Tracks Any dedicated people interested in collaborating on a track together?

[Amir Vodokotlic]

Did using classification not work?

You can separate out road

with 11-11 filter pass.

 

[Emery]

Remember you've got a crutch in that we know the track width. T3 is 30 ft wide (9.144 meters). You also know that the corner radii are always constant on this track, so you can use circles as guides for the splines. Can't quite recall the geometry trick for finding the center of an arc though...

Edit: and Amir is right... use the lidar when points are classified!

 

[Emery]

 

[BluePotato00]

Remember you've got a crutch in that we know the track width. T3 is 30 ft wide (9.144 meters). You also know that the corner radii are always constant on this track, so you can use circles as guides for the splines. Can't quite recall the geometry trick for finding the center of an arc though...

Edit: and Amir is right... use the lidar when points are classified!

I messed around with the classification filters and still couldn't see a clean road outline. The .lax files are in the Google Drive if you want to take a look and try to extract a good road image.

Also, where did you find the data for the turn track widths?

 

[Emery]

Okay, I'll have a look at the lidar.

I posted track widths earlier, in post #24. They're in the pic, in the narrative.

 

[Emery]

This is one of those cases where you heave a little sigh because the points aren't properly classified. This data is also from the early period of aerial lidar, so the points are not particularly tight

With classification not helping, you have to rely on intensity and even that isn't going to be particularly helpful since packed gravel and pavement can be pretty similar in intensity. What I like to do is switch to colors for the intensity and see if I can tune out the gravel in Cloud Compare... wasn't all that helpful for track width at Brainerd, but just to document the process.

1. Select Intensity as the active scalar field.
2. Select Blue>Green>Yellow>Red for the Color Scale
3. Slide the right hand limiter back & forth for the display limiter to see if there's a helpful setting.

 

[Emery]

To check how far apart the points are, you can zoom in. You'll notice horizontal bands and also where the two flights have overlapping data. Vertically, you'll notice larger gaps between the scan lines than there are horizontally. Using CloudCompare's point picker, you can measure how far apart the points are (about 1.8 meters vertically and 0.8 meters horizontally).

Here is the T3 exit, where the two scans overlap. The top road is an inner access road, probably compacted earth and gravel.

 

[Ghoults]

If the point data doesn't have classification then one option is to bake the colors from satellite images.

 

[BluePotato00]

@LilSki 's video (on the left) has a "corrective smooth" deform option in the modifiers. My modifier list is on the right. I assume the difference is 2.79 vs. 2.8 and that I should choose "Smooth Corrective?" I'm going to use this to flatten the bridge so my shrinkwrap modifier on the splines doesn't make the track crest over the bridge.

 

[Amir Vodokotlic]

^yep.

2.8 is smooth corrective.

 

[Hyrulianlink15]

In my research on building a track, it appears to be a huge undertaking. It appears most tracks here been the efforts of a single developer, but maybe I am wrong. I see many incredible completed mod tracks (like Sveg - great interview about the build process here) and I'd enjoy the process and feeling of accomplishment of completing a mod track of my own.

There is a lot to learn and I think this could be an enjoyable project for a small team of 2-4.

Proposal:

• Build a team of 2-4 dedicated developers. Criteria:
  • Collaboration in the English language
  • Ample free time to dedicate ~5 to 10 hours per week on the project
  • Does not need to come in with a wealth of knowledge. We can learn as we go.
  • Needs to have the ability and dedication to educate oneself and research. Given the tools we have and the quantity of resources available online (RD forum, assettocorsamods.net forum, YouTube, Lynda, etc.) we can learn anything.
  • Needed software: Blender (that seems to be the preferred 3D modeling software for AC track modders), Photoshop with DDS plugin, KSEditor, others???
• Decide on a track. I honestly have no preferences or agenda here besides the following criteria:
  • Proper road course (not an oval) with a pit lane
  • Prefer a circuit over point-to-point
  • Hasn't been done before in AC
  • Is not currently in development (that we are aware of) by another modder
  • Lots of reference material available (terrain mapping [LIDAR?], reference photos, high detail in satellite imagery)
  • Ideally geographically nearby to a member of our team
• Share files through a well-organized Google drive folder with subfolders for reference material, models, textures, etc.
• Agree on a free means of team communication. Slack? Discord? A forum thread here? It might make the process more enjoyable if we had a means of keeping the communication public for outside comments/suggestions/etc.
• Gather reference materials
• Plan, model, texture, build, test, debug, learn, repeat, repeat, repeat...
• Share it with the community. Share everything. Not just the completed track, but all of our track objects, textures, and other source materials.

About me:
I'm a 39-year old American living in America, but I've lived overseas in India, Thailand, and Cambodia. Married to a great woman and blissfully child-free! I hold an MBA and a PhD, so learning/research is embedded in my core! I am on university faculty in information systems. I've been a computer geek power-user since middle school when we had an 8086 desktop computer with a 4-color CGA CRT monitor at home . My hobbies include playing music, technology, home theater, basketball, tennis, ultimate frisbee, running, travelling, riding my Vespa, reading, and of course sim racing. Sim racing is a newer hobby for me of only 3 years. I race on iRacing primarily where I peaked at a 2,150 iRating, but love AC for its wealth of content and this active community. I have an aluminum profile rig with a DD1 wheel base, Heusinkveld pedals, and a 4-actuator SFX-100 system that I built at the start of this year (I learned a lot through that process as well and enjoyed the help of the community).

My technical skills (not sure if all apply to building a track mod):

• 3D modelling: Beginner/intermediate (hope to learn a lot!)
• Photoshop: Beginner/intermediate (same!)
• C#: Intermediate
• Python: Intermediate
• SQL: Intermediate
• HTML/CSS/JS: Beginner/intermediate
• Excel and other data analytics: Advanced
• Video editing: Beginner/intermediate
• Photography: Intermediate
• Photo editing: Intermediate

My soft skills:
I'm an introvert, but not shy. I aim to communicate clearly whether in front of a classroom of students, in a video tutorial, or in an email. I prefer short meetings. I'm organized and I'm a planner. I enjoy leisure time and aim for a lot of it, but when I'm working, I'm productive.

So, is anybody interested? I have no idea if the responses I get will be:

• [no responses]
• [100 responses - yikes!]
• "This will never work"
• "It's better to do something like this solo"
• "Screw you, loser. Crawl back under that rock you came from"

Hey man I'm interested in doing a track with yah I'll help out I work second shift tho 2 to 10 everyday but I can put in hours I previously.made maps on Cs go a friend's map for his game Delta horizon (crashed and burned lol) and the socom mod for insurgency and Cs go) messed with unity, unreal engine, and race track builder. Hit me up on steam account is either Hylianlink15 or Falken should have a blue bear as the icon

 

[BluePotato00]

Hey man I'm interested in doing a track with yah I'll help out I work second shift tho 2 to 10 everyday but I can put in hours I previously.made maps on Cs go a friend's map for his game Delta horizon (crashed and burned lol) and the socom mod for insurgency and Cs go) messed with unity, unreal engine, and race track builder. Hit me up on steam account is either Hylianlink15 or Falken should have a blue bear as the icon

PM sent, thanks for your interest in working on the track!

I think that a forum thread (whether it's this one or starting a new one) might be the best approach for communicating. We've communicated through PMs, this thread, and started a Discord. The Discord (which @elloLeo Kinnunen set up for us) would be good for when we want to voice chat.

I like the idea of a forum thread since other members can follow the progress and it could stand for years afterward as helpful to other track builders. Thoughts from @Hyrulianlink15 , @elloLeo Kinnunen , and @Emery ?

And I'm hoping to follow @LilSki 's videos (he's currently uploaded 3). My current obstacle is getting a clean mesh between the track splines. I've laid out the inside and outside edge of the track with splines in the Blender file (and I'm not convinced that even those are adequate), but my attempts to shrink wrap and get a mesh between them to continue with the tutorial have horrible geometry. If you want to take a stab at that after you get the Google Drive permissions, that would be ideal!

 

[Emery]

I'd be cautious on using a forum thread because team dynamics do not need to be public.

 

[Hyrulianlink15]

I'd be cautious on using a forum thread because team dynamics do not need to be public.

I'm at work ATM but I used to use a program I don't remember what it was called where we all could access it and set up things we want to work on and have worked on

 

[Hyrulianlink15]

It's called trello

 

[Emery]

On the research side, I've been gathering pictures. Of the 22 pit buildings, there are now pictures of 18 of them. On the project share, there's an aerial view with the bldgs labeled and a folder structure corresponding to the labels where the pics are located. There is also a Google Sheets document with dimensions for the buildings. I've begun modeling bldg D, the Tower Suites, that overlooks the dragstrip because it is so prominent.

 

[BluePotato00]

On the research side, I've been gathering pictures. Of the 22 pit buildings, there are now pictures of 18 of them. On the project share, there's an aerial view with the bldgs labeled and a folder structure corresponding to the labels where the pics are located. There is also a Google Sheets document with dimensions for the buildings. I've begun modeling bldg D, the Tower Suites, that overlooks the dragstrip because it is so prominent.

Did your book arrive yet? I've been watching an onboard from the hood of a Cayman (below) that has more field of view than most in-car onboards that will be helpful with some object placement. Even nicer that there's a track map overlay in this video:

 

[Emery]

Did your book arrive yet?

There was a snafu. Will arrive next week.

 

[Emery]

That video is nice and clear, but here is one that shows Brainerd in 2003, much closer to the lidar scan date. Onboard starts about 1:55.

I notice we'll need to put the mini mall into the track model as it is visible in turns 8 & 9.

 

[Hyrulianlink15]

.