Ottawa Motorsports Park 1.01

This update fixes the phantom lap issue on the Drift layout and squeezes a couple more pit stalls into the layout, making it a more useful course for all your Formula Student, microcar, and forklift-based shenanigans. Additionally, it includes some modest QoL improvements based on feedback that has come in after the initial release, such as addiing an independent physical road mesh to the south paddock area, adding more cones/barriers to clearly define track layouts, and some very minor brightening of the track and grass surfaces to keep things from getting too gloomy under CSP/Sol RainFX conditions. Enjoy!

1.01 Changelog

• Sent somebody out to wrap some extra tin foil on the antenna for the timing lights on the drift course, Phantom finish issue resolved.
• Set up a couple extra tents at the drift pits, told pit crews to keep their elbows in to make room.
• After the first hard freeze of the season, discovered minor frost heave at our formerly billiard-table-smooth south paddock. After deliberation, decided to blame the autocrossers and raise our lot rental rate.
• After somebody put their Locost through the back wall of the maintenance shed on a track day, changed procedures to clearly cone off the north pits when the south pits are active, and add mobile barriers to close off the south loop when the north pits are in use.
• As part of pandemic preparedness, began misting bleach across property via crop-duster. We're sure the lightening effect on ground surfaces is fine and no big deal...

Ottawa Motorsports Park is finally complete! Thanks to everybody who's tested it out and provided feedback -- your help has been invaluable. I started this project on a lark -- what would I do if I won the lottery? Build a race track, of course! -- and it quickly turned into a huge labor of love that has reignited my love of simracing and game modding. I'm glad to see that so many people are enjoying my little hobby project!

So, you ask, what does 1.0 bring to OMP? Truthfully, it's a lot of little things. Many of those little things are orange and triangular. On all layouts, you will now notice pointer cones indicating which branch of the course to take, which should help when getting familiar with a new layout. You'll also see green guide cones at several of the trickier turns, helping you to find the apex at a blind or compound corner. These cones are also physics objects, so you can have all kinds of fun launching them across the map when you clip that curb just a bit too close:

You'll also notice that replay cameras have been provided for all layouts. Under the hood, I've made further optimizations to the track wall collision meshes, which reduce AI CPU use such that I, even with my fairly anemic circa-2013 quad-core CPU, can run a full 32-car grid on the full course layout. Your mileage may vary, of course, but the improvement should be dramatic. There have also been a few last tweaks to the CSP bounce lighting config, VAO patches provided out of the box, and a couple tweaks to the track lighting to reduce the FPS hit when the sun goes down.

1.0 Changelog

• After receiving complaints, put some cones out so some people would crash slightly less
• Messed around under the hood of reality a bit to fit more racers onto the track*
• Sent the track crew out to paint some extra shadows into cracks and corners
• Changed out the three small bulbs on all the trackside lamp posts for one really, really big bulb
• Stuck a few more video crews out there for track days

*Not responsible for faster-than-light excursions caused by phasing through the back side of the catch fencing. All OMP patrons must sign liability waiver against tachyonic disintegration, total mass-to-energy conversion, and/or grandfather paradox creation caused by use of the facility.

I apologize for the long delay between updates, but I think you'll see that it's been worth it...

Ottawa Motorsports Park version 0.6 adds a new 1.4 mile south loop, providing new and improved pits, a fullly FIA Grade 2-compliant start/finish straight and Turn 1, and enabling the addition of 4 new track layouts, for a total of -- count 'em -- SIX options, ranging from a 4.9-mile full combined course (and its slightly shorter, FIA-compliant GP layout cousin) to a 0.8-mile infield drift/karting track.

This update also includes updates to the Custom Shaders Patch configs to enable users with the appropriate preivew builds and Sol to enjoy RainFX on all layouts.

This release also continues the march of materials, effects, and performance optimizations. In particular, I have spent some time slimming down and optimizing the extent and complexity of physical wall and terrain meshes to reduce AI CPU utilization. I've also improved CSP configurations related to bounce lighting, made further improvements to the track asphalt material, and added 3D semaphore lights to both the south and north pits (though the north pits are a little lower budget on that front!). Finally, you'll notice that there are a few more brake zone markers scattered around the track for you to refer to.

There are still a few things left to do -- AI line improvements, track cameras (currently only available on the North Loop and the GP layout), further wall collider optimizations, and some miscellaneous small tweaks -- but this is approaching a final 1.0 release. Please use the discussion thread if you find an issue that needs to be resolved before then. Thanks!

0.6 Changelog:

• Bought out the neighbor's property to the south (apparently cars make "noise" and people need to "sleep" sometimes... NIMBYs, what can you do?)
• Built new southern addition to track, with new, state-of-the-art pits and multiple options for combined or independent layouts
• Found more cardboard cutouts of Valterri Bottas fans, and built more stands for them to watch from
• Discovered ancient weather control system in cave under track, used it to make rain. Caused flood, made farmer next door angry. Oops?
• Tried to drift, failed miserably, put on a banger race with French minicars instead. Victory!
  
  

Big update! In addition to the usual rounds of graphical refinement (massively improved kerb textures, more detailed asphalt, color balancing adjustments, etc.), this version adds a second layout to the track. The Club layout, coming in at 2.1 miles, doubles back onto the main straight at the beginning of Center Pivot with a tight, slow hairpin. Due to the limited runoff available, this layout is not especially suited for high-power cars, but provides car clubs with a shorter, less technically demanding layout for track days. The original layout is still available as "Ottawa Park North." What's that mean? Well, you'll probably have to wait for a 2.0 release to find out, but let's just say our virtual neighbors have registered a lot of virtual noise complaints, and it may be most expedient to virtually buy them out...

Finally, this update (hopefully?) finally licks both the "bad texture" error that folks on Windows 7 systems have been reporting, and the "Merge Meshes" crash. I've resized all textures to be powers of two in resolution, and re-exported a few misbehaving texture files using a more-compatible DDS exporter. Additionally, with AlleyViper's help we've determined that 3DSimEd somehow mangles .kn5 files enough to evade whatever mesh merging routine is causing the problem, so separating out the animated bit of the turbines and round-tripping it through that software seems to prevent crashes.

0.5 Changelog

- Fixed "Merge Meshes" crash
- Fixed bad texture crash on Win7
- Re-profiled exit kerbs after some incidents. We wish the driver of the RB X2010 currently on a collision course with the Moon godspeed and good luck.
- Re-re-painted kerbs, only for them to be immediately marred with tire marks.
- Resurfaced track. The asphalt guys asked, "what size aggregate do you want?" and we said "The ittiest, bittiest stuff you got."
- Glued like 1000 little reflector tabs onto the track walls in unlit sections after reading a bunch of DoT white papers
- Found literally dozens of avid club racing fans and lured them into bleachers with two-for-one hotdogs
- Hired experienced instructors to train the AI drivers, so now they all crash at corner 7 instead of corner 3. Progress!
- Opened up the Club hairpin as an alternate layout. Mind the dip...
- Misc texture and graphical improvements
- Corrected folder name typo - please delete the old version (\tracks\ottowapark\) to remove duplicate entries from your track selection menu

This update fixes a couple crashes that have been reported, including one related to non-power-of-two-resolution textures on some older graphics cards. If you were getting an error in Content Manager about a bad texture, this should resolve it for you.

More obviously, this update includes a first pass at track lighting through CSP. Lights have been added at the start-finish line, the pits, and at points along the course. Other materials tweaks have been made to improve suitability for night racing, along with a lot of other texturing and scenery updates.

PLEASE NOTE YOU MUST STILL DISABLE "MERGE MESHES" IN CSP. This issue has proven persistent and the remedies that have been suggested to me so far don't seem to be doing the trick (unfortunately, splitting the turbines out to a separate .kn5 doesn't work, even if loaded through CSP's mesh replacement system). I may have to resort to a different animation method. A few folks have mentioned seeing tracks that don't have this issue -- I understand that they may not be public releases, but if you'd be willing to share at least the ext_config.ini from those tracks I'd appreciate it.

0.4 Changelog:

- Hired electrician for track maintenance team
- Repainted kerbs with shiny reflective paint
- After complaints from local crop dusters, replaced wind turbines with newer model that includes blinking red warning light
- Threw kegger in paddock
- Kidnapped hired drunken partiers highly trained corner crew
- Remeasured track length, covered up embarrassing error

0.5 To-Do:

- Resolve "merge meshes" crash
- Improve night-time lit window textures in paddock buildings
- Refine track lighting / night driving accomodations

This update rolls up a several changes, the most important of which is that the phsyical road mesh has been decoupled from the visual one, and made slightly bumpy. We're not talking Sebring Turn 17 here -- just enough to feel it in a stiffly-spung car or open wheeler. (Earlier experiments were decidedly more alarming...)

Other changes include rolling in Scarystuff's fix to the replay cameras, and a broad range of graphical refinements. Please note that you must still disable "Merge Meshes" in your CSP settings or the track will crash your game. Still working on getting that one ironed out.

0.3 Changelog:

- Re-sodded track margins
- Watered lawn
- Raked gravel traps
- Hired Sebring track maintenance crew
- Fired Sebring track maintenance crew, ground down bumps
- Returned trained monkey to zoo, hired real camera operator
- Repaired tiny hole in the fabric of reality at the right side of Turn 14. Don't worry about it.

This update should fix the graphical artifacts experienced by VR/TrackIR users on CSP versions newer than 0.1.46.