Thursday, August 4, 2011

Yes or No?

I, like many of you out there who follow Formula One very closely, have now seen a 'track map' of the proposed NJC Grand Prix (New Jersey) here at F1 Fanatic.

I first saw this and thought how cool it would be to play this in Rfactor before seeing it in real life in the years to come - should it go ahead of course. I am wondering if I should make this for Rfactor. I have already made two circuits based in New York City, and in particular, down around the Lower Manhattan districts. So in a way, I could use some of my models in the background. I would need to remove many faces to drop the detail level of objects that are going to be quite far away, but you get the idea.

Currently I have been working on a proposed Hockenheim layout for the early 1980s. However I have experienced many problems with placing objects and keeping the detail level high. Basically, when I export through a .3ds format from Google Sketchup, the textures / materials convert into .jpeg. This means that the negative space elements (wire frames, fences, crowds etc) all are filled with 'black' which not only adds to the level of details that must be rendered, but they look increadibly ugly.

The only option I have is to export them as collenda files. However, these then are not within the 2X2 format, and all need resizing. That is fine if the object has 5,10, 20 or 30 textures. It just takes a bit of time to the open every single texture / material in Photoshop and resize them. The problem is that the Hockenheim grandstands (you know the massive one's around the pits, final and first corners) has a whopping 120 texture faces. This become annoying to just sit there and convert one after the other. If any come out even slightly wrong, then Xpacker can't open the collenda file and crashes.

Anyway... what I am getting at, is that maybe I need to shelve this circuit for a time when I am not working (in real life) so flat out, and therefore would have sufficient time to work on my circuits.

However! I feel that a circuit from scratch is easier to make, as one does not have people breathing down their neck's telling them what is inaccurate and what doesn't feel right and what is - well to put it simply - wrong.

Let me know if you folks think I should have a genuine attempt at making the NJC GP circuit as proposed recently.

Cheers.

4 comments:

  1. Sorry for the off topic comment, but I posted a comment about an issue with your Imola 1960 track in "The Circuits Thread", really hoped you could help since we are wanting to use the track for an upcoming event.

    Thanks

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  2. My opine is this:

    I can Find Hockenheim in different versions already and although it is a Rod-creation, Would be a repeat.

    Be bold and go with the new circuit. Since it's just being proposed at this point you can be a little more creative instead of rigidly having to stick to "Hock" as it was circa 1980. I really have enjoyed the "Manhattan transfer"(our name)circuit so I trust the new circuit will reflect the same quality. A trailblazer by nature, I would go with the new circuit and let the creative genius go to work.

    Just my Opinion Rod.

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  3. I think I agree with you Tamburillo. I will halt the production of Hockenhiem in favour of NJC GP. I mapped out the basic track the other day and will now start adjusting the height and camber changes before moving to modeling etc. Thank you for your honest and eye opening opinion. I value this very much so.

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  4. ... Anxious to see what you come up with.

    Good luck Rod. Thank you a million laps times over.

    ReplyDelete