Where are all the 3rd party tracks?

It's all doom and gloom isn't it. There always has been modders and there always will be modders. They are not going extinct it is just with new tech requires some users to learn more in depth about the new details. Some are willing to do this obviously, with a passion for creating content. Others neither have the patience or are willing to learn some new tips for the new tech.

It's like the Unreal Engine 4, it is very easy to create something pretty looking (well at least easier than before) but if you want to push it further you are going to have to work harder! Sim racing has always been a niche and as far as I am concerned will never be "mainstream". If it hasn't got guns and explosions and maybe a little blood, it seems that is what sells and the public lap it up (even though it is weird!).

Remember... the modders that we had in the rF1 days are now older, wiser and probably have different priorities in their life. I know I would rather spend quality time with my niece than building a track for a sim that others will download once, say it's crap and move on.

 

Do you know how much time I have spent modding tracks? Probaly over 500 hours

Do you know how much time I spend as an average for each track? About 100 hundred hours last tracks.

Do you know why Mario made several scripts for 3ds max? Because it is not an appropiate tool for many repetitive things that take a lot of time if they are not automatized.

I could spend 10 hours writing in a forum if I could save 10 percent of the work required to make a track.

Regarding learning 3dsmax. How much time do you think I would need to get to the same knowledge point as freew67?

How many people do you think are willing to spend hundreds of hours before they can get to the point of being able to build a quality track?

What is the point of having such a moddable quality sim if the amount of time required to get that quality tracks is so high?

I laugh at the 25% of extra work. Just look at the sizes of rf2 isi tracks vs rF1 tracks. It is not only textures, gmts are much bigger in general. 3dtools work much slower when they move bigger scenes. Exporting times become endless.

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This isn't backed up by any PC usage stats, or even sales.

How many sims has there been without an ISI engine since 2003? There's been iRacing, Kunos and RBR (which is a specialist engine, IMHO). Now, please consider that it is now 2014. Only RBR guys aren't here. This is actually one of the most healthy times in PC racing simulations I have ever seen. Hell, even LFS is getting updates.

 

They are bigger because they decided to add more detail, you can run more complex stuff than 8 years ago. Having bigger gmts doesn't mean that making tracks is harder now. It just means that there are more objects, or those objects have more detail (and the high res textures).

Use layers, then just select whatever you want to see on the screen. Easy.

 

Tim do you have an estimate of manhour required to build indianapolis?

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No, I don't know, sorry. Two guys, they did jump on and off it a LOT as we were, weren't, were, weren't then were going to do the new roadcourse. I think it might have taken less time overall than any previous track, even with that. But man hours on it full-time, I doubt even they know as they were off it a lot of the time.

I don't see how that affects the discussion though. They're making better quality tracks now than they were a year ago, in less time than they spent making those lesser quality tracks. Time isn't a factor here, for us at least. The number would be meaningless. Again, if you want a more complex tool than BTB, you already have one you can look at, it's what we use, it's 3ds max. Our time went down by learning how to do things. If time is a factor, you kinda have your answer there.

 

Many thanks for the link to this tut freew67. I`ve been learning 3ds max for a bout three months or so now, mainly going by tuts to gain a basic knowledge of the software and, although I`m hoping to learn how to model/build various things, cars are what I`m concentrating on now so this will be very helpful.

Wise words too and good stuff on the blog.

 

I was comparing as you asked sir. Making a track is making a track, what might take me 1 hour might take someone else 5 or the other way around. I also feel its not a ton of extra work because the gmotor engine is helping improve the look of cars/tracks as well. My stock rF1 track in my opinion looked better right off the bat just because of the shadows and lighting was huge improvement. Making the track mesh is no different than rF1 or tbh many other racing sims. Adding more polys while making the mesh only requires a few extra clicks. Hence for the experienced max folks, I think 25% more work is fair.

I have not released anything for few reasons.

1. Most of what I have in game right now is not mine to release. I made it for a league.
2. The group I work with hasn't moved on to rF2.
3. Without any cars, I don't see the point of releasing the tracks that go along with those cars.

 

You are absolutely right IMO. Todays tracks quality is awesome in certain cases as in Pcars. People will get used to that quality soon. When you start at modding you need a lot of motivation to overcome all the difficulties of the learning process plus the amount of time itself required.

When the result of such a hard work is so far from what you are used to, frustration appears. If in anycase you proudly happen to publish it in this forum and typically receive the nice critics of some people basically saying you made a piece of crap then you might lose the small amount of motivation remaining.

At this pace quality modding will only be possible if professionally dedicated to it. Undoubtedly this would mean less content and will end up for sure in paid content.

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Yes, I agree with you on something. It took a lot of work and dedication to get to the point I am. Are there others who are better and know more than me? Absolutely, but I strive to improve with each project. Thing is, no matter how good your work is someone will cut it down. I have honestly heard someone complain about a porta-john being the wrong color.

rF1 took a few years to get off the ground as well. It took people making those crap mods time to learn the new and very different engine. Are there some really good rF1 tracks? Yup, and I feel in due time when people get more comfortable with rF2 we will see the same.

Some people are plenty happy with a solid working mod. Not everyone cares if its to the standard of Silverstone or Indy. They just want to race. To each their own.

 

I agree it's great that there is more than one product to use, compare and provide some competition. iRacing has its track purchase plan, which I don't mind. I own every non-oval in the sim, but even with a pay-per-track scheme it has taken a long time to get what they have over there. AC has few tracks, although the ones they do have are more than adequate quality for my needs. Not clear how many more official tracks we'll see from Kunos. We'll find out soon enough if talented modders come out of the woodwork to make AC tracks. So far there are lots of quick/crappy conversions, just like here. rF2 has some very nice tracks, but with very little in the pipeline and/or it takes a LONG time for them to be constructed.

I would personally like to see a track consortium. I would gladly pay for top quality tracks on a per-track basis if I could use them in any/all of my preferred sims (rF2, AC and iRacing). If necessary, I'll pay for them three times as long as the cost is not exorbitant. But instead we're left with a hodge-podge of availability and quality and fighting over licensing where key tracks are selling features for one sim vs. another.

 

There is quite a big scope for rF2s future. What I am working towards is addons, not developed by us, while we continue making our content alongside. A company that might consider licensing our engine to make a standalone could just use their license to build content for rF2, we sell it, we protect it (easy if we handle purchases, you join a server running a mod, we know whether you bought it or not), and rF2 gets that content. How bad do things feel thinking about that? Legal mods could do the same thing. To be honest, those external devs making standalones would probably make more money for less work. We get rF2 sales, maybe a cut, they get to not pay us a licensing fee for our engine, or do engine work at all.

That is one of the things I am hoping to see happen with a number of places we have incomplete series'. Obviously supporting it, is on us. But I personally think you'll get exactly what you're asking for at some point.

 

^ This ! sounds like the future and the best outcome for developers, modders and racers / users alike ...

The Ring Tourist is such an excellent track and the guys who made/converted it obviously put many hours and lots of love into making it better but at the end the main guy left quite disillusioned with the lack of gratitude. If he had been fairly paid however then it would be a different or happier ending ... imho.

 

I think it sounds excellent! And as I have said many times, you can get some great creative content and maybe even have to help polish it a bit or contribute in some way, but end up with "ISI-quality" product at undoubtedly less cost and less risk to ISI. Loch Drummond is a good example (that may or may not have followed this course, but it could have). And the modders/artists get a chance to build something that "goes commercial" and they can use it in their quest for employment if that's what they would like to do (likely).

Or, it's a collective and they are already more organized as a commercial entity. Good for them. The better ones turn into the Reiza Studio's.

Go for it posthaste!!

 

That kind of support will definitely be welcome.

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That is 2 weeks full time? Not as much as you make it sound I think!

And you reached this conclusion because you are an experienced max user? Or did you only reach this conclusion because it suits your argument? I build tracks
using none of Marios' tools, no problem at all. One of the strengths of max is that you can add everyting but your mother in law to beef up the already overpowered software.
How is that a not appropriate tool.

Seems a bit of an unfair question, does it matter how long something takes to learn if you are passionate about it? How long did it take
you to build your first track to a level where you were happy with it?

There have been people before, why should this suddenly have changed?

Creating quality work always costs time, in the rF1 days it was not different. That people got away with quick conversions, simple BTB stuff
doesn't mean that should be the standard. I can slap on a crappy photo onto a box and call it a building now too, but that doesn't mean I should..
Yes if this is how a person builds tracks and props, hell everything extra will take 25% more time at least just because this guy scraped by with the minimum. Again,
that isn't necessarily what you should aim for, especially with the demanding community, right?

Sorry but I simply laugh at your arguments, it really makes me feel you make those up as you go along...

Seriously, your conclusions and facts are so distorted... I know we aren't agreeing on this one but some things are
just stuff presented as fact while I think they are based merely on opinion, let alone experience.

What is worrying me more, is that people like Marc Collins take those as fact seemingly without doubt, how ill-informed or short sighted they may be.

Good on you, my reply was more directed to SPASKIS as we've been there before and seemingly still are.

 

Wgeuze. I asked Tim how much time to build a quality track like indy. Answer: I dont know. Answer please if you have better figures. I do not log my hours so I made a rough estimate. However a software company should better know the resources that have been dedicated to a project, track in this case.

You are now basically saying that Marios work is worthless and that is not needed. You are not very intelligent when using the word needed. Mario spent a lot of hours on those tools to recover by time later by having some things automatized. You are not getting the point that it all goes about effort and time. I never said 3ds max wasn't enough to build tracks. I just said it takes too much time and with a dedicated tool much of this time could be saved and the learning process would be much faster. Do you understand now Mr?

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I don't have better figures than Tim has obviously, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do 8 months on man-hours with the two of them excluding probable overtime.

Actually if you read that paragraph again, you will see I don't use the words 'worthless' and 'needed' at all. I am merely countering your argument with a simple fact, I do
not use those. Also, in the same paragraph you can read that one of the powers of 3dsmax is, that while it does all you want and more, you still can add stuff to it, like
Marios' tools you brought up. They obviously have a purpose, otherwise I doubt it a lot Mario would have gone through the trouble building them in the first place

About your last sentence, I do understand and I also know that was your argument from the first time we discussed this subject. The problem is what is outlined this topic
already, a dedicated tool would still be something with a steep learning process and should do much more than the BTB's of this world. Because, unless you can do everything
which involved trackbuilding in that tool, you can hardly call it a dedicated track building tool, right? Now when all of that stuff is actually implemented, you basically end up
with your normal 3d software, thus, back to the steep learning curves.

 

I'm comparing works done by the same person at a given time (ie with the same knowledge).
I did Aintree for rF and rF2 (at the same time), and what I'm saying is that it's not harder nor takes more time to do a track in rF2 than it was in rF (which was the argument given by some people).
Quality isn't a factor in the rF vs rF2 comparison. Making a crap track doesn't take more time in rF2 than in rF, making a quality track doesn't take more time in rF2 than in rF.
It's quality that takes time, and it always takes time to learn to make quality work, for any sim, and for any kind of work not just 2D/3D.

 

I love Aintree (and thanks for doing it). But the rF2 version looks as though it is a straight rF1 conversion. I can believe that those two versions were similar. Come back with an estimate if/when you decide to upgrade it to rF2 modern standards.