[Tool] F1(4K) Track Generator (WIP)

[Tijny]

Could you give me examples of turns and bends you would like to see?

• Tighter, more abrupt turns/chicanes (e.g. the last chicane in Flakemoore)
• Double apex turns (last turn in Sandopolis)
• Super high speed/downforce turns (Avantura, Elemterekejfe, Bridgis)
• Ever-so-slightly diverging straights (Elemterekejfe, Drosovce)

Aside from that, I noticed that whenever your tool decides to produce a left-right combination, the pieces are always glued onto each other. In my experience though, I find that the most enjoyable and/or challenging combinations are those with a bit of straight(ish) road in between.

[Whiplash]

- Those 300,200,100 shits are placed so nicely and they really help while driving.
- No matter what complexity of a track is, I'd like to see more often the long straights which test the car's top speed. Now they almost never happen.
- Bunkers are pretty good looking already. But I feel they would look much better if you round them off totally. So, simply avoid those aligned bunkers from both sides and continue that round shape until the end.
- You can now place two rows of tyres trough the bunkers edge too.
- Trees positions are pretty generic now. It's obvious that they're following some vertical-horizontal rule. It would be much better if they could follow the track path diagonal direction better. And it would be better if groups of trees (small and big forests) could be recognized, where they're sticked together by higher density.
- You can apply smaller trees according to big ones now too. Just place them randomly around them (check Circly or Elemterekejfe). Same goes with all kinds of stones - just place them out of forest (it's always good to have one big stone in center, and few small ones around or on top of it). You can also find a nice combo of stones and trees on my Vehemento track.
- About kerbs (small thing) - I'd like to see last parts of each kerb more symmetric. Now I notice often that last part of a kerb is a bit longer on one side compared to another. You should simply fix that to the same size. The same goes for the semi-last kerb square. I notice it's often smaller than the rest of squares, which looks a bit bad. It's better if the whole kerb is a few pixels longer than it's supposed to be if you manage to accomplish what I said. Symmetric kerb where all squares are the same should be the goal.

EDIT
And question: is that track loading errors supposed to happen? (Loading track pattern. Track pattern not found: building track pattern; and then: Warning: invalid track checksum. Track records may not work properly)

EDIT2:
Ah, right, you can also make some random villages on empty parts of a map. Just place randomly few houses (rotation 0 of course) and connect them by a tight road.

[power79]

And question: is that track loading errors supposed to happen? (Loading track pattern. Track pattern not found: building track pattern; and then: Warning: invalid track checksum. Track records may not work properly)

My tool doesn't create hash or track pattern. You have to open track in editor and save it before testing.

[Keppana]

Great job! This fit perfect for my purposes. I was searching for random track generator and random shape generator, to use these as templates/ideas to build track based on the shapes.

[power79]

Another road shape update.

I tried to change road making more to Tijny's liking. Tell me your opinion and keep guiding me to right direction. I am really bad at figuring out what is good track and what's not.

Other changes:
- Small changes to sand bunker algorithm
- Some bug fixes (let me know if you still get crashes).

F1TGen.zip

[Whiplash]

Tracks definitely look less generic now. But some improvements are still needed.

- Outside bunkers are missing often in dangerous curves. Also, they're not rounded off nicely yet; they often have letter "V" shape.
- Tracks are still having too many fast curves. I mean, tracks are too fast in general. More slower zones are welcome.
- I don't like the way of how some straights are so slightly curved. If you want long curvy parts, then make them a bit more curvy. It's kinda irritating to drive a long straight which is curved so slightly that you need to correct your driving line every second just by hitting a key for one millisecond.
- Even they can look cool, this type of curves happens way too often.

[power79]

I changed track algorithm quite a lot and now curves should have more variety. So I would really like to get your comments this time. Just remember that this tool is meant to mass produce random tracks so even if only 1 of 20 tracks has a shape you like I think that's enough.

Just a track shape update this time but I start focusing other issues next unless there is big problems with the shapes.

F1TGen.zip

[Whiplash]

You definitely made the track shape smoother and now even start straight line is debugged. But I actually don't like the way the most curves are redefined, especially the slower ones. The earlier ones were more similar to real tracks, and the current ones are more similar to my tracks (which isn't good). I always tend to get curves where outside kerbs will be straight, and I failed very often in my PS tracks to do that. That's why I was happy when I saw that your tracks finally get those curves programmed to be different than mine - the only thing you needed is more variety. But, now you totally changed the shape of curves - and you can see, most of the curves have that weird curvy outside kerb (weather you approach or exit the curve). That somehow always looked bad in my eyes.
For example, open Monza track and you'll see that almost all outside kerbs are always perfectly straight. Same goes for all the other racing tracks. That tells you that shape of your slower curves isn't now typical for such tracks.

Bunkers are now almost perfect. I just see often that they're not smooth enough in the middle part. Sides are great.

[power79]

If I understood you correctly then what you want is every curve to start and end with little bit of straight?

That's tricky to get just right but maybe this is at least more like what you are looking for:
F1TGen.zip

I can try to improve it but If this was not what you meant then you have to explain better.

[Whiplash]

Oh no. I guess I wasn't clear - sorry.
What you did now is just repositioning the kerbs (or just cutting them off). My description wasn't about the kerbs, but about the curves. Kerbs are just their manifestation.

Ok, I did some photoshoping to make my point more clear. Check THIS IMAGE.
Your type of curves are on the left side, and the real racing type of curves are on the right side. You will never find your type of curves on any real racing track. There are only few tracks with one or two curves which might remind you on those (mainly the slower curves), but in general you won't find them. All the racing curves look like those on the right side - their shape is typical for those tracks.
And now, imagine how the outside kerbs would look like on all those curve shapes. On all of your curves they will be curvy - which is totally atypical. And, on the opposite, curves on right side will have straight outside kerbs "by the nature".

And maybe T's suggestion was also misleading.

it would be cool if there was less of a clear distinction between "straight" and "turn", where it could produce slight bends even on the parts that are essentially straight. I understand if your algorithm isn't meant to support these things, but a man can dream.

Yes, it would be good if "some!" straights would be like that. But on the huge majority of racing tracks you can clearly say what's straight and what's curve.

[power79]

Ok, Ok, I think I got it now. You just have to be patient with me, Whip. (And draw some pictures)

It's not perfect as in very tight curves kerbs get buggy (mostly issue in complex tracks I think), but it should be close what you are looking for.

F1TGen.zip

And if you really have difficulty to get these kind of curves for your photoshop tracks then trick is to not put path node at apex but use two nodes (first at beginning and second at end of the curve) and then use control handles to create the actual curve between them. (I am sure Tijny could have told you this anytime).

[Whiplash]

Oh yes! You finally nailed it! I literally can't stop driving these tracks now. All the tracks finally look like actual racing tracks. I generated 10 tracks and each of them had something remember-able. But sure, more variety is always welcome. Anyway, good job!
The only noticeable problem is that the outside kerb is often starting too late or ending too early (1-2 cm). I guess you didn't fix that back since last "failed" version. And, yeah again, smooth out those bunkers.

And if you really have difficulty to get these kind of curves for your photoshop tracks then trick is to not put path node at apex but use two nodes (first at beginning and second at end of the curve) and then use control handles to create the actual curve between them. (I am sure Tijny could have told you this anytime).

Yes, I got that trick after a lot of testing and editing. But I still have problem to make them smooth enough, especially when the curve is having low angle (it's often noticeable only on bugged kerbs after the whole job is done). That's why I use mono-colored kerbs on some complex tracks.

[Whiplash]

I created separated sub-forum specialized for Tools now. I'm writing this message just so you could notice it easier.

Btw, one more suggestion:
- It could be cool if your tool get a "random track name generator" integrated. Something like that thing discussed HERE.

[power79]

Small update:

- Sand Bunker algorithm improved (Certain type of curves bugs them little but those should be easy to fix manually)
- Last kerb stripe should now have correct size
- Trees scattered slightly more naturally around the track

F1TGen.zip

[power79]

Update:

- Pit Lane (finally) drawn with better quality
- Tool saves "path_Trackname.svg" and "path_Trackname(pit).svg" files for track that you can import to GIMP(import path).

I don't have Photoshop so I don't know if it has path importing/exporting function and if it is in simple text format that GIMP has.

Main function of path importing of course would be possibility to edit or create your own track path and then let my tool to finish the track. Problem with implementing "Load track path" is at least figuring out the position of Starting Grid from the path (and pit position if pit path is not loaded).

Anyway, I think I take a break for rest of the summer. All critical features has been implemented and forum seems pretty dead again, mostly just Whip being the lonely motivator.

It's possible that I can squeeze update or two in next couple of weeks but don't expect it.

F1TGen.zip

[Whiplash]

You did an amazing job. I still need to test that .svg shit with Photoshop. I guess CS6 doesn't support it, so I need to install a newer version of PS named CC (Cloud Creative). If I fail to find a proper pirated version, I'll see if I can learn making paths with Gimp and do all the tests.

[Whiplash]

Ok, I did a test with PS CC and it worked well, just like Gimp. The only problem is that I couldn't figure out how to edit the path. I could only read it.
About the start line and pit recognition:
Maybe we could draw colorized pixels to make you know where they are. For example, white and red pixels could define position of starting line, where red always means right and white always means left. This way you would know both - position and the direction of the starting grid. It would be only important to place them on different sides of existing path, where precision wouldn't matter (the tool would calculate perfect length balance between left and right track edge).
Similar trick could be used for the pit. We could use just one colorized pixel (blue, for example) and place it close to the path (left or right to it) where we expect the pit enter should be. Pit path and pit lane should then just follow the shape of track path starting from that position. Maybe my idea isn't that simple as it's described, but I guess it could at least give you motivation for a better solution.

[Whiplash]

And another response after some more tests, so you can read it once you're bored of vocation.

- Generally, there are too many kerbs on the tracks - they are too long sometimes. And sometimes thy're missing. HERE is an image with billion arrows again. They show places where kerbs could be avoided or added.

- About bunkers: they are too "circly" all the time. I wish you could force them to follow the shape of the curve.

- About pit: you should force it to be on the side where the first turn is. That way drivers won't be forced to drive over the pit enters and exits in order to keep the fastest driving line. That's also forbidden in real racing. You can see on the same track from above that such enter and exit is too risky and could result as massive incidents.

EDIT:
The main thing that is missing is option for a pit to be generated too. I mean, it's important to have different types of pit enters and exits. Some should be faster (quicker), some slower (longer, curvy)- because that affects the pit strategy a lot too.