Building a track for racer

[AMV8 VANTAGE]

I'm back!!! :tongue:

after a long break from Racer, I've decided that i'll be making a track for this game for my university "dissertation" project.

I'm planning to make a sort of countryside track not too dissimilar to polish roads but with tighter roads, built up areas and more.

I'll need your help going about it. I can create all of the models competently in 3DS MAX, its just the initial ideas stage and turning a 3D environment into a complete racer track which i'll need some assistance.

I'm handy with a digital camera and next week i'll be going around where I live taking some reference photos and textures.

This dissertation has to be submitted by May/June 2011

So any ideas or anything info to help me do this would be a great help

 

[luthobu]

If you need any help getting it "into Racer", then let me know, that is, IMO, the easiest part

 

[boomer541]

I made a tutorial for making a track with Blender, I think it's still in the download thread.

It includes the info about splining, sepcial.ini and ather stuff you will need to get a track into Racer. It does not include cg shaders as I haven't updated it for them. Good reading and adaptable to other 3D graphics programs.

 

[ammods]

i'd be interested in this if someone has a link, as i've already got a few tracks to go into a game..just need to be made for racer...

 

[Mr Whippy]

My 2p.

Base the layout and topography on a real road. It will result in a much more natural and realistic feeling road.

Alternatively, start with a real place that has no roads, or few roads, and then try think how these built up places, shops, industrials etc might build up in that area, and the road links they need develop.


That is why using a real place as inspiration is good, because you get the natural feeling of a real place driving the way it looks. Even if you know a few areas in real life you like, join them up and blend them together. Either way, referencing real things is so much better, imo, than pure imagination, which very often results with a false feeling road layout.

Dave

 

[AMV8 VANTAGE]

Boomer541 and luthobu those would be a great help. also Mr Whippy, thanks for that advice, that was my plan, to go around where I live within a certain radius and base the track upon that

One of the roads I wish to base my map on is near Ipswich in suffolk here are some pictures of this road and surrounding areas (google maps)

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/7118/hadleigh1.jpg
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/2653/hadleigh2.jpg
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/597/hadleigh3.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/3660/hintlesham2.jpg
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/9202/newtonyt.jpg
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/33/newton2.jpg

 

[KS95]

Hehe, not far from here in Colchester

 

[Mr Whippy]

Good choice!

Google Street View is a fantastic resource. What I would say from that then, is to choose a time of year, and then stick to it. Choosing the time of year of the street view imagery is a good idea, but if these places are local, then taking video or pictures at the chosen time of year is possible.
It can be helpful to get everything consistent. Colours of trees and plants, the grasses etc need to be consistent. We often see in games like GT5 for example, everything is full-bloom height of summer, which just looks a bit boring. I like that early spring look to the street view images


Also, another tip if you use street view, is to use the 3d mode with the appropriate 3d glasses. It really is fantastic to get a feeling for the details around the road and their placement. It's helped me loads using them.

I also have two HD videos of the road I am making, one in winter/some snow with little grass/vegetation, one in summer with vegetation filled out. That is helpful too.

Try get some digital terrain models too, if possible, they can help. However, I've ended up drawing tons of polygons for the general area using the 5m contour data from digital raster maps.
What I really wanted to do with my road (because it's damn hilly), is use a Racelogic Vbox, which collects really good GPS data in ALL three axis, so you can basically line up the line against known points (road intersections with 5m contours for example) but get all the little sub details in between


All fun. I've been making a 7km road for 3yrs haha. Far from finished. Main issue is I don't want to build anything off from the main road till I'm happy with the surface accuracy, and that is the difficulty I'm having since that is what makes the road so enjoyable. However, for your flatter roads it's probably much less important...

Give us a shout if you ever just want some advice for how to get materials etc and I'll try help out!

Dave

 

[QuadCoreMax]

You could just use a PPC (Pocket PC) with GPS or anything else & treat the recorded GPS data by some programs which would output the whole as a 3D mesh or a heightmap.

I recall some guys on CryteK 2 forums which have been reproducing a real terrain to play on it online, some kind of exotic islands using Google Earth to blueprint the whole.

Many other solutions existing outthere, here's a link for you :

http://www.gearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?12424-exporting-terrain-data-to-3ds-max

All depends on what you really want to achieve, real or full virtual scenery...

=============
Airis T620

 

[AMV8 VANTAGE]

Thanks for your advice people.

Mr Whippy, the track will be probably dry spring/summer time. I have some really nice high res skyboxes which some website provided for free without limitations. These skys are a mix of cloud-free and partly cloudy but dry.

As a little update, I have made a start creating assets in separate max files. I have a small selection on the picture attached. Most of these aren't textured or have final textures in place yet. I'll be going around with my digital camera to get all of the proper textures, although I reckon to do this i'll have to hop on my bicycle, as there are very few places to stop on this road in a car!

KS95 thats awesome that you live so close to the area where I am basing this track on

Comments are much appreciated, and just to note the some of the objects have white outlines, because 3ds max was set to Edged-faces and the fact that some detail didn't show up when I turned Edged-faces off.:tongue:

 

[KS95]

Yay. A sign for Colchester, haha I've always wanted to have a track in Racer of somewhere near where I lived, I guess sometime in the future I will now Looks good, really makes me want to try making a track.

 

[luthobu]

Most of these aren't textured or have final textures in place yet.

Nice. The textures however are much too "clean". It is not like that in real life.
Surfaces are soiled, dirty, miscolored.. they emit or reflect different types of
light, some shine some do not. Some feel like cold steel, some feel like wood.
But as you say.. it is still WIP, so keep it up, the meshes look really good

 

[ammods]

is there any data or tutorial for track editing, i've got something in mind, i have the track already in max, just need to know what lays beyond...the grave..err i mean max haha...

 

[QuadCoreMax]

is there any data or tutorial for track editing, i've got something in mind...

http://racer.nl/tutorial/
http://racer.nl/reference/

 

[boomer541]

I think my Blender track tutorial is still available in the download thread. It's a bit out of date but has the basic info to make a track and get it into racer.

 

[justasimfan]

I know it's incredibly hard but is there any possibility for you to remake or make something along the lines like swiss mountain and mountain pass tracks.Their routes were fantastic through graphically they are horrible.If you could make something of that scale but with the quality of
Swiss Stroll CQ it would be THE BEST TRACK TO SHOWCASE racer....A track to judge all other tracks...

Find some people to help you and please try at least....I know its incredibly hard but the outcome would be amazing...

 

[AMV8 VANTAGE]

I've got another building which is nearing completion, perhaps you might recognise this KS95 (see attached)

EDIT: Sorry about quality of pic it isn't as sharp as it should be.

On another note, I was thinking of trying to build the road itself using Google Earth/Sketchup then bringing it in to 3ds. Would this work?

Apparently the easiest way of making a road in 3ds max is to use the line tool and then using an extrusion modifier. I've tried it but then I couldn't seem to add to that line after I done a little.

justasimfan, I will try to make the track to the best of my ability as i'm getting marked for it. I haven't planned to make a mountainy road, this will be more of a countryside type road. Maybe i'll create another track after this one is completed, I was thinking of doing a track based on the 'Greatest driving road' (Stelvio pass?) from BBC top gear.

 

[justasimfan]

stelvio pass would be great through it would need a tremendous amount of work to make it the right way!! (CG and swiss stroll quality )

I am not good at modeling so i don't know the easiest way to model.Is it easier to start from scratch or from remaking something already made ?
For example mountain pass and swiss mountain as far as routes and general terrain go are just about perfect.In a few places terrain should be extended through to show the scale of the mountains.But they also need new high res textures,grass,3d trees and a ton of objects like rocks,signs,bushes,buildings,cars,people etc...

Can they be improved or are they a lost cause ?

 

[luthobu]

But they also need new high res textures,grass,3d trees and a ton of objects like rocks,signs,bushes,buildings,cars,people etc... Can they be improved or are they a lost cause ?

You can easily do that yourself. The textures are either tga, bmp or even jpg. Just replace with better ones.
Easy as pie. Improving the tracks are not and will not be what you call "a lost cause". If you do not have
permission to alter the original, make a mod that does not include any of the original files. The mod can
even include additional models. That way you can improve the track, honor the original track maker, and
keep things separate at the same time. So get to work, there is no time to loose!

 

[AMV8 VANTAGE]

UPDATE - 31/01/2011

Hi,

Been a while since I updated, but in the meantime I have been doing a lot more 3D objects, such as houses, signposts etc. In addition, I've started grey-boxing the road itself. Its looking ok so far but its a little challenging getting inclines/declines smooth and realistic looking.

The winter-y weather has slowed my progress a bit, as well as my work giving me extra days to work. Ideally, for the trees/vegetation textures, I need to wait until the trees have developed leaves. I've tried looking for copyright free tree textures that are high resolution on the internet but haven't found any yet.

I've got a dissertation presentation today at the university, wish me luck :tongue: