WIP Bungonia, Australia - 80km

[Lee Knight]

Gday all,
Ive been lurking & prowling the forums for a while & figured now Ive got the basics down it was time I finally started a thred for my own track.
Bungonia is a small village south of Goulburn NSW Australia & lent it name to Australia's first motorcycle GP back in 1924.
Back then it was just a network of dirt roads & only used the once for the purposes of racing.
Ive always been a fan of long tracks, especially circuit types, eg Isle of Man, Nurenburg Nordschlief etc...
Only a few years ago the roads that make up this track were finally fully tared & it's in this state that I wish to represent it.
Im hoping that I can also bring about that feeling when paddocks roll & unfold with a long perspective whilst charging along & it's here where Ive come up on with my first "stall" in the project.
Im a complete & utter noob at this type of thing & computers in general, but it's the burning desire for the long tracks thats driving me to bring this into being.
I realize this project will tack a couple of years to complete,even for an old hand at BTB, let alone a noob such as myself,but Im willing.
So,if there's anyone out there in cyber-land who's had experience at building long tracks/circuits or just plain interested, please, dont be affraid to drop me a line, I'll be most appreciative to hear from you.
Well Ive rambled on long enough now, but feel free to check out Bungonia at the following GoggleE co-ords:-Ive cheeted, there should be a place mark on GoggleE @ the bellow location.
The start/finish line is located at 34:47'03.00"S by 149:44'09.75"E and goes in an
anti-clockwise direction.
Although the original track was 84kms, with current road maps it measures around 77kms
due to trimming with road re-alinments over the years. Ive managed to massage that back into
80.4km(50ml) in 3dRD.
There is an excelent book called "The Racing Boys" by Wayne Addams that Ive been using for many references & can forward on to anyone interested.

 

[nissan man]

sounds very interesting, could you map it in google earth using a path so we can see the layout.

wish you luck

 

[Lee Knight]

Here's something to wet the appitite

Here's something to wet the appitite & show what Im up against.
Hopefully these jpeg's turn out better than last time I tried!
Just to confuse things Ive named the full length circuit TT & the shorter one GP,
the "GP"was I originally thought would be a pit return shortcut until I realized it would be a hoot in it's self to drive!

 

[nissan man]

wow!, look like a blast. hope you get it running with out to much issues.

 

[Scott Mitchell]

Holy Cow, that looks one epic track.

 

[Kris Vickers]

BLeeK - Hows that little project going matey?

You get your 2 tracks into one sorted?

 

[Lee Knight]

The "bridges" plan of yours was so much easier & a great success,thanks for that. I couldnt see that until you told me.
Trouble is now(in that department) on the "TT" track when I append driving lines & try to include the pit bypass/"GP" loop,
it creats extra drive lines. One of which is in mid air. Ive left it "un-appended" there for the time being just to simplify things
until I can find out how to edit the drive lines & delete the extra.
In the meantime Ive been making little "go nowhere" extra bits to complete the look of intersections & turn-offs like I did
with the "bridges"(Ive been think'n of them as "piers").
Also been starting on the driveable terrain at the intersections & along the outside of the track roughly upto the
distance of the fenceline.
Next will be the inside but after that Im not sertain how to tackle the "infield" as in reality this would be several thousand acres
of land & it doesnt seem feasible to me to be building that much terrain when I should be able to get around it in some other way.
Its the "rolling/unfolding" paddocks that I keep thinking about & how best to achieve it whilst not bogging down the ol'computer.
But thats a worry for the future.
Thanks for the advice before Kris, if you have any regarding the driveline or could point me in the direction of a good tutorial,
I'd be greatly appreciative.

 

[Kris Vickers]

I think for the driving line, your best bet might be to use the ISI tools, and copy/pasting the waypoint info into your BTB exported AIW. Can cause problems though if its not done right.

Saying that though, it can be probably be done in BTB, but i`ve never had to look into that problem, so wouldn`t know.

Your infield;
I think what might be best for you, is creating a generic XX meters of infield as a guideline.
Now i`m guessing, that the real road doesn`t have full visability right the way across the infield to the other part of the track??
So fill it in realistically with trees/tree walls etc and if your still left with gaps, get creative and fill it in with other stuff, maybe just more trees.

This track of yours is gonna be one monster of a project.... looking forward to its release in 2030 though

 

[woochoo]

Hey mate,
as far as the infield goes, around some parts of Longford i've got 2-3 km of paddock outside of the circuit, not many polygons. The infield is completely filled too, and my far clip plane is 5km. Obviously Bungonia is a bit bigger than Longford, but you might be able to get the results you're after, by combining low poly areas and reasonable clip planes.

 

[ed_jza80]

so, a nice small project? should be done by the end of the week yeah?

lol

g'luck mate, going to have HEAPS to do along that course!
any photos fom the track you can share?

cheers
ed

 

[Lee Knight]

Gday Ed,
No photo's yet unfortunately, still try'n to get road and roadside surfaces right first.
Also thinking I should finish fiddle'n with road textures & bumps & ruts 'n' wotnot's before I go playing out in the paddocks.
Not being very a computer orientated person (I actually drive large plant machinery for a living) I find Im sorta thinking
about how I want it & then try & work out how to do it.
Ive actually started over again, either because Ive stuffed up or not been happy with what I had, so many times Ive lost
count-I now keep a back up on a thumb drive now & a friend reckons I could be the first person to wear one out!
Do you(or anyone else) know why I cant download the roadsurface texture pack from the BTB.net site?
As for photo's, I should be posting a real life on board lap in the next 2-3weeks.
(Work cant stop me this time,Doctor said so....)

 

[ed_jza80]

haha, you and me both mate. this is a real suck-it-and-see adventure in new software and models etc! im good with photoshop, so if you need a hand, let me know. cnt help with models though, i truly suck at that!

cheers
ed

 

[Lee Knight]

G'day Ed,
Ive had to take time off work while I wait for a shoulder rebuild....so Ive been spending
a bit of time on Bungonia lately.
First up,thanks for the offer,I could certainly use some assistance with photo shopping a
3D background image, but feel rude asking someone to do such a mammoth task for me-unless
of course, if you really want to do it-but I'd definitely like to get some pointers off you about it.
Secondly, does anyone know how I can go about adjusting the driveline after appending it?
Without first having to export it?
I cant seem to export my track-it's quite possibly that its so BIG & my computer is SOOooo OLD!
But I'm also thinking it's the drive line sitting way out to buggery that could be stopping it or a
combination of both!
Im NOT giving up on it yet though,my long awaited upgrade is just around the corner (as soon as I get back
from my Goulburn visit!),some of the parts are already here & others are on there way.
Well thats it for now,Goodluck,good race'n & I hope to here from y'all soon.
BLeeK

PS. Who likes long lap'n tracks?Who knows that Targa Florio is being converted to rFactor? 72kms 560/570+corners & 11laps cant wait!
Found out not long ago,am I always last to work these things out? Hehe!

 

[Kris Vickers]

Hey BLeeK, glad to see your doing some work on this

Adjusting the driving line is quite easy. Keep the centre line as it is, unless you want to change which road it uses. But its the fastline you want to spend a little more time on, as its this that creates decent AI racing.
In BTB it takes a hell of a lot of fiddling to get right, lots of exporting and starting rF to see if your tweaks worked etc. But getting a better driving line than just driving down the middle of the road is easy.
Ofcourse, the easiest way of doing the fastpath, is the ISI tools where you just drive the lap in rF. This too has its own drawbacks, so its just preference.

Also, with the export, unless it throws up an error, its probably still exporting, so give it time. Export time relies heavily on RAM i noticed. The more you have, the quicker it will export.

 

[Lee Knight]

G'day Kris,
Thanks for the advice!
Im running 2.6Gb of RAM on an OLD 2.0Ghz single processor from the dawn of pentium4 at the moment, so I've been figuring it was the lack of power.
I'll try exporting again in the next night or so & just leaving it to do it's thing, even the 10km track takes an age, without success.
I reckon too, that the lack of success at exporting has also been me seriously under estimating the time it takes for it to happen!
That problem with the appended drive line is virtually identical to when I was trying to combine two tracks in 3D route builder, but no road, just an extra line floating through the air.
I was sort of hoping I could grab it & move it or better yet, just delete the bugger!
That's why I was figuring that it may have been the racing line that was the problem with exporting....
(It would all be so much easier if I could use some of the big yellow plant equipment from workhaha)
Thanks again for your advice & help.

PS> Maybe it's the centre line? It's the one that the timing/start/finish gates are on....

 

[Kris Vickers]

PS> Maybe it's the centre line? It's the one that the timing/start/finish gates are on....

Yeh, thats the centre line.

Have you tried clickin on Apend Track again after deleting the AIW into in the same window?

 

[Lee Knight]

Gday Kris,
Bit has been happening around here...so please excuse the time taken on the reply.
I have tried deleting several times through the appending window & then re-appending
but it keeps coming up the same.
Or should I be deleting the AIW file from the track folder itself?
I've even tried to append the roads in different orders only to have the same problem surface but
in a different area.
I'd like to have a timed start for this track but have been told that rFactor cant do it,so
Ive been thinking of a rolling start & trying to spread the cars out a bit time wise.
That said, 50miles/80kms is a bit long for a rolling start lap & Id really like to have the 10km loop
drivable for all cars,AI included for this purpose.
Does anyone have any advice on editing these centre lines?

 

[Kris Vickers]

I think with the rolling lap, all the user will do is press 'space' to skip formation lap. This will then put them in the position you set for teleport in BTB, so have these set a little way before your start/finish line.

 

[John DiFool]

Bumping this to see if there's been any progress or such?

 

[Lee Knight]

Sorry, it's still happening - Ive had on my plate lately & troubles with the Bungonia project has started me on something slightly smaller.
One of Bathurst's early tracks from the late '20's/early'30's, Peel circuit with a 33.9km/21mile lap.
More details to follow in the next fortnight or so.
My apologies for the long absence of a progress report, it IS still happening though....I promise!