Grand Valley Speedway 0.66

if you make the objects like in Glava Zete someone did then will be awesome and the rest of track making people

I checked out the 0.5 version of this when this track first launched and it was the worst working track I had ever seen in AC. After a few days, I see that it’s been updated, by .15 of a version, so we’re halfway through to v1.0? Turns out, that huge update isn’t really that big and doesn’t fix the many basic issues I first saw in the v0.5 track.

Firstly, this track, converted from the old rFactor version, is based on the version of Grand Valley that appeared in Gran Turismo 1, in 1998. The latest version of Grand Valley is in Gran Turismo 6, 2013. Gaming has moved a long way since then and the upgrades made to the track during that time make the GT1 version completely obsolete and inaccurate. It has huge sudden bumps and rapid elevation changes that don’t exist on later versions of Grand Valley, let alone on real racetracks. The scenery of the GT1 version is designed to optimize performance, letting you see as little track as possible at all times (was released for the PlayStation 1 after all), the kerbs are ridiculously huge and the track, on average, is at least 150% as wide as it is in GT4, 5 and 6. The last game to use this wide rendition of Grand Valley is GT3, after which it was completely remade for GT4.

This 1998 rendition of the track as huge design problems that make it unsuitable for Assetto Corsa. The exaggerated bumps are enough to get the car off the ground, which means that the car gets horribly upset going over them, sometimes even immediately spinning out or lifting the front wheels off the ground. The exaggerated kerbs can be put into the same category as the worst ones on nurburgring nordschleife, even standard road cars in AC cannot cope with them, unlike in Gran Turismo 1. The graphics department is even more hampered by the 1998 design as all of the track is bordered with rock formations, leading to almost claustrofobic track scenery compared to realistic locations. Additionally, the GT1 version has no trackside variety or objects of interests due to performance constraints, this cheapens the track when translated over to AC. On top of this, the GT1 version of this track was never designed to be driven or even seen going in the reverse direction!

Now, taking those design cues and being a conversion from rFactor, the mod looks like it was created in 2005. The tracksides are lined by flat walls of trees, all additional trees are simple 2D sprites, there’s no 3D grass, absolutely no detail in the pits, horrendously low quality textures and models littering the track, low-poly mountains and hills either side of the track and surfaces that are supposed to have depth and 3D detail are completely flat. Lighting is terrible, the hills and scenery objects cast shadows but they look rather bland. The lighting in the tunnels looks completely fake and doesn’t shine off of the walls, the car or the track surface. The water at the bridge section looks solid, more like blue ice than actual water. Many objects around this track, like the braking boards and trees, can only be seen from one direction. In the case of trees, they seemingly dissapear as you’re driving along, while in the case of braking boards, you see them when approaching the corner but they’re invisible if you look back. As you’re driving, you can also find various points where you can simply see through the track into the void…

This leaves us with the biggest issues of all. For some reason, this AC rendition of this track isn’t nearly as wide as it was in GT1. Additionally, I think many corners on this track are inaccurate to how they were in GT1, though that could also be down to the car physics. If the huge width of the original was translated to this AC version, it could be used as a crux to keep the car on the track after hitting one of the huge bumps, with the narrow width it’s really easy to go off track in that situation. There’s also no runoff area anywhere, except the two hairpins, which means cars that lose control on said bumps hit the wall and bounce back on track, possibly hitting others. Further than that, the track surface feels kinda like a billiards table other than for the huge bumps, there must be no differentiation between physics and visual mesh here. The pit lane doesn’t feel like tarmac, it feels really weird and the car is easy to spin there. You can also simply drive through the walls in the pitlane and fall off track to the void, those walls have no collision. Finally, if you don’t want to drive the full Grand Valley layout, you can simply phase through the cones (you don’t actually even hit them) that close off the shorter ”East Section” layout, saving at least 1 minute each lap. I’m not sure if you can actually complete a lap this way, but the fact you can do this is ridiculous.

To conclude, the AI needs some more work. They take some corners completely wrong, you can gain at least a second over the AI in those corners. But at least the AI works and they can pit, as can you! The replay cameras let you see the track in the worst ways possible, many looking in the reverse direction even though the track wasn’t designed to be seen that way. But again, at least the replay cameras work, even featuring two sets for all your needs.

The 0.5 version of this was easily 0 stars out of 5. Considering the improvements made in 0.65, I’d say it’s worth 1 star now. Honestly, I can’t see this ever going past 2 stars if it accurately follows the Gran Turismo 1 design due to the big problems I have pointed out. Grand Valley can be a great track if it’s reworked to suit the needs of Assetto Corsa. The changes and improvements made in later GT games give a good indication as to where to start.

When you convert a track from rfactor you have to put in a lot of work, this hasn't been done with this track.