[REL] Belgium Spa Historic (League Friendly Version) v2.03

Credits:
Original track made by Image Space Incorporated (ISI)
Updated by DJCruicky
Additional assets used from S.Victor and Argl

I welcome you to ........

This is an unofficial updated version to Image Space Incorporated's (ISI) excellent 1966 Belgium Spa track.

I modified the track to try make it more League friendly, addressing a lot of the problems the original has, plus added many improvements..

Please see list of updates below..

• In original ISI version, when using low track graphics detail level, there are less road side objects to crash into such as white posts, parked cars, telegraph poles and many other race ending objects. This gave you an advantage over some one using a higher track graphic setting. I have fixed this loop hole. All objects are there to crash into what ever setting you use, with the exception of the white posts. The white posts I removed the collision detection from them.
• You should no longer find Hay Bales sprawled in the middle of the road as you come around a corner. They are now un-movable. I've left a few that are still movable to keep you on your toes.
• Barbwire Fences and Guardrails. You should no longer get your car stuck in them no more. I have made the collision detection single sided.
  
  
• Extended LOD-Out values of many objects to reduce popup while driving.
• Colour saturation reduction, Albedo tuning, and balancing of a large amount of textures to get a more natural look compared to the original.
  
  
• Small Atmospherics tweaks.
• Fixed odd shadow problem from objects where their shadows would appear, then disappear and then appear again when you drove towards them. 3D trees were bad with this.
• New tall start gantry to make it easier to see the Flag man waving start flag.
  
  
• New Pit-in sign to try encourage drivers to keep to the left of the pit lane when not pitting (see pitting post below for details on pitting).
• Fixed wet weather road reflections. Old version was broken and only displayed a mat black road when wet. See pics below, Before and After.
  
  
• New layout, called 'Hotlap'. This puts your garage spot at La Source, you don't have to do a full warmup lap of the track to start the timer in practice and qualify sessions, it starts when you cross the start finish line. Thank you to S.Victors for this.
  
• Fixed loading errors that nag you about Material, Collision and LOD problems when loading the track into Dev mode. There were 1000s of them to fix.
• Staggered start grid to space out the cars a little. This should make for a safer start. Big thank you to 'Arle', who made the numbered grid lines for us back in 2017.
• Pitlane exit is now clearly marked with a line. Original pit exit was unmarked. Again thanks to 'Argl' who added this.
• Pit boxes increased from 16 to 26. Pit sharing should no longer be a problem.
  
• Garage spots increased from 32 to 52. Again credit to 'Argl' for this.
• I increased the start grid number further from 35 to 104 cars.
• Added the 26 Pit groups to .gdb file. Without this you get a bug where the game does not use all available pitboxes.
• I reworked the AIW file:-
• New Fast AI path with a less aggressive Block path along with many corridor changes in hope to reduce AI crashing. Did I succeed? They crash a lot still but they a little better.
• I extended the track limits lines well beyond the road and all the way to the fences so you don't get them 'Calculation Track Limits' warning pop up boxes if you drive onto the grass by mistake.
• Fixed. When pitting, touching the yellow pitlane line no longer makes your Red Pit Arrow disappear.
• Lessened the chance of getting cut warnings or drive through penalty for going wide at the corner 'La Source' (last corner). Still not fully fixed but a lot better than the original track. Don't go wide at 'La Source', or best just turn off Flag Limit Rules to make sure.
• Fixed wrongly getting a "Warning Off Track. Lap Will Not Count" penalty each time you leave the pit garages when Flag Limit Rules are set to Strict. I had to cover the whole pit paddock with track limit lines.
• Fixed some objects that did not light up with headlights at night.
• Added animated smoke to a few house chimneys. Thank you to S.Victor for letting me use his files.
• The white Blimp that floats in the sky, now moves again.
• Some track side camera amendments.
• Fixed 3d trees where they would look transparent and ghost like when using a non standard 'Texture Sharpening' setting other than the default number 5 in the player.json file.
• The first house on the left after Masta, I changed the width of it to try match the real life one.
• The corner worker Marshalls that wave the flags at top of Eau Rouge/Raidillon have been moved to a better place. You can now see them more easily going up the hill.
• Made smaller the huge red arrow sign at Malmedy corner. It was too big.
• .cbash collision file packed in the installer for faster loading 1st time you load track.
• Real road rubber files. Light, Medium, Heavy, and also one called 'Wet with a drying line'.
  

Installing this track should make no conflicts with the original ISI version, both can be installed at the same time.

10 years on from ISI first release it's nice to see this track given a bit of love even if we've had to do it ourselves.
I can not take any credit away from the the amazing work ISI made in making it 10 years ago, it's still great today.

This mod is free but if you wish to support me, please see link in my signature below. I thank you very much.

Steam Workshop Link

Happy playing.

DJC

 

Pitlane Instructions

You will need to have assigned a 'Request Pit' button and press it in good time before pitting.
The Red arrow above your pit box will NOT show if you do not do this.
It's also too late to press request pit if you have already passed the pit entrance.

It's important that when entering the pitlane you drive on the right side of the 'PITS' sign, not doing that your pit crew will not serve you.
Default pitlane speed limit is 100 KPH.


WHEN RACING
In our league we advise, on a normal lap when NOT pitting, don't cut the entrance of pit lane just incase you have your Pit request on. Short cutting into the entrance of the pitlane will give you a speeding penalty if you have pit-request on. Keep left of the 'PITS' sign and you will be fine.

Warning:
When you are low on fuel the game can automatically request the pit crew for you making the pitlane live. Be careful this does not happen if you are cutting into the start of pit area, the game could give you speeding ticket. Cancel this request with the pit request button. This should not be a problem anyway if you follow the above advice of not cutting into the entrance of pit lane. There is a line in your Player.json file that can stop automatic pit requests called "Automatic Pit Menu".

Serving a penalty at this track you have to press the 'Pit Request' button first.
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Best Settings:-
I find the track likes Clear Sky's or Light Clouds weather settings best. I found with mixed clouds the graphics look too dark. Stick with Clear or Light clouds and the track makes for a good screen shot generator .

 

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

What a useful addition!
Thank you guys

 

The real MVP!

 

Why not set the pit lane speed limit to 400 kmph to reflect the lack of a limit during that era.

 

awesome update, thanks

 

Sensational work

 

Good feedback, thank you.
In online races, the admin can set what ever speed he likes with the line in the Multiplayer file.
"Pit Speed Override":111.111,
"Pit Speed Override#":"pitlane speed limit override in meters per sec (0=disabled)",

But for single player races with the AI, interested to know what others think on it?
Positives, it would stop drivers getting speeding tickets.
Negatives, the AI have more trouble pitting as they get hit by the car behind them. See screen shot below:-.

 

AIW need a better fix. Singleplayer race with 40 ai, agresson 50%. Crash in Eau rouche, Malmedie, Mistral and and and. with rainsetting its pure chaos undriveble with ai.

 

I tried (see change log above) it's the best they going to get at a track like this.

 

Nice one
I’ll give it a try

very sad how the fantastic historic content seems to have been neglected by the devs

 

There could be contractual/licensing issues preventing work on these tracks...

 

Hi @DJCruicky , so many thanks for this update.

I want to know how you made this possible? Because files from isi tracks are impossible to read and modify.
I'm ready and can make all the oldies (Spa, montecarlo, etc...) with full pbr, new aiw path and cameras.
So, if you tell me the trick, i can do this.
If you don't know my work, you could see here

https://forum.studio-397.com/index....r-86-88-historical-edition-by-trollray.70961/

Thanks and congratulations

 

Thank you.
Early ISI tracks are not encrypted. The Mas files open no problem for me.
Some of the early ISI cars are unfortunately now encrypted. They never used to be, but think it's something S397 did when they took over.

Good luck with your mods.

 

AIW could be edited for all tracks, although every encrypted track

 

Ok guys, i thought they where all encrypted. Will check them and do wich one are not encrypted.
Btw, i ve already asked them to let me do it. I dont think s397 will ever update these old tracks. Imho, with some simple update, they can shine really well.

 

Yes I believe that was the case. Depending on the track, you can go back and look at the change logs. I think for most of the tracks, S397 didn't do anything to the actual track or very very minor things (Adding icons). There might be some of the last ISI updated .rfcmp around to easily get into ModDev.

In a different thread, also talking about encryption, @Frederick Alonso talks about getting an encrypted track into ModDev. I'm not 100% sure of the process of making AI, but that might help.
https://forum.studio-397.com/index....files-and-the-tires-of-your-cars.72548/page-2

 

No need for this. Just copy the whole track to devmode/locations and put alle the mas-files into one drawer. No need for changing something in the scn

 

Yes Ai is a good thing.
But i would give those old tracks the love they need.
That means i would go with all the files to change the tectures and create the pbr materials. then, the json values for each textures.
I've just tested with Belgium 66 and the first steps gives very nice results.
Cheers