A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

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Righteous
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A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Well, I've decided to try making a track for myself.

Despite having a silly amount of work on at the moment, I wanted to see if I could do it. Finished work at 8 on Saturday and stayed up till 3 am playing around. :) The biggest road block for me was seeing if I could get from Cinema 4D to the AC editor and then into the game. I sussed all that out Saturday night and have a good workflow in place.

It's a very short track, around about a minute lap as it is now, but I'll do something bigger once I've done this one. I just wanted to be able to complete something before I move onto a bigger one. I really want to do a street circuit like the south city stuff from LFS.

Images will be here for anyone interested.

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Once I've filled out the infield and stopped the cars from being able to fall to infinity I'll upload it for people to have a play with just to see what they think of the layout. I won't be making any changes to the circuit layout from this point though as it's not necessarily about the track at the moment. Although I do think it's a fun little layout.

For now I'm working on textures and track side detail. I think I'm going to make it feel like a small club circuit.

I'm posting it here to hopefully keep myself motivated.

:D
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by SE1Z »

Very cool mate, will be watching with interest! :tilt:
A short, fun track would be great - throw in some elevation changes and you'll be onto a winner.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Yeah, It's one of the first things I did. I went way too far initially, the car was flying off the track :) I was really surprised by the how much the small changes had a big impact. It took some fiddling.

I'll chuck up some more pics of the back section tonight, there's a nice little rise and fall to the last hairpin. You travel around the track anti clockwise. Lot's of nice camber on the corners too. I spent a lot of time just getting the few corners the way I like. I love free flowing stuff like Mugello, but wanted over taking spots too. T1 feels like it should work and the hairpin too.

I've also put some subtle bumps on the inside of the first left hander too, it's just enough to unsettle the car slightly. I designed it around the BMW 1M, faster cars may not be as much fun. Overall the track is fairly uneven. I wanted it to feel like a club circuit, not a tilkedome.
Last edited by Righteous on Mon Jul 14, 2014 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Crowella »

I've thought about giving this a shot too. I'll be following this thread. Looks like it'll be great to bash around in some tin tops. :D
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Duke »

Wow Righty that's a great project, love the layout. :yes:
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Exar Kun »

That's an awesome little layout! Lots of different speeds for the corners in such a short track.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Cheers guys.

I'm very excited about getting it done, I've got lots of ideas for different things to try.

I don't have a great understanding of the material side of things in the AC editor so for me it's all about understanding how it all works. The 3D side is fine, I've got plenty of knowledge on modelling, but I've not really done modelling for games, so that's been interesting so far.

I've used "photo mode" in the game itself, just zipping around looking at how much geometry there is in objects around the track, some of it is incredibly simple, the trick is having textures that add detail I think.

Google images are an amazing source of reference images and textures too these days. I won't be using any textures as I find them, but hoping to combine things to create my own. I don't want it to look like any of the other tracks that people have done. The sand trap that's on the track now is a texture I created from a few different images on google.

Is it home time yet?
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by NeilPearson »

awesome stuff righteous.

Good luck and have fun!
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by norbs »

Maybe ARSEtralia can be the next project. It never did quite make it in GPL.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Dare I ask?
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by norbs »

I clockwise track in the shape of Australia. I think Bauer worked on it amongst others. Will see if he has anything of it left.

I drove a very crude version in GPL and it was awesome.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Shaun »

looks good so far righty, maybe a bonus round at the end of the AACL? :D
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Shaun wrote:looks good so far righty, maybe a bonus round at the end of the AACL? :D
In the p1!

20 sec lap :D
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by pixelboy »

Definitely going to race AACL on this at some stage :up:
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Shaun »

awesome, come on righty release a .0.0.0.1 alpha for everyone :p
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by GT VIRUS »

Best bit of advice I can give is test the layout early on (as in right now!). Nothing worse when doing a fantasy layout than finding out the layout itself sucks. Can only be best tested by driving it.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Yeah, I did that all over the weekend. Ran the 1M for a lot of laps. Tweaked the corners and the elevation till I was happy with it.

I'll definitely post a WIP for Gizmo to have a run on ;)

I'll only do that once then just work on the details and then release one last one before calling it done. It takes a long time to apply all the materials. By the time it has all the details it will probably take a while to get it game ready.

Realistically I am hoping it will be all done within a month at the most, depends how much weekend time I get on it.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Bauer »

norbs wrote:I clockwise track in the shape of Australia. I think Bauer worked on it amongst others. Will see if he has anything of it left.

I drove a very crude version in GPL and it was awesome.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

Haha, gold.

Perhaps it could be re imagined :)

I've spent the majority of the night working on the wall in the last turn and a bit of time in the first turn and fixing UV's for the first quarter of the track.

It's a slow process but I'm basically laying each slab of concrete by hand. I tried automating it but it was much too uniform and not the look I wanted. It's got a nice un-even look to it now.

I was going to keep working on it but wanted to have a play. Out of Cinema 4D and ready to play is about a 30-40 minute process at the moment.

I recorded a video just so you can see the elevation changes.

There are a couple of areas where I'm debating using kerbs, I'm not sure if it will better or not. I like being on the edge of the track, but I guess you'd still do that with the kerbs. I'm very happy with the layout, it's a lot of fun.

Video can be seen here " onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and there's a couple of new pics in the folder from the OP with the work on the wall.
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Shaun »

Looks a lot better than what people are releasing already man, keep it up
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Righteous »

I couldn't help myself. Made myself slightly late for work but took the Cobra around my track.

They have done a really fantastic job with this model. I'm sure they will tweak and refine the handling, but of the 2 laps I ran, it was fun and I can't wait to have a go again tonight. I think it's the perfect sort of car for this layout.

Here's a vid.

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Note the excellent pit position at the moment ;)
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by DexterPunk »

Awesome work! Looks like it's going to be a cracking little track. :yes:
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Quincy »

Looking good!!

More kerbs, more kerbs, more kerbs!! :kangaroo:
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Exar Kun »

Quincy wrote:Looking good!!

More kerbs, more kerbs, more kerbs!! :kangaroo:
I actually like it without kerbs. Would be nice with some big patches of dirt where cars have been running wide!
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Re: A learning exercise, I'm making a track.

Post by Shaun »

i reckon on that little chicane have a kerb that pops the car up on 2 wheels if you cut it too hard :D
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