long beach track project

[Tony_D 26nz]

I downloaded the 24Jan version and had a go. It's looking great Samsepi, thanks. My best so far is 1:03.4 so I've got a bit to go. It's fun trying to work out how best to get through the corners, with options for double apex's etc. And the final corner is just wicked, how to get through that quickly (??), brilliant! The AI have worked well for me too. 
I have trouble seeing the brake markers going into braking zone at end of each straight. They are small and there's lots of other things around, so my old eyes battle a bit. Is there a chance to make them a bit bigger? 
At 1st I wasn't too keen on the track surface. I could see the potential but icr2 limited resolution makes the shade changes look a bit blocky. But I've got used to it. And this really does help me with driving line around the track. It gives similar help for me as the tyre marks (eg Papy tracks, Checkpoint recent tracks) or GPL racing line. 

Thanks again, and I'm looking forward to the final version.

[samsepi0l]

I downloaded the 24Jan version and had a go. It's looking great Samsepi, thanks. My best so far is 1:03.4 so I've got a bit to go. It's fun trying to work out how best to get through the corners, with options for double apex's etc. And the final corner is just wicked, how to get through that quickly (??), brilliant! The AI have worked well for me too. 

1:03 is pretty fast, I set the lap record to Michael Andretti's 91 pole time which is I think 1:06 if I remember right.  I think the game being based on faster cars from 95 gives us a little more speed than the 91 cars would have had so I like to think the track is somewhat accurate.

The hairpin could never be as tight as it is without research from checkpoint10.  I can't stress enough how much his nashville project taught us.  Myself- I keep tight left and turn the wheel right hard when the fence on the left ends... typically I drop to about 40mph at apex.  I know the shape is not perfect, and if you view in overhead view with OPE you can really see it is not as wide as real life- but I think the long beach hairpin is the tightest corner in motorsports anywhere... even tighter than the monaco loels hairpin.  It's basically a U-turn from opposing lanes of the same road around a median.  Pavel did warn that the AI could be choppy here, but I think I've learned enough to avoid this..  TRAFO does not record position accurately when you get far from the centerline, but you can correct it manually.  Speed will not be right and you have to use a video replay to log how fast you are.  The tools in EDIT45 make it quick to adjust when you get comfy with them.

My "choppiest" part of the LP is at the end of the back straight where cars want to almost dive towards the apex after the actual apex of the corner.  This seems to be because the corner is "short" from a dlong perspective.  The more "dlongs" in the length of a corner you can get more records in- and make the transition smoother.  A LP record is about 11 feet and when the corners are short you have to trial and error this out as much as possible and it still wont be perfect.  When I was screwing with denver and SK's detroit I spent FOREVER learning this.  The most daunting part of track editing is learning how to get get good LPs and I was lucky to be making LPs long before I started building tracks.  I still think I have a lot to learn- but I have come a long way.

I have trouble seeing the brake markers going into braking zone at end of each straight. They are small and there's lots of other things around, so my old eyes battle a bit. Is there a chance to make them a bit bigger? 

Some of it might be the way I did them.  Brake markers are 9000x9000 (1.5 ft x 1.5 square) I just re-used my denver markers.  I thought the red trim might help some but I know what you mean when you say the track is visually-busy.  What do people think of making them 12000 square?  They are just with the other TSOs... in reality it should probably be in a different branch of the BSP tree- but I don't know an easy way to do this.  I typically do my brake markers as 3 2 1, instead of 300 200 100.  I think in real life, this represents how many feet to the corner.  I think in detroit91, checkpoint measured the appropriate distances from the corner and placed the brake-markers correctly.  How I do it, is I use the fencepost position.  I use 3doedit to get the exact coordinate of the fence post, and I move the brake marker there.  Fence posts are actually 60ft apart (if I remember right) so my brake markers are actually at every other fence post so it is more like 120, 240 and 360 ft away.  I do this because the fence post has BSP priority over the brake marker which is just a TSO.  Hence- you can get a drawing visual problem.  Now- the smart thing we should be doing is doing it like Pavel did when he made his Laguna.... there are objects drawn right INSIDE of the racing area- so I think he moved them to a differnt part of the BSP tree which at this poing I am no-where NEAR smart enough to understand.  That is seriously badass though.

At 1st I wasn't too keen on the track surface. I could see the potential but icr2 limited resolution makes the shade changes look a bit blocky. But I've got used to it. And this really does help me with driving line around the track. It gives similar help for me as the tyre marks (eg Papy tracks, Checkpoint recent tracks) or GPL racing line. 

I know what you mean.  I wanted it to look gritty and I use the same surface for Denver.  But I have received some (deserved) criticism for my track textures over the years.  I think street circuits should have an abused look to them, and you should be able to see the traffic wear from road cars.  It's hard for me to do this without it looking pixelish.  If anyone wants to make a better texture using my pallet I would be glad to entertain it.  I also regret not using a dual style surface like Pavel did when He did toronto.  There are some spots in long beach that are not public road (there is actually a parking lot part of the track) and I would like to make those slightly darker.  I thought about making a new SG file with the idea of using grass just to get trk23d to give me 2 different racing surfaces for making the 3do only  (a trick pavel said once) however I may do it like checkpoint10 did in his tunnel and change the texture manually.  If I do this I will need a darker asphalt style blacktop like texture.

I think checkpoint10 did his tire tracks with the lp tool he created so maybe I can add tire tracks if I can get his tool working since I have decent enough LPs.  Doing them manually would suck, but it I only need to plop in an LP file and magically generate them for the TSD file then that would rock.

I am actually hoping to hear what gplaps thinks of this track, because it would be great to have it ready for his 91 season coming up!  no more vanilla inaccurate long beach

Also - just so you guys know, my workflow plan (with new motivation) is going to be:
1) finish LBEACH91 (very close to done)
2) do LBEACH96 (should be much faster and easier than 91 since so many things already done from 91 version - I will need to learn how to do ELEVATED curbs like Pavel has in his meadowlands road-course so this will be a first with that)
3) do RIVERSIDE 80's edition (SG file and info donated by Pavel - should be an easy track if I can get the elevations right - I would steal the pallet from Laguna seca to do this one)
4) LBEACH99?  (why not... it's a different configuration and I will have most of the 3do work done right?)
5) LBEACH2K?  (why not... it's a different configuration and I will have most of the 3do work done right?)
6) Belle Isle 95 (I want a re-done version of the original config, and I was there in real life in 1995 as a 15 year old boy!)
sorry I had been so slow lately.. I had some depression and loss of motivation for both trackediting and other projects, but I'm back "on track" (haha) now.

[Dennis]

It's hard for me to do this without it looking pixelish.  If anyone wants to make a better texture using my pallet I would be glad to entertain it.

There are two ways to reduce the pixel effect. Using more asphalt colors in the palette or reducing the contrast of the original image and adjust the palette to it. I think, there's no straightforward way to do it, keeping the actual palette.
My workflow was (back in the days)
- taking the standard icr2 palette for the asphalt image and add as much colors as necessary to it, until it looks acceptable
- using the extended palette from the last step, and add the necessary colors for the next surface
- do the second step for all surfaces (concrete, wall, grass dirt, etc.)
- do the same for the horizon
The next steps would be (I didn't come to this point)
- adding the necessary colors of the TSOs and TSDs to the palette
- if there are still free places in the palette, extend it with additional colors of specific surfaces or for everything together
To determine the new colors, I used Photoshop. There I can specify, how many colors it'll use to make a paletted image, and I can force it to use the colors of an existing palette.

[samsepi0l]

updates to Long Beach 1991: attachment deleted - see the end of the thread for a newer version!

TSDs, MRK, and LP done.

Still needs CAM and SCR

video footage: https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=zYnCmZqNoIg

[samsepi0l]

updates: I started working a little on LBEACH96! I had to make a mostly new SG file because of the need to implement curbs and change the apex's of some corners.. This is the first time I tried to make curbs that have height.. I made them 1ft high at the highest part, but I don't think it actually makes them 1ft high in game. At least to me it does not look 1 foot tall. What do you guys think?
   
   
   

[samsepi0l]

Here are some images of the track in real life there, you can see there is almost a little island inside of the curb area...
   
   

[Dennis]

I think, the proportions are not right. If the height is right, then they should be wider, or if the width is right, then they should be lower. It's difficult to tell from the video, because it's distorted. But i'm sure, the curbs in the first few corners have two different parts. They start with a shallow part, and at the inside, they have a steeper part. The curbs at the second half of the track are more narrow, and probably they have the same angle on their whole width.

[samsepi0l]

I think, the proportions are not right. If the height is right, then they should be wider, or if the width is right, then they should be lower. It's difficult to tell from the video, because it's distorted. But i'm sure, the curbs in the first few corners have two different parts. They start with a shallow part, and at the inside, they have a steeper part. The curbs at the second half of the track are more narrow, and probably they have the same angle on their whole width.

Yes - I agree. In SGE I made the height a 1 foot jump and it sure does not look like that in the game. I also made the curb fsection 3 foot wide. I think I will make them 6 foot wide and start further in on the racing surface and go up more on the plateau of the island some more.

One thing I don't like about adding curbs (and maybe pavel can chime in on this). I can only use 10 height changes on the track- which was just enough to make the 4 curbs I need (t2, t3, t4 and t7) What would you do if you had a scenario where the track widths were too different and the curbs needed to be at different X-spots on various corners though? I'd run out of height changes since they stay for the whole length of the track. I can see where this could be a problem if you need to make a bunch of curbs and the track width changes a lot.

I also noticed if you have your wall on a slanted section it looks crooked. I fixed this by adjusting where the ramps started and ended with just some trial and error. I definitely learned something with this though.

[Dennis]

What would you do if you had a scenario where the track widths were too different and the curbs needed to be at different X-spots on various corners though?  I'd run out of height changes since they stay for the whole length of the track.  I can see where this could be a problem if you need to make a bunch of curbs and the track width changes a lot. 

I would try to plan everything in advance.
If you have curbs in a corner only on one side, you can adjust the centerline of the sections before and after the corner, to get the track edge right to the height line, where you want it.

[samsepi0l]

I would try to plan everything in advance.

Yes I'm definitely seeing this is necessary now. I was lucky in my previous tracks to not be limited by this but I'm glad I tried something new and learned this on a simple track that I already had most of the SG file for. After LBEACH96 is done I'll move onto riverside, and I think it has raised curbs too so I will need to be smart about that.