Kitsuneamy's Showroom of Tracks, Paints, and Decals

[KitsuneAmy]

Today I am thinking about future updates, and after giving it some thought, three tracks come to mind that I would like to revisit:

Mid-Field Raceway (1.1 update)
- change default setup
- fix missing light maps
- add custom textures to billboards
- add missing wall cap to pit road wall
- change pit stall positions to not be negative
- lower grandstands on top of garages by 3 meters
- remove rumble strips where they do not appear
- maybe look into making the elevation more accurate
- add object to cover bottom of front stretch bridge
- add any more details from the source material I can including new objects

Special Stage Route 11 (1.0 update)
- greatly increase detail and accuracy to source material
- add custom textures where applicable
- add light mapping to tunnel if needed
- rerecord all LPs

Red Rock Valley Speedway (1.0 update)
- greatly increase detail and accuracy to source material
- add custom textures where applicable and fix existing ones
- add light mapping to tunnel if needed, and anywhere else shadows appear
- rerecord all LPs
- raise track height by ~10 meters and move all objects associated with doing so
- remove forest textures from unseen side
- change track horizon and maybe sky

More detailed looks into these updates may follow; I am cross-referencing my existing work and driving around the tracks in-game right now, so stay tuned.

The rest of the day was spent driving around Mid-Field and Red Rock, and I took note of what logos I would need for walls, signs, and billboards for Mid-Field, but for Red Rock, well, the logos are randomly generated every time you load up the track, which makes it difficult to replicate it, so in a way, the way I make it will be the way that only I saw it; it would be different for you if you did it, but the way I am going to texture the walls and billboards is how it was generated for me.

Anyway, I downloaded all the logos I needed for Mid-Field today, and I will create and apply the textures tomorrow.

Found out Complex String is accessible in Gran Turismo 3's arcade mode, so this image will be used for the track shot if I update that track.



I think I may work some texture magic on these signs, I made a mockup of how I'd go about doing that.



The front wall would be its own thing, then I would place another wall behind it, 0.1 meter thickness, with the transparency. One side would have the logos, the other would be plain but have the posts with the transparency.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Getting more familiar with Red Rock Valley today... let's keep these updates going, shall we?



I finished gathering all the logos I'm going to need, so I think I'll make the wall and billboard textures I need first. I've also estimated the track to be about 16 meters wide.

So far I have...
- made the billboard textures, changed the texture of the bridge, and made a texture for distance indicators
- fixed all advertisement board and fence widths
- removed forest textures from unseen side
- raised track height by 10 meters
- narrowed the racing surface 2.5 meters to 16 meters wide, made paint lines 0.2 meters wide; moved track surface decals as well
- redesigned pitstop to be more accurate to source material
- resized and fixed all rumble strips, I think their textures were backwards; removed them where they aren't supposed to be
- added additional texture details I missed before on turn 1 and turn 5
- placed custom wall textures on front stretch

 

[Jonny683]

Possibilities of updating the DD2 tracks after the GT tracks?

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Possibilities of updating the DD2 tracks after the GT tracks?

I hadn't even thought of them to be honest. I know you really want Caprio County to be updated, but what else besides cameras is there to do to them? I can't really make Chalk Canyon look how I want it to, the backstretch jump on Pine Hills won't really work, and SCA I have done everything I wanted for except maybe custom billboards.

I'd really like to keep the ball rolling with these tracks I am passionate about, I am taking advantage of how motivated I have been to work as much as 12 hours a day on them. I like GT a lot more than I like DD so as you may have seen, (1 new GT track, 4 major updates for existing GT tracks, and a minor update for a DD Raw track since I came back) they have gotten preferential treatment.

 

[Jonny683]

I hadn't even thought of them to be honest. I know you really want Caprio County to be updated, but what else besides cameras is there to do to them? I can't really make Chalk Canyon look how I want it to, the backstretch jump on Pine Hills won't really work, and SCA I have done everything I wanted for except maybe custom billboards.

I'd really like to keep the ball rolling with these tracks I am passionate about, I am taking advantage of how motivated I have been to work as much as 12 hours a day on them. I like GT a lot more than I like DD so as you may have seen, (1 new GT track, 4 major updates for existing GT tracks, and a minor update for a DD Raw track since I came back) they have gotten preferential treatment.

You've been doing a great job with the GT tracks! Looking forward to the others

 

[KitsuneAmy]

So now I've finished two of the three updates I mentioned a few posts earlier and I've done some thinking, and I think I may make the Gran Turismo 1 version of Special Stage Route 11 instead of the Gran Turismo 3 version. I'll be changing the layout to the GT1 version, but I may keep some of the decoration that I have already placed that is only present in the GT3 version, such as the ferris wheel in the distance. I originally made the track without a reference to trace on, so I may just remake the entire thing while I'm at it as well.

I am also thinking of what other tracks I want to give these thorough updates, since that's what I have been interested in doing lately, and Shooting Hoops is one of the tracks that comes to mind. More on that another time, as I'm still deep in thought about what to do next.

Below is the GT1 layout of the track I traced for the update, though I am unsure if the chicanes are in the right place or not. The track originally went under the front stretch after the first hairpin for a quick series of chicanes. I found out the original design was also featured in a demo for Gran Turismo 3 in an issue of Official PlayStation Magazine.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Progress on the Special Stage Route 11 remake (yes, remake, I spent 3 hours redoing the entire track layout):



Had a bit of a scare where I thought I had lost 5+ hours of work because the project refused to open but everything's fine now. It kept telling me that there were files missing that I hadn't even placed on the track. I learned that the max amount of f-sections on one segment is 20 so I can't put all the paint lines on the highway when it's all eight lanes, but I worked around that by deleting them where they're less important. I am also experimenting with the chicane section to avoid small tight turns. Hopefully I'll be able to record the LPs in a way the AI will follow it.

Update, May 31, 2022:

Work is progressing slowly. There is a lot of decoration to be done still, but a lot of details have been added so far. I had to learn what a bunting banner is and made a custom texture for it. I also recorded the LPs to test if my chicanes worked, and thankfully they do. Um, I might also put shadows on everything so it actually looks like it's night time, too.

 

[mtblillie]

Sweet, I love street circuits!

 

[KitsuneAmy]

I am going to start working on an update for Shooting Hoops next, I think. It may or may not be a 1.0 update, we'll see how I feel about it once I get into it. One of the previous posts in this thread (#147) was about wanting to make the track look nicer, so I have wanted to do this for a long time, but I have made, or have wanted to make so many other tracks deserving of my attention that sometimes it becomes difficult to decide what I want to do when I get the desire to work on them. That hasn't been the case recently, however; I have known exactly what I wanted to do to a point where it felt natural, and I've really been enjoying myself to say the least.

I think I'll start by checking if the lanes are even, and adding shadows to all unlit segments like I did for Special Stage Route 11 to rather pleasing results.
My memory isn't very good, so I'll probably have to refamiliarize myself with the track as well as drive around it in Ridge Racer 4 some more.

I just found out I may have been right about Namco not converting the track distance and simply changing kilometers to miles... The stated length in the NTSC version is 2.473 miles, but I just used a speed, distance, and time calculator to find that using a stage 4 car on the track at a constant speed of ~184 mph and a time of 31.790 seconds gave me a distance of 1.62482 miles, and doing the same thing with a stage 1 car at a constant speed of ~98 mph and a time of 59.222 seconds gave me a distance of 1.61215 miles. So taking my assumption into consideration and converting 2.473 kilometers gives me a length of 1.536651 miles; I think I can safely conclude Namco may have made the same mistake Polyphony did with Gran Turismo 2, and I will be scaling the track to the length it's actually supposed to be.



The track length is now correct, but I have a lot of objects to move now...

As a side note, I have been updating my download pages for my tracks to be more consistent. A blurb/description, promotional image, course map preview(s), then credits in alphabetical order. Someday I'll make all the promo images similar with course logos and everything to be like all the others as well.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Struggling to tell what this says somewhat.



I think it says "Galacship", "Exit Galboss", and "Exit Redalien-Greenalien". It's Galaxian/Galaga/Bosconian themed since it's a Namco property.

I'll also be adding the other side of this highway/freeway here.



Gotta get some good pictures of the overhead banners, walls, and billboards to accurately recreate them, as well. The billboards I may screenshot and put in as-is like I did with Spencer's Test Course.


"Age solo", "Assoluto", "Lizard", "Terrazi"

"R4 Ridge Racer Type 4", "Terrazi", "Lizard", "Assoluto", "Age solo", "Shooting Hoops"

 

[KitsuneAmy]

I have been loosely keeping analytics since October 24, 2020 here and I'd like to share some numbers with you for fun.

The current top three most popular tracks I have made based on view-to-download ratio are:
1. Test Course (Gran Turismo 4) with a ratio of 44.583%
2. Red Rock Valley (Gran Turismo 2) with a ratio of 39.964%
3. Complex String (Gran Turismo 3 ) with a ratio of 39.682%

The current least popular track I have made based on view-to-download ratio is:
Spencer's Test Course, with 124 downloads and 905 views, for a ratio of 13.701%. Totally understandable for how obscure it is. I wouldn't think that many, if anyone who plays NR2003, also by chance has played Racing Lagoon.

The plan with this data was to make a line graph, but I have not done that yet. I have eight entries I kept track of the ratios for: October 24, 2020, November 14, 2020, December 18, 2020, January 19, 2021, February 27, 2021, October 23, 2021, February 16, 2022, and today, June 7, 2022.

Anyway, I did the update I wanted to, so I am again, not sure what to do now, as I am flip-flopping between updating an old track or making a new one. If I update an old track, it may be any of them I have not updated yet recently since I don't know which I want to do next, but if I make a new track, Phantomile and Treasure Island are floating around in my head right now. This post may be updated with whatever I decide to work on next, so stay tuned.



This course interests me but level crossovers are difficult to work with in my experience.

 

[Nuttyboy812]

I wouldn't think that many, if anyone who plays NR2003, also by chance has played Racing Lagoon.

I've played it a little bit but I haven't really gotten anywhere in it as of yet, maybe someday I'll find the time to play it and a lot of the Genki Racing Project games like I've been meaning to do.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

I've played it a little bit but I haven't really gotten anywhere in it as of yet, maybe someday I'll find the time to play it and a lot of the Genki Racing Project games like I've been meaning to do.

I ended up enjoying it so much I went out of my way to 100% it. It's a shame it took an unofficial translation over 20 years later for English speaking folks to play, because I think it's a great example that future games could have followed in terms of customization, story, and gameplay.

 

[Nuttyboy812]

I ended up enjoying it so much I went out of my way to 100% it. It's a shame it took an unofficial translation over 20 years later for English speaking folks to play, because I think it's a great example that future games could have followed in terms of customization, story, and gameplay.

Wait there was a translation? Maybe that will help me stick with it since I don't particularly enjoy guessing what menu options do.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Wait there was a translation? Maybe that will help me stick with it since I don't particularly enjoy guessing what menu options do.

Yes, last year Hilltop Works finished a fan translation. I think it's done really well and there aren't any mistakes that I noticed while playing. I played Persona 2 Innocent Sin the same way a while back.

 

[Nuttyboy812]

Yes, last year Hilltop Works finished a fan translation. I think it's done really well and there aren't any mistakes that I noticed while playing. I played Persona 2 Innocent Sin the same way a while back.

I'm going to look into that right now, thanks for bringing this to my attention!

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Fixing High Speed Ring's pit stop today after doing a race on the track yesterday and noticing it doesn't work very well. I don't think there's anything wrong with the LPs, it's just problems with surface types. I could not make segments 36-39 as neat as the previous ones because of the F-section limit of 22, but it should still work fine. Also toying with the ini a little and plan to implement a custom TV1 camera for a 1.01 update.



For Pine Hills Raceway, I am working on getting standing starts functional. I will also experiment with adding the back stretch jump. May also add the jumboscreen on the backstretch and the overhead banners. Will also change the track shot, I shouldn't have made it that pixelated little snapshot. Also now that I look at it, I got the fences wrong, and the wall textures need to be more concrete colored. I did not move the pit flagger or stop&go man between the 0.8x and 1.0 updates so I'll move him where he's supposed to be; both the buildings were also way too tall so I lowered both of them considerably. Where the wall lowers to 0.5m was too late so I made it shorter sooner so the whole pit wall height is 0.5m.

In summary:
- Added standing start functionality
- Added the back stretch jump... somewhat
- Added the "Pine Hills Raceway" overhead banners
- Changed trkshot.stp
- Made the fences look more like the source material's
- Changed the texture of the walls to be "
- Moved the pit flagger and stop&go man to the intended positions; returned the series_flagger texture to vanilla
- Moved the point where the pit wall becomes 0.5m to be sooner
- Lowered the buildings' height on the track considerably and changed the model of the backstretch one
- Added a billboard I failed to notice near turn 2
- Added the spectators behind the front stretch fence
- Modified start/finish line textures
- Rerecorded race.lp, maxrace.lp, and minrace.lp

Update; June 11, 2022, 11:58 pm, instead of making a new post for this:

Just finished recording part 2 of 4 of my custom season showcase, and I have a few thoughts to share:
- Beginner Course is probably my least favorite track I've made. It really needs a better setup.
- I've only figured out how to make standing starts work for the full pace lap on Pine Hills. The way it's working right now black flags you the second you start a race with the partial pace lap.
- Stadium's setup is way too loose. One tiny tap from a car spins you out and that won't work for me. I also didn't put the right night sky in. Oops. Another thing, I need to try my best to get the pit stop working to the best of my ability because right now it's a mess.
- The night sky on Red Rock when you set it to cloudy looks really nice.
- I need to significantly narrow the racing surface on Up N' Over and rerecord all LPs.
- I'd like to update Motorland some time. Maybe fix the insta-crash corner that will 100% crash your game if you go too far on the inside...and add custom textures for the billboards.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Did a 100% race at Infineon in Nascar Thunder 2004 for fun.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Scouted Autumn Ring a bit in Gran Turismo 4 a couple days ago. Thinking about making it the first track I make to have a split pit stop since the track has two of them; one for the main course, and one for the short course. 21 cars pitting on the front stretch stop and 22 on the short course's stop. I'll guess I'll borrow some of the code from Bristol's track.ini to achieve this since I've never had to do it before.

Also just finished driving 12 laps on my Special Stage Route 11 remake. I noticed the ai's tires were wearing unfairly compared to mine and sure enough, theirs were at 0.30 and 0.39. I think since I repurpose the same track.ini frequently that a lot of the tracks I've made may have this error. The default max laps for a 100% race will also be lowered to 60.

Update; July 5, 2022: Putting together track.ini files for Autumn Ring and Treasure Island today and editing more ai tire wear in existing tracks.

I'm not ready to get back to work yet, but as usual, I'll come back when I am.

 

[KitsuneAmy]

Today's random thought: I am thinking about the viability of putting one of the layouts of Bayview Speedway from Need For Speed Underground 2 in NR2003 because I started playing it again recently and like the track. Pictured below is the longest layout, Bayview Speedway Track 5, which is 2.37 mi (3.81 km) long.