WIP Sears Point Raceway (Infineon Raceway) Sonoma

[Emery]

IndyCar series runs 75 laps at Sears Point (can't bring myself to call it Infineon), pit speed limit "no faster than 60 mph"... prob 35 mph?
NASCAR series runs 110 laps, pit speed limit 30 mph at Sears Point

Default is always a rolling start these days in the real world. USA races just don't use the touring car/F1 recon lap coming back to a standing start. rFactor players, however, are all well-trained to standing starts as the default and are likely bored by the first lap of a rolling start. My feeling is that a default of a standing start is best for game-play purposes and those seeking the authentic experience are savvy enough to pick a rolling start.

Here's a good page on the basic history of Sears Point: http://www.nascar.com/races/tracks/infineon/index.html Somewhere deep in the NASCAR pages is a guide to where the TV cameras are located, in case you feel compelled to make a "broadcast" camera set. Personally, I like yours better

> The rolling starts have been bit of problem, 1st car can lose it's position as the AI don't properly adhere to the positions before green.

That's more of an rFactor problem than your problem. I'd let it ride as long as the AI aren't colliding.

>Alt grid for pit lane rolling starts
Oh, is that what one uses the alternate grid for? Never thought about it.

 

[Emery]

INDYCAR SCHEDULE
Friday, Aug. 26: Historic Grand Prix practice, 11:30 a.m. to noon; Star Mazda practice, 12:15 to 1 p.m.; World Challenge practice, 1:15 to 1:45 p.m.; Historic Grand Prix practice, 2 to 2:30 p.m.; IZOD IndyCar Series practice, 2:50 to 4:05 p.m.; Star Mazda practice, 4:20 to 5:05 p.m.; Formula Car Challenge practice, 5:15 to 6 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 27 – Fluid Film Pole Day: Formula Car Challenge qualifying, 8:10 to 8:40 a.m.; World Challenge qualifying, 8:55 to 9:40 a.m.; Star Mazda qualifying, 9:50 to 10:35 a.m.; IZOD IndyCar Series practice, 10:50 to 11:50 a.m.; Formula Car Challenge Race 1, 12:05 to 12:35 p.m.; World Challenge Race 1, 12:45 to 2:15 p.m.; IZOD IndyCar Series Fluid Film Pole Day qualifying, 2:35 to 3:55 p.m.; Historic Grand Prix practice, 4:10 to 4:40 p.m.; Star Mazda race, 5 to 6 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 28: Historic Grand Prix warm-up, 8:15 to 8:45 a.m.; IZOD IndyCar Series warm-up 9 to 9:30 a.m.; Formula Car Challenge race 2, 11 to 11:30 a.m.; Historic Grand Prix race, 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.; Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma race, 1:45 p.m., followed by World Challenge race.
***
NASCAR SCHEDULE [local time... most published times are Eastern, so I've translated]
FRIDAY
noon – Sprint Cup Series practice (1 hour, 30 minutes)
3:40 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series qualifying
SATURDAY
9:30 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series practice (45 minutes)
10:45 p.m. – Sprint Cup Series final practice (1 hour, 15 minutes)
SUNDAY
noon – Toyota/Save Mart 350 (110 laps, 218.9 miles)

 

[Emery]

ALMS SCHEDULE from 2005
Friday, Red Line Oil Pole Day: ALMS Testing, 12:15 p.m.-2:15 p.m.; SPEED World Challenge Practice, 3:30 p.m.-4:15 p.m.
Saturday, Red Line Oil Pole Day: SPEED World Challenge Qualifying, 9 a.m.-9:45 a.m.; ALMS Practice, 10 a.m.-11 a.m.; SPEED World Challenge GT race, 1:05 p.m.-1:55 p.m.; ALMS Qualifying, 3:15 p.m.-4 p.m.
Sunday: Infineon Technologies Grand Prix of Sonoma, 11 a.m.-1:45 p.m.; SPEED World Challenge Touring Car race, 2:50 p.m.-3:40 p.m.

These days, World Challenge (aka NAGT mod) runs with IndyCar on the IndyCar circuit instead of the full circuit.

 

[krivjur]

Thanks for the info man! Sorry, I made you do bit extra work as I had something sorted like race lengths, but not in the version you have. NASCAR had 30mph limit on 2010 race, but 40mph (64km/h) on 2011, so I've used that, and I think they have same speed on formation lap. Full and Indy have 80km/h on formation as placeholder, so any info on that would good as well, forgot that one.

Good point on the defaults, I will put them on standing start. Formation lap has the option to skip though if you race AI, but I guess it'd be better to use standing then anyway if you're impatient.

About the cameras, I somewhat based them on TV cams, but the base .cam is quite old and there's been some changes since then in the track. Using only 1 cam group at the moment also limits a bit. BTW, if you look into the .cam it's bit of a mess with lots of commented sections of early cameras, you may try those if you want but I can't guarantee any of them work well with existing cameras in use.

NASCAR alternative grid had to be compromised to put 1st place car on left side. If you use normal grid (RollingStartLoc=0 in .gdb) for rolling start 1st car is on the right as it should.

About the session times, Indy and ALMS are ET or PT (I assumed PT)? Also 10:45pm seems rather late for Sprint Cup prac, is it AM? Wouldn't late evening be too dark for no headlight cars? With some googling seems to be AM, I guess I was too hardheaded trying to find info on the official site lol.

I've used ALMS 2005 / Grand-Am Rolex 2008 for time and laps for the Full course defaults (102 laps, 2h 45min)

 

[Emery]

About the session times, Indy and ALMS are ET or PT (I assumed PT)? Also 10:45pm seems rather late for Sprint Cup prac, is it AM? Wouldn't late evening be too dark for no headlight cars? With some googling seems to be AM, I guess I was too hardheaded trying to find info on the official site lol.

Those times are from local publications, so PT. I copied and pasted from the web site, so probably a typo in the source... PM seems pretty unlikely!

No problem about doing the research. It's something I'm good at and enjoy doing. Haven't had any luck on finding formation lap speeds, so go with what you have.

 

[mianiak]

Fixed,
Collision object for tires at turn 11
Bumpy dragstrip
Highway barrier floating over T7
Added the default rf startlights ( I didn't know what to do here, which is why I left it till late, I would have preferred a flag marshal waving a flag but that cant be done)
Made the area inside turn 11 and Turn 11a slippery to prevent corner cutting.

Emery, if you wouldn't mind, could you start removing things around the pit area from the nascar scn file to try and isolate what's causing that fps hit? I usually just have simed and a second notepad open, find the object name in simed, then search notepad, then cut and paste instances out > test > cut and paste instance back in. The scene viewer is really good for doing this too cause it has a wealth of info print up on the screen. Plus it loads the track faster than the game.
I will look into this myself but I want to get other things fixed first. If you can have a look yourself, it will save me looking for it when I get around to it

Cheers!

[ED] Actually, no need to do that Emery, I think I found the problem and your right, it is the grandstand, but not all of it, its just, the seating area.

 

[Emery]

Glad you found room for an improvement with the grandstand!

What I discovered is that the track has brought to light a caching problem of some sort on my computer.

For instance, when I first enter the track during practice, just sitting in the garage, framerate is 57-60 fps. If I go drive until fps comes up over 100 (or sit on pit road until 80 fps), exit to the monitor, and then reenter the garage, fps just sitting there in the garage is now 145+. This behavior does not seem to be related to the track objects.

 

[mianiak]

It could be a hat thing, do you have "Always Rebuild HAT" turned on by any chance?

Or, (now I think about it and probably most likely), it could be the race groove, as its not set up because the model has the groove on it. What would be happening is it will be calculating the groove when you first load the track each time you start the game. I'll ask kriv to take care of it and I will make a blank groove texture so nothing shows up.


I fixed the grandstand, there was something wrong with some of the faces that were for the seats and railings. I couldn't figure out what it was but by replacing them it fixed it. I kept them so I can check it out later to see what caused it.
One thing with 3d max is, things can go weird and you can't see it, like dead map verts and reversed normals. If you slice up a face or weld verts after you have mapped it, it will go all wonky. It drove me nuts in the beginning, if it gets too much it can cause max to crash and it always crashed when I was in the middle of something!

Here si a pic of the fps before the fix


Here is a pic of it after.


I will get all these fixes together for you guys by Wednesday, I want to wait a bit more to see if anything else pops up and I still have a little bit left to do, the flag marshal shadows is next on the list. But I wont be making small updates with fixes I will be repacking the whole thing as if it were being setup for release. so each time that happens it will be a big download.

Thanks!

 

[Emery]

By the way, for those of you not familiar with the history of Sears Point, I've found a few videos on YouTube that illustrate the progress of how the track has evolved:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6VzOVn2hEs - Original 1970, very few buildings, Indy cars don't return until 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TxexxPeumo - 1978 Bob Bondurant's racing school
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEeVpBZ6K8I - 1985 club racing driver's viewpoint after first repaving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw7NzIbzjEc - 1986 IMSA race, NASCAR has yet to race here, but the buildings are added
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgZw0D8Lx9g - 1995 NASCAR race, 3 years before "The Chute" is added for the NASCAR layout... note car going off the hill at T3/T4 on early lap!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXO3drZsJ4Y - 1998 NASCAR adds the "The Chute", first new configuration for Sears Point
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI0iul5hPmk - 2005 Indycar returns and generate a new layout

 

[mianiak]

Nice bit of history there Emery, it's funny how many things are still in the same place today as they were back in the 70's. I did have a slight interest to do a historic version a while ago.

re: all the updated fixes,
It's not ready yet, I'm still getting stuff together, it's taking longer than I thought (which is pretty normal )

 

[krivjur]

I didn't have any change in FPS at garage with race groove calculated or not. I have pretty high specs though, so it's calculated on AIW and see if it helps any. 20 extra garage spots for 60 car support, some mods might crash out with that many cars. On my tests rf RAM usage over 1700MB will likely yield in a crash at load or when geting on track. Multi car mods will be heavier on this of course. Changes on next build:

AIW
-------
Added 3rd garages, to bring max car support to 60 (Full, Indycar, NASCAR)
Switched garage IDs to match used priority (All)
New garage paths / AI support up to 59+player (Full, IndyCar, NASCAR)
New fast path, earlier got corrupted (Full, IndyCar, NASCAR)
Adjusted corridors on 7a to prevent cutting (IndyCar, NASCAR)
Adjusted corridors on 11 to prevent cutting (Full, NASCAR)
Minor adjustment on pit exit left/right paths (Full, IndyCar, NASCAR)
Fixed garage path bug which would induce extra laps when exiting to monitor (Full, IndyCar, NASCAR, Drift)
Alt grid for Full, IndyCar and NASCAR
NASCAR alt grid 1st starts on left (AI crossover issue), normal grid 1st starts on right (like in real race)
New xpitin.gmt for Full and IndyCar (AIW slowdown changed)
Calculated groove (All)

CAM
-------
New basic cameras for Drift
Fixed activation glitch between T2 and T3 on Full and IndyCar

GDB
-------
Session start times (except Drag)
Lap / Time defaults (except Drag)
Start defaults to Standing (except Drag & Drift)

 

[gwaldock]

mianiak,

I finally had a little bit of time to test drive your creation and all I can say is WOW!!! This early beta is already the most attractive and interesting simulation of Sears Point Raceway that I have experienced! While I, too, have noticed the small bugs that others have mentioned I am very impressed with the "immersion" that your version of this track provides. The only changes that I have implemented were "lefthanded pits=0" in the AIW file and "Calculate Groove Upon Exit" (from within rFactor AIWCAM Editor). I will forward additional observations after I have spent more time with the various layouts.

This is a work of art with tremendous potential, and I THANK YOU for your effort!

Regards,
Gary

 

[krivjur]

The only changes that I have implemented were "lefthanded pits=0" in the AIW file and "Calculate Groove Upon Exit" (from within rFactor AIWCAM Editor). I will forward additional observations after I have spent more time with the various layouts.

Did you notice difference in the garage guy on rFactor? For me it was always pointing to right with both 1 and 0. On GTR2 I saw the pit leave arrow was the wrong way however. It's changed for next build to 0. The groove is calculated as well and there's custom texture for it.

 

[gwaldock]

krivjur,

I apologize for neglecting to thank you in my prior post. Your contributions are superb and I sincerely appreciate your effort.

You are correct; I did not notice the "lefthanded pits" issue until I converted the track to GTR2 (I prefer the "feel" of the cars in SimBin titles and wanted to see what your masterpiece looked like in the rain ).

Thanks again to both of you!

 

[krivjur]

No problem. Thanks for clearing that up, I thought I was missing something. I had played with LeftHandedPits a long time ago, but hadn't paid attention to it regards other versions.

 

[mianiak]

This track is for rfactor, I have plans for a gtr2 version and a race07 version, the rf version won't convert straight to gtr2 cause of the way I used the shaders (which won't show up in simed, or an imported gmt in max, only the original max file in 3dmax will show it), it needs a few different things done if it is going to look the way I want it to look.

 

[Erik Tveit]

I feel like a bad beta tester. LOL. I done 100s of laps. But I haven't found any bug. Then there's you lot, after just sitting in the garage, here it is a bug..

And yeah, I still haven't found any unless the uncrashable tyres outside the track.

 

[gwaldock]

This track is for rfactor, I have plans for a gtr2 version and a race07 version, the rf version won't convert straight to gtr2 cause of the way I used the shaders (which won't show up in simed, or an imported gmt in max, only the original max file in 3dmax will show it), it needs a few different things done if it is going to look the way I want it to look.

Hi mianiak,

I get that; I really do. Rather than simply looking at graphics I wanted to experience the "ride" in order to form a comparison with the iRacing, rFactor, GPL and customized GTL/GTR2/Race07 versions that I am familiar with. As I stated in my earlier post; I prefer the feel / FFB that the SimBin sims provide and I theorized that would assist me in providing useful feedback pertaining to the drive-ability of your beautiful track.

Please accept my sincere apology if I have offended you somehow..

Best regards,
Gary.

 

[mianiak]

No worries Gary, It's all good . Thanks for the kind words.

Can you feel braking bumps and the bumps in the mesh? I seem to have lost that effect, I dunno if its my rf install or what but they are in there, it just feels like they aren't.

 

[R Soul]

Are they physical bumps or are they done via material settings?