Released Lime Creek Winter (mod)

luthobu · Jul 26, 2012

Lime Creek Winter (MOD)

Released: 26 July 2012
RevisionDate: 26 July 2012
Version: 1.2
Date Started: 16 June 2010
Author: Luthobu

About the MOD:
Created by Luthobu with permission from Mr. Brent Burton.
House models are from TurboSquid
Car models used with permission (from stereo @RaceDepartment.com)
Winter people textures are from http://www.archiforge.com/
Caravans made by tahustvedt
Other textures and models are by Luthobu

Thanks to:
Mr. Brent Burton for permission to create this mod
Stereo for the car models
tahustvedt for the caravans
Turbosquid for the houses
Archiforge for the winter people textures
JustinMartin for 1st hand info on Lime Creek & beta testing

Screenshots:
http://www.alge.no/racer/gallery/index.php?q=lime_creek/1

Download URL:
http://www.alge.no/projects/racer/releases/Lime_Creek_Winter.7z

Alexander Knoll · Jul 26, 2012

THX Luke!
Testing...

luthobu · Jul 26, 2012

Found a bug, some trees had been misplaced. Archive is updated
and a single file update can be downloaded here: trees_bulk.7z
Just extract it and replace the existing file.

Alexander Knoll · Jul 27, 2012

WoW...verry nice work!
But i think i mountet the wrong tyres...

...needs to be replaced...

KS95 · Jul 27, 2012

Great Luke, can't wait to test it on my days off.

luthobu · Jul 27, 2012

Another bug, and a rather annoying one! Road noise was way too
high and made fast driving almost impossible. Open special.ini
and edit line 41:

change road_noise=0.25 to road_noise=0.025

The archive has been updated.

Still TODO:
* Add more trees to the empty areas (looks unrealistic without)
* Add roadsigns (some of the curves are hard to see beforehand)
* Optimize road grip for winter track. Not yet 100% the way I want it.
* Add more railings. Maybe another type even.

Alexander Knoll · Jul 27, 2012

Hai Luke,
it's winter...fast driving is not possible in reality so why in Racer?
For me it feels ok, a max speed of ~100 km/h with a "normal" roadcar sounds real to me...
If here in germany's winter time, we can't drive every where with ~100...the most time you can hit the 80...with winter tyres...
Ok, if you at a highway (Autobahn) where the road is clean, no ice or snow with a lot of salt, then you can go over 100 km/h, but i think only there...

luthobu · Jul 27, 2012

Alexander Knoll said:
Hai Luke,
it's winter...fast driving is not possible in reality so why in Racer?

Sounds reasonable, but the road noise was so bad on my setup that
I got thrown off the road time and time again.. that is annoying. It is
still slippery, and it is easy enough for anyone to adjust the settings
to satisfy their own needs. Just thought it would be ok with a default
that is not totally b@d@33

Alexander Knoll · Jul 27, 2012

Ok, i try it...

boomer541 · Jul 28, 2012

Luje,
Great job on the snow textures and I agree that the road noise is waaay off what a winter road should have and notice that the snow in the center has a few problems also.

The center snow has some bumps that are 1 meter high from the settings you used. Snow in the center of a road as you have it has very few bumps, and those should be no more than 5 to 10 cm high. The viscosity is what changes as one drives thru that snow. This is from about 60 years of driving those kinds of roads.

Unfortunately we can't make variable viscosity unles you use a differnt texture name and use the surfaces in special.ini to set them up.

There should be a few animals running about also.

luthobu · Jul 28, 2012

@boomer541: Thank you so much for taking the time to test and
validate the settings! How did you calculate the height of the road
bumps and the viscosity? I just used a trial and error method while
driving. Your approach is more correct. I need to learn how to do that.
If you have the time to alter the special.ini, please do and share!
Maybe an idea to turn off road_noise and viscosity and just alter
the road_grip? Should suffice for that kind of road?

I can add animals, but have not yet learned how to make animated
objects so they will be static. I'll also add a snowman, forgot to do
that before the release.

DavidI · Jul 28, 2012

Thanks for the track Luthobu. One thing I noticed is the skidmarks should be turned off, looks a tad unrealistic.
Also, maybe have some of the trees, or maybe just some trunks of trees that can be collided with.
I had a lot of fun driving Gravedigger up hill & down dale, it's good to have a bit of freerange countryside to explore. It's a little sparse of foliage in the wilderness though, needs some more trees scattered around too.

KS95 · Jul 28, 2012

Had a drive last night, I really enjoyed it but I found it hard to slide. Surface feels too grippy imo. Looks brilliant though.

luthobu · Jul 28, 2012

Thanks for all the constructive comments! I agree with all of you,
and will do what I can to improve the track. While playing with
Racer settings today I discovered that altered settings give a
great variety of results, meaning the track will look very different
depending on the settings.

Take a look at the screenshot below with all Racer CG optimizations at full:

Compare it to the development version of the same track with minimal CG:

As you see, the results are very different, even though the track is the same!

In the latter I turned off bloom, fbo, blurring, just about everything that eats GPU power.
But Racer requires these settings to be on the get the best results, meaning that tracks
not made for a "full-blown" Racer will always be "fawlty".

I have to dig out a better GPU at work, I know we have one available, and try to optimize
ALL my tracks for a full CG Racer version. Bad for those who cannot run Racer at full
power, but unless I do it makes no sense at all to make tracks as they will never look
quite right.

luthobu · Jul 28, 2012

KS95 said:
Had a drive last night, I really enjoyed it but I found it hard to slide. Surface feels too grippy imo. Looks brilliant though.

Open special.ini and set surfaces -> surf_road -> grip_factor to 0.6

That is the default for snow.

luthobu · Jul 29, 2012

luthobu said:
Take a look at the screenshot below with all Racer CG optimizations at full:
..
Compare it to the development version of the same track with minimal CG:
..
As you see, the results are very different, even though the track is the same!

Doh. Minimal CG = NO-CG... the second image (development version) is the
same as the no-cg version.. This is really confusing

boomer541 · Jul 30, 2012

Luke,
Special.ini surfaces settings info. You can use the console command for graphs to view the results. The graphs commands can be found on racer nl.

; The surfaces sections are used with "road_noise=0.0" in racer.ini if I remember correctly;
; Surfaces - surf_xxxx - whatever you want to call it
; type=road - determines sound generated in racer.ini
; pattern=road* - image matched to generate sound
; grip_factor=0.2 makes track like ice
; rolling_resistance_factor= resistance of surface to the tire rolling on it.
; viscosity= - forceViscosity=-load*viscosity*wheelVelocity
; road_noise=0.5 - causes car to bump violently if too high, measured in meters
; road_noise_frequency=0.25 32 - perlin noise frequency sets distance between peaks
; with two to four values the second and subsequent are imposed on the first with
; the road_noise_amplitude values used in sequence
; road_noise_amplitude=1.0 0.1 - perlin noise amplitude height of bumps
; road_noise scales amplitude - road_noise * road_noise_amplitude = bump in meters
; road_noise_threshold <v1> <v2> ... if <v1> and <v2> is greater than the road_noise
; value the surface has no noise and is flat. If the threshold value is less than or
; equal to the road_noise value then the surface has that noise added to it.
; steer_noise=0.1 - for force feedback set as needed if you use it
; dust_color=1 1 1 - 0.0 to 1.0 red-green-blue for beta7.9 on
; skid_sound=0 for no skid sound on the surface, default is = 1
; no skid sound = no skid marks

This can be used with the same texture, differnt name to create pot holes etc

This is from my surfaces and sounds track.