Tracks LA Canyons 1.2

[Phoenix77]

Awesome mate
And to think this originally started out as a small test area for trying out a few things for Pacific.
I'm really happy you're all having a blast together online with my tracks... makes the work so worthwhile seeing these roads being used and abused in the way they should be. Hopefully see you online with this track to one day soon

The extra shoulders will be disappearing around most of the track, as the real roads are quite a bit narrower. This is going to involve quite a bit of extra work, but like with the extra work on Pacific's road... It'll be more than worth doing... The roads need to become narrower so I can get all the intersections in there will be at least 4 intersections going in... as well as the 3 shown in my previous post.... It will need this intersection also. Plenty of side roads... and layout options

And it means that Big Tujunga Canyon road may as well go in... There's a dam that might need to go in along there... I'll worry about that later though.

Thanks to a 75,000 x 75,000 pixel satellite map... I can now see extremely clearly all the details I need to see... To give you an idea of the difference... This is the kind of detail I had previously...

And this is the detail I can now see

This is a little piece of Los Angeles (Crescenta Highlands) that is in the bottom left of my 10Gb (100+ km²) satellite image...
Obviously this resolution will not be used in game, and I will have to scale back so my computer can use it, but as you can tell... will allow me to see clearly enough to get the road positioned nice and accurately.

I'm aiming to add around 7-8km of Big Tujunga Canyon Road...
maybe an extra 10km of Angeles Crest,
around 4-5km's of the road leading to Mount Wilson.
and maybe 2-3kms extra on to Angeles Forest Highway (after the junction on to Upper Big T)

The scale of what I'm planning is pretty immense... But like with the prospect of ripping up Pacific's road and almost starting again... I'm crazy enough to attempt it

I just hope that AC2 makes it so that previous AC1 mods are relatively easy to get working.

 

[Hachiroku_88PL]

I think it is somehow Kunos business to make AC2 working the easy way - they would have a simple path to transfer a lot of data too

 

[Phoenix77]

Yeah I would've thought they'd have it covered, and seeing as FBX's are pretty widely used, as well as OBJ's, hopefully it won't be so bad.. again I'll worry about that later on. Will possibly be a case of setting up the shader settings in the ksEditor2.exe

 

[Gunja]

All great news.
Thanks for updating us with the progress. Not only WIP but also ideas brewing in your head.
I would be perfectly happy even with just shoulders reduction and a side road barrier here and there.
When i see how much more than that it's gonna be, it all seems too much even to wish for.
I guess i'll be needing much more comfortable seat in the near future. Already hours fly like minutes at LA Canyons.

 

[Phoenix77]

No worries about the updates on progress.. Whether or not I can get it all in remains to be seen, but I know what I want it to become

The road will be pretty much the width I made Pacific Coast... eventually with a few 3 & 4 lane passing sections. Glad that hours seem like minutes in the Canyons... means you're having a lot of fun with it then

at having to get a more comfortable seat!
Hopefully see you online around there one day soon mate

If anyone wants to try and beat @garyjpaterson 's 9:35 lap... it might be advisable to try it before the road gets a lot narrower, and the junctions go in

 

[Phoenix77]

I've made the crazy decision.. while adding 5 intersections... I will be extending out the side roads a little... In total... another 54.5km's

The main extension will be Angeles Crest... 13.8km's extra.. before the intersection with Upper Big T... and another 11.5km's leading down to the Los Angeles basin... Just before it meets Pasadena... Just after the turn on to Angeles Forest Highway.
This means there will be a 40km section of Angeles Crest.

I'll also be adding 14.3km's of Big Tujunga Canyon Road... leading past the dam.
8.25km's of the road leading up to Mount Wilson, and an extra 6.3km's on to the road past the junction on to Upper Big T from Angeles Forest Highway.

I've also put in the massive tarmac section near the start... also the start location of a lot of Matt Farah's One Takes I should be able to get around 30+ cars on this convenient pit area... for now I've roughly positioned 14 cars around the edge.

The textures will need quite a lot of work... But that's something for later on.
But then the road textures will be getting some tweaks as I go...

 

[AccAkut]

While I like that idea, twitchyness will only get worse at those distances to world 0,0,0, this is not something you can influence. Maybe better to start that section as another standalone track.

 

[Phoenix77]

I know what you're saying... but the way the roads twist back around the sides of the mountains, means that the furthest point from the origin (pretty much located under Strawberry Peak) is 14km's...

The main loop... although really long, runs at most 7km from origin.
Mount Wilson is approx 8km from origin...
The Pasadena end of Angeles Crest is approx 9km's from origin.
The higher end of Angeles Crest is around 13km's from origin.
The furthest point would be the LA end of Big Tujunga Canyon Road at 14km from origin..

I also won't be including start positions located at the distant ends of the runs in with the main track, i'll do them as separate addon's... so if people don't mind any potential physics thing they can download that, then do a downhill run along 40km's of Angeles Crest almost down to Pasadena...

A small physics sacrifice for epic roads, I'd say it's worth it. and to keep it all as 1 big free roam playground... Even if people have trouble finding each other

 

[Phoenix77]

Tweaked the terrain textures with settings similar to Pacific Coast.

 

[Phoenix77]

New roads layout, including 6 intersections on the main loop...

It might take a little while longer... But like with Pacific Coast's rework, will be 100% worth doing.

 

[correca]

In the current state, the track is a blast of fun with fast cars. I can't believe you are adding all those amazing roads to the project. I am sure version 1.0 will be epic my friend. All my respect for your work, effort and motivation to finish this.

 

[scoobywrxfan555]

hell yes, cant wait for more updates. great work as always

 

[scoobywrxfan555]

one of my fav one take roads is latigo. nice tight twisty road that goes on for 11 miles...

 

[scoobywrxfan555]

Ok, this isn't the Canyons... But shows nicely the textures and mask settings that will be getting applied to LA Canyons early in 2018. I've learnt a few things
View attachment 228047
By the time I next work on LAC, I will also have some nice bushes, grass and weeds.
View attachment 228050

wow these look amazing

 

[Phoenix77]

@correca Thanks mate, really cool that you're getting some cool runs around the Canyons... The amount of layout permutations available because of 5 spurs coming off the main 42km loop is pretty huge too... I might need a few fast AI recording volunteers and track cameras will be a behemoth job lol

 

[Phoenix77]

hell yes, cant wait for more updates. great work as always

Cheers, the next update will change the layout massively, hopefully I'll get enough time to get it done sooner.

one of my fav one take roads is latigo. nice tight twisty road that goes on for 11 miles...

I'm looking forward to driving along there as well you might want to have a look at this thread.

http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/the-snake-mulholland-highway-malibu-assetto-corsa.144586/
Cars like the Escort are going to love it...

wow these look amazing

Thanks Scoob, It's surprising the difference a bit of Photoshop painting can make I will even be able to take the RGB mask as a starting point, make a 16 colour mask for detailing certain areas, making adding tons and tons of foliage a much more managable process

 

[Phoenix77]

Got the terrain diffuse... atm it's 12,288 x 12,288... UV'd spot on..

The highly visible road.. lines up perfectly with the satellite data.. even where the road cuts through the rock over all 100km²... will make the road much more accurate. I'm actually surprised a 2D image can wrap so well around a really bumpy mesh.

Tessellated the mesh more along the ridges where it will be visible from so many more different angles, will optimise it back later... keeping most of the detail. And I'm trying not to be tempted to connect the road up to the 210 freeway

I have to remember this isn't trying to be Grand Theft Assetto V lol

 

[Phoenix77]

With the new shader settings / textures... The next versions terrain will be much better lit...

And the road will be much narrower! Still need to tesselate the terrain a little more, and smooth... along 96km's of road... These textures are still only WIP but are improving nicely

 

[Leonardo Ratafiá]

Don't hesitate to tesselate

 

[SS454]

I hope you don't take on too much, I'd love to drive this with these new ideas/features and I like many I'm sure, don't want to wait for 54 km of extra road