No more pancake flat tracks. Lada has completely reshaped my perspective on immersion. I use to drive most challenging mods and combos but now surface is king. Number one of all is lada @ route 666. Steering wheel is all over the place. What feel! Like nothing else. Another example is lienz. Damn how it brings the t280 to life. Ethone and mario are masters of surface IMO. Route 666 with mario's tools is superb Does anyone else even model surface texture? Why not? Even isi tracks are not that great. Some parts of malaysia, maybe. Track surface is so important yet so many modders ignore and even some don't even convert surface correctly Track surface is king to immersion. Am i wrong? Is this a lost art? Was it ever? Mario and ethone make it seem so. Damnit i just can't drive anything else after lienz, sebring, route 666 and le mans Am i missing other tracks with great surface? Seems like nobody else even tries.
I must be imagining alot of bumps, camber changes and seams at many other tracks that you did not mention. *shrug* Edit: Just off the top of my head Portugal is bumpy as heck.
Another title claims all its tracks are laser scanned and I feel very little to nothing through the wheel, plus I am not sure how they went back in time to laser scan an historic track A lot of tracks in rF2 give pretty amazing feedback of track surface/camber/bump steer. Off the raceline at Le Mans The pit straight at Sebring, Monte Carlo, Old Spa, Malaysia and I remember a very heavily marbled track at Mills feeling great when going over them. But on the other hand a bad conversion will break your wheel because the surface hasn't been touched and is just wrong.
Yes i agree portugal is bumpy but is that enough? I don't know what was done for route 666 but it seems like more than just bumps and camber. And sebring for example is hugely immersive and le mans surface was clearly sculpted with care. You guys ate right that there are bumpy tracks but how were bumps made? Sign wave algorithm or by hand with the intention to truly introduce character and a truly different experience? Btw i did forget to mention monaco which is possibly the best surface of isi tracks. 60s f2 @ monaco is absolutely bliss regarding feel and ffb. Kudos to isi for that. But why? How is monaco so much better? Did they get lucky? Is it a different track drsigner? There must be something to it and i wouldn't be surprised if much of it is art vs science only. I also agree there are other good tracks but i need to go back and re-race them again to evaluate after my perspective change from route 666 with lada. I know part of it is lada too because it is by far best vehicle on route 666 with ffb, possibky b/c is light car with **** suspension and wheels, etc. I don't know. Oops i also forgot isi spa and monza are good too. Sorry haven't driven them for a while. Like i said i am going to go back and re-test my track list and other tracks too with surface as a major variable.
Alex Sawczuk did a pretty good job in track surface on Game Stock Car tracks. Really impresive and those are not laser scanned as far is a know.
There is a common misconception about laser scanned tracks. Laser scanning is not really concerned with minor track surface changes, but mostly about accuracy of direction and elevation changes above a specific amount. when you get gouges in the track surface due to wheel loss and a brake rotor digging into the surface, laser scanning won't see it, but the cars will feel it none the less. The same holds true for the concrete at Sebring. There are expansion joints all over the track so that the concrete doesn't crack or break due to no room to expand from the heat, and the cars feel those joints as they travel across the surface easily. There are also the transitions from concrete to asphalt and back that happens on many different tracks, and those transitions are seldom perfectly smooth. A designer who goes over the top with detail will pay attention to these things and put them into the surface model or a file describing the surface, how ever it is done.
I think people are confusing random bumps caused from quick conversions and bumps that are actually supposed to be there. Personally I haven't been a fan of these quick conversions but that's only my opinion.
Actually, I think you are mistaken yourself a bit. Laserscanning is by design perfect for picking up all that small detail. All of the detail found in there you simply can't invent as precise however hard you try. The problem is that most sims can't be driven on that laserscan point cloud directly, unless you are talking about rFactor Pro and a few other professional ones can do that. Indeed if you look at iRacing and Assetto Corsa, those tracks are built using laserscanning as reference and this makes banking and elevation really accurate but also the lateral detail in the tracks can be snapped to the laserscan information. This alone will again be better than made up bumps by a track designer. I'd rather have a general smooth surface, than made up misplaced ones. Just to clear things up (I work with laserscanned tracks for a living)
I was testing on PBIR yesterday and noticed how bumpy it was. It wasn't the washboard bumps that some are confusing with bad modeling though.
I'd rather have inaccurate bumps than flat smooth- at least if the bumps are inaccurate, they are there and the nature of the track is preserved. If a track is bumpy and in-game it is flat smooth, then the nature of the track is lost. At least with random bumps, you have to set your car up more similarly to the real cars than if the track is fake and smooth. There's another problem with laser scanning. Even if it can capture the real bumps on the track, it only captures the bumps on that day in that season. One frost and the bumps are changed. Same with a track like Sebring- one very hot day and the washboard of a front straight has changed. This is also why random bumps in basically the same places the real bumps are are as accurate TODAY as the real bumps were last year when the track was scanned. Every season, every year, every race sometimes, a track changes- the actual physical track surface.
Agreed to some extent indeed, like my Zolder track, that is a good example of being way too smooth in its current state, taking away some of the experience. Believable is the keyword, I think Croft is very believable when it comes to road surface so I'm more inclined to believe that can be accurate, but if it is, no clue Also agree to some extent. Problem being, even a laserscanned track which has been scanned in summer, but now driven in winter, will still be more accurate than a non laserscanned track. Also do mind that the same points apply to 'regular' built tracks One thing I don't like about laserscanning, which is the only thing, is when the track changes its layout. If they do that, you're basically ****ed. Thing is, I think for ISI it isn't very cost effective to go this way and they can produce great tracks with conventional ways building a track, I really can't blame them, especially if you look at Silverstone I tend to think it contains a lot of hear-say stuff which is easy to repeat but once you start comparing stuff probably doesn't really hold ground, but is just my opinion. I don't mind that ISI doesn't supply them but I know that not everything stated should taken be the as truth About the initial questions: Everybody does and tries the best job they can do. Without proper reference, you can only go so far. I think they are at a very high standard and only getting better, actually. Quite a harsh assumption, people do they best they can without any real resources or money. I think it is part of immersion. Mario Kart on a laserscanned version of Silverstone will still be MarioKart. They did great jobs, that takes time and skill! By all means do and enjoy them Croft and Poznan (And again, bit harsh )
It's not hearsay. It's from Carroll Smith. He mentions about having to work a track every time you visit it because of the changes that time and weather bring. IIRC (it was a while ago that I read the books) he mentioned Sebring by name.
Well no intention to be harsh and like i said tracks deserve a fair shake why is why i am going to test them again and will give credit where credit is due like i have already done with ones i recalled after my original post so stand by for others as i simply need to refresh my memory as tracks i have been driving recently have been **** as far as surface but admittedly many are quick conversions. Anyway, the more omportant point is that surface is important and i appreciate those who understand and take the time to do well. Also for the record i personally don't care one bit how close a track is to IRL.
Fair enough The problem with the argument I have is that in this instance it's used to describe a problem when it comes to laserscanning. In reality, this is a problem every virtual track is prone to and not limited to tracks built using laserscanning That seems a bit at odds with the entire premise of the topic if you ask me
