Laguna Seca Laserscan Complete, Release for Assetto Corsa Expected Late 2017

[Paul Jeffrey]

Marco Massarutto has confirmed laserscanning of the epic Laguna Seca Raceway has been completed, suggesting the track may appear in game before the end of 2017.

Already widely acknowledged to be making its way to Assetto Corsa sometime in the reasonably near future, the noise around Laguna Seca and the simulation has died down somewhat in recent months, leaving fans of the game to wonder exactly what is happening with the famous American venue.

With something of a well timed update post on his personal Facebook page Marco Massarutto, Product Brand Manager of AC developers Kunos Simulazioni. has gone on record to state that the laserscanning element of the track creation has now been completed (albeit later than anticipated), and the track is in the works to be completed and released to the game by the end of the current calendar year.

Long anticipated by fans of both Assetto Corsa and American themed race tracks, Laguna represents one of the most impressive driving experiences in the United States and has been host to numerous high profile national and international level car and bike racing events throughout its illustrious history.

Well known to sim racing fans thanks to its almost ever present representation in games such as Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, finally PC players will get the opportunity to sample a fully lasterscanned version in Assetto Corsa.

Despite the delays Massarutto confirmed scanning completed just this week after unexpected delays, with the following statement made via Facebook released by the Italian Kunos founder:

"After a pile of burocratic and logistics issues that resulted in a sensible delay of our operations in US, [finally] Yesterday we have completed our laserscan survey at Laguna Seca, so the track should be completed and available for Assetto Corsa within the end of the year."

Exciting times ahead for fans of the track and simulation as it should prove to be incredibly interesting to drive a full scanned version of a track that has been so popular in racing games over the years. At this stage it is not clear if the track will be a free bonus content addition or form part of a future DLC release for the game, however it is expected that more details will be released in future as development back at Kunos HQ continues to progress.

Assetto Corsa is available to purchase now for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

More fun happens at the RaceDepartment Assetto Corsa Racing Club, so sign up, head over get racing today! Its a blast and you won't look back once you've been bitten by the bug! If you just want to catch the news or hang out with fellow AC fans then fear not, we accommodate that too! We have a thriving Assetto Corsa Sub Forum where you can do exactly that, or even check out and download some of the great mods on offer and upload and share custom car setups! Its all here at RD, what are you waiting for?!?

Laguna! Anyone else excited? What are your memories from this track in other racing sims / games? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Jeremy Ford]

We all know the number of courses AC is a problem for a lot of people to accept. Personally I think it holds the title back from appealing to the wider audience it deserves. I've owned AC from day one but have had quite long break from the game. Mainly the god awful AI put me off. The AI is now excellent and I'm thoroughly enjoying my return.

We know track mods are available which effectively gives AC a huge amount of free DLC, but they take some effort to find and install. The perfect solution would be adding Steam Workshop.

 

[Jockey]

If you show me a person who is able to meassure track width on a monitor with cm accuracy just by looking at the monitor while actually racing at speed I will be fairly impressed. Just considering that there are so many variables like seating position, camera angles, FOV, pixel sizes and monitor resolutions I highly question that you will see a difference between a laserscanned track and a properly developed track using other sources and good research, as it was nicely explained in your previous detailed post. Ofcourse there are some things that you will notice instantly while driving LS Nords in AC versus the old modded rF1 version for example, as those tracks are off by several meters in places. But at the end of the day there is more placebo involved than anything else.

Comment #28.

 

[St3fan]

To sum AC up:

Car having slightly wrong sized headlights, wrong panel etc is ruining the game even if it drives okay, but track having inaccuracies in elevation change, camber, corner radius, straight length etc is fine it's just people go nuts about laserscanning.

 

[Xero]

If I recall the delay was due to licensing, but that could be wrong. Great to finally get some definitive info on it though! It's been forever since our last laser scanned track... Brands Hatch? I agree with the majority, I hope they put a larger focus on LS tracks in the coming years.

 

[F_B]

Yeah right. Give us some more Group C cars and then concentrate just on tracks (current and historic) and I’ll be happy forever.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Yeah right. Give us some more Group C cars and then concentrate just on tracks (current and historic) and I’ll be happy forever.

Some players be like "No laser scan of historic tracks no buy"
Time machine R&D needs more funding

 

[RasmusP]

Comment #28.

Don't know exactly how your post was meant
Just to clarify: I can't measure things in any way just by looking on the monitor. Instead I said the opposite:
The non-LS Tracks seem to be perfect, it looks perfect too.
It's just when you watch a few hours of real people hotlapping or watch the 24h Nürburgring Endurance and then go on the track in pCars or AC the "subconscious feeling" or how you call it tells you that something is not right in pCars.
In AC you have this feeling that everything is the same as in real life.
In Raceroom you get the same "right" feeling but it just lacks a bit on the visual experience.

Additional Info: When I got these "feelings" and compared the Nordschleife in both games I thought that pCars would have been laserscanned and wondered. Searched for it and THEN it was clear for me.
No placebo effect!

Additional comment: I love mod-tracks too! Some guys here know the tracks so perfectly, I think it's on the same level as laserscanning! If a guy lives right next to a track, does the mod and tells me he knows every damn sand-corn of it then I believe him even more than I believe in LS.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Some players be like "No laser scan of historic tracks no buy"

I doubt that any player has ever said that, but this is a 'special' community.

If your favorite track was coming to your favorite game, and your favorite dev gave you the power to choose whether they would create the track from scan data or from the old school way, would you honestly choose the latter?

If your favorite dev had access to CAD/scan data for your favorite car would you rather they use traditional blueprints instead?

 

[Jockey]

If your favorite dev had access to CAD/scan data for your favorite car would you rather they use traditional blueprints instead?

The end results aren't the same?

Does Kunos scan the cars too?
Gran turismo scanning the cars for years now.

http://jalopnik.com/238136/from-bucket-to-binary-morrison-corvette-scanned-into-gran-turismo
http://pitstop.gran-turismo.com/en/article/2018

 

[Will Mazeo]

I doubt that any player has ever said that, but this is a 'special' community.

If your favorite track was coming to your favorite game, and your favorite dev gave you the power to choose whether they would create the track from scan data or from the old school way, would you honestly choose the latter?

If your favorite dev had access to CAD/scan data for your favorite car would you rather they use traditional blueprints instead?

I don't really have a favourite car or track, I'm a "phase" person on the simracing thing, right now I'm bored of Euro tracks so I'd rather have them all in the same sim this way I can change tracks easier.
What I'd choose? Whatever brings tracks/cars at decent quality and at a faster pace and less costs
A dev would not have to tell me a track is or isn't laser scanned to make me buy it. As I said as long as it's well done I'm ok with that. Zandvoort is as good as all other laser scanned tracks in AC.
In my first comment I said "IF" idk why people are ignoring those small importand 2 letters, not exactly a surprise tho

 

[F_B]

The end results aren't the same?

Does Kunos scan the cars too?
Gran turismo scanning the cars for years now.

http://jalopnik.com/238136/from-bucket-to-binary-morrison-corvette-scanned-into-gran-turismo
http://pitstop.gran-turismo.com/en/article/2018

True.
They also record several vacuum cleaners for the best sounds possible.

 

[Jim Liak]

Personally I would prefer the non laser scanned but good quality track over none.
Zandvoord is the perfect example.
Too bad that this experiment from kunos had this approach from the "community". It would be really interesting to do a poll about this.
I hope a moderator would do just that.

 

[TheSourceOfTheNile]

This is absolutely awesome! I can only hope that Kunos laserscanned some more tracks in the U.S. when they were there like Watkins Glen and Sonoma.

 

[RMR1]

Personally I would prefer the non laser scanned but good quality track over none.
Zandvoord is the perfect example.
Too bad that this experiment from kunos had this approach from the "community". It would be really interesting to do a poll about this.
I hope a moderator would do just that.

If Kunos had told the community right from the start Zandfoord would not be a scanned version instead of that sneaky behavior, I think we now would have had more tracks in the roster.

 

[F_B]

If Kunos had told the community right from the start Zandfoord would not be a scanned version instead of that sneaky behavior, I think we now would have had more tracks in the roster.

Nah, I don’t think so.
The laserscan fraction is too fundamentalistic to accept anything other, no matter if they were told early enough or not.

 

[Fucitol]

Well if it is about realism, I've read an interview of a VLN-driver who said that the AC version of the Nordschleife was the first version where (recalling from my bad memory) the small dip before Flugplatz is accurate and requires a lift in some cars where in other sims you can go flat-out. Things like this give me the 'feel' of driving on the real track although the process of becoming good a at track is the same whether or not it's an LS-track unless you use real-life footage.

I would prefer less, proper LS-tracks, above non-LS tracks..

 

[RasmusP]

Well if it is about realism,[...] the small dip before Flugplatz is accurate and requires a lift in some cars where in other sims you can go flat-out[...]

Yes, exactly! Funny thing is, that the Karussell is easier, also you can go flat-out from Schwedenkreuz to Aremberg. While, (sorry, again pCars) in pCars you need to lift off the throttle or even brake a bit to stay safe.

But again I have to say: if you know things like that, SMS could have done these things correctly without LS... I don't really care about little bumps, or not 100% camber BUT if the driving experience is different that's critical! In my opinion a good Sim must have things like that correct so if I train in my sim and go on a Trackday I want to know the track! Of course a car can differ a bit because of the tires, aero setup etc. but as long as I get a good feeling with my real car I want to have the possibility to do things exactly like trained and not a different track where I have to learn things new!
If a straight is 5° wrong in it's slope it doesn't matter but if you need to brake when you think you could go full throttle or if you are braking but in reality could go flat-out. That is what matters!
And LS more or less guaranties that

 

[formidable]

I hope a classic 1985 version

 

[Tom Blackett]

Hopefully the Brit pack will have at least one track, Oulton Park? I live in hope!

 

[Mapu]

cool news, I'm excited!