Tracks Wicklow Mountains, Ireland 1.1.0

NightEye87 · Feb 24, 2021

dwightyone said:
Well, this is right up my street and it looks awesome but grassfx is an absolute fps killer for me and I can't use it. I'm nowhere near my rig atm so can I just ask is the grass that comes with it like Assetto default grass.

Having only GrassFX should come as a bonus, then. As you can manually control its quality or even its absence

@Jake Grafton
Regarding the darkness, the ambient value of the road is at 0,12 which makes the shadows from trees really dark. Also the specularEXP is really low. Try something like 25.
I did a quick fix (but this is not the proper way to do it):

Code:

[MATERIAL_ADJUSTMENT_...]
ACTIVE = 1
MATERIALS = Tarmac?, Concrete?, Material #25, Gravel?
KEY_0 = ksAmbient
VALUE_0 = 0.17
KEY_1 = ksDiffuse
VALUE_1 = 0.12
KEY_2 = ksSpecularEXP
VALUE_2 = 25

For reference, Brands Hatch road uses 0,30 ambient and 0,22 diffuse. Your textures might be too bright to start with.
You can easily replace textures for testing by using the /trackname/skins/default/ folder. Just drop your altered road texture in and restart the game. Obviously shader values are not changed, but the extension ini can do that for you for testing purposes.

Here is a before and after:

Performance-wise this runs perfectly fine for me. But I should agree on not using any textures larger than 4K. It really kills performance on cards with less memory.
The track maps of the layouts are incorrect. Recreate them via CM (Update map > from surfaces > at, say, 200%).

The timing on stage 2 appears to be broken. Or I missed a gate by flying past them due to some ditch

Make sure the timing gates are sufficiently wide. (I just double checked by sticking to the asphalt and stage 2 is indeed broken)
The other stages work fine.

I like the little country road when starting stage 4, although I think the hotlap starting position should be before the sharp corner on the main road. For a pit start it's absolutely fine

This applies to all hotlap starting positions, really.

AI lines are a must. Even if they are recorded at 50% speed, have sloppy corners in them. Doesn't really matter. AC needs them for cameras and for the wrong way sign. The stages work fine but on the full layout you can't make a full lap.
But! Then you might need to consider doing reverse layouts, too

Anyway, I really enjoyed driving these roads! Well done

Edit: Oh, one more thing. The /tracklayout/data/lighting.ini has a sun heading angle of 93 degrees (for stage 3 it's 180). The track is modelled with North upward (as seen by the map) so these numbers should be 0 if you want accurate Sun trajectory

Jake Grafton · Feb 24, 2021

NightEye87 said:
Having only GrassFX should come as a bonus, then. As you can manually control its quality or even its absence

@Jake Grafton
Regarding the darkness, the ambient value of the road is at 0,12 which makes the shadows from trees really dark. Also the specularEXP is really low. Try something like 25.
I did a quick fix (but this is not the proper way to do it):

Code:

[MATERIAL_ADJUSTMENT_...] ACTIVE = 1 MATERIALS = Tarmac?, Concrete?, Material #25, Gravel? KEY_0 = ksAmbient VALUE_0 = 0.17 KEY_1 = ksDiffuse VALUE_1 = 0.12 KEY_2 = ksSpecularEXP VALUE_2 = 25

For reference, Brands Hatch road uses 0,30 ambient and 0,22 diffuse. Your textures might be too bright to start with.
You can easily replace textures for testing by using the /trackname/skins/default/ folder. Just drop your altered road texture in and restart the game. Obviously shader values are not changed, but the extension ini can do that for you for testing purposes.

Here is a before and after:
View attachment 448484

Performance-wise this runs perfectly fine for me. But I should agree on not using any textures larger than 4K. It really kills performance on cards with less memory.
The track maps of the layouts are incorrect. Recreate them via CM (Update map > from surfaces > at, say, 200%).

The timing on stage 2 appears to be broken. Or I missed a gate by flying past them due to some ditch
Make sure the timing gates are sufficiently wide. (I just double checked by sticking to the asphalt and stage 2 is indeed broken)
The other stages work fine.

I like the little country road when starting stage 4, although I think the hotlap starting position should be before the sharp corner on the main road. For a pit start it's absolutely fine This applies to all hotlap starting positions, really.

AI lines are a must. Even if they are recorded at 50% speed, have sloppy corners in them. Doesn't really matter. AC needs them for cameras and for the wrong way sign. The stages work fine but on the full layout you can't make a full lap.
But! Then you might need to consider doing reverse layouts, too

Anyway, I really enjoyed driving these roads! Well done

Edit: Oh, one more thing. The /tracklayout/data/lighting.ini has a sun heading angle of 93 degrees (for stage 3 it's 180). The track is modelled with North upward (as seen by the map) so these numbers should be 0 if you want accurate Sun trajectory

Nighteye87, thanks so much for spending the time and providing all these suggestions! This is extremely valuable. I'm going to start checking on these points very soon.

Jake Grafton · Feb 25, 2021

Jake Grafton updated Wicklow Mountains, Ireland - Part 1 of 2 with a new update entry:

Bugs found

Known bugs, just found:

- Section 2 Finish sign wrongly positioned at parking lot (next to a van), it should be at the Sally Gap intersection (with all of the signs)
- Invisible wall (collider) under the street lamp at the Finish line of Section 4/Full

Will be fixed at next update.

Please report any other found bugs.

Read the rest of this update entry...

Chris Kennedy · Feb 25, 2021

got round to driving each section, really nice. section 3 is really good.
grassFX really is essential, my initial tries i only had grassfx on "very low" which is fine for every other track, however this one really needs it set to medium - maybe worth noting that setting below medium is not advised in the description. not ideal as will cost me fps unnecessarily on other tracks but i guess that cant be helped. grassfx is truly impressive as to what it does with presumably relatively little effort required for you.
the low res textures on hills i was referring to that grassfx doesnt save are mainly in stage 1, everywhere else isn't too bad, example screens of areas that stick out:

https://imgur.com/a/BTqsvhh

a couple of minor observations (should have captions):

https://imgur.com/a/axx9e0B

edit: also i hope you can do something about the wrong way sign etc. shouldnt need to disable penalties

Jake Grafton · Feb 25, 2021

Chris Kennedy said:
got round to driving each section, really nice. section 3 is really good.
grassFX really is essential, my initial tries i only had grassfx on "very low" which is fine for every other track, however this one really needs it set to medium - maybe worth noting that setting below medium is not advised in the description. not ideal as will cost me fps unnecessarily on other tracks but i guess that cant be helped. grassfx is truly impressive as to what it does with presumably relatively little effort required for you.
the low res textures on hills i was referring to that grassfx doesnt save are mainly in stage 1, everywhere else isn't too bad, example screens of areas that stick out:

https://imgur.com/a/BTqsvhh

a couple of minor observations (should have captions):

https://imgur.com/a/axx9e0B

edit: also i hope you can do something about the wrong way sign etc. shouldnt need to disable penalties

I will change the description to include the Medium setting.

Yes, it's pretty easy to use GrassFX -- I just have to define the areas and textures and the type of grass in those. Only the mountain areas have custom grass.

Thanks for taking the time to make those screen shots. I see what you mean. I would probably fill those areas with more 3D objects as a higher resolution probably wouldn't solve the issue.

Yes, I intend to correct the Wrong way issue by setting up proper AI lines. I didn't notice it because use a patch to block it.

Thanks again!

Jake Grafton · Feb 26, 2021

dwightyone said:
Either way I can't wait to try it!

Did you get a chance to try it? How does it perform on your system?

dwightyone · Feb 26, 2021

Jake Grafton said:
Did you get a chance to try it? How does it perform on your system?

Not yet but I will do asap - I'm isolating atm for another 2 days and then I'm free to race again!

Grace Dylan · Feb 28, 2021

Pretty much only driven this track since within an hour of it dropping here....... I'm in love honestly! Gorgeous visuals, a very real feeling surface, and every time I'm remembering moments from irl motorcycle rides in the area, even come across a few apexes that caused some squeaky bum times in sim and irl haha.

Jake Grafton · Feb 28, 2021

@Charles Parker That's friggin' awesome! So glad to hear it.

Thanks for the pics -- keep them coming! Nice choice of classic cars also.

Jake Grafton · Feb 28, 2021

Charles Parker said:
Pretty much only driven this track since within an hour of it dropping here....... I'm in love honestly! Gorgeous visuals, a very real feeling surface, and every time I'm remembering moments from irl motorcycle rides in the area, even come across a few apexes that caused some squeaky bum times in sim and irl haha. View attachment 449791 View attachment 449796 View attachment 449795

That last one is my new wallpaper.

brousun · Feb 28, 2021

I’m relatively new to AC so forgive me if this issue is already well-understood technically... Others mentioned the dreaded “shake”, and I seem to experience it only in the parking lot you start out in. Course rides smooth (er, as smooth as intended) otherwise.

Jake Grafton · Feb 28, 2021

brousun said:
I’m relatively new to AC so forgive me if this issue is already well-understood technically... Others mentioned the dreaded “shake”, and I seem to experience it only in the parking lot you start out in. Course rides smooth (er, as smooth as intended) otherwise.

Yes, this is apparently an issue with large tracks. There is a patch, but I can't link here. Do a search for "shaders patch wobbling".

dempo · Mar 1, 2021

any chance of adding more pit boxes to the track

Jake Grafton · Mar 1, 2021

dempo said:
any chance of adding more pit boxes to the track

Yes, I will be uploading a patch today.

Jake Grafton · Mar 1, 2021

Jake Grafton updated Wicklow Mountains, Ireland - Part 1 of 2 with a new update entry:

Update v0.9.1

This a very small update:

- fix the "Wrong way" issue on the Full layout
- changed to 48 pits

A much better AI and other fixes are on the way.

Read the rest of this update entry...

Jonah Hax · Mar 2, 2021

Are there any plans to increase the number of pits?

Jonah Hax · Mar 2, 2021

Just saw this: - changed to 48 pits

But all layouts says 4 pits for me after I updated to latest version.

Ok, there ARE 48 pits, so I guess you forgot to change the number in UI. Thanks for the extra pits!

PixelCow · Mar 3, 2021

Is anyone else getting random frame drops here? I'm running a flat 60fps but every 5-6 seconds it drops to basically zero. Only happening on Wicklow, other high stress tracks such as LA Canyons & Shukoto are no problem. Tried messing with different CSP versions and same issue.