Sense of scale

[Alex Kyriak]

Hi all,

Reading the (wise) advice on this forum suggests that the textbook way of putting a circuit together has the detail - objects, terain, etc - being added after the track is made and tested (and tested) for the drive, the lines, etc.

However, I find it's not until there is some scenery in there that the sense of scale properly becomes apparent. When driving on a largely empty track with basic terrain, I find it difficult to tell. Once the scenery is in, even if its just a few marker poles, I then feel much more able to judge how to tweak the track itself to get the lines. Does anyone else find this or is it just me?!

 

[woochoo]

yep, i agree. especially when driving with nose cam or the btb drive track camera.
the way i see it, and it is particularly re-inforced by the capacity of btb vs 3dsm for example, is, the objects have to get in there at some stage, so why not sprinkle a few around early on. if you change the height of the terrain, the trees, houses, marker posts etc will adjust automatically, so if it helps get your juices flowing, that must be the best way to do it. in 3dsm of course you would have to move each object each time you raise or lower terrain so it might take a bit longer and cause frustration. just one of the many ways in which BTB is a king program. it doesn't just let you do things, it helps you!

 

[Alex Ramsey]

I agree. Staring at long stretches of green grass or even just bare road is difficult for "staging" the track and giving each corner the feeling you desire as you drive through it.

 

[Emery]

And more agreement from me. Mainly putting a few key things in place, even as dummy placemarkers, goes a long ways for test drives.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

It's interesting how width affects this as well. I guess it sounds obvious, but you can make a track feel more intimate and tighter by losing a metre or so off the width. If you're making a fictitious circuit, the 'flow' that you might have envisaged and drawn into the track can be better achieved with a corresponding width, and be ruined by too wide a track. The other thing I am concious of during testing of the flow and lines is to use different cars to see how they react to it.

 

[ThreeDays]

In the download section there is an XPack (made by Ennisfargis, I think) with a couple of 200 m-long rulers. I've used these often, especially on the approach to corners, to be able to judge distances better before anything else is installed. This can be done by putting marker poles as well, but I've found the rulers much more comfortable to place and delete.

Just a suggestion....

 

[Alex Kyriak]

That's useful. Will give it a go. Normally just reset the grid spacing to a unit that approximates a distance I (think!) need. I wonder if one of the next iterations of BTB could have "construction lines" that could be drawn into the viewports, sort of like a CAD application? That way we could specify distances, offsets, and radii for corners. Brendon?