Chris Haye Creates Fantasy Hometown AC Track

[Steve Worrell]

Chris Haye's latest video is a beauty and well worth a watch. Watch Chris create a fantasy tack for Assetto Corsa based on his local airfield.

If you have been wondering where Chris Haye has been the last couple of weeks, you're not alone. It was only when I spotted a tweet from the man himself this week responding to a concerned fan that I knew I needn't be worried, in fact, it was cause for great excitement. Chris responded to said fan informing that a new video was due to go live later that day, and boy what a video it is.

Chris has been hard at work over the last few weeks creating something which I think all of us have dreamt about doing at one point or another, and that's building a track based on your home town, or in Chris' case, airfield. I can picture the exact roads I would recreate if I had the time, skill, and patience to tackle a task like this, so I take my hat off to Chris for taking this project on. And it goes without saying, huge respect to the modding community for the awesome work that continues to be made week after week, you guys are absolute legends.

In the video Chris takes us on a trip down memory lane by explaining a bit about where the idea came from and why this particular stretch of tarmac is special to him. Back in the studio we are treated to a high level overview of the process required to create the track using Real Track Builder and some of the challenges he faced along the way.

When Chris finally gets on track the excitement in his voice is evident and you can tell he is genuinely being kicked in his nostalgia as he takes his first laps at his dream circuit. I know this is stating the bleeding obvious, but, this is amazing content and i'm so grateful for the fact that sim racing is Mr Haye's hobby so we get treated to this level of production, even if there is the odd gap in uploads from time to time. This was definitely worth the wait, I for one am inspired.

If you would like to see Chris' new track on RaceDepartment comment below and head to his hometown, track him down, harass him until he gives in...Ok, don't do that second part, maybe just leave a comment of encouragement. Top work Chris!

 

[speed_steward]

Yes, I'm with Brandon Powell! I was hoping to see a link to the beta and take a test lap myself. You got me on your first lap Chris. Love what you do overall. You make my involvement in sim racing so much more enjoyable and I've been around the circuit a long time as I'm now 77 and still have my gloves on. Keep up all your great work!

 

[SportIce]

What are the alternative tools to make tracks?

First of all there is Bob's Track Builder, very easy, only €10. It is very limited tho and only convertible with rFactor (not rFactor 2), but you can use a converter for that.
You can also make tracks in Blender and 3ds, but these require a lot of time and effort to make a track.
Race Track Builder is in the middle, but sadly at a very high cost.

 

[SportIce]

If race track builder was sub £15 I think we would all have a go... but for the current £44.99 it is far too much to throw away as a bit of fun.

Same actually, even if it would be €20, a lot more people would buy it. For the moment, the only reason I didn't buy it, is because it is just too expensive

 

[fatal4you]

First of all there is Bob's Track Builder, very easy, only €10. It is very limited tho and only convertible with rFactor (not rFactor 2), but you can use a converter for that.
You can also make tracks in Blender and 3ds, but these require a lot of time and effort to make a track.
Race Track Builder is in the middle, but sadly at a very high cost.

How many hours do you have to invest in building a track to get let's say a 3 stars rating on RD?

 

[Stereo]

Honestly it's hard to get as low as 3 stars on RD if the game is capable of loading your content and it's named after a track that actually exists. You might need to wilfully throw in some factual errors like have a turn bank left instead of right.

Also to be clear the time and effort is learning how to use Blender/3ds, once you know how to find the specific tools for track-making (and if you set up a library of premade texture/objects to be on even ground with what RTB is bundled with), it doesn't take longer to build a track than RTB if you're aiming for the same quality. It's just that the other 90% of trackmaking which is time consuming, where you make your own assets that actually look like the real track, is possible in Blender and not possible in RTB.