My First Track - Check it out!

[Plush]

Hey everyone! I've got my first track pretty close to being finished and can't wait any longer to share it!  I've been putting a ton of hours into this track and have put a lot of laps on it.  It's based on my favorite local track, Reynard Raceway, in Wellston, Oklahoma.  I've only put around 6 laps on the raceable version, but my best time so far is 2:03.  I've put several screenshots below 

Download link (national slot 5): http://www.mediafire.com/download/ax0ikspp9kg50tc/RR_Raceable_3-7-15.rar

As far as what still needs to be done, I need to smooth out the stairsteps (everytime I try to do this with viewdispmap, it messes my scale up), possibly add a softness map (though I feel like the softness is pretty nice by default), maybe add a luminosity map (still trying to learn how to do this), add some more trees (can't really find a good single tree in DE, any recommendations that I might not have found?), smooth out some of the areas/edges of the track that look unnatural, and maybe add some more objects, like filling up the parking lot area with vehicles.

I would love to hear some feedback on what you guys think!  Feel free to add me on Steam - bheck191

Have fun 

[TwizardT]

waauw man this track is amazing especially for your 1st track!!
personally i kinda like the 'stairsteps' because it makes the track a bit rough.
if you do want it smoothend keep in mind that for the smoothend heightmap the scaling in DE needs to be double the amount of the normal heightmap.
also may i ask wich program(s) you used? and if you used photoshop how did you get this amazing height defference?
steam; TwizardT
and last but not least i suggest you put the track up on reflex-central because most people look there for new custom tracks.

[mcm2boys]

I wouldn't place too many static tree objects, Reflex has a system for trees, which is much more efficient and will help keep the frame rates up and will be available in DE soon, hopefully.

[JamieT]

Looking good man!

Those trees are just the 2D ones Laurie.  Should be fine with those.

[Plush]

Thanks for the comments guys! I used adobe cs5, and I made a layer called contour and just painted white wherever I wanted elevation changes and spent many many hours blurring, painting, and erasing to perfect everything lol.  Could also make some gradients and bend them around.

And yeah I kind of like the stairsteps also, they don't look that bad.  I didn't know the scale had to be doubled, so I'll try that out.  As far as the viewdispmap, Al167's videos show that you're supposed to put a 100% white and 100% black mark on the image.  Are you supposed to put those marks in the RGB channel before converting the image to a bmp and putting it in viewdispmap?

I'll probably put the track on reflexcentral and mxmaniacs, but wasn't sure if I should wait until it's completely finished first.

[TwizardT]

you don't put the RGB mask in viewdiplacementmap you put the heightmap in it. and no you don't need to put 100%white and 100% black marks in your heightmap (i didn't and it works fine)
one more question to you; do you put the layer above or below all the other layers?

[Plush]

Alright, should be easy to smooth it out if I want to do that in the future then. 

I put a base (90% black), the track layout (100% black), then my contour on top of the layout.  I build everything after that on top of those 3 layers.

[JamieT]

and no you don't need to put 100%white and 100% black marks in your heightmap (i didn't and it works fine)

That's why you're having to double the height in DE.  Your track before smoothing obviously is only using 50% of the full colour range (black to white).  For the best results without smoothing you should really be using as many of the 256 colours as possible.

Smoothing the disp map will result in the full range of colours being used in the output file.  This is why AL167 suggests adding pure black and pure white.  That way you're retaining the same range of colours for the track, and won't need to change the height settings in DE.

Edit:
To explain things more clearly with what's going on...  After you smooth your heightmap, open it in photoshop and look at the red channel only.  You'll see a familiar sight

[TwizardT]

thank you plush!

and jamieT,
its right that i only use 50% because my highest point is 50% white and my lowest 20% white (or 80%balck if you will)
but i find this easyer to work with and for me it doesn't cause problems in DE. so i don't think you'll NEED to do that its just what you find easyer.