SASFRAS Terrain......

[Strip]

I didn't want to hijack USRanger's thread any more than we already have so I brought this here.

I just did a flight of the map & it is awesome. I do see alot of potential for some great races. Thumbs UP!

How about some flat lands in the corners with conventional terrain, large airfields, & courses on them.  I saw on another
terrain, an erased large airfield. Don't know if it was custom or what but that would be a great way to place the pylons.

In the HMS section of AHevents.com, I have outlined which buildings to blow up to simulate, with the fire pillers, the markers
for my course cool

I was telling Strip that it would be great to have famous landmarks in cities to race near. Something like the Eiffel Tower, or
Big Ben, or the Tahj Mahal, or some castles, maybe even the Kremlin in Moscow.

Just a thought here, but maybe you could create mini blocks of different countries or cities for a course.  Maybe 3x3 grid squares worth of European terrain Wink

Notch

In my mind I did not want to limit the courses to the size of an airfield, or even fly near an MA style airfield. Most Redbull races are done away from airfields at scenic locations. For this reason I would not include them as a base for most courses. We have runways devoid of objects that would allow you to set up a course over one. Forgive me tho, I just dont see why we need to limit ourselves to 1X1 sections. Are you thinking of racing the same course layout over multiple scenic areas? I personally envisioned a couple dozen different courses each with its own unique features.

Until we get access to the new cities we are kinda stuck on landmarks. The large blocks of cities we have currently would slow frame rates down. Some of the low end of computers would strain with even a few square miles. Not to mention the landmarks would be a real challenge for me to make. RedBull aircones are one thing, the Eiffel Tower is quite another. Once the new mega cities are available to us things could change a little. They are easy on frame rates and would allow most to use them.

Strip

[noTch]

As I recall my research on Redbull races, all the courses had about the same amount of gates just at exotic locations. Basically, that is what I am trying to do.  Something else, this is an out & reverse course, not a one end to the other

After running 4 of these things, it is tough, even with 1 full hour & constant parade laps for a new guy to get the course. I think that is because of all the fires. Can be confusing. The pylons would help with that
Also, the current course takes an average of 2:30 to 3:15 mins. That is about what a Redbull course is close to. With the slow RV-8, it gives the feeling of quickness. So spreading it out would just slow the pace. Plus, 8 guys show up & that is 30 mins easy. That's just the first round of eliminations. It gets kinda boring for the other pilots in the holding area.

In my mind I did not want to limit the courses to the size of an airfield, or even fly near an MA style airfield. Most Redbull races are done away from airfields at scenic locations. For this reason I would not include them as a base for most courses. We have runways devoid of objects that would allow you to set up a course over one. Forgive me tho, I just dont see why we need to limit ourselves to 1X1 sections.

This is good and high altitude air launches would help with that illusion
Could you draw me a course that you were thinking about? It doesn't have to be fancy, or done in photoshop or anything. Just a rough idea of what your vision is?

Anyway, maybe we could setup something different because I know how boring the same course can be. But if you think about what I am doing it is not about a line through, it is about the sudden sneeze that sends ya wide on a turn, or a hesitation in the half Cuban eight, or even the inadvertent rudder bump while knife edging through a gate, that gives your opponent the second he needed to beat ya to go to the next round.  We'll do some testing before next round.

I will keep an open mind.

[noTch]

Something else that would be neat is, can the pylons be fly though like the fires? Now that I think about it, on USRanger's terrain he had a ship that was on fire but not and you could fly through it. If we changed it from fire to a pylon...... My reasoning here is to be watching from god's eye and see the racer go through a pylon and penalize the racer without making him crash. I need to add time to the end time without completely grounding him. It is also why I am using fire pillars. I do understand about lag and what he sees & what I sees. It will be understood that the officials perspective will be adhered to

Honestly, Strip, this has so many possibilities. We just have to think ahead & try to get a good plan to Hitech is all

[Strip]

Okay, now we are getting somewhere....

I am envisioning a course that fits into a 1 by 1.5 mile long rectangle area, not much larger. The aim to spread the course length wise similar to what the real race courses look like. The race courses could be submitted by whomever and go through some sort of vetting process. Its not my intent to only add a select few's designs, this should be a group effort. Drawing a course is a possibility but I hope racers themselves donate time and effort. Placing the objects in the terrain is not a difficult or long process once you have the particulars narrowed down. More time would be spent laying it out and testing it would be my guess.

I would not be disappointed if I had a dozen, or more, different courses to layout. Simply having a couple designs spread out in different corners would be selling ourselves short.

Strip

[Strip]

Pylons can be set so they are not collide-able, I am not crazy about that tho. An enterprising racer can shave seconds of their time without ever "breaking the rules" on your screen. How many people died when radar towers in the towns were changed to have collisions. All were fast pilots, hardly a coincidence in my eyes....

In RedBull a pylon collision is a immediate DNQ though....

Strip

[noTch]

Pylons can be set so they are not collide-able, I am not crazy about that tho. An enterprising racer can shave seconds of their time without ever "breaking the rules" on your screen.
In RedBull a pylon collision is a immediate DNQ though....

You do have a point. In real life racing it is a DQ, but is it because of safety?  In a video game we can add the few seconds back on in a penalty. The reason I am confident the official will see the violation is because he is following the racer through the course. Now that is the beauty of this course. It is about professionalism. It is about integrity. It is about beating a clock, not outrunning an opponent.

I also agree that more than 3 or 4 courses would be small potatoes, but being familiar with them is the key.  The Redbull guys don't just show up in Istanbul on the day of the race and practice a couple of hours. The courses are, I believe, standardized like a baseball field so they can go anywhere and still execute the same route over different terrain. If this is not true, I would bet I am close.
Now how can we make this work for us.  Eye candy. I'll say it again & again. Fancy pylons, neat landmarks, terrains that are vibrant & pretty paint jobs. Why do I keep harping on this point, let's look at some of the more successful races.  NASCAR boasts some of the biggest crowds, it's a minimum of 4 LEFT turns. Almost every track in America is the same. How about horse racing, again LEFT turns & tracks the same
My point, having the same layout ain't a bad thing, it's the eye candy that dictates how cool something is.

Having more than one kind of course on a map should probably be done. I'm not against it. It is just hard to get the average Joe, out of the MA, to come in, memorize it and run it out of the blue.

Maybe the winner's choice could be which location out of twelve they want the next one? I could get into that.

[Strip]

Eye candy is good....it draws a crowd, its fun to fly around and it makes for a great backdrop. However, special objects take time, energy, and experience to build. For the time being I am short on experience, something an Eiffel Tower would require. For that reason I wish to focus on what I can control and can accomplish myself. This means basic to low difficulty level objects like towers, runways and etc. There is a reason you dont see many special object terrains in the SEA often. They are difficult, time consuming and a pita to pull off....

For this reason I am choosing to focus on the paint schemes, realistic aircones and dazzling terrains. These are objects I have confidence in my ability to do and not have to rely on many other people. Quite simply I know of very few people with the skills to take a blank screen and turn it into an object in game. If some of them come forward and wish to tackle very special objects like the Tower of London more power to them. The would be welcomed and I would be grateful to learn from them perhaps.

Redbull designs are unique to each city they fly in, each having its own challenges and layout. Your apology to NASCAR is correct to a point, they are all identical in many ways. However, even a 1.5 mile oval (of which there are a dozen or more) is unique at every city. The aim for me is not to have vastly different layouts like AHXARL. My vision would be like the real thing, similar but each being unique. Having the winner pick its location would kinda cool....

Edit was to add to the track designs....

Strip

[noTch]

As far as the eye candy thing goes, why don't we agree that "eye candy" will mean pylons, blimps, billboards(maybe with the Eiffel tower on them ) and unique areas

Ok, so they are unique in their placement, but the same route is essential maintained? Is the same amount of markers present? The same stunts need to be performed to qualify as legitimate run? Those are the goals I would like to set for a SASFRAS course.  Enter here, slalom, knife-edge, knife-edge into a quad gate one way, knife-edge into the same quad gate perpendicular, 270^O flat turn, , half cuban, reverse back through course, exit here 

[Strip]

By that definition I am all for eye candy and that is doable for sure....

In RedBull the courses can vary greatly, each taking into account the local setting. Each will have a similar length with a set number and type of cones.  Check out a few of the race maps at Red Bull AirRacing for comparison. Similar elements but different layout and order, the bigger question is how would you design you perfect track?

Once that is formed out we can create variations depending on how you would like things to be done.

Strip

[noTch]

Wow just had a thought, what if you took a the course as it is now and depressed it into the ground so the course was a canyon. Not a tunnel but a open sky canyon. It would start with an opening as the start gate, a short corridor to the triple cone slalom, sweepin left turn to the first knife-edge cones, to a straight away to the quad,,,,,,,so on & so on.  When I say a canyon I mean the sides look like the white cliffs of Dover  from sea level to ohhhh 5K    Now that would be cool 

[noTch]

Oooooh conversely you could put the course on a mountain ridge  lol

[noTch]

how would you design you perfect track?

The concept I have now is the perfect track but without cones. A large airfield area is just about enough for
a 'template' track.

Straightening it out along a river might be very cool

[noTch]

Okay, now we are getting somewhere....

 The race courses could be submitted by whomever and go through some sort of vetting process. Its not my intent to only add a select few's designs, this should be a group effort. Drawing a course is a possibility but I hope racers themselves donate time and effort.

Right now I don't have a huge following, maybe 8-10 die-hard racers, so for now it is up to us. I usually pull from the arenas and on-the-course-train them before the race

Quick question, why can't a terrain be modified once it is submitted and accepted? or can it? Does that take too much coading
An example of what I am saying is say Luzon need an airfield placed on a certain island, could a terrain guy go back and place it there then submit it back to Hitech?

[Strip]

Check this out when you get a chance, watch the takeoff, something needs to be worked out there.

http://rapidshare.com/files/316842915/Redbull.res

Its all white for now, the textures aren't done and I wanted to keep the DL small. Also, I kinda want to see what other people get for framerates. If you keep track of them please include normal MA fps. Once flying please don't hesitate to mention any stutters or graphic errors.

The course layout is here...

http://ahevents.org/heavy-metal-sunday-setups/place-holder.html

Strip

[Strip]

Textures coming along nicely, did you get a chance to fly the little test terrain above Notch? Anyone?

Curious to see a lower end users results....

Strip