Thanks guy for supporting the tracks. Everyone seems to think the track is good at some point, but most people seem to also have a problem with the track, which I understand. Before I continue responding to some stuff, I just want to throw one thing out there. Both me and Tizz are sorry that the track was so late, it was meant to be out last night so people (european time) could try it before they went to bed. But all as the evening, night and morning went on, there was some thing we noticed that wasn't done, wrong or just something. Tizz has been awake now for over 50 hours, mainly working on the track, myself am now up to over 30 hours, just to get the track out there at least one whole day ahead.
Some of the issues was making Low/Med/High res versions, we realized that the 30s girl was missing, the flaggers disappeared, there was no dog house, Tizz had to finish a lot of skins for the objects, statues wasn't finished, track was too demanding so on and so on. We did not want to release a track without shadows for example, since we knew we could make it. We did not want to release something that was 90% finished and decent. I hope you guys see that we put in some really hard work on the track (Aaron too) and our modeler, bringing us new fresh models for the series!
Why did we not "use Haggqvist's version"?
Some people wonder "where are the Haggqvist magic"? There are a few parts to this. Haggqvists track was probably the best looking one in the game, ever, no doubt. But the "source folder" that came with the download was around 3GB. Hagg had made a tremendous amount of work in Blender etc to make all the cool lighting and stuff. There were 8k maps that was looking amazing. Now, here is the 1st issue. I could run his 2014 version on my pc, but I've also spent over 1500$ on it. However I am quite certain that I could not have handled 40 riders on that track. Some people think this version lags on medium with 20ish riders, and that is without 8k maps. If you're using the medium version, your images for statues, decals etc are 1/4 of the size (50% on each side) of what the high resolution is, Low is 1/4 of the medium. So where it would have been an 8k map, there is now a 1024 or 512 map on the low version. Yet it lags.. Also we did not want to release or re-use a previously released track as it was. We wanted to make the track feeling like our track as much as we could, I think we succeeded. A lot of Hagg's track is still there, much terrain is the same, or same with relatively minor modifications, some statues are still there, some decals etc. Without Hagg's "pre-work/release", a Losail this good would never have been possible.
I can't see the ruts, why? I could see them on Hagg's version!
Once again, there are a few parts to this. As I mentioned earlier, we wanted to test and challenge ourselves here. Again, Haggqvist most certainly had some idea here that was meant to be put into place, but as almost none of us in the track crew hardly has any experience with 3d modelling, especially not advanced stuff like lighting and light sources and what not, we couldn't even consider continuing on Hagg's path. Also to this, if we should be real, the base that we had going into the night, was bright as if it was mid day out in the desert. I know that the lamps/lights on real life Losail lights up
really, yet there was still too much light, from a "real life replica perspective". So we set for a more "dusk" feeling with a little more faint lighting. I personally have no problem seeing the ruts, I've now ridden the track enough to get used to it and know where the ruts are, so now I expect them to be there. Also we added a shadow map with shadows, that was also one of the things keeping us up, having to figure that out. By both adding this shadow lighting and making the base less like a day version, this is what we ended up with. Trust me, during the night we have a lot worse versions that we considered using, which I am happy about that we did not settle for. The lighting we have now reminds me of riding at my local track in the evening, spot on in my mind. We're sorry that you may not like it, but we will take all the feedback and take it into actions for future night tracks.
The traction is the worst traction ever
Not really, it just depends on your attitude, of riding. Is the track slippery, yes, but not like crazy. Going back to the 2013 GP's, most tracks were like this and I don't remember seeing this much complaints about it. Let's clear some things out, or at least they way we've though about it. Is Losail a sand track? Yes and no. It's in the desert, surrounded by sand, there are surely sand on the track itself too. However the sand (?) or material on the track seems to be rock hard. Some people seem to confuse Losail with
this deep sand. If you look at the races, you can see shiny hard spots, that indicates it's a hard packed track. There is a some material that has gotten loose and are on top of the hard packed, yes we're aware, yet still we're judging it as a hard packed track. From the information we've gathered, riders that have ridden there, some has said it was slippery, in their opinion. I have never ever on a hard packed track been able to go from 0 to 50 degree angle on the bike, throwing it down, wide open and ridden away from it, without a rut. I don't see why sim should be able to handle that. I can agree that it's doable on sandy tracks, but not hard packed as the knobbies doesn't have anything really to dig into, but slide on top of.
From this, we've come up with a traction you have to be patient with and not rush WFO at any given place. A few guys said "Fix AMA traction PLEASE". No, to be, AMA has too much traction some times, some times even to be real. I love to race on it and I do think that traction is really good, but it would not be a replica if you would never lose traction. If you go in to this track with a relaxed and careful attitude, that you are going to hit the ruts precisely and not slide out, it'll be way better then "I'll WFO everywhere because I can just bank off of each rut".
Why are the ruts so small and weird?
It's just a different style of making ruts. Most people are used to big ruts that are more like berms. That can be good too, but I have never felt like that feel realistic. Personally to me, this is more realistic. I do like both way and I like variation, neither of them are superior in my opinion, it just depends on how you want your track to feel.
After getting used to the track and getting used to the idea of dropping the charge, instead playing more carefully and precise, some people have seemingly accepted the traction. You have to adapt, you couldn't say in real life "Drop sand all over the track, because it's really hard and I don't want to slide out", you race what you're given. A little same here. As anyone, I love feedback, as long as it's constructive. "Traction is fucking aids, use AMA traction" is not constructive, it's very rude.
For all of you that like this track, thank you so much, I'm more than overly excited that
you got to like it along with myself! It's not too fun, spending over 24h in front of a computer, busting our asses to bring you a track to race in, before it's 24h until the race, and being met by mostly likely really negative comments. Tizz had been spending aroun 45h awake almost exclusively focusing on the track, myself closer to 30h in a team effort just to bring you guys a track to race on tomorrow. It wasn't as exciting anymore after 2 sessions on the server, making me doubt if I want to continue on with my other tracks. I will do it, I want to release high quality tracks, but such negative comments are never fun to hear, neither encouraging.
Either way, I'm looking forward to my Amateur moto tomorrow, going to be really fun getting outdoors as that's where I'm comfortable. I hope for a great race tomorrow and a good stream. This track has the potential to mix up the normal running order, going to be really fun to see what tomorrow brings!
As info for all of you out there, the other tracks will not be like this. Leon has great traction, fast and quite an easy flowy track. Teutschenthal a little more difficult, yet very flowy. Valkenswaard is REALLY deep sand, heavy and brutal. We have a really good mix coming up, presenting you with a lot of different tracks! No matter what you like, some track on this tour should suit you. Just try them out upon release, we have a few different creators with different building styles, some will probably suit you!
