Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Airport Terminal 1.5 Progress


Well I would love to start this post with lots of great screenshots of how I am modifying the circuit to improve it from its current 1.0 - 1.5 version. Of course, one would expect there to be many many changes for such a version leap forward, this is meant to be the case. I say 'meant to be' as it is not exactly working out the way I had planned. 

Originally I had planned to tighten up the circuit a bit, rebuild the pit lane from scratch, move walls / objects / S-objects closer, however this is all going pear shaped. I moved many track anchor points to tighten it up and make for an overall better racing experience. This ruins any terrain you have connected to the track itself, so it all had to be bulldozed to be added again. I did that, then I re-added it and moved all the anchors accordingly to hide any 'holes' in the circuit. Finally I moved all the walls, kerbs and what have you to realign with the track in its new configuration.

It was only after blasting around that I noticed that the track needed to be tighter again in parts, and more open in others. Repeat the same process and already most of the day is gone. I then notice that a rather large and notable issue has arisen. The second half of the track features a massive terminal with boarding gates hanging over the circuit. I have modified the overall height of some areas of the track which correspond with this particular area. Hmm, now I have a plane boarding gate effectively digging into the circuit just before the final turn. I raise the terminal building up a bit so that any car can clearly pass underneath, but now the circuit has a rather notable hole appearing on the opposite side where we can see under the object - thus breaking that 'wall' of believability.

I figure that by raising the terrain there I should be able to hide my error - oh wait - no. I have done too much and cannot go back as Bobs Track Builder often crashes when you undo changes (perhaps it is a windows 7 error with the software). Now I must remove all the terrain once more, fix the height of the track, then add the terrain back once again and move every object around the circuit! Ah how frustrating.

In fact I was so annoyed that I packed it in last night and went to bed. Today is another day, and I may look at fixing it up once more. It sure is a great deal of effort for some fairly tedious changes to the overall circuit!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Grand Prix of Bosnia - Zaluzani 2.0 released

As explained in the title more or less, I have released Zaluzani 2.0 on NoGripRacing here.


It is listed as an entirely new entry on NoGripRacing as I built it from scratch. There are a number of clearly notable differences between 2.0 and my last effort 1.10. The first and foremost being the flip from a clockwise circuit to a counter clockwise running. Now the circuit flows in the direction that it does in the real world. The next most notable change would have to be the GPS data used in the textures. Now as you race around the circuit you will see the remains of the once grand complex that was the Zaluzani circuit facility.

I have added a vast number of trees and bushes to the circuit as well as a few buildings to make it feel a little more alive. I also added many many walls around the circuit to confine cars to the road and not to exploration. I have reduced the grid size down to 38 cars as 40+ was probably too many for a relatively short simple course. The cameras have been built entirely by Pycat who is a fantastic camera mapper for rfactor and other sims.

So what are you doing, go and race on it now!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Zaluzani 2.0 progress

Since last updating Zaluzani 1.1 around a year and a half ago I have been keen to improve it to look more like a decent race track. I have learnt a lot about circuit building over the past year and a half...






As you can see, I have made a lot of progress with the new 2.0 version. I have finally been able to add GPS data and merge it into the materials / textures of the terrain. This means that the look and feel of the circuit will be better than ever.

For those of you who are familiar with the actual Zaluzani, you will notice that I have brushed over many of the built up areas with foliage. This is because I cannot model 3-5 dozen homes and even if I could, the cars race around here at a rate that would mean you would not be able to notice the details of the homes and other buildings. Therefore I have only added key buildings to the circuit.

For those of you who follow my blog, you will know that currently I am struggling to find decent employment in my field of speciality. While this is making life a little bit tougher, I have been able to work on my circuits that do not require unique models such as an updated Zaluzani.

Zaluzani 2.0 is still not very accurate of the actual Zaluzani circuit, however I believe that with my creative eye for details, that I have done it justice with the various changes I have made. As always it is not 100% real not entirely fictional, but a hybrid of the two.

Look out for Zaluzani 2.0 at nogripracing in the coming week!