single apex's and more natural like the real road has made them easier and much faster. While learning (so I can get a decent AI line) I took a C7R Northbound in 8:18... Serious fun... and with plenty of room to knock 30 seconds easily off that time.

 

[Phoenix77]

Thanks for the update! I drove the 288 GTO north to south, my impression was that the usual "dusty" setting I used before had too little grip, not sure if it's the car or the cold tires but the car was sliding all over the place. In any case I ended up driving on "fast" grip (98%). The tarmac looks better, I am not sure about the real road but I would definitely like a little more bumpiness. I can feel the central line when the wheels are on it. Overall the road seems a bit less difficult than before? I felt there is less dramatic camber in some corners. Fun drive anyways! Keep up the good work!

The 288 GTO loves it along here... amazing fun... as I said to SS454... I'd recommend upping the grip and downforce until you re-learn a lot of the corners. The reasons why the road IS easier is the road spline acurately follows the real road in the X,Y so corners that were multiple apex are now single apex as they should be... The satellite image I lined up was a 1 billion pixel image... I lined up my centreline... to the real roads centreline... as I could see it in the image. Also the slight banking added shows the angle of the corner better from different angles... The previous road was too flat, so side on you got little to no visual information.
Probably it also is easier because of the amount of trees giving you more distance information.
When the seas of bushes go in... It will probably get a bit easier... more visual information.

I've lowered the grip to 0.95 to make it a little less grippy as it is a dusty, sandy coastal highway.
I've balanced the FFB mesh to be a happy medium... If I make it any more bumpy it would make driving an F1 car down here pretty nasty... It's just a choice I made for gameplay...
I want it to be a more smooth chilled drive, with some information still coming through... Pick a softer road car like a BMW 1M and almost all the bumps are soaked up... Pick a Caterham, and where it's light it kind of skips over the bumps. But I won't rule out having a look at it at a later date....
I could at some point do some different FFB meshes... and release them as a pack...
The only thing is my computer craps itself when doing the FFB mesh... And that's after breaking it down into smaller chunks, so it's not time effective atm.

Glad you're having fun mate, thanks for your continued support, much appreciated
I dare you to pick a C7R, go Northbound... and beat 8:18 Same goes for anyone else reading this! there's plenty of time to take off that

 

[Chris Kennedy]

snip

agree the new flow is fantastic, definitely will be fun to relearn

regarding the brightness, im fairly sure its nothing to do with VR. ill try and make some screenshots to compare against an office track as an example, is there any kunos track in particular you think is a good reference?

Another minor thing i noticed was the yellow signs that are featured in your screenshots there seem a tiny bit luminous when in the shade, obviously thats what they are meant to do, but maybe they are just too clean or something as they stick out like a sore thumb i think.

about the ffb, yes it could be the centerlines i guess, next time ill pause and check the replay to work out where its happening. dont normally get any ffb like that which makes the cogging sound loud enough to be heard through headphones unless im going on a sawtooth kerb sort of thing.

anyways, hopefully see you online on it one day

 

[Phoenix77]

Basically when I used the far from detailed satellite image it was hard to make out the road accurately... especially sections with trees casting shadows all over the place... The Southern part of the track in particular.
I'm not one to blow my own trumpet... But it is a really really good flowing road... I'm glad I've done the real road justice now

Not sure about what it is... I have got different sections in different FBX's and it's not easy to balance everything.. quicker and easier updating, loading and testing though as I don't have to save everything if I move a single roadsign or something. Also I need to learn more about Vertex Normals as something is up with my terrain mesh... there are normal seams for example where my various terrain "panels" join.. unifying them doesn't do the joins. unfortunately the terrain has to be split up to get it into the editor, as it has a 65,536 edge limit.

About the luminous road signs...Yeah I think I used a previous persistence file, so used an old setting somewhere.. the ambient value is way too high. It's a real balancing act getting the shaders to play nicely...
The current version is a little messy in general... But I wanted an update a year after my first upload of it.
It's progressed just a little bit since then

Strange about the feedback... I wanted the centrelines to give a bit of rumble if you stayed on it...
and give a bit of feedback when you cross it... But not constantly... otherwise that would be like a 23km long ridge and that could wear thin after a while. When I get things generally tidied up... I can focus on one particular area. To get it to this stage, as you can probably tell... has meant changing pretty much everything... Very time consuming... Now it's more there than not it will hopefully get a smoother process.
I pretty sure I've nailed the most important thing though... the actual road positioning, banking, and corner radii.
I'm glad I chose this section over Bixby when I originally started... even if I did go slighty outside that damn physics limit.

Yeah hopefully I'll get some time soon to go for a cruise... I'll need to practice the new lines anyway and do some driving for a change. Probably better doing it before I start work on the 1.0 update...
Easy to get to carried away... then six months later, I'll just tweak one more setting..... lol

 

[guidofoc]

The 288 GTO loves it along here... amazing fun... as I said to SS454... I'd recommend upping the grip and downforce until you re-learn a lot of the corners. The reasons why the road IS easier is the road spline acurately follows the real road in the X,Y so corners that were multiple apex are now single apex as they should be... The satellite image I lined up was a 1 billion pixel image... I lined up my centreline... to the real roads centreline... as I could see it in the image. Also the slight banking added shows the angle of the corner better from different angles... The previous road was too flat, so side on you got little to no visual information.
Probably it also is easier because of the amount of trees giving you more distance information.
When the seas of bushes go in... It will probably get a bit easier... more visual information.

I've lowered the grip to 0.95 to make it a little less grippy as it is a dusty, sandy coastal highway.
I've balanced the FFB mesh to be a happy medium... If I make it any more bumpy it would make driving an F1 car down here pretty nasty... It's just a choice I made for gameplay...
I want it to be a more smooth chilled drive, with some information still coming through... Pick a softer road car like a BMW 1M and almost all the bumps are soaked up... Pick a Caterham, and where it's light it kind of skips over the bumps. But I won't rule out having a look at it at a later date....
I could at some point do some different FFB meshes... and release them as a pack...
The only thing is my computer craps itself when doing the FFB mesh... And that's after breaking it down into smaller chunks, so it's not time effective atm.

Glad you're having fun mate, thanks for your continued support, much appreciated
I dare you to pick a C7R, go Northbound... and beat 8:18 Same goes for anyone else reading this! there's plenty of time to take off that

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try again this evening. As for the scenery, I am kind of fixated with the sea so for me that's more important than the trees I read you have some ideas on making it semi-transparent or something, looking forward to that!

 

[Phoenix77]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll try again this evening. As for the scenery, I am kind of fixated with the sea so for me that's more important than the trees I read you have some ideas on making it semi-transparent or something, looking forward to that!

Thanks for your feedback too mate
lol You need to focus on the road mate... That's dangerous looking out to sea
Especially as I'm also considering making certain things that aren't currently collidable... Collidable.
I have the idea of doing that... But judging by the fact I couldn't add a cracks layer on top of the main highway that I wanted... It may not work out... My knowledge of track making is still limited.
It does need looking at anyway.. as the specular EXP setting is off... When the sun gets low to the horizon... the reflection is currently O.T.T and there is something that needs adjusting with the fresnel.

I'll take a look at a few examples... and alter my settings / textures to get something improved... even if I can't do two planes on top of each other... I also have an idea how to make the ocean move towards the shore...
We shall see if it goes to plan.

 

[Phoenix77]

Something that will be coming soon... ish...

 

[Jim Layee]

Thanks Phoenix for all the work you've put in to this update / rework , I love the flow and views, I think it's going to be driven a hell of a lot here.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

random idea that just crossed my mind, for the layouts where you spawn at the mansion, how about having a garage there as the spawn point for car0 with reverb so you can rev the engine in neutral before heading out onto the road?

 

[Phoenix77]

Thanks Phoenix for all the work you've put in to this update / rework , I love the flow and views, I think it's going to be driven a hell of a lot here.

No worries mate, you're welcome... It has been a ton of work moving 23km's of road... some of it was hardly moved much, but still needed loads of work done on it... I'm just glad it was totally worth doing...
I'm also really glad that it's not only me that's driving it now... It's taken quite a bit of time testing everytime I make changes.
I'm also glad that everyone seems to be loving it... It's going to take quite a bit of re-learning the much friendlier, closer to real life corners... What a road in real life!!
Also as a bonus I now have most of the props / textures made up for L.A canyons... and for the future Pacific Coast (Bixby Creek section) (I already have the mesh and HR satellite image done)
So they could all improve faster.
Enjoy your drives along here whether you're cruising, or really going for it