Tracks LA Canyons 1.2

[AccAkut]

Trust me... you wouldn't want to even see the memory usage of the stupidly high res diffuse I lined the roads up to
IIRC was 8.4 Gb... But to get the reports from people local to the area, that it's very accurate... It was worth it.

and I was getting taunted for using a single 4096x4096 on the Lotus interior

 

[Phoenix77]

and I was getting taunted for using a single 4096x4096 on the Lotus interior

lmao Taunted? what is this Race Department place.. School playground?
The 75,000 x 75,000 (8.4) image was only used to get the roads in place... then my computer breathed easily when I downscaled to a small 32k!

It was covering a slightly bigger area than your Lotus interior mate lol

 

[axeracing]

Ladies and Gentleman,
especially @AccAkut and @Phoenix77.

I have made further troubleshooting as I myself had some sound issues as well. In the beginning, they did not annoy me. But the longer I try to enjoy the track, the more it annoyed me. I also had those spikes every 4 seconds. However, I did not have the issues constantly every spike. When I had issues, they where either clicking noises or sound was gone for 1 up to 4 seconds while the game continued normally and also reacted to input just fine.

While testing I found, that I had the same issues offline as well. I did cross check this with official tracks. What I found is, that the issues are caused by a high load on the main track. On Kunos tracks, those are around 12 to 25 percent (for me that is). Online on LA Canyons Freeroam the load was constantly over 80%. Offline was no different.

I put some thought into it and may have found the issue. How? I use another ingame App which displays the whole map.png file at once so you can locate every player easily. What I noticed is, that the track is almost invisible on this map app as the lines were very thin. What is causing this? Of course, downscaled high resolution images. When I checked the map.png I was quite shocked as it has a resolution of 16382x16382. The horror! Such huge textures are really bad for graphics cards, especially if you do not own the latest model!

I have downscaled it to 8% and what would you think, my Issues were gone offline and online. Offline, the main thread is now down to 20%-30% load. Online on the server it's between 50% to 70%. My frame rate also kind of doubled while I had the chance to increase my gfx settings.

So please everything with some kind of issues on this track, please try the attached map.png file. Replace it in /la_canyons/freeroam. Please tell me if the issues are gone or are appearing less often. If so, Phoenix should include a downscaled version of this png file in the next update.

Yep, great find! Problem solved. Thanks!

 

[shmafoozius]

My bad for not downscaling that png.... I recorded it high res... as I drove all the way from Newcombs all the way to the LA end of Big Tujunga (to cover the widest part of the track)
Following the centreline all the way... was a long drive, focusing on keeping it the centreline! lol

Just wondering as I do not have any experience with making tracks (yet), but couldn't you make the map quicker just rendering the outlines of the road in your modeling software? That sure would be what I'd do if it's possible.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

I do that too. I record a quick and dirty lap just to get the size and position of the map from AC, and then I render the road surface directly from 3ds max. That way you get the changes in road width too

 

[shmafoozius]

Still sounds a bit ineffective to have to drive a lap and get the data from somewhere. Then again, never made a track so I don't know what I'm talking about. However, I want to start making a track in winter so getting to know how this stuff works is good.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Maybe so, but my track is only 26km long, so spending 10mins recording it once is no real hardship

 

[shmafoozius]

The 75,000 x 75,000 (8.4) image was only used to get the roads in place...

By the way, what's your source for the satellite images? Are you just using google maps and are stitching together many screenshots or are you using a completely different method?

 

[CobraCat]

I've observed the AI driving up against the barrier at the start of the race on Normal Loop. Took a look at the track limits and I'm guessing you shifted the track to one side a bit as the limits are outside of the barriers in various places along the road.

This might also explain why the AI at times drive off the road or try to drive off the road when I get beside them in the opposite lane, hahaha.

If Im feeling particualrly motivated I might try and record some new boundary lines, should be a fun challenge! HAHA

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Outer boundary lines are probably easier to make in 3ds max by exporting the left and right edges as .csv files (XZY coordinates).

 

[AccAkut]

I've observed the AI driving up against the barrier at the start of the race on Normal Loop. Took a look at the track limits and I'm guessing you shifted the track to one side a bit as the limits are outside of the barriers in various places along the road.

This might also explain why the AI at times drive off the road or try to drive off the road when I get beside them in the opposite lane, hahaha.

If Im feeling particualrly motivated I might try and record some new boundary lines, should be a fun challenge! HAHA

View attachment 260720

do it like I did for La Sarthe and record in the Abarth 595 for extra slow speed precision

 

[CobraCat]

Outer boundary lines are probably easier to make in 3ds max by exporting the left and right edges as .csv files (XZY coordinates).

Ya know I wondered if something like that was possible, very cool. Also discovered method for fixing sections of the track edge boundary line.

 

[Tberg]

Needs foilage and rock/hills textures soon!

 

[Ben O'Bro]

Needs foilage and rock/hills textures soon!

it's summer so you know...

i had fun at first. Trying to find my way to cover 42km of track... without too much of a headache!
So these screens were early June, nothing optimized at all, wrong normal on the mesh and so on... i was simply eager to see a hill full of trees, see how it looked.

There is such a variety of hills and elevation, the usual "wall of trees" for background won't work here, at least not everywhere. So i will have to find clever ways to do such thing, keeping an eye on memory.. I guess the end track will feel a lot less desert as it is now!
I come from a very different background, doing 3D for architecture, we don't care how much trees we show on scene, it's all rendered anyways, it even uses proxies for memory. Assetto feels so ancient next to it...
Here is an example :

​

Step by step we will manage to come up with something, but time is needed ! So don't have your expectations too high regarding greenery quality, as well as delivery date

 

[CobraCat]

Wow.. just wow.. That is an insane amount of work!

 

[Tberg]

it's summer so you know...

i had fun at first. Trying to find my way to cover 42km of track... without too much of a headache!
So these screens were early June, nothing optimized at all, wrong normal on the mesh and so on... i was simply eager to see a hill full of trees, see how it looked.

View attachment 260737
View attachment 260736

There is such a variety of hills and elevation, the usual "wall of trees" for background won't work here, at least not everywhere. So i will have to find clever ways to do such thing, keeping an eye on memory.. I guess the end track will feel a lot less desert as it is now!
I come from a very different background, doing 3D for architecture, we don't care how much trees we show on scene, it's all rendered anyways, it even uses proxies for memory. Assetto feels so ancient next to it...
Here is an example :

View attachment 260738
​

Step by step we will manage to come up with something, but time is needed ! So don't have your expectations too high regarding greenery quality, as well as delivery date

You can use treewalls relatively close to the track on a lot of the hills, just stack em in rows. Have a look at nordslejfe, the hill at Ex-Mühle for example (at 2:46 here).

That is about the best way to do the hills at distance:

 

[Phoenix77]

Just wondering as I do not have any experience with making tracks (yet), but couldn't you make the map quicker just rendering the outlines of the road in your modeling software? That sure would be what I'd do if it's possible.

I do that too. I record a quick and dirty lap just to get the size and position of the map from AC, and then I render the road surface directly from 3ds max. That way you get the changes in road width too

Yeah I have a top down render... it's just getting it cropped sized / scaled in the map.ini that I don't have much understanding of. Cheers for sharing your technique mate... Thing is... I can't just do a quick dirty lap for freeroam... as if I did that... around 20km's of the extra roads won't have space on the map... I needed to drive the widest part of the track... to get them all in, around 25 minutes across lol

 

[Phoenix77]

By the way, what's your source for the satellite images? Are you just using google maps and are stitching together many screenshots or are you using a completely different method?

I used (IIRC) USGS heightmap data... pretty big file... but not quite big enough for the area though... and used SASPlanet to download the mahoosive diffuse... takes a while to find the satellite service that gives the best overall quality.
Some have stitching glitches... some have joins... All takes a bit of work... But easier than stitching together a million photo tiles, that would be needed for this area...

SASPlanet basically does a lot of the stitching for you

Even using SASPlanet to get canyons satellite image wasn't easy... I had to cache approx 30km x 30km... scanning left and right at a high enough zoom level

 

[Phoenix77]

I've observed the AI driving up against the barrier at the start of the race on Normal Loop. Took a look at the track limits and I'm guessing you shifted the track to one side a bit as the limits are outside of the barriers in various places along the road.

This might also explain why the AI at times drive off the road or try to drive off the road when I get beside them in the opposite lane, hahaha.

If Im feeling particualrly motivated I might try and record some new boundary lines, should be a fun challenge! HAHA

View attachment 260720

Cheers for finding that... I did use edges from Max... I sent them to Correca... who created csv's from them using Blender... Maybe something went wonky on export / import.... But I could have sworn I double checked them... Maybe I needed to do a reset X-form on them or something... weird!

You'd have to feel extremely motivated to drive carefully for 84km's (per layout)
Nothing with this track is a simple job as most people probably think lol.... I appreciate you even making the offer

 

[Phoenix77]

it's summer so you know...

i had fun at first. Trying to find my way to cover 42km of track... without too much of a headache!
So these screens were early June, nothing optimized at all, wrong normal on the mesh and so on... i was simply eager to see a hill full of trees, see how it looked.

View attachment 260737
View attachment 260736

There is such a variety of hills and elevation, the usual "wall of trees" for background won't work here, at least not everywhere. So i will have to find clever ways to do such thing, keeping an eye on memory.. I guess the end track will feel a lot less desert as it is now!
I come from a very different background, doing 3D for architecture, we don't care how much trees we show on scene, it's all rendered anyways, it even uses proxies for memory. Assetto feels so ancient next to it...
Here is an example :

View attachment 260738
​

Step by step we will manage to come up with something, but time is needed ! So don't have your expectations too high regarding greenery quality, as well as delivery date

Awesome work you're doing mate It's a tricky thing getting the amount that has to go in efficient... But I have every faith you will nail it