Now that i've learned and discovered all kinds of fun tricks, it's time to get back to the serious stuff.. v2.0 is on it's way. I have enough confidence and downloads* that the work is going to waste not only my hardrive space but numerous other idiots as well..
(* total is somewhere around 10k but only 2k individual :frown: first release was too early, many versions..)
I've now gathered enough race tests to notice where there's a problems. Mainly, the first lap DNF's frustrate people a lot. Those who finish their first race keeps coming back for more.. Sad thing but then again, tracks safety was never the main area. Thruth is, the goal was almost opposite.. Now that the dangerous version works very well, it's time to make it safer. I want it to be able to host endurance races too and those need much higher safety. The "old" unsafe version will be included sans the first turn..
I've already made a bunch of runoff areas and increased guardrails. In some corners there is now a pavements in the inside to improve flow and rhythm. Biggest change is totally reworked first hairpin/crossing. The entry has the same feel but i eased it up a bit, now there's possibility to have two cars side by side. The crest is still there so you have to brake blindly, IMHO very succesful change and can produce great replays.. If you brake too late, it's General Lee time!
Pitentry is also completely new, the old one was just too difficult. The new should be much safer, haven't tested it yet with another player.
Some features that is still on the drawing board:
- Grandstands, possibly temporary, scaffolding type.
- Staggered grid like it was originally designed.
- Brake distance signs and other visual cues to help locate the braking points more precisely.
- Rework on the cliffs, there's too many jagged edges.. and i know a lot better method to do them (Skethup and SObjects..)
- Quarry/desert section will get a whole new look, its boring and useless now.
- Reverse version with different pits and start/finish line (the track is very fun to drive both ways, some corners are way better in reverse..)
- More work on shadows, i got so close of getting those long beatiful shadows to work in the sunrise, that's when those lovely screencaps were taken.. I just have to try again, it was more than 90% finished. 14k with working long shadows and about 400 meters of it buggied the patience out of me. If i remember correctly it was 2 weeks of nonstop edit that didn't end up in the release..
- Mipmaps and LODs, flickering speedlimitsigns, patched tarmac from the speedbuild sessions etc.
I'll take a lot of unnecessary vegetation out and replace some with new ones that fit to the overall "style" better. And lastly and very very possibly maybe, don't-hold-you're-breath-maybe: a new 7km GP track that uses the crossin like i first imagined and yes that idea is taken straight out of Nordsleife and Nurnburgring GP.. Why not? It just is a good idea but it could prove to be too much as the mountains around the crossing had the most problems.. The GP track would reside in the other side of those so it can be impossible/too much work.. For style i had old hocke in mind with banking turns to keep the old classic feel. One possibility is to separate those two projects as the processing time could become an issue. 14km rural plus 7 km GP... sounds heavy.. Allthough that gives the opportunity to combine the two to make 21km track, the crossing was designed from the start to allow this. But GP tracks have A LOT of stuff around and it may bloat the project to useless proportions.
I asked BenMK1 if he could edit the first corner AIW (he did so wonderful work on the original AIW) but it can be anyone who wants to help me. AI racingline is something i don't yet know how to make and i really don't like to learn it with this track.. Also the staggered grid needs work (downhill+turn+grid=BTB no like..) so that the cars won't jump at start.
I'll post screenshots, DL links to the testtrack AND the original BTB project later..
PS: v1.21 rFactor conversion still awaits to anyone interested.. It's already converted but needs testing.. I smell easy credits..
