WIP Parramatta Park 1952 GP 2 Mile Circuit

Parramatta Park 1952 GP 2 Mile Circuit...

Heya Folks, more of a lurker on the forums than an active guy, but may I say a massive thanks to all who have helped build the resource of info here, and also to those who directly assisted me in my various teething problems, and other issues as I slowly put this tracl all together...

Basic story is this is a track based around the 1952 GP Circuit that once ran around Parramatta Park in Syd Australia. The central feature of this Australia-Botantical type of park is the original Old Government House in the centre of the park that was one of the first settlements in Sydney outside of the camp on Sydney Harbour.

Around this Government House was a large agricultural acerage that was then developed into a public park, and at some point in the early 20th century even housed a private zoo and botanical gardens. Anyway, also within the grounds was a large 2 Mile public walking path/road around which a proposal was put forward in 1951to run a Gran Prix, with the auto club offering funds and manpower to develop the track and infrastructure into a 'world class' facility.

ParraGP-450.jpg


Only one major GP race, from what I can establish, was run in 1952, as well as likely a few minor club level races were also run before the police responded to the public concerns regarding noise, pollution and safety (heard that before!) closed the track and prohibited further races to be run.

The full circuit still exists today as part of the public (one way) road around the park. there have obviously been a few modifications to the number of adjoining roads, carparks and fences etc, but the basis of the original circuit still exists.

now theres a few different opinions on the old motorsports websites as to the exact course of the original track, but i think theyve all got it wrong, and have all been following the leader with a wrong impression of the course layout. having lived in parramatta for some years and knowing the layout very well, as well as finding evidence from a few old newspaper articles from 1951/1952 i think we've got the genuine track layout sorted.

Anyway, i dont have lidar, nor any mega fancy equipment, just a GPS tracker/data logger and some good maps. i went out and physically walked, rode, drove, god, LOTS of laps around the circuit, and gatherd an assload of data which i edited down and finally comiled into an accurate 3d map of the circuit. as best as that kind of equipment was going to offer anyway.

Similarly i took a lot of texture photos from right around the course, the brick walls, the verge on the tarmac, the leves and grass, the old sandstone etc etc, and i reckon its all blended together pretty damn well into a tight, blind, fast circuit with lots of altitude changes, good vegetation, and nice textures.

Ill upload a VERY beta version for folks to try out tonight. there are still some sections of ground that do not exist (not many but if you find them youll know about it!) and Id REALLY look forward to some feedback and criticism (constructive). This was ALL done by hand, all in BTB, by a complete noob at this modelling stuff. Its been great fun to build, and is by no means finished, but i think its at a stage where a test drive by folks other than myself would be of benefit in the finishing touches :)

ill upload the beta tonight, and lookforward to folk's impressions :)

cheers
ed
 
ok, so the complete BTB work folder with the x-packs etc is about 105mb... i dont think ill link that up quite yet as my server will freak out if 10 people try to download it altogether... so, if anyone wants the work-in-progress BTB files please email me ed@v-eight.com or shoot me a PM and ill send you the download link :)

meanwhile, heres the .rar file for the first release of the track. simply unzip into your locations folder and away you go :)

http://www.v-eight.com/multimedia/ParramattaPark1952.rar

so yeah, feedback, suggestions, comments all welcome! i look forward with some interest

cheers
ed

edit... ftp host is misbehaving... will try it again in the morning....
 
FTP still misbehaving, sorry for the original post with no follow-through with the goods!! haha... anyway, ill hop over to a friends place as borrow his internet sometime thisafternoon, hopefully shouldnt have any problems there

cheers
ed
 
Just test drove it in the Formula Vee mod (which suits this kind of track plenty). On my 2 GHz Core2Duo the fps is fairly low especially in the first (treelined) bits, going down to about 22 in places, the open bits of track are scary :tongue: and the huge pine trees have texture bits floating in mid-air, but: still a very promising track! Lots of character and if it can be improved further, could become a little 'future classic'. Good job so far! :D
 
cheers for that :)

yeah, theres still an assload of work to be put into it. fixing the holes in the earth for a start ;)

how best to appraoch getting it to run smoother? too many trees and objects? ive minimised the objects casting a shadow to only those that will have best effect, and ive tried to trim back as much **** as possible, whilst still trying to keep the depth in the foliage/shrubbery etc.

on my machine (p4 3.0 dual core with asus eah4650 1gb gfx) it doesnt skip a beat, so hard to make adjustments not knowing what itll look like on slower machines.

for what its worth though, i think it renders best with DX8 rather than 9. the colours and textures are better, and truer to what i wanted when develloping them in photoshop etc

cheers
ed
 
BLeeK from OARC has bitz for ya...

Gday Ed,
Did those two jpeg scans again at 1200dpi instead of at 360dpi,much better,but the race department web site wouldnt accept 35.1Mb worth of info for them. Do you mind PM-ing me your Eh?mail or catching me on mine(Ive posted it once before on woochoo's Longford pg.4 but dont wish to do it again due to spam!?).
As for the Graffiti(near historical eh? Maybe it should be repaited,it's still true.)it's-1st photo- RACE FOR PEACE &the second is-SPORTSGROUNDS NOTBATTLEGROUNDS
followed by what looks like someone's name,something along the line's of "-k McQ or G or C-something,I'll let you deside.
Tried your Parra' circuit &Ive gotta say Im pretty impressed!
I wouldnt mind pinching your woodchip & leaf-litter textures (let alone the broken dead tree) at sometime in the future(perhaps along with some of your grass?).
I wouldnt worry about the flow/feel of your track now,it's as you said' got the right feel' & flows well,
maybe with a circuit with so little accurate data,its what could've metamorphasized (Is that it?!?) over time with road re-alighnments & wot not(such as Bathurst& others recieved). Perhaps if more details come to light, you can add details such as that hair pin in a different location.
Personally, I dont mind backing cars into that hairpin all crossed up like a 2-stroke moto X-er,but I can also see the attraction to a tightening curve as if the hairpin was further around the curve.
All the same it's your track & we'll all enjoy it no matter what you decide.

Best of luck wiv it all,
BLeeK.

PS. By the way, luv doin screechies on the river but would you be working on un-breakable pine log rails
on the roadside at turn three(I think):D
 
ed (at) v-eight.com

cheers!
ed

PS - ask away about the GPS stuff. fwiw i used 'racechrono' lap timing software. runs on a variety of platforms, can use inbuilt or bluetooth/usb GPS receivers, and is free :)
 
Just watched the video and have to give you any & all encouragement towards finishing! There's a very nice retro appearance without looking like it came from GPL (Grand Prix Legends).
 
OK Ed,
Would you,(I ask,in short, as Im sure there's many more questions)pass on your considered opinions & exsperience on how
to use the GPS features on BTB as the tutorials only start up at the "plain text"stage & Im unsure about what I need
or how to go about it to get that far.
I very rarely get enough time off work to recover, let alone play Bungonia-er's. That's why, when I do get time off enough,
that I want to get it right with as few "expleative deleteds" as possible in my GPS-ing.
Also,is it possible to "over-lay"several GPS readings to get a better lay of the track surface?
Lastly, not just your method,but what software & bits & which order did you use it all?
I know you gave me a brief before but, ? Again pleeez?

Thanks heaps,
BLeeK.
 
ok, first up with the data... if you use racechrono for eg, for a single lap, it will spit out something that BTB cant use straight away. theres too much extra data, plus words and symbols that will confuse the import procedure ... you need to simplify and reformat the data into a simple CSV format in excel.... to basically something that looks like this:

150.9972945,-33.8111078,16.49
150.99729,-33.8111212,16.2
150.9972863,-33.8111298,16.2
150.997284,-33.8111397,16.31
150.9972822,-33.8111503,16.2
150.9972845,-33.8111588,16.31
150.9972862,-33.8111658,15.99

the values are long, lat, height and each line just all goes in one cell, separated by commas. then 'save as' .csv ...dont use any titles to you data columns, nothing, just a long string of text.

when you then import that into BTB, it will ask you whether you want to use EVERY data point (thats a metric fckload of datapoints!) or you can get BTB to average them for you, say average every 10 points into a single unit and use that. makes life a LOT smoother :) then what you can do is import say 9 further data sets from your long day of different gps logging sessions/laps, and from each data set, create a new track all in the same project at once. yes, youll now have 10 individual tracks sitting on your screen on top of each other, all very similar, but different here and there. pick the one you like the most, and with the bits of your tack you dont like, adjust that track to match one of the 9 other tracks that will be sitting there, that you do like. then, once youve adjusted your one chosen track to accomodate what you think are the best bits of all the circuits you imprted, delete the 9 unwanted tracks off the screen, leaving your baby sitting there by itself.

you can then import a nice BIG image off google earth into the background of your track, and see how everything lines up there. using that background also helps HEAPS with terrain construction, and is also nice to use for blending your textures with later.
 
heres racechrono:

http://www.racechrono.com/

runs on nokia symbian phones, windows mobile 6.x, i think even windows laptops etc.

what you want to use in there is the 'datalogging' function which bascially maps what you do, with speed, alt, poition, and some other crap you dont need as well. fortunately it does the simple stuff too, and that wahts btb needs...

you export your datalogging session as per this page:

http://www.racechrono.com/manual/?page_id=6

and export as .csv

when you open the .cvs (as i mentioned above) youll simple have to manually delete, cleanup, and reformat the colums and data etc,yo it looks like what i posted above, and no more.

from there the rest is easy. racechrono make its a piece of cake, really :)

the hard part is the time taken to get the data. due to the way gps works (hates things standing still or moving too slowly) id suggest acquiring your data several different times with each lap done at a different speed. walking, bike, car etc. also, only do it on a good clear sunny day with little or no wind

cheers
ed
 
Hmm,so I didnt need to buy that Navman now. D'oh.
Thanks heaps for that Ed,Ive still got those two scans here waiting for you too,
PM me your Eh?mail address & I'll send 'em along to you.
Thanks heaps,
BLeeK
 
Personally, I dont mind backing cars into that hairpin all crossed up like a 2-stroke moto X-er

PS. By the way, luv doin screechies on the river but would you be working on un-breakable pine log rails
on the roadside at turn three(I think):D

haha, the x'd up comment had me giggling. i knw exactly what you mean. come farken cscreaming up on , and slide fully locked up straight out the other side...

unbreakable wall? your getting soft! land in the river (or the creek) and youre a gorner! have you taken turn 1 too heavy yet? found the creek? you will!!

cheers
ed

PS - send me that email, and ill fire you back those leaf textures and the grass
 

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