Really liking 0.96 and seems to be getting a major face-lift! Donation sent!! Don't go belly up on me now
Three days is too long for this marvelous project to go without a post so I wanted Pleclair to know my nightly lap at Nordi is highly appreciated.
Here is my new blog, http://simracing-motorsport.de/ for germany, i want test the ring and write something about ;-)
Hey guys! (!!) Finally! Wait, before you think I'm done with it all, I'm not! But I got something worth of sharing with you, and this time, not only with screenshots It's been a few week ends already I wanted to push in an update, and something always got added or changed. On my last screenshots, I started working on the grass. Turns out I managed to replace all grasses with 4096x4096 textures, that I made from scratch myself. So they aren't from any other tracks or whatever. The only thing in Nords at the moment, that have been borrowed is the asphalt details maps (from Mores). So, what to expect in this version? Much better grasses all around, redid all trees again, since I made new grasses, the trees were too de-saturated for the new grass, so I remade them all. I applied my latest alpha masking techniques to them, and they look much much better. The specular maps and bump maps are also improved too. Also, when I did the trees, I took the default textures, loaded them up in PS, and replaced with better trees. But we had about 50-60 trees mats defined, that used about 15 or so textures maps. So many trees repeated. Now all 50-60 trees mats are different. I went again from the default textures, and picked trees matching those, and took a good look at the many images I have (thanks to Richard), and from videos on youtube, and made sure I picked trees variety that ressemble those in Nords. I have removed many ugly tree lines that were way to close to the track. I will later replace all tree lines with real trees, similar to how its done in Mores. The tarmac detail maps are now smaller. Turns out you guys were right. At some point, I was looking at a particular screenshot, and the car looked tiny on the tarmac, which appeared too big. So I made the grain a bit smaller, and now it looks pretty darn good. I also made new gravel textures for the gravel traps. Redid the specs/bumps on the guard rails and curbs too. Probably forgetting stuff as well, but you'll see. There are a few things to fix in this version, the remaining cracks, a few UV mapping problems, some trees are flickering, some new bushes stand out of some fences, need to pull them back in. But I think it should be enough for a while for you to enjoy a nearly brand new track from a visual perspective So here are a few new screenshots, not all are made with this very latest version, some have different trees etc... but still should reflect the current state. View attachment 10330 View attachment 10331 View attachment 10332 View attachment 10333 View attachment 10334 View attachment 10335 View attachment 10336 View attachment 10337 View attachment 10338 View attachment 10339 View attachment 10340 View attachment 10341 View attachment 10342 View attachment 10343 View attachment 10344 View attachment 10345 Hmm, I just reached my limit of attachments it seems. (managed to include last one because its dark and smaller in size ) So, without any more wait, here is the new download link for version 0.97a, which by the way, is now 600mb in size. https://mega.co.nz/#!kUZgXCDS!KkFGejIzcVYy-yQ5wY_IsGE6qmgE0n11XYJUtOzS2H8 So, expect quite a performance hit if you play at max settings. You can gain fps back by lowering the textures details a notch or two tho, and you will still have something much better than the default textures at max. Performances should climb back up a bit when optimizations are done to the track. But nevertheless, 2048x2048 and 4096x4096 are much heavier than 256-512-1024s... I will now add the link to the first post. Also, all screens still made with default HDR profile. Now, its time for Tosch to work his magic! (let me know Tosch if you need any textures fixed or modified)
I hope you have a good week end lapping on Nords I know I will be burning some rubber on it myself! The fisi 2012 is a blast to drive around now! Well, all cars are actually!
Massive improvement! Great job on the tarmac. The default HRD is looking much better. After this you must do Le Mans
Thx for your work. Track starts to look really nice. Overall very nice tree models. Couple things i noticed (maybe you are aware of them but i didnt have time to read whole thread): 1. Some trees look like they dont receive lighting. They are almost black. 2. Above tree walls there is always straight black line. 3. Some trees dissapear before i pass them (just a second too early) - thats on low track detail. EDIT: its the same with full circuit details. 4. Tarmac texture seems to be too bright. Besides that nice progress
Don't be surprised if it ends with about 2K. If only pleclair doesn't go bonkers first. Does DJC win a prize?
@pleclair Congratulations on this release. The work you've done with the trees and grass (especially grass) is fantastic. Previous screenshots of this track still bothered me but I think it was down to the way the grass was. Your effort here is greatly appreciated even for someone who doesn't like the Ring.
I want to sincerely thank you for all the excellent, hard work you've put into this. It truly is amazing what you have accomplished. That said, I'm hoping someone has a mirror up. I've tried twice now to get it from mega, and it keeps stopping at 98%. I don't know why, I've never had an issue with it before. Mega doesn't work at all in Firefox, so I'm using Chrome to download, if that helps anyone with any ideas?
Have you tried this addon for Firefox ? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/meganz/?src=search The file will be in your /%user/downloads folder.
I'm using version 24.0 of Firefox and have great success with mega. I think it works great. Just downloaded Nordschleife. Win7 64bit
great work Pleclair. the new AM from URD is made for this circuit. in the very poor and hastily filmed from an iphone video above, i noticed that shadows have a habit of disappearing just before you go past them, a bit like the trees that someone mentioned earlier in the thread that said, the feeling of speed here is somehow much more than previous versions, and its totally photogenic!! the grass on the left in this shot is really nice, it loses its fidelity at a distance like on the right of the circuit though same thing with grass here, it looks lower definition but its still looks beautiful despite these minor things
