My Track Championship

[bio]

Guys, I just had an idea...

Back at xl8r's Berkshire Park thread I offered to do your tracks in driveable format. Well, I thought, if we'll have our own tracks and we can drive on them, why not have our own championship?

My idea is real simple:

- whoever is interested names one of his/her own track previously posted here in My Tracks (or sends me a map and the required data if it hasn't yet been).

- I create the tracks in Blender and then upload them to the web so you can download them.

- You download Racer, the free game software and the uploaded track folders.

- We then all race the tracks. I'm still figuring out whether it is possible to race against each other online or not. If yes, we'll find out how it is possible and how it is best done. If not, we can simply race our best times we achieved offline, against no opponent cars.

- This way or that, we will have a final result. The winner is welcome to a two-week luxury holiday in Puerto Rico paid and hosted by our one and only LuiggiSpeed.

- Sadly I just made this last thing up, so no worries, Luiggi

First though, I need to know if anyone's interested. I would only put my time in creating the tracks if I know I'm not working in vain.

And one more thing: I cannot guarantee that I'll always have the time for creating the tracks. So, there might be delays due to any cutbacks of my freetime. I hope it's not gonna happen, though

So, anyone up for some pedal-to-the-metal and burnt tire sniffing?

bio

[ECW Dan Selby]

That's very generous, bio.

I would have been all over this like a rash literally 2 weeks ago, but now i've learnt how to use Bob's Track Builder, i've been doing all of this myself

But certainly have fun with this, guys. I'll be uploading some of my tracks once we've worked out how it needs to be done etc.

Good luck!

Selby

[Quintin03]

I believe BTB also supports Racer so that shouldn't be a problem for you either.

[ECW Dan Selby]

Oh really?

Quintin, do you know anything about what files need to be uploaded in order for people to download them? Obviously i'd love to share some of my creations for people to race on.

Thanks,

Selby

[Litchfield]

Unfortunately, I think you need to upload everything in your BTB Projects folder for that project PLUS any Xpacks you are using besides the default.

BTBPro does support Racer BTW, so we can still use Racer as the game. I think running a "hotlap" championship would likely be the easiest to do, with people posting their hotlap times, and possibly a replay to confirm (or something of the sort).

I would totally be down for helping create tracks, and contributing my own, through BTB for racer.

[resir014]

I'd like to have a go at this but my PC doesn't seem to like Racer very much. It keeps crashing during startup (on whatever version I tried), so i have to uninstall it.

At least I can submit my own tracks

[bio]

Boys,
if Racer really supports btb files then its all the better, right? Plus, if some of you create your own tracks, that just makes my task less, which is, of course, most welcome

resir, the latest version of Racer didnt work for me either, I'm using the last-but-one version. That works fine for me. I dunno what the problem might be there

bio

[Yannick]

Thank you for your very generous offer, bio. I'd surely like to see a few of my tracks in action, but I have no idea on what kind of a software Racer is. I've read of Bob's Track Builder, but as I'm currently busy with work and I have a girlfriend now who lives in another town, so I just don't have the time to learn all that software. So I probably cannot participate in racing on these virtual tracks myself.
Despite all of that, feel free to develop as many of my designs as you like into a sim track, but please tell me beforehand, which ones you'd like to pick, because there are some of my tracks that I'm not very fond of, and I'd rather you not use those. Thanks again.

Here are a few suggestions:
Duckburg, with the final chicane removed
La Vonoye
Nomenlos
Syracuse International Raceway at Empire Expo Center by mandretti39, edited by me
Krbtrk
Elk's Head
Nullburg
Spearmint Raceway (your own 41-75 version of it)
Riding ToygunTM Raceway by Mattel
Mount Wilbur
Kéneïeune, Hague and Nansentown
Chain Autodrome
Pumpkin Speedway
Phuthai
The Joystick
#8 of the Doodle Series

Feel free to pick the one you like best.

[LuiggiSpeed]

I'd give and arm and a leg to see my "Caribbean park" in action, pleaseee!!!

[bio]

SBF buddy,
is there a way to attach a polling to this thread now, or shall I start another one? I guess a poll would be the best way to find out if enough of us would be participating.

Thx.

bio

[Tathrim]

Originally Posted by Yannick

Thank you for your very generous offer, bio. I'd surely like to see a few of my tracks in action, but I have no idea on what kind of a software Racer is. I've read of Bob's Track Builder, but as I'm currently busy with work and I have a girlfriend now who lives in another town, so I just don't have the time to learn all that software. So I probably cannot participate in racing on these virtual tracks myself.
Despite all of that, feel free to develop as many of my designs as you like into a sim track, but please tell me beforehand, which ones you'd like to pick, because there are some of my tracks that I'm not very fond of, and I'd rather you not use those. Thanks again.

Here are a few suggestions:
Duckburg, with the final chicane removed
La Vonoye
Nomenlos
Syracuse International Raceway at Empire Expo Center by mandretti39, edited by me
Krbtrk
Elk's Head
Nullburg
Spearmint Raceway (your own 41-75 version of it)
Riding ToygunTM Raceway by Mattel
Mount Wilbur
Kéneïeune, Hague and Nansentown
Chain Autodrome
Pumpkin Speedway
Phuthai
The Joystick
#8 of the Doodle Series

Feel free to pick the one you like best.

Some of those tracks are missing their images, Yannick, and some of the image links are dea. This needs sorting to give bio a chance of using them.

[bio]

Originally Posted by Tathrim

Some of those tracks are missing their images, Yannick, and some of the image links are dea. This needs sorting to give bio a chance of using them.

Also, I would not like to be the one to choose. I guess it should be the author.

bio

[bio]

Luiggi,
could you drop a link to that Caribbean Park track? I cannot seem to be able to locate it (even Google didn't find it)

Thx.

bio

[bio]

Yannick,
the good news is that I managed to find and open all of the links, so you only have to pick one, no need of sieving out the unavailable ones.

bio

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by bio

SBF buddy,
is there a way to attach a polling to this thread now, or shall I start another one? I guess a poll would be the best way to find out if enough of us would be participating.

Thx.

bio

As far as I can tell a poll needs to be included in the opening post of a new thread.

As for any of my designs, let me know which you'd like to try and I'll upload the sketch-up file if it's not already here.

Here is Luiggispeed's Caribbean Park Use the forum search rather than Google.

[LuiggiSpeed]

Originally Posted by bio

Luiggi,
could you drop a link to that Caribbean Park track? I cannot seem to be able to locate it (even Google didn't find it)

Thx.

bio

[bio]

Thx both.

Luiggi, any altitude variations I should include? Also: do i understand it's clockwise and only 2,965 m. long?

SBF, I would like to leave it up to you to pick your track. I guess that's the way it should be. Although... I already have your Intrepid Raceway modelled, if it's all right for you, it would save me some time, I'd only have to brush it up... And, include any altitude changes if there are.

bio

[bio]

By the way, Dan, if you send me your compressed BTB-track's folder in a mail, I can check if it's really usable in Racer. My mail is: borz458ATyahooDOTcom.

Please let me know if you sent the mail, I don't check that account every day.

Thx.

bio

[Yannick]

Oops, I should have checked those links. Sorry guys.

It's kind of hard to pick the track at this point in time by myself, because I feel that the calendar for a racing series needs to have some variety of tracks to it.
Personally, I like fast tracks, but it's also been fun creating tracks that are deliberately mickey-mousey. To be honest, I have no idea which track I'd prefer to see in action because I had given up on that chance by now.
Maybe I'll design a new one just for this purpose. Can you model corners with high rise bankings with this software, bio?

[bio]

Yannick,
yes. I've never done it, but it's not complicated.

bio

[bio]

As for my participation, it's either going to be my imaginary street circuit of Laza, or a purpose-built track of Albacete I havent published here yet, but I got it built and tested and I liked it a lot.

bio

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Originally Posted by bio

SBF, I would like to leave it up to you to pick your track. I guess that's the way it should be. Although... I already have your Intrepid Raceway modelled, if it's all right for you, it would save me some time, I'd only have to brush it up... And, include any altitude changes if there are.

bio

I'd be delighted to have Intrepid International Raceway modeled.


I'm not sure that there would be a great deal of elevation changes as the circuit and gravel traps are quite tight to each other in places.

So just a few gentle slopes, perhaps the area covering T6 & T9 could be the lowest points on the circuit, with T11-12 chicane being sharply (compared to the rest) uphill, the run back down to T15 having a rolling but generally downward slope.


If your really feeling adventurous there is always Trent Park Raceway with it's elevations

[bio]

Yep, buddy, this is the one I have already done, only some facelifting needed

And who knows, I might do Trent, looks great and I'm quite sure it would also prove great

bio

[Tathrim]

Originally Posted by bio

Yep, buddy, this is the one I have already done, only some facelifting needed

And who knows, I might do Trent, looks great and I'm quite sure it would also prove great

bio

http://sites.google.com/site/alexvaqp/sketchupblender

Thought this might be useful to you. It's a little old, but it should still work. I believe skp files can be extracted in the same way, so no need to worry about the .kmz file extenson (If not, then don't worry).

Unfortunately I won't be taking part in this, as I no longer posess any skp models for any ciruit I've posted on here due to a recent mobo failure forcing a reinstall.

[bio]

yup, Tathrim, thx for this!
I've tried it way back when I was trying to use some of my older Sketchup designs in Blender but somehow it didn't work. I might give it a try again, why not?

bio