What's so unrealistically difficult about what I explained? Don't iRacing and AC have that sort of depth and detail to the tracks? Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know for sure, but I always thought that their tracks (especially iRacing) had all sorts of details in the road surface (little cracks in the road, little ridges, ripples, etc. etc.). I know for a fact that all sorts of different surfaces can have different grip characteristics in rFactor 2 (different surface grip for different curbs, different kinds of road surfaces, painted lines, etc.). I also know for a fact that (in rFactor 2) those different grip characteristics can change - relative to one-another - in the wet (for eg. painted lines become much more slippery compared to their dry grip relative to how slippery the road surface gets in the wet compared to it's grip in the dry). Also, undulations, subtle track unevenness and resolution (not actual bumps, just natural unevenness and subtle undulations of the general track surface) can be modelled. Isn't all this possible since we can model big up and down hills, and we can model big bumps, at relatively high resolutions? Also, the rattle problem...if all track physics are modelled into the physics (physical construction of the track instead of just saying "make sure to enable "xxx" FFB effect when driving over "x,y" coordinates of the track) then why is it a problem??...Isn't the curb supposed to make your wheel react that way (if, again, the FFB from the curb is real from the physical track-modelling itself)?... I'm just trying to understand, I'm not trying to criticize anyone. I haven't even driven the track and it looks graphically beautiful, so please don't take my post as offense or criticism; the track could be amazing for all I know . I'm just trying to get some real in-depth details about it's actual physics modelling in order to decide if I should spend $5 on it. Yes, point #s 3 and 4 (my previous post) are pretty much the same thing; I just realized that now, lol. P.S. I thought I once heard that, in iRacing, you don't actually drive on the graphical track, but a much more complex and detailed invisible version of it. I assume this is so that you can have a very complex, highly detailed, and high resolution track physical modelling without it taking as much resources because you DO NOT need to also render all that complexity and detail in the graphics, only physically (sort of like how the graphical representation of car physics is "dumbed down" compared to what's truly going on with the car's physics)....Does anyone know if rFactor 2 is capable of this?
I have nothing against what you said Spinelly, your description was perfect in all ways (no irony). It's just too perfect, look like it's more about what we dream to have, not the reality I don't do iRacing, and for AC, possibly due to the FFB and physic lower quality than rF2 (with my configuration and IMO), I feel more detailed cracks and bump and road texture alive with rF2 'hand made' ISI tracks (or from some of our great modder) than in all laser scanned AC tracks. So for me the creation original method is not important, the result is. On rF2 I'm pretty sure physic of the track is separated from graphic, and you can feel something completely different than what you see, but modder can say better than me...
iRacing is said to use a pretty dense database of informations about minor, not visual or modeled, changes in road surface based on the laser scans. ISI based engines are calculating this database (.HAT) based on the modeled track polys and their physical specifications/attributes. So in theory iRacing should have a better base for creating the ultimate FFB, however both tyre model, suspension and other calculations can easily end up with less than brilliant end results. And no, any wheel at default setting will most lightly not give "real" output - just as you have to calibrate and fine tune your graphics card and monitor - this is the 'cost' or downside of Personal Computers and different hardware...
I am just happy if the modelling is to "rF2 standards," meaning any ISI track even the early ones. And not to rF1 standards, where the simple way to introduce some road surface variation and bumps does not translate well at all over to rF2 and results in all sorts of problems with unrealistic FFB.
Indeed, they don't. Every sim is doing different surfaces and their grip. This is going on at every track, but with a resolution of tiles roughly 1.5meters or 2 meters (or more on the straights), meh, it is mostly the larger detail you are feeling. Why do you think stuff like road noise, NOOOOOEESSS A CANNED EFFECT, was invented. I even use it on Zolder for the modelled rumble strips to boost the feel and make it a bit more crisp. As far as I know this isn't happening in iRacing (or atleast not how I think seeing your description). In rFactor Pro's terrain server, and other professional solutations, it's becoming an industry standard to be actually driving on a resampled version of the original scanned pointcloud. This does have up to 10mm (local) resolution but still those things don't give you the detail you are looking for. Sorry to burst some bubbles, this is all very much factional information (except driving on a pointcloud in iRacing which I don't believe is happening) based on every day experience in the field. Nothing wrong with asking questions sir! It is however worrying seeing so many misconceptions about what is going in that I almost wonder how people perceive their sims, it seems for many the brain is filling in 50% of the blanks!
ok, to address the topic myself, Yes, the track does have modeled bumps Yes, the track does have differing grip levels for different surfaces including old and new tarmac, curbs, paint lines and road sealer. No, the curbs aren't fully modeled, I didn't have research information to do this even if I wanted to, there are two curbs in total that have any rumble, fully modeling these type that may have 80+ notches apiece would mostly look worse and not react any better as they are shallow from all I can tell, close to the type you hit on a highway made to wake up truck drivers. No, cracks aren't modeled, this is quite frankly an impossibility at this point, only place you would see this is in feature films or prerenderd short videos where a scene would call for it, closest games are coming visually to it otherwise is through tessellation, Iraing nor project Cars are not modeling cracks neither visually or physically Now then, point cloud data, having used it myself in the past I can tell you while it is great for accuracy it isn't push button perfection replication, the usable form of it still has distance between points that will still not capture small details like cracks, thickness into a road patch or even shallow rumble strips. To add on top of that, I am one guy working from home, I don't have a team of researchers, I don't have money to invest in scanning equipment or travel cost or hiring a team to travel to do the scan or paying for use of the track. I'm just doing the best I can to give you the most accurate track I can giving what I have which in my history I have a pretty good record of producing accurate tracks without much hard data, I am trying to provide you with all the key features people want including interesting road feel, good visuals and most of all fun new places to race in your sim. That is all I can offer and I hope its enough to get your support but if it isn't, I'm sorry but I can't offer anything more than that I expect improvement with every track I release and that this one will be updated. I am still thinking over whether to do an interim update addressing the force feedback concerns and maybe small graphical improvements to hold over to a bigger update later. So basically to address spinelli a little more directly, the track is fully modeled out the best I could with the information I have, humps, bumps, corner cambers, it is hand modeled based on gps elevation data and numerous onboard videos to get smaller details. Where the tdf or the file that controls the faked roughness and grip levels comes in is to simulate the surface, you can't model now even scan a road surface and replicate it, a surface is created from asphalt that is composites of rock, sometimes, shell, and other things pending on the construction company the works the asphalt, and of course there are concrete curbs at this track. This fake simulation is there to essentially simulate surface data, concrete is pitted, yet generally smoother unless it is rock based, it doesn't tend to crack like asphalt in organic manner it tends to crack it clean seams. Asphalt as mentioned is based on its composition, as it deteriorates the pieces or rock and such become more exposed on the surface, the road gets rougher and an old road like this one they break loose so it can have a little bit of a dirt feel at times since it becomes a loose surface. This one in the old sections has also cracked a lot which if you have ever been on an old road in your street car you know how much an old road with cracks and tar patches jars the car even at slow speeds. All of this is why these non modeled but simulated feel is there, surface shape alone has no characteristics in the virtual world, we have to tell it what its made of to match the look we give it. Maybe I am over explaining this but if you want that deep of information then there you are.
On an, ugh, lighter note; have you started any other tracks yet, or have anything in mind? Personally i'd love to see more club-type tracks.
I have one other one started, not sure at this time if it will actually be the next one released though. I have a few others in mind but too soon to give out names at this point.
Feel free to not give out any names as long as the track contains Suzuka, Rouen, Canadian Tire, or Montréal in the name
Ah! I wish I didn't say The Word, The Name, The Track I Adore, and here it is! somebody say The Word, this single Word which prevent me sleeping : ROUEN!
If anyone is interested I have put up a server. "pitlanes.com Skippy - Ginge" 15 minutes practice, 15 minutes quali, couple of mins warmup, 7 lap races. Enjoy. PS. I tested to check that the track is NOT downloadable from the server. I don't want to give it away for free! if someone else could test to confirm I've done it right, that would be great!
No one can expect more than this, especially in a low-cost simple mod for rF2. As long as the surface is modelled to the resolution of a good quality track in rF2, then your research and details are as good as anyone else's. If there are small issues with the cracked surface modelling, they can be fixed and updated. If you have matched graphical imperfections to surface modelling imperfections, you're farther ahead than most. I would suggest "borrowing" a curb modelling of a similar section from another track if you don't have the resources/desire/skill to do it from scratch. Keep learning and be happy that you have accomplished a lot for an individual already.
It isn't that I couldn't model the curbs fully it was more of value first, would it really be worth it for such shallow dips or at least best I could tell they looked shallow. Second is research, photos never showed them really well, they were recently added so only recent photos I had showed them much, video I could get a little better angle on them but really I would hate to fully model the rumbles only to ultimately get them wrong in my guessing and have to redo them, a texture with normal mapping seemed the better way to go since they won't look overly edgy and I could adjust the spacing and size of them at will, it just seemed like the most efficient approach for this case. That won't be the case for every track, different situations will call for different measures, if I can see how to model out the rumbles in a curb and their significant then I will.
cyruscloud, thanks a lot for the detailed info. I wasn't looking for, or expecting, pinpoint accuracy; at the time, I didn't even know that it was a real-life track. I was jut wondering how much detail was put into track-surface physics regardless of how accurate those details are compared to it'd real-life counterpart (it's not like I need to train for a real-life race at that very track; 1:1 accuracy of the real-life version is extremely overrated). I just did more research...From what I can see, both, iRacing and Assetto Corsa have a physics mesh that the cars drive on which is separate from the graphics mesh. Again (like I explained above), this is so that you can have a very high detailed, high polygon, high resolution track surface to drive on while keeping a respectable framerate since the PC's hardware doesn't have to graphically render all that information... I thought that maybe there was a way for rFactor 2 to do the same thing so that the track makers could model in way more details on the track surface (much more sublte variation, bumps, cracks, etc. etc.) without it having to be graphically rendered. RFactor 2 seems to have the highest/fastest rate in the industry for, both, physics and FFB; if any sim deserves super-highly detailed track surfaces, it's DEFINITELY rFactor 2. I'm guessing that if we were to try and make a track (graphically as well as physically) with the amount of polygons/data that the iRacing and AC tracks have (in their physics mesh only), we would probably all be playing at 15 fps...
I love it when tracks I've never heard of that are awesome are brought to my attention. Last night I just drove for an hour and a half in the Skippy round the full config. Such a brilliant and challenging combo!
As I tried to explain further up, the physics-only road surface information used in iRacing is NOT modeled and therefore not polygons or meshes - it's a database that holds only the smaller variations, much like a graphical bump/normal -map. But if the rest of the physics is not up to par then it's pretty useless (frequency plays a huge part as you say, just as the 'black art')
Spinelli, despite that you admittedly aren't limited by knowledge of building tracks, it's a bit odd to see you're almost supplying your possible misinterpretations or failure to understand more technical explanations as facts, just a reminder. It's some people's dayjob around here to do this kind of thing and having people explain their job to them, is aggravation beyond belief at the least. It's also one of the main reasons some people only read while they could contribute a whole lot to the community but choose not to. Maybe unwittingly, AC with their last screenshots showed what you are talking about. Mind you, this is nothing new nor fancy, it's just a way of doing things. In this image by Kunos, you can see a pointcloud, which is the laserscanned information they gathered. On top of that, you can see a generated road surface, all the triangular bits, which is created from a resampled version of that point cloud. This is what they will be driving on. On top of this, the neat and tidy visual mesh is generated. Look up delaunay triangulation for fun. Have a look at the size of those triangles, all the stuff you think there is only there to a certain extent. The triangles on the road are more or less 50 to 75cm, hardly the cracks and super small bumps you think there are. All the rest of the detail you think you feel in there, that'll be various stage of road noise on top of the mesh, just as we are using in rF2. Nobody is modelling in cracks, 5 centimeter bumps, torn pavement, it simply is not the case whatever you are lead to believe, there is just no way. Even those cracks hardly show up, depth wise, in the direct point cloud data, when you are using a 10mm sample rate. It's just how it is, it's great technology, but I'm afraid you are making it a lot more than it is. The entire point of this? Curb your expectations and match them with what is actually there instead of what you have decided for yourself that is probably there, there is a big difference. But again, I've read so many misconceptions on this forum and while confronted with the truth, people tend to turn their heads and refuse to accept any explanation, I have you in higher regard than this though. Also why I'm explaining this is not to belittle you or anything, I just don't think it is fair that a persons work is possible misjudged by misconceptions originated from your end or having lead to believe those things by marketing talk. That is something I simply don't think is fair.
