Lime Rock Park 0.6, 4 Jul 2009

[Kenners]

This one's for you, Leo-

Here's a slightly reworked version of Dandy's Lime Rock Park. I'd like to hand it off to someone else for new skyboxes. It isn't quite done; in my laziness, I stuck some faces in front of other faces, and so there's some flickering to be seen on several buildings. I'll get to it soon..

For those who are familiar with Dandy's track, and who isn't , it should drive very much the same - the roadtypes did not change significantly.

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploads/kenners/LimeRock06.zip

Kenners

[leoantix]

i absolutely love it kenners ... check your PMs

[djpimley]

Wow.

We need not have offered help, you've excelled without it. FPS is also good - though it takes a hit in places it's still in 60 fps territory, and mostly it's 75 fps. Perhaps some nice sky boxes could be made in the way Monaco was done: combine Google Earth horizons (or photos if Leo has some) with suitable sky box images. What's with the radio-active green moss/trees texture on parts of the ground?

[Kenners]

Wow.
What's with the radio-active green moss/trees texture on parts of the ground?

just my attempt to show areas that are overgrown with bushes, brambles, etc.. I plan on adding mdls to accomplish that, but I've been dinking with it for so long as it is.. And I wanted to see how FPS was doing first.

There are some pics Leo took that might be used to make a skybox. There are also some I found online that might suffice. Want to have a go? I'll put what I have on my LoL space.

Kenners

[djpimley]

Want to have a go?

I don't have any sky box images I haven't already used. But I'll gladly have a go at stitching together a 4 sided panorama of the valley. Then you or I can drop in a sky box of your choosing behind it.

[Kenners]

Want to have a go?

I don't have any sky box images I haven't already used. But I'll gladly have a go at stitching together a 4 sided panorama of the valley. Then you or I can drop in a sky box of your choosing behind it.

There's the rub; I don't have anything that I'd say would serve to create the panorama.. Leo - would you like to see if you can get 4 (or 6 or 8?) overlapping panorama shots of the view from the track? If the camera is set level, and all shots were taken with the camera on a tripod & just swung around, I think that would suffice.. What about the "length" of the lens? Would "wide angle" be the wrong thing to do (harder to stitch photos together)?

If you do go out, get some zoomed-in shots of the billboards, and I can put some better quality images in game..

Kenners

[Pax-raider]

For stitching together a panorama the longer the focal length of the lens the better. In other words, you can do a 360 view with a wideangle in a handful of shots, but they will look bad after stitching. If I was going to try something like this I'd use a tripod, use a slight telephoto (ie 50-60mm in old money) and pick a day that's fairly bright but with the sun hidden behind cloud. That way the contrast won't be overpowering and the exposures won't change too much as you rotate. You'll have to think about how much foreground you want too...

For the billboard shots get as far away as you can with a telephoto to reduce distortion, and get as perpendicular to the billboard as possible. Sun behind a cloud is also likely to give better results, with the sun behind your back. If you're using at least a 4 or 5 MP camera the image doesn't have to fill the frame - 512 pixels across the billboard is all thats needed, 4MP sensor is about 2500 pixels wide.

[zaphod]

Oh, how nice. Thank you, Kenners. Lime Rock Park has always been my favorite track to learn driving new cars and to improve (very little) in time trial. Now it has become even more tempting.

zap

[Kenners]

For stitching together a panorama the longer the focal length of the lens the better. In other words, you can do a 360 view with a wideangle in a handful of shots, but they will look bad after stitching. If I was going to try something like this I'd use a tripod, use a slight telephoto (ie 50-60mm in old money) and pick a day that's fairly bright but with the sun hidden behind cloud. That way the contrast won't be overpowering and the exposures won't change too much as you rotate. You'll have to think about how much foreground you want too...

For the billboard shots get as far away as you can with a telephoto to reduce distortion, and get as perpendicular to the billboard as possible. Sun behind a cloud is also likely to give better results, with the sun behind your back. If you're using at least a 4 or 5 MP camera the image doesn't have to fill the frame - 512 pixels across the billboard is all thats needed, 4MP sensor is about 2500 pixels wide.

Thanks, great info. The banner images I used are 256 wide, I'd like a little better.

-K

[DonaemouS]

We had a long test on the new LimeRock. I feel the track a bit wide compared to the old DANDY's one. But I love to see how the fps are gone, and this is really amazing.

The gameplay is not changed, apart from the turns near the hill.

I say thx too

[alphonse]

A lot of fun in Lime-Rock. Looks great, perfect FPS and an overview map.

What else could we wish...

thanks,
alf

[Kenners]

We had a long test on the new LimeRock. I feel the track a bit wide compared to the old DANDY's one. But I love to see how the fps are gone, and this is really amazing.

The gameplay is not changed, apart from the turns near the hill.

I say thx too

I did not change the roadtypes or the road file! The only differences are perhaps interpolation, which affects the driveoff areas.

edit - let me clarify: the roadtypes files ARE different; however, track widths, banking/camber, curb heights & widths are all unchanged. Obviously, the hillside on the right side of no name straight are way different, and the outside of Big Bend is different, but the TRACK is the same.. Really!

Kenners

[JW Barto]

Great to see a favorite track finally get some love.

Good job Kenners!!

Thank you.

JWB

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