Ladies & gentlemen, in the immortal words of Murray Walker, "Go, Go, Go" https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1669324602/snaefell-mountain-course-3d-laser-scan I thought I'd add some interesting info for you all, the number of backers, and where they came from an % of total pledged so far. I'll update this daily/at % milestones. We're over 5% so updated stats. forum.projectcarsgame.com - 21 - 45.42% members.iracing.com - 7 - 18.63% assettocorsa.net - 5 - 7.84% reddit.com - 2 - 6.54% twitter.com - 1 - 4.90% manxforums.com - 1 - 3.27% forum.piboso.com - 1 - 1.63% External - 6 - 9.31% Embedded widget (!?!) - 1 - 1.63% Kickstarter - 1 - 0.82% Next update @ 10% Link to Quote pdf - https://www.dropbox.com/s/8c3kua5jl1z982m/Quote.pdf?dl=0 OP Hi, I am currently putting together a KickStarter campaign to have the Isle of Man TT Course laser scanned and have that data openly distributed. As a commercial entity rFactor is unlikely to be able to provide any official assistance to this project without entering into licensing deals with the Isle of Man government, but the modding community, track & asset builders especially, how do you feel about this? Is it something you want, and is it something you will support? I aim to launch the campaign next week, and between now and then hope to gather enough support from the community to make this successful. I also hope to have the support of professional developers in a personal capacity, so if you are one, or know one, please point them over here. Regards, Stephen Morris
Well from a modding POV, I'm sorry but I can't see how it can work. You might get the funding to have that scanned (and I doubt it, it probably costs too much - just curious, do you have a number ?), but the chances of having a ~60 km track done by modders are almost zero. You'd need a team of capable people, of decent knowledge and able to commit for years on this one, and I don't think there are enough track makers to make it happen. BTW, the same person that did the abridged version on GPL started to do the full course, in 2007. Apparently, he's still on it, 9 years later.
Hi JP, Yep, I'm aware of the work another JP is doing for GPL. He has stated time & again it is not his priority, so it is never likely to be of use to most simmers/racers. This is why I thought it was time for those who want to drive the track, to build the track. Should we succeed, he too will be able to make use of the 100% accurate track for his own project. I currently have a professional development team on board and who are working on a fully featured project so are in a bit of a unique position, details of which will be available when the campaign launches. I'm looking for other track builders, even better would be 'big sim' developers working in a personal capacity, the more the merrier. The idea is to get people with the right skills, vocally supporting the project and committing to building a track. If I can get a team from across the various platforms, this would be fantastic. The time frame for a complete track would be measured in months rather than years. The costs of the scan are actually very reasonable. I have an unofficial guide from the scanning company of £10,000. I will have a more official written quote by the time the campaign launches. If even a fraction of the sim community who wants this track, could contribute, it is easily achievable.
The £10k sounds like a normal price, for a normal race track, mobile scanned. If the company you got a guide or quote from charges that amount for Isle of Man, they are dirt cheap Also, the £10k is nothing compared to the man hours needed, are you going to finance that as well with your kickstarter campaign? Having 5 to 8 guys working on this for 4 to 8 months*, you do the math. If you're looking for people to do the work for free, I'm afraid that is going to be a difficult job.. *full-time
Hi wgeuze, This project's only goal is to get the scan, and release the data. It would be nice to put together a team of developers, professionals or otherwise, to build the basic blocks for a community track but that is a secondary consideration. You're right about this being difficult, no matter who gets involved in building this track in whatever capacity, it's undoubtedly a massive job. Which is partly why it hasn't been done yet. But if there's enough support for it then there's no reason why it shouldn't be done by someone. If we can get the ball rolling, then let's get it rolling. And that is what this project aims to do.
10 000£ is probably just for scanning job. To make that data useful, it needs to be vectorized etc. Post-processing raw scanning data costs at least 10 000£ more... But if you get that amount of processed laser-scanned data with 10k£, then yes - its dirt cheap
Jka, Yes the ~£10,000 is for the point cloud data. I'm currently waiting for a quote for building a mesh, which will be a stretch goal for the Kickstarter. The cost of conversion wont be anywhere close to 5 figures though. It could be done on a home PC with plenty of RAM, a software licence and a couple of days CPU time. If I can't find someone to do it for less than that, then that will be the solution.
I am very interested by the project (and process as a whole) but How do you know, I mean from a legal point of view, a crowdfunded campaign would not need a licence deal at all ?
Sony obtained the license/permission and started on the project almost 2 years ago, just fyi but you probably knew already. http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/isle-of-man-tt-course-to-feature-on-playstation-s-gran-turismo-7-1-6747127 It'll need plenty of people working on it to do it in a timely manner and they would likely need paid too, that's a lot of man hours and money. I also think you'll struggle to bring a team of hobbyists together that would do it for free and to a high standard, it's an incredible challenge, even for professional track makers. I would definitely back this if it turns out to be feasible, but you'll need to be further on in the organisation and structuring of the whole project to convince me to part with money for it. Good luck and I hope we will one day see the track in rFactor 2... 3 or...
Hi SRGP, The short answer is, through research & conversation. Slightly longer: The 'crowdfunded' element may be slightly distracting here. As a project we'll be operating entirely within the public domain, i.e with resources that are available to everyone. We are simply making a copy, a digital representation, of that resource. We wont be depriving anyone else of the use of that resource. This would hold true no matter who carried out the project; we aren't uniquely protected by being crowdfunded. If SMS, Microsoft or Barclays Bank decided to scan the public roads, they could. They could even use the scan to make & sell a commercial product, at a profit. Licensing is only a concern when you are dealing with intellectual or private property, and depriving its owner of the use of that property ('use' here has many definitions). This obviously doesn't apply to us. Developers would face licensing issues if they sold or otherwise distributed on a commercial scale, a TT branded product, since the TT brand is IP owned by the IoM Govt. Hectari, Thank you for your support. The Kickstarter will launch when we have the formal quote from the track scanning company. Small it is not, a massive task for anyone who wants to get involved. However, it's only 3 Nordschleifes. Big yes, but not unconquerable.
http://www.iomtt.com/News/2016/April/15/Bigben-Interactive-confirms-new-Isle-of-Man-TT-video-game.aspx
Stephen, it's a great idea. If bigben doesn't happen then you should go for it. May I suggest splitting the course into sectors on your kickstarter. The mountain section from Ramsey down past the Creg would make a great sprint. Also very few buildings to model. If you can get something going to show it's not impossible you'll gain more support to finish it.
Bigben/Kylotonn are producing a motorbike game, I just thought it was of interest to share the news and it's coming to PC too.
Updated the OP to reflect some good news. Whilst I'm here though; Uncle Bert, that's a great idea and I hope you don't mind if I make use of it in a Totalizer? As funds come in we'll show a car/bike moving around the course. Cevert, no relation to that studio. I just tried to play WRC5 & it wouldn't recognise my wheel! That's all that needs to be said about that studio I think. Either way we're good to go as a campaign. As I said above, we've received some good news this evening, so read the OP for the update.
This is mobile scanned I presume? Have you received or requested sample data fitting to the quoted resolution of the data? Also, keep in mind that with mobile scanning, you might get gaps in the scan, parked cars, vans, or other things which can obstruct the scanner and the vehicle physically can't reach places. With the meshing also comes the task of cleaning up the data and filling holes left by parked vehicles, I'd check if that is what they can offer.
Hey wgeuze, The scan will use dual-scanners and will complete a lap in both directions to alleviate the problems you highlight. Any further noise will be processed out of the captured data during the initial creation of the point cloud. It's almost as if we're hiring a professional team! These guys were recommended to us by the team that scanned the Rockingham Motor Speedway, in the UK, for LFS. Check them out - 3dlasermapping.com
I just wanted to give you some food for thought, don't know what your experiences are with scanned data ^^ They sound interesting enough to keep an eye on
OK, it's been a while, the quotes for datahosting took an age and asked for a fortune so we'll be using free/almost free distribution platforms. Kickstarter has been submitted for approval, back soon with links.
