Putting the built-in skyboxes to good use, for once.

Brook being a surprisingly good detective, I guess it's time to make a separate development topic for this. This thread is for the ooh, aah, and yuck bit.

Yes, I'm making Trollstigen. In real life, it's not a place anyone would race: Too many underpowered flat-country mobile homes and packs of Japanese picture-taking tourists, too narrow road (3-5m!), and most of the year it's closed due to snow or rockslide danger. Thus, I'm a little unsure how well this idea will work inside Redline, but it's worth trying. If it turns out well, I might even make Applecross later, which is just as narrow.

I have finished a rough road layout, but I'm only sharing it once I've compared it to some onboard driving videos, and I also want to have the rough terrain model in place. In the meantime, here's a YouTube video for you showing how well the built-in skyboxes match real life and how unfit this road normally is for racing:



I'm setting the bar quite low with this track, hoping that my terrain modeling exercise will be enough on the visual side. Therefore, don't expect any eye-popping textures and in no way should you expect any waterfalls or similar videogame clichés.

C14ru5 wrote:Brook being a surprisingly good detective...

Next time, erase those names (maybe even the road number) from the map. Plugging Istra and Knutsetra in Google soon gave me enough clues to where that was. The pictures posted on Google Earth filled in the rest... It wasn't that hard.

C14ru5 wrote:Yes, I'm making Trollstigen. In real life, it's not a place anyone would race: Too many underpowered flat-country mobile homes and packs of Japanese picture-taking tourists, too narrow road (3-5m!), and most of the year it's closed due to snow or rockslide danger. Thus, I'm a little unsure how well this idea will work inside Redline, but it's worth trying. If it turns out well, I might even make Applecross later, which is just as narrow.

I can see races here with smaller cars. Mini 1275(s), for example. Smart Roadster should be cool here too. Big overpowered monsters probably won't work.
It would also be very interesting for Time Trial, if the Tracker supported unlooped tracks.

Brook wrote:I can see races here with smaller cars. Mini 1275(s), for example. Smart Roadster should be cool here too. Big overpowered monsters probably won't work.

I agree, as this road is too narrow to really allow for any racing line. In some places, cars can't even be positioned perpendicular to the track because it's too narrow. In real life it's a two-way road, so there are about 20 passing points along the road where the road width is wide enough for two meeting cars to pass each other. Of course this has no advantage inside Redline, so I have thought up some plans to allow for passing. Plan 1 is to have the road widened at each of the 11 hairpins, thus allowing cars to nudge past each other through the corner (a.k.a Rallycross passing). Plan 2 is to have the roadtypes simulate running off the cliffside. Both plans include a fine balance between fun and frustration, so I'll need some feedback once I release a development preview.

Brook wrote:It would also be very interesting for Time Trial, if the Tracker supported unlooped tracks.

+1, and also it's a bit frustrating that finishPos is offset by a couple of segments, giving different results in Normal and Reverse direction.

Here's a teaser image - the texture doesn't look that impressive up close, unfortunately



To do:
- Modify the terrain in some places where the texture is stretched too much
- Finish the road layout
- Make some roadtypes
- Adapt the terrain model to the road
- Models: Corner signs, bridges, etc.

Image isn't working (right now?), sadly.

NoNameBrand wrote:Image isn't working (right now?), sadly.

working here now ... one word: WOW!

just... amazing!

But, as you wrote, unfortunately will not have that quality during the game.

It's been 18 months since I started this project, so just to let you know that I'm still working on this monster, here's a very early preview:

Trollstigen Development Preview Summer 2010 (12MB)
NOTE: This is not to be distributed elsewhere, at least not until it's in better shape.

Any feedback is welcome, but bear in mind that the only thing "almost done" is the .road file (layout and elevation profile).

Code:

You don’t have permission to open this page.
You don’t have permission to view “TrollstigenDevSummer2010.zip”.

Sorry, fixed now.

Having had the great pleasure of driving over the real thing recently, this brought back some fun memories for me (such as passing a 10-wheeler on the switchbacks!)

With some nicely modelled and textured asphalt and barriers and a little foliage near the track, it could be a very cool little plug-in for a Sunday drive in one of Kishkumen's vintage cars.

djpimley wrote:Having had the great pleasure of driving over the real thing recently, this brought back some fun memories for me

I've never driven this thing, but I've ridden it downhill on a bike. Passing through the mist of the waterfall sort of sums up the whole experience, I think.

djpimley wrote:passing a 10-wheeler on the switchbacks!

What gets really interesting is when a bus meets a 10-wheeler:



Up until the late 1980s, roads like these were rather common in Norway. Like the state road going from inner Hardangerfjord to Bergen, clinching itself to the cliff at sea level, twisting along the edge of the fjords. And then when the precipice above became too steep, you had to take a ferry over to the other side of the fjord where the road continued. Having switchbacks along were a necessity. Now though, there are just long tunnels instead.

djpimley wrote:
With some nicely modelled and textured asphalt and barriers and a little foliage near the track, it could be a very cool little plug-in for a Sunday drive in one of Kishkumen's vintage cars.

Yes, this is the sort of road that you don't race through, rather just drive and look at the view. Too bad about the draw distance limit.
The aerial photo texture is used as tracing and modeling aid, and will have to go at some point. It will however serve as basis for the light map.

I see two ways in which this track may evolve:
- Modeling the old school rock barriers (quite a lot of them!! ...but also quite essential)
- Leaving out the rock barriers, and roadtyping the cliff sides to allow driving off to your death
...or a compromise of the two

Road signs are a must, as is the foliage, but I'd rather not think too much about that at the moment.

Great route and amazing landscape, I love it. Reminds me of driving around on a twisty mountain road in Racer
Thanks for bringing that road to Redline, C14!

C14ru5 wrote:
I see two ways in which this track may evolve:
- Modeling the old school rock barriers (quite a lot of them!! ...but also quite essential)
- Leaving out the rock barriers, and roadtyping the cliff sides to allow driving off to your death
...or a compromise of the two

I would prefer a compromise, but that's me.

Great start though! I can tell this will be lots of fun in later versions.

Ummm..all I see is white. The texture for some reason won't load for me. Even when I open it up in MI, it doesn't accept the texture.

Here are the originals for Model Importer, if these don't work then I don't know. Sounds like a similar problem that we experienced with Kvitfjell, it could be the model that is too large and needs to be split up.

Oddly enough, the only way for me to be able to use the textures is to compress it to 2048x2048.

C14ru5 wrote:What gets really interesting is when a bus meets a 10-wheeler

Wow. That clip shows there's no need to drive at 100 mph to show driving skill. If this track reaches 1.0 I might just be tempted to make a bus.

...but has any progress been made with this track since? I love it... especially with a high power rally or GT car. Making the road surface more visible and creating the possibility to fall off the cliffs would probably turn this into the ultimate rally stage!

The terrain model is nearly complete, but the rest of the work remains. Six months, maybe? Hard to tell.

This is the sort of project that I work on when I'm tired of working on my other projects. Lately my priorities have been smaller projects that are easier to finish than this.