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Author Topic: Road Maker as a Track Maker?  (Read 9542 times)

ZeosPantera

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Road Maker as a Track Maker?
« on: October 11, 2010, 10:00:50 pm »

I have brought Outerra up on the newly opened ISI forums to stunned admiration and praise. http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.php/192-rFactor3-Dream-Big-Dream-Outerra?p=1960 Now, I figured I would direct some questions every Race-Sim fan would flip a _hit over.

Can the road maker be programed to build race tracks? Now that is a broad question so I will narrow it down a bit.

First thing that comes to mind is the implementation of automatic rumble strips.



These angled alternating "humps" of concrete are there to tell a driver when they are on the apex. They should be placed only on turns severe enough to require them and sometimes when coming out of a turn to tell you you are running out of road to straiten out.

Wow a perfect shot of what I am talking about.



Now another option would be the ability to vary the bank both with the severity of the turn and randomly.



A varied width of the track in turns and for straits would be interesting.



If a corner is severe enough and you are coming off a strait there are usually Distance markers showing 200 - 100 - 50 meters to a turn.Similar to this.



Finally the ability to join the start and end of a road so that you make a complete circuit.
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cameni

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Road Maker as a Track Maker?
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2010, 03:34:38 am »

Thanks Zeos, I've seen the thread - you could be writing our marketing materials, as Angrypig said :D

There could be a special kind of a border that places the rumble strips, although currently the border just extends straight from the road surface but the rumble strips are usually steeper or shaped specially. So maybe it would be better defined as a part of the road profile with different materials assigned. Yeah, that would be the way, we only need to extend the profile specification with markings/materials and such. For common roads the gutters can be done this way too.

Road banking is possible even now, the algorithms count with it but there's no UI for it yet.
But I don't think this (and the rumble strip segments) would have to be automatically generated or randomized. I'd leave it on the track editor - unless you'd want to generate myriads of tracks around the world for some reason, and didn't want to specifically tune each one.

Joining the start and the end of a road seamlessly is of course possible, but there will be specific tools in the editor to ease making things like this and road junctions and such.
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ZeosPantera

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Road Maker as a Track Maker?
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2010, 04:10:47 am »

Quote from: brano.kemen
Thanks Zeos, I've seen the thread - you could be writing our marketing materials, as Angrypig said :D

I have tons of free time so anything you need.

Quote from: brano.kemen
unless you'd want to generate myriads of tracks around the world for some reason, and didn't want to specifically tune each one.

Well, looking at the fog picture made me want to just pour a track down in that valley and up those mountains. And I could totally see a use for completely automatic track creation anywhere in the world wherever you feel like racing today. Granted better tracks would be a labor of love and time spent tweaking.
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cameni

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Road Maker as a Track Maker?
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2010, 07:00:09 am »

Quote from: ZeosPantera
I could totally see a use for completely automatic track creation anywhere in the world wherever you feel like racing today. Granted better tracks would be a labor of love and time spent tweaking.
I see. I am thinking .. this could be achievable by scripting the road creation tool. The UI for most of the tools in the engine is written as html page with javascript interacting with engine, so this kind of functionality can be handled there - assigning the track node attributes automatically by a custom script there that looks at the road parameters like curvature and elevation and such. And it would still allow refining the nodes by hand later.
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