I am working on OuluZone karting track which was opened for racing this spring. Track is located in Oulu, Finland.
My work is only at very very early stages as you can see but comments and help are always welcome :). I was lucky enough to get the official blueprints of the track 8).
I might need to rework the pit lane (possibly as terrain) as I am having trouble making it align properly to the track.
Here are some videos from the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEm8eQdVMZc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUKM-9Wumk4
More pics coming along the way.
Feel free to contact me when you need help with BTB ( or ask here )
Have you decreased the panel length?
Quote from: LauZzZn on June 28, 2016, 03:43:31 PM
Have you decreased the panel length?
You mean when connecting pit lane or in general? Yes, I ave fiddled with the panel length. EDIT: Ahh, I probably misunderstood you, I found this tutorial (http://simtrackipedia.wikidot.com/btb:smooth-corners), you mean panel length in curves? That I haven't changed so far. But I got the pit lane connected (as a separate track) so that it looks OK in BTB, but haven't tested in-game yet.
I practiced with mapping the background images as terrain texture. Will need to redo them with higher quality later on, but at least I know how I can get the images rotated and matched on the terrain :).
Next step would probably be to model the service lanes, getting the terrain to somewhat correct height and adding kerbs and other objects...
I merged few images taken from a drone together. I think the circled spots will be the most challenging ones to get correctly texture wise.
I suggest only making the track using the road tool. Make them by hand using terrain, then you dont have to connect anything and then there is no flickering in Kartracing Pro, which happens if you do it like in rF tutorials, as it doesnt work in KRP. I can upload some pictures later on
Also, decreasing the panel length to 1 (or lower) is necessary! Otherwise the track will be super lowpoly
Edit: You can see it halfway decent on this picture how I done it. Its much easier and faster
(http://i63.tinypic.com/syqog4.jpg)
Ok, I'll ditch the pit lane track and go for terrain solution instead. Thanks a lot for the help :).
Also, I stumbled on 3DSimED (http://sim-garage.co.uk/), I understand it can be used to "polish" the track? Is this info still valid? What is the actual benefit of it? Maybe I just download it and try it out =). If I buy the license for version 3, is it valid for the older version (1 or 2?) which seemingly is better/easier for using with KRP tracks?
The version doesnt matter. Actually, you only convert the track to 3ds max (2010) which is necessary to get the track into Kartracing Pro. But it makes conversion process a lot faster! Absolute suggestion for it. Version doesnt matter for the conversion process. I also suggest making only the track, terrain, kerbs and string objects in BTB, and the rest (also most cleanup, texturing, adding buildings etc) in 3ds max, as its a lot more efficient, faster and more comfortable there
Ok, sounds nice. I'll install and try it out. And if its good, I'll get the license for continued use.
As for the pit lane, I ended up adding a terrain around the pit lane track, then delete the track and fill it up with terrain. That way the pit lane was already at the correct shape, height etc.
So did I understand correctly that the benefit of 3DSimED is that I don't have to do all the multimaterial conversion by hand? So the workflow would be: Bob's track builder (track, terrain and kerbs) -> 3DSimED (texture conversion) -> 3DSMax (clean up, texture, add objects) -> KRP ?
Yes.
Very nice idea with the terrain pit lane! If you already did the road of course the pit lane is very nice and easier to work with than with the road itself :)
Texture conversion using 3dsimed takes about 5minutes. Depending on the track the process in 3ds max takes hours!
I remade the pit lane once more. Created 3 tracks, then added small terrain plots on both sides of all tracks and deleted the tracks. Then filled up with terrain again 8)
The two middle service ways I made purely on terrain. It was quite easy and fast after you become familiar with the terrain modification tools, merging, splitting etc. Although there is probably quite a bit of cleaning up to do as seen on the wireframe.
Wireframe looks alright, the pit lane might be a bit high poly, its not really necessary.
Has the track any elevations? Its necessary to to the elevations before any terrainwork.
Track looks good so far and I am happy to see someone trying to make a track himself! (Y)
Yeah, the track has elevations according to what I could see from the cad drawings. Sadly it did not contain the corner camber information so I will need to work that out corner by corner and by feeling compared to the videos and my own feelings of the track :). Currently I've just thrown in some corner camber, they might need adjustment later on. Do you think it's a problem that I have the terrain done to this point? Mostly the terrain elevations are missing currently. Should I now export it to game and tune in the corner cambers and elevation before continuing to terrain work?
I'll reduce the pit lane poly count, should be straight forward thing to do.
You will have to completely redo the terrain after any kind of elevation or camber work :/
Ok, then I need to start testing the track 8)
I've fixed the track width issue, and as LauZzZn said, it broke some of the terrain. Nothing critical, I will need to attend those after the track and kerbs have been finalized.
Here is a short video. Just for fun and for laughing at it when the track is finally complete ;). Don't mind about the terrain bugs or my bad driving, thanks. It is actually quite hard to drive the corners without kerbs as a visual cue...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1psMPOguPM
There are some unintended bumps on the track which I need to iron out. Also an issue with the fences being transparent and timing not working for some reason. But those can wait until the track and kerbs are done.
Surprisingly the track is actually drive-able and the corner cambers are quite OK already.
Try to fix the bumps smoothing them out and its nice.
Dont mind about the fences, this is a normal comversion issue. You have to copy the fences and flip the polys
Yep, just started smoothing out the nodes.
One thing I learned today was that it is very good idea to merge the surface areas to meaningful blobs in BTB before exporting it out. It's a bit tedious to name all the surfaces with KRP prefixes if there are gazillion different pieces of terrain :o
You can merge them together in 3ds Max, too ;)
Quote from: LauZzZn on June 30, 2016, 09:09:35 PM
You can merge them together in 3ds Max, too ;)
That is true ;D. Well good to have them nice and tidy from the start.
Smoothing the height for track points was a success. Track is now much more enjoyable to drive. I also noticed that I had not set the speed trap point (and width) in race data and that was the reason timing was not working.
Now next step is to really start comparing the KRP footage vs real life footage to see if any of the corner cambers or track height is wrong. Then move on to creating kerbs (http://forum.kartracing-pro.com/index.php?topic=5800.0). After that I need more tutorials from LauZzZn ;).
You can also suggest tutorials in the topic :)
Nice to see good progress on your track!
After few days break (due to RL) I am back on working on the track.
Here is the current state vs RL footage. Due to different engines, I had to slow down the KRP footage a little to make it match.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cyi55BK-sc
Looking very nice! See a lot of potential with the kerbs, objects and improved textures :)
First kerb test using track surfaces. Shape is not finalized and it might be too high. 8)
What would be the best way to make this kind of kerbs?
Do not use 3D kerbs, I would suggest making a good texture that work better with KRP
Quote from: LauZzZn on July 03, 2016, 10:14:13 PM
Do not use 3D kerbs, I would suggest making a good texture that work better with KRP
Ok, but I don't get the vibration effect with just a texture?
Added most of the kerbs and removed the most glaring terrain bugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8oUHoGcjwA
You get Feedback because of the prefix used for it (TRKKERB)
Quote from: LauZzZn on July 04, 2016, 04:39:34 PM
You get Feedback because of the prefix used for it (TRKKERB)
Ahhh, cool!
Switched to higher quality background blueprint image. Due to this I had to do some track & terrain editing. Possibly because I had just thrown in the previous background image as whatever-resolution and possibly BTB had not kept the aspect ratio properly. Lesson here is to use a high quality image from the start and use e.g. 2048 or 4096 as the width&height of the image.
Started making the terrain...
I had a look at this video: https://youtu.be/2AaASVKyRQI
And I think your kerbs are too high and wide ( also they seem to be unconstant, like you made the shape again every time you made a kerb, you can copy the shape ;) )
Also I suggest making new fences in 3DS Max and get them into BTB so you dont have to use the stock BTB fences
Quote from: LauZzZn on July 06, 2016, 05:21:21 PM
I had a look at this video: https://youtu.be/2AaASVKyRQI
And I think your kerbs are too high and wide ( also they seem to be unconstant, like you made the shape again every time you made a kerb, you can copy the shape ;) )
Also I suggest making new fences in 3DS Max and get them into BTB so you dont have to use the stock BTB fences
Yeah, it was the first test with kerbs, need to make them smaller. I did actually copy the shape, but might have missed some of them, but that is easy to fix.
The objects are really something that need work, fences and other track side objects... I need to make a trip to the track and take some reference pictures. So you suggest to make an XPack from the fences?
for string objects you should make a xpack, dont make one for buildings or single objects
Today's state.
Still terrain tuning ongoing...
For some reason I cannot get the track to load in KRP now... It works OK in mapview but if I try to open it in-game, the game crashes. I've tried both the new track tools and the old one. I've made sure the centerline is merged. Is there any log where I could see why the game crashes?
I don't understand what is happening, I just can't get the track to load anymore in-game. >:(
I've tried even stripping down all terrain and objects. Still loading the track crashes. Help anyone?
Do you actually save the .trp via TrackED? Maybe try creating a new folder
Have you been merging the track centre line?
Yup, saving through TrackED as trp with the centerline merged. I've made it so many times now, I'm kind of getting fed up :D. It was working fine for many many times earlier. I might need to try an earlier version to see what breaks it...
I went to the track today and took almost 600 pics around the track and measurements from objects. Let's see what I can come up with them. 8)
Very cool!
Are you sure all the textures are converted correctly?
Quote from: LauZzZn on July 11, 2016, 04:20:42 PM
Are you sure all the textures are converted correctly?
I'm pretty sure. I did them 3 or 4 times :)... And it works in mapview...
After quick SketchUp session, objects are coming along nicely... The stand and the rounded boxes are currently too high poly, will need to optimize them along the way.
More images from object modeling.
Some object modelling images from today. Also my first attempt at making a terrain texture.
Next I think I will take a break from the objects and try to get the track into the game again and hopefully get to continue the terrain after that.
Nice modeling. Can't wait to see the finished product.
I finally found the reason for not getting the track working in the game: Non-closed centerline! I can continue development again. Though development will be a little slower the next weeks due to work starting again and few kart races 8).
I managed to get first objects successfully into the game as seen in attached screenshot. Don't mind about the terrain textures at this point, they are just placeholders :)
Very nice to see. I see a lot of potential in this track!
Also added the audience stand.
Any news on your project?
No progress now as work and real life karting is taking my time. I will continue once the karting season ends :D
Racing season is over (mostly) :P any news on your project?