Pau-Arnos (French race track) 2020 v0.7

I promise I will start this track again, but right now I'm working on the racetrack of Albi. Once I'm on a decent version of that track, I will start to work on the Pau-Arnos one ! The winter period should give me more time to work on these tracks...

With a day or 2 delay, an update of my track...

What changed ?
- I'm now working exclusively with Blender (which is not visible of course), so I can work on a more low level base. This allowed me to, among other things, close gaps in the meshes, and correct more precisely acute topographic level changes, ...
- I've added the gravel and sand pits (remember this is an existing track, so I try to mimic the real thing)
- Improved AI lines (many thanks to Esotic's AI Line Helper which makes the job way easier to do !!)
- optimised background (and other) meshes
- used Y shaped trees
- used better textures here and there
- the optimisations reduced the KN5 file size and should put less burden on "lesser" (sorry for the word) processors: 12MB less, while having more active elements...
- I probably forgot stuff (I did experiment - some successful, others not)...

I should post pictures of this new release soon...

What do I intend to do in the next release ?
- improve textures more (there is still work to do here - the wheat, ...)
- add more trees, grass, ... of course
- create and add the last 2 buildings, as well as other structures...
- improve the trees (shadows, ...)
- try to use better ksEditor parameters (which should improve the illumination, reflections, ...)
- work on the textures blending of the gravel and sand pits
- replace the rumble strips by 1) improved ones, and 2) with the correct color
- continue to improve the meshes (gaps, optimisations, ...)
- ...

I'd like to thank NightEye87 for his kind encouragements , as well as everyone who downloaded, tested this WIP and providing me feedback (this includes the likes, as it stimulates me to continue working on this) ! Please don't hesitate to give me feedback (as long as they are constructive ). Also a deep and grateful thanks to all who posted help, here and on other sites, so fellow track builders could make better tracks (Lilski, luchian, NightEye87, Esotic, and others...) ! This is invaluable !!!
And a special salute to xXxKOKExXx who was there when I started and with whom I had and still have pleasant contacts.

This tiny update allows 20 cars on the grid instead of 12...

A small update with minor changes... Most are (correct) remarks from NightEye87. Thanks ! So the changes are a modified track map for during racing, removed some of the ugliest trees (though there are still many left ), changed the position of the car for the hot lap, ...

Another reason why I post this minor update, is that my "fear" came true: I made mistakes when I created this track last year. This is mainly because it's my first track and I didn't know most of the details about creating a track... I'm still learning and it's a steep curve, but I hang on to it ! Pau-Arnos is also not the easiest race track to reproduce ! So to keep this comment as short as possible, I will need to delete and start over several parts of the track. This will probably take some time... In the meantime I hope you'll enjoy the current version, and I do hope I'll come back with a (much) better v0.7 !!!

CU !

Thierry

Hi all,

I've just updated my track. In this update the track has been cleaned from (near initial) mistakes, I've improved some visual contents and I've added trees to make the track visually better/more attractive (though some of them are temporary).

I hope you'll enjoy...

Thierry

Well, I picked up where I left a couple of months ago... This update has an improved and somewhat more realistic track. I also removed some imperfections in the terrain close to the track.

Again this is a work in progress: I concentrated on the track itself to make as real as possible, and less on the environment. It actually has a kind of naked environment (removed most trees compared to previous version), but I added a building (is actually a test). The AI is supposed to work (and I didn't continue working on the cameras though).

I'm actually happy to work on this track again.

Here are a few screenshots, as kindly requested/suggested by Leitcharound. He is right that I should promote my work more.

This is just a minor update that includes:
- an improved tight S curbs: better road surface (though still not perfect) and a more correct trajectory
- the mini-map (for some reason it didn't came correctly with the 0.4 version)

For this first beta, I started from scratch. The track is now way smoother than my previous alpha version ! The AI is working, so you can do a practice race. I won't have much time to work on this track in the next 2 months or so, so I share what I've got now so you can (hopefully) enjoy it !

For now I concentrated on the track, trying to make it as close to the real one as possible. I used the Google's data (images and heights) for this, as well as my own video footage of the track. Please remember that this is work in progress ! I know there are some flaws (2-3 on the track and in the terrain). Also, it's still possible, from the pits, to wander around (no barrier yet). If all is well, the walls are working, and the access to the pits is functional (even though there are no buildings ). I will appreciate all constructive feedbacks !

A special thanks to xXxKOKExXx for the help and support !

Happy racing !!

Thierry