Tracks Thomson Road Grand Prix - Singapore

[aphidgod]

Pleased to say I had not noticed that yet.

 

[HarryRiedl]

looks amazing. What was the most recent cars to run on the circuit as driving with a high aero car look frighting.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

1973 was the last year they ran the Singapore grand prix here. The final victory went to Vern Shuppan in a March-Ford. From the most recent video I have seen it looks like they ran some kind of downforce.

The Praga is the only higher downforce car I have spent any real time testing here, and it actually suits it quite well. The wings prevent the car taking off over the Hump and make the Snakes a whole lotta fun

 

[LilSki]

1973 was the last year they ran the Singapore grand prix here. The final victory went to Vern Shuppan in a March-Ford. From the most recent video I have seen it looks like they ran some kind of downforce.

The Praga is the only higher downforce car I have spent any real time testing here, and it actually suits it quite well. The wings prevent the car taking off over the Hump and make the Snakes a whole lotta fun

EDIT: Never mind it wasn't an F1 race. It was a Formula 2 race according to Wikipedia.

 

[NightEye87]

Tree walls added, billboard trees added (6,800), 3D grass added (75,500 objects). Next I need to finish adding the advertising boards, camera facing people, skid marks on the road. It's getting there though

Now that's a jungle
At 2m18s there's a palm tree right in the middle of the screen that looks to have wrong UV mapping on it, and the tree at the pit entry is quite obviously a Y-shaped one (nothing wrong with that, but a slight rotation on it might look better). Looking good!

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Does anyone have any ideas how I can solve an issue I have with this track?

Along the back section of the old road there are two left-hand kinks which you can take flat. The road is smooth, fairly wide, has a fair degree of camber, and I can take both bend flat in the Lotus 25. The trouble I am having is that the AI drivers brake at these two points, completely spoiling the race. I know I can take them there by just diving up the inside, and it spoils the fun.

I have tried entries in my ai_hints.ini, adding a 1.2 value to both the hint and the brakehint at this point - no change. I have checked the AI spline and there is plenty of room. I have tried increasing the camber in the KsEditor to trick the AI into thinking the section is safer than it is - no change. I have tried increasing the available road by moving the left edge spline onto the grass by 0.75m - no change

Any ideas anyone?

[btw, can anyone explain the real functions of the camber and radius on the fast_line.ai?]

 

[Seria17hri11er]

Does anyone have any ideas how I can solve an issue I have with this track?

Along the back section of the old road there are two left-hand kinks which you can take flat. The road is smooth, fairly wide, has a fair degree of camber, and I can take both bend flat in the Lotus 25. The trouble I am having is that the AI drivers brake at these two points, completely spoiling the race. I know I can take them there by just diving up the inside, and it spoils the fun.

I have tried entries in my ai_hints.ini, adding a 1.2 value to both the hint and the brakehint at this point - no change. I have checked the AI spline and there is plenty of room. I have tried increasing the camber in the KsEditor to trick the AI into thinking the section is safer than it is - no change. I have tried increasing the available road by moving the left edge spline onto the grass by 0.75m - no change

Any ideas anyone?

[btw, can anyone explain the real functions of the camber and radius on the fast_line.ai?]

Tagging @LilSki

Sounds like the same problem(s) he had at RIR. I can't remember what he did to fix it.

 

[LilSki]

We already discussed on steam and in the end it was mostly the line causing the issue. It was not utilizing the entire track to straighten out the corners as much as possible. Therefore to the AI, the corner seemed much tighter than it really is.

This is the shot I used to explain it if anyone cares. Purple was current AI line and yellow is more or less how it should look.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Yep, after discussing this with Lilski, I re-recorded the fast line using the Praga, used the chase-cam (which felt really weird) to make sure I got right up to the edges of the track.

I managed to effectively turn the two kinks into one long curve (or a double apex curve). The AI still touch the brakes for a split second, but I barely notice this when following them, only seeing it in their pedal app during the replay.

I might try recording the line again tomorrow, but it is already much, much better. Thanks for everyone's help

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Lilski has spent some time learning the track and very kindly sent me a revised AI line, which managed to shave just over 2 seconds off the AI lap time compared to mine (he said his AI were set to 98% but I think it was 100% really ). No more braking for the kinks (great!), a few more AI drivers going off the track (also great!) but I have had to change my settings for my AI races from 88%-92% to 85%-90% just to get into the top 10 (not so great!). Thanks mate!

I spent yesterday adding the rest of the advertising banners, as well as some dynamic tyre marks on the track. It's starting to feel real now

I might need to make the banners slightly less shiny. I keep forgetting this is supposed to be the 1960s and the banners were probably not printed PVC like today

 

[Seria17hri11er]

Excellent work! Looking great!

 

[Andy-R]

I've been trying to learn this track today. Great work, lots of fun driving the Lotus 25 here! Can't wait for release!

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Great video, thank you for uploading that

I have so much fun racing around this track, in anything from the old Maseratis to the GT4 cars The AI drivers are faily realistic now too (thanks to a bit of help from Lilski) either running wide over The Hump (and crashing into the bus stop shelter) or running wide at the Circus Hairpin. I just love it!

I had forgotten how bad it looked back then - that's a pretty old version -

 

[Andy-R]

Still great fun to drive though even on an early version. I can't wait to try out some more cars here. Maybe the 718 RS 60 next

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Great choice, as is the Honda S800RSC, KTM X-Bow, Ford Escort, Alfa Romeo GTA, anything with low downforce that's not too quick is great fun!

 

[aphidgod]

I've even been enjoying modern street cars there lately... my WRX likes the course, and the Diablos are good fun. (Don't ask, both have models in progress and neither is released yet.)

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Quick update. I have spent the last few days trying to optimise my track a little. It ran ok before but the DIP was too high for a start, hovering around 2600-2800. I know the Kunos tracks are much lower than that (Brands Hatch GP is around 1000-1100 on average) but I was also aware of the massive amount of vegetation I have on my track (there isn't much left if you take away the grass, plants and trees )

So I started working my way through the textures I was using, their sizes, trying to find ways to optimise a bit. I managed to get my tree textures down from 5 textures to 3 textures (2048 x 2048) and a single 1024 x 1024 for all my 3D grass. All my trees are in KS_TREE_GROUPs and my 3D grass has 4 LODs. I have even managed to add some bushes, bamboo and banana plants back to my track that I was sure I would have to lose due to performance.

DIP has dropped from 2800 to around 600 - needless to say I am very happy There is still a little room for improvement - 3D grass is still in 8 different types, 4 LODs in 19 sections of track, 608 objects instead of 76 - but I think the bulk of the optimisation has been achieved.

 

[Bozian]

This looks so unbelievably awesome

 

[UMC 22]

It really does! I can't wait to give this one a go. Good job so far!

 

[NightEye87]

Wow, that's a massive improvement on draw calls! Awesome job And it's looking ever so wonderful.