Tracks Pacific Coast 1.0

[Phoenix77]

it looks much better on those last screens, more appealing to drive that coast road (or die trying )

Cool, thanks mate... When you see it all flying by at 100+ mph it looks FAR better, with sunlight flickering through the trees and casting shadows on the asphalt... Talking about shadows....

I'm really surprised no-one was eagle-eyed enough to notice, or to mention, that the trees didn't cast any shadows in all the previous versions... But a slight lack of a dirt transition is an imersion buster?.. Then again people normally find a way to surprise me... lol

I'm finding it difficult not to overdo my testing sessions ATM, the increase in the sense of speed is seriously fun... and.... almost scary IMO lol
Especially when you manage all 23km in under 7 minutes

I'm sure you will get the hang of this track mate... If I can make it in under 7... I'm sure you have the skills Try the Ferrari 643 mod for a serious adrenaline rush lol

There are now, no rough bumps in the road mesh, so that means hopefully there will be a high resolution FFB mesh in v0.699, depending... if I can get the displacement modifier to the right height and spacing... We shall see soon

The graduation between asphalt and roadside dirt will not be a main priority for me at the moment... Later versions, when I start splitting the terrain mesh into individual sections, will be when the fun happens

 

[aphidgod]

Nice to see you pushing for quality... track modders are really stepping it up lately and we're getting spoiled as a result.

 

[Alexandr66]

Cool, thanks mate... When you see it all flying by at 100+ mph it looks FAR better, with sunlight flickering through the trees and casting shadows on the asphalt... Talking about shadows....

I'm really surprised no-one was eagle-eyed enough to notice, or to mention, that the trees didn't cast any shadows in all the previous versions... But a slight lack of a dirt transition is an imersion buster?.. Then again people normally find a way to surprise me... lol

I'm finding it difficult not to overdo my testing sessions ATM, the increase in the sense of speed is seriously fun... and.... almost scary IMO lol
Especially when you manage all 23km in under 7 minutes

I'm sure you will get the hang of this track mate... If I can make it in under 7... I'm sure you have the skills Try the Ferrari 643 mod for a serious adrenaline rush lol

There are now, no rough bumps in the road mesh, so that means hopefully there will be a high resolution FFB mesh in v0.699, depending... if I can get the displacement modifier to the right height and spacing... We shall see soon

The graduation between asphalt and roadside dirt will not be a main priority for me at the moment... Later versions, when I start splitting the terrain mesh into individual sections, will be when the fun happens

Have a good time of the day,
We mentioned (in mind) lot of things and details, which can be added, impoved, be better or fixed. In terms of immersion, quality and etc. Be cause we have now quetly good mount of tracks, which done with highest quality to compare and learn (@LilSki one of good examples and masters around and he is already had to share his skills for this project), but very few actually HQ open-road track (let me know, if i'm forget or wrong). Any from them completed?Last and what i'm good remember was Miseluk, but it is hard to name honestly - "open road". So, we (or i'm) just do not wanna put pressure of constuctive critics on you. Just watching how things will go near time and what you actually can. And you showing good things ! ;-) Little, good surprises..
Best regards

 

[Phoenix77]

Nice to see you pushing for quality... track modders are really stepping it up lately and we're getting spoiled as a result.

@aphidgod Glad you like that mate, I'm trying a few different things with shaders / materials... to get something I like and If I have my way... This track won't be Kunos quality... It will be photo-quality... But that's a big ask!

Have a good time of the day,
We mentioned (in mind) lot of things and details, which can be added, impoved, be better or fixed. In terms of immersion, quality and etc. Be cause we have now quetly good mount of tracks, which done with highest quality to compare and learn (@LilSki one of good examples and masters around and he is already had to share his skills for this project), but very few actually HQ open-road track (let me know, if i'm forget or wrong). Any from them completed?Last and what i'm good remember was Miseluk, but it is hard to name honestly - "open road". So, we (or i'm) just do not wanna put pressure of constuctive critics on you. Just watching how things will go near time and what you actually can. And you showing good things ! ;-) Little, good surprises..
Best regards

Yeah cheers @Alexandr66 it's all good mate...
Just my attention to detail might be prioritised in a slightly different way to other peoples ideas... TBH the asphalt / dirt transition isn't a priority to me at the moment... But it will be... At the correct time...
Now the lanscape mesh and road mesh are signed off as done 100%
(Apart from 1 or 2 locations that will become clear later) I can now play about with splitting up the mesh into different sub-sections. This will however take quite some time over 23km of track... When I split the mesh (for a future version after the next release) I will sort the transition completely.

I'm not sure if it's clear from this screenshot, but I'm going for a slight sheen to the road... that reacts differently in the shadows / direct sunlight.

Just about to sort out some roadsigns for the North layout, maybe some chevrons... record new (hopefully final) AI lines, then will clone the visual road mesh to make a HR mesh... then I will upload 0.699... IF my computer plays nicely lol

 

[Phoenix77]

I think the tree shadows are noticeable now lol
This is 23 AI running at a rock solid 60fps on my ancient 570GTX

HR FFB mesh is on tomorrows to do list if I get enough time...

 

[aphidgod]

A proper FFB mesh is a huge positive step, can't wait.

 

[Phoenix77]

The physical mesh will require some tests, but here's what it's looking like

here's the simplified visual mesh

 

[Phoenix77]

Unfortunately due to limits of the amount of verts the KsEditor can load in per object (65,536)... The 0.699 FFB mesh will be medium res... as you can see in the top left... that's 1.5 million verts over 23km. At a future date I will split my road sections down into 100m sections or so... and try and up the vert count to 4m...

There may or may not be limitations with this, we shall see later on
Tonight I will be adjusting the displacement strength to get a slight random bumpy feeling to the road, but not too bumpy as I want the overall road to be quite smooth.

My UVW mapping skills are a bit limited (my X,Y & Z skills are too lol)...
But I intend, in a future version to put cats eyes on the asphalt texture... and have these and the road paint to have a very slight bump to it, so you can feel these as you transition over them

 

[Phoenix77]

I think a displacement strength of 0.02 seems to work pretty well..

but for me to be able to calibrate the amount of feedback... I will need to get an idea of what road feedback values most of you use and go for an average.

I only have 5% on the road setting as I heard it was good to have this low?

 

[LilSki]

I think a displacement strength of 0.02 seems to work pretty well..

but for me to be able to calibrate the amount of feedback... I will need to get an idea of what road feedback values most of you use and go for an average.

I only have 5% on the road setting as I heard it was good to have this low?

You shouldn't care what others are running. You should compare to a kunos track that has the type of noise you are looking for and compare the two with your settings. Asking what people use will open a useless can of worms.

 

[Phoenix77]

@LilSki lol fair point mate
Thanks your feedback on my asking for feedback, on how much feedback to use!
I guess I'm so used to loading up my track, altering things, coming out of it, going back in again... I forgot about just going into a Kunos track lol

 

[Phoenix77]

I doubt there will be an update for a while now... After F'in about with FFB mesh my tolerance has been pushed a bit too far for now.
I can seem to do a simple subdivide in max... and can then record a new AI line...
But for some reason when I use a displacement map (on top of the subdivide) to add bumps... I can no longer record an AI line.. It just exits from the track and doesn't save the candidate file.
Right it's Saturday... So I'm going for a beer!

 

[LilSki]

I doubt there will be an update for a while now... After F'in about with FFB mesh my tolerance has been pushed a bit too far for now.
I can seem to do a simple subdivide in max... and can then record a new AI line...
But for some reason when I use a displacement map (on top of the subdivide) to add bumps... I can no longer record an AI line.. It just exits from the track and doesn't save the candidate file.
Right it's Saturday... So I'm going for a beer!

The surface might need to be broken up into pieces. Even though you may be under the vertex limit AC still sometimes has issues with it being one piece.

 

[Phoenix77]

Thanks for your fast response mate

I've broken the track into reasonably small pieces, I had to to get it into the editor... Which in itself was a right pain... As in max I was looking at the number of verts which were all under 65536... (as the warning dialog says in the kseditor 65536 verts)
But my edges were quite a bit higher which were stopping it loading into the kseditor.
My track ATM is split into 79 separate sections...
and as I said... With the subdivide done (the same amount of faces, verts and edges) I can record an AI line... But the (in theory) simple act of raising the road with a gentle displacement map... FUBARs it... weird

 

[LilSki]

Are you sure you are not waiting long enough on exit? On such a long track it will go to a not responding state before it finishes.

 

[Phoenix77]

It exits back to the results screen far faster than it should, I know exactly what you mean though... It normally takes ages to get back to the results screen.
I leave it to do it's thing for about half an hour or so... But with the displacement map applied... It just exits too fast... In game it does show the magenta line... so it's technically recorded it?

 

[LilSki]

Yeah if the line is there after you finish the lap then it recorded. Very strange on the exit thing. Don't think I have had that issue to date.

Will it not load with the old AI after surface upgrade?

 

[Phoenix77]

Yeah it is weird... It's recorded it but it doesn't seem to want to save it...
I've even disabled my virus program incase that was getting funky.. But it saves the AI with the subdivided but not displaced mesh... I've also made the displacement map image... Black on the track edges so that it doesn't raise it in case that caused an issue with the left and right sides of the AI spline.

It doesn't load the old AI after the physical mesh is applied, which I was kind of expecting... I think I recall you mentioning that in either a post or one of your track guides mate.

 

[LilSki]

Yeah it is weird... It's recorded it but it doesn't seem to want to save it...
I've even disabled my virus program incase that was getting funky.. But it saves the AI with the subdivided but not displaced mesh... I've also made the displacement map image... Black on the track edges so that it doesn't raise it in case that caused an issue with the left and right sides of the AI spline.

It doesn't load the old AI after the physical mesh is applied, which I was kind of expecting... I think I recall you mentioning that in either a post or one of your track guides mate.

Yeah it is hit or miss if you have to make a new line. I have fixed a few tracks for the league I am in lately and have not had to make a new AI line.

 

[Phoenix77]

My AI line needed updating anyway, as I've tweaked elevations and things since it was last recorded.. So I knew it needed improving, so no loss there...
But this not saving the AI thing is seriously annoying! lol

I've tried plenty of different permutations of trying to get it saved.. I thought it might have worked by recording the AI on the subdivided (but not displaced) mesh... Then swap the kn5 over for the subdivided and displaced mesh... And that doesn't work either.

It's definitiely a good thing having loads of separate kn5's or I would have to keep loading all the other objects everytime I make a change!