[REL] Road America 2016 v1.4

Discussion in 'Locations' started by shiet, Oct 16, 2016.

  1. rongarz

    rongarz Registered

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    Great work on this track! One of my favorites. I look forward to the release.
     
  2. shiet

    shiet Registered

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    Thanks guys!

    It looks like that video raised the expectations but that was not my intention. I have to remind you that this is a low quality youtube video, you can't see every detail in that.

    MrSlowly: I'm another guy who has driven a "few" hundreds of laps on the iRacing version... :cool: that's one of the reasons I started doing this track. However I have to say I don't have laserscan data or LIDAR data or anything like that for the track so don't expect a super accurate result. All I know is I like to drive my version just as much as the iR version and not because I made it. :)

    So the main thing is (and Guimengo is worried about this for a reason) the track is a VGA killer, I don't think anybody can run a race on this track with three monitors. On a single monitor 1920x1080, 2xAA, every option to max my PC (i5-3570K+GTX 970) gives me 40-60 fps with a full grid from the cockpit. If there are less cars around it's 50-60 fps. The trackside cams are a different story, it depends on the terrain but there are parts on the track where it goes below 40 fps. Emery says that on triples with a single car with a GTX 1080 the fps drops to the 50 fps range before T5 (trees on both sides)...

    Atlantic Road and Mosport: honestly I thought Mario Morais would finish his Road Atlanta by now, almost a year has passed since I "released" Atlantic Road. I always thought my Atlantic Road is a joke because it's a very low quality track (basically a very basic BTB track with billboard trees) not by mistake, I am waiting for Mario's version so I didn't want to spend more time on it, so since then I haven't touched it at all. As for Mosport if I do something with Mosport I would do a Mosport 2.0 with better elevation datas and better surroundings in 3ds max.

    I mentioned this because Road America was made in BTB! So this comes with some limitations. I don't want to write a book so the point is you may experience some glitches, for example the EVE/Matra cars are not really compatible with the track (I mean you can try but don't be surprised when the car loses one of it's tire or explodes :D ) and I had problems with the AC427 too. The tires on these cars sink below the racing surface geometry for some reason and collide with the side of a curb or another road mesh (at the bend) - in BTB you can't connect together two meshes, you can only place an object on another, that's the problem.

    Now that I lowered your expectations I can sleep well. :D

    Marc Collins: I don't think this works like that. You may have good datas for a track I don't like or I don't want to do. Or vice versa. Or I want to do x part of the track you also want to do and nobody wants to do y. What you are talking about is more like a team-job. Most of the modders do their mod as a hobby (challenge and learning experience) and I can tell you for sure when a hobby becomes a job you lose interest in it (just like I did in my job in real life, now for the second time, two different hobbies and then jobs). I mean you can set up a team for track modding but it's almost like a job.
     
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  3. adamfarmer

    adamfarmer Registered

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    Great post shiet!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  4. sg333

    sg333 Registered

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    I honestly dont think that track will ever see the light of day, and I think everyone would be thrilled to see an upgraded version released.
     
  5. Gijs van Elderen

    Gijs van Elderen Registered

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    - By the looks if your video it seems not all mesh of the curb are welded together. So at some places the vertex of the wheel mesh slip thru the mesh of the curbs. You can see it happen at 0:41 in your video.
    In dev mode there is a hotkey to display the mesh to analyse what is happening.

    - Maybe you can work around the problem with the TDF file:

    // Painted Smooth Curbs
    [FEEDBACK]
    Wear=0.98 Dry=0.89 Wet=0.54 Roughness=(0.45,0.10) Resistance=0 BumpAmp=RoadBumpAmp BumpWavelen=RoadBumpLen Legal=false Spring=0 Damper=0 CollFrict=0.4 Sparks=1 Scraping=1 Sink=-0.001 Sound=dry
    .......
    Materials=pcrb

    Sink: positive values are down, negative values are up.




    - The leave cards are recieving shadows from eachother: That could be a fps killer. What you could try is to set the tree leave cards with a "T1 no shadow shader". A "T1 no shadow" wil cast shadows, but doesn't recieve shadows.

    - What did you use for alpha tranparancy? The "Alpha test color" with pixel blend? Or Alpha blend? The Alpha Blend could be a fps killer too. It best to use the "Alpha test color" with pixel blend in the T1 stage.

     
  6. shiet

    shiet Registered

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    Gysbers: thanks for the advices.

    sink thing: I tried sink=-0.004 from -0.001 and it didn't help with the EVE. Should I try a much lower value like -0.04? Btw when the EVE drives onto a rumblestrip it basically sucks down that tire close to the ground, I don't know what's this.
    leaves: the "T1 no shadow" shader is out of the question because without self-shadows the trees look ugly, that's the whole point of the 3D trees.
    transparency: I use chroma and in GJED on the material panel the "alpha test color" is ticked and the "blend pixels" is 0 whatever that means, sorry but I'm not a guru in these things. :)

    Btw can you or anybody tell me why can I see different results in Devmode and in the actual game? I played around in Devmode with the "Maxshadowrange" value and in Devmode you can see the difference but when I make the pack file (the rfcmp) in game it's always the same.
    Also the wet road reflections... I did everything the same as in Mosport (ReflectPlane values are set, REFLECTEDENV is set) and I can't see the reflections on the road. On Mosport it worked.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 18, 2016
  7. Gijs van Elderen

    Gijs van Elderen Registered

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    What i see are mostly ambient "shadows" Just give the "T1 no shadow" a try in gJED. :) You can experiment with the ambient color to make the ambient stronger. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

    But Billboard trees with a good normal and specular map aren't to bad.
     
  8. shiet

    shiet Registered

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    I already tried, I responded to you after that. :)
     
  9. Gijs van Elderen

    Gijs van Elderen Registered

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    Ah sorry, i didn't got it from your respons.

    Track is looking fabulous. :cool:
     
  10. Marc Collins

    Marc Collins Registered

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    OK, I am also very happy with this type of collaboration ;)
     
  11. WiZPER

    WiZPER Registered

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    I'd suggest only using '3D trees' as LODA, or atleast having LODBs with lower shadow and shader specs.
     
  12. shiet

    shiet Registered

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    I'm using different LODs for different parts of the track and it didn't have an effect on the fps I guess because of the MaxShadowRange parameter in the .scn file (I'm guessing that's what supposed to take care of the shadows). Btw as I said it's (the MaxShadowRange parameter) not working for me for some reason in the game. I can see the difference in DevMode but not in the actual game.
    Plus this is a long track on a big area with a lots of open spaces, you can see a lots of things from almost everywhere (the exception is the Kettle Bottoms which is a "tunnel" with trees on both sides.
     
  13. shiet

    shiet Registered

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    Btw I watched these videos the most during the "building" process:




    And of course Google Earth. :)
     
  14. WiZPER

    WiZPER Registered

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    Clearly a billboard tree require less cpu/gpu than a 3D multi poly self shading tree does, otherwise something is wrong.
     
  15. shiet

    shiet Registered

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    I was able to fix the problem with the curbs/kerbs/ripplestrips (I don't know which one is the right word) so the track is now compatible with every car. I also added wet road reflections. The AIW needs to be finished and I can release the track if I can also fix the MaxShadowRange thing.
    Here is a new video with 40 cars, notice the fps counter... fortunately it's better in cockpit mode:

     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2016
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  16. Chris Lesperance

    Chris Lesperance Registered

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    Man that video is scary good! Looking forward to the final release :)
     
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  17. MaD_King

    MaD_King Registered

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    Great news.
    A camera to adjust to avoid to see the tent after the last turn and the finish straight ? (seen on you video @2:27)
     
  18. Sebastien Sestacq

    Sebastien Sestacq Registered

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    wow!! great!! :)
     
  19. racedriver

    racedriver Registered

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    great track
     
  20. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    The one issue I have had lately with Road America, is online there only seems to be GT3 events open. Road America is a very long big track for GT3..... :)
     

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