Looks great. This will be a wonderful experiment to see how much difference (huge) good quality and well-implemented textures can make to an existing track. I bet the original will not be easily recognizable.
Alex (Coutie) sent over a really cool 'tractor' model. Looks great! View attachment 19585 Thanks for the spot on comment Marc Davidd
A question, Davidd: There are two versions of RA floating around out there. If it was determined that the one you were not using was the superior layout, could your amazingly improved texturing be applied to the other track? How much work would it be? I have no information about which one is more accurate. This is just a curiosity because I don't know that much about modding. Although at some point I am sure someone will provide evidence about which is one is closer to reality in terms of the layout and topography.
David is working, by permission, with the scratch-built version started by ethone and picked up by [forgot name] which has correct width, but incorrect elevations. The one with better elevations is much too wide and, technically, has an illegal origin, though it's been reworked quite a bit. Those are the big differences.
I'm not sure where you got your information from, but Ethone's version used actual GPS data provided by me from my AIM data system. He also used Google Earth data to verify any spots that were in question. Without laser scanning I'm not sure how much more accurate you can get.
GPS is notoriously inaccurate for elevations. There's also a GPS trace from bicyclists available publicly. Since you've been there, how do you feel about the elevations in the release?
It was ethone's base that Alex Coutie picked up to develop, with things like an improved pitlane and other tidbits the 1.11sm conversion doesn't have.
I feel that something is off in the feel of Ethone/Coutie version in the T1, T3, and T5-6 areas, but I'm hoping it's just a depth perception thing that will be fixed with proper textures that are being done. Don't get me wrong, it is close, but there's something slightly amiss that maybe texturing will fix. The SeniorMan version has a better feel for those areas, but the last stretch of track before Canada Corner has a weird turn to it and the elevation for the Billy Mitchel Bend is barely there. The SM version bothers me a bit with the overhanging banners all over the track... I would say that the pluses and minuses of each version wouldn't warrant all of the work that Davidd is doing for this version to need to be redone for the other version if that was even an option. Can anyone tell me what version the SM version was sourced from? Was it based off of the NFS-Shift rip that was done for rF1?
I'm just doing some textures on this - some are harder than others to figure out, but it's great to work on them. It's also a joy driving this track. View attachment 19641 Davidd
Yes, it's not totally accurate, but I didn't have the time to fix it. I can provide max files if anyone wants to do it.
Hah, for the first time I've stumbled across a map with elevations printed on it! I can't count the number of maps I've downloaded and never saw elevations...