Puzzles tracks

[Puzzle]

Starting With Wellington! seeing as I've moved here recently and it was formerly the home of a street race I thought I'd do a version of that track with my own spin on it. starting just across from Frank kitts park on jervois quay (with pitts on custom house quay with hunter street as the entry road) we head north into the first turn and then the hair pin that brings us back down the other side of customhouse and round turn 3 onto jervois quay. turn 4 trakes us down past the Te Papa museum toward turn6 at the intersection with oriental parade and onto the kent terrace stretch after turn 7 which takes us down to the basin reserve. turns 8-12 take us around the cricket grounds withthe route going up the hill through these corners before dipping down through turn 13 takes us onto the cambridge terrace straight to turn 14 onto wakefield street before turns 15 and 16 take us back to the start finish area having covered 5.4km.

[Puzzle]

and it would help if I put the picture up wouldn't it! to give you an idea frank kitts park is the splotch of green between the dark blue inlet and the pair of largish dark grey roofed buildings that are by turns 1 and 3

[Beetle]

Unique. Pretty narrow, but nice, overall! Funny, I was planning on doing a Wellington Street Circuit!

[bio]

Looks awesome.
The only problem I see here is that the "upper", thight section seems way to narrow on closer inspection on Gmaps, making overtaking rather dangerous there. Also, the hairpin on the top seems very tight - but as I see there's enough room there to loosen it up a bit.

Otherwise, It looks very good to me. It would make a great television venue - to see the cars going both direction, literally meters away from each other... That would look good, wouldn't it?

bio

[Puzzle]

Bio: the tight upper section is three lanes wide each way and I believe a similar hairpin was used in the original circuits if you look at the footage from some of the last races around '96 you'll see that there is a very tight hairpin and interestingly enough it was one of the best spots for overtaking. As for them going each way Te Papa has some big glass windows looking out over the road around where there restaurant is, imagine having lunch watching cars zoom either way outside

[Puzzle]

just been for a walk down that way and I think I get what bio is talking about a little better down past Te Papa the road does get down to two lanes and with barriers would be a bit narrow would probably not require much in the way of road works though. probably would be a few traffic islands around that would be best bulldozed

[bio]

Originally Posted by Puzzle

Bio: the tight upper section is three lanes wide each way and I believe a similar hairpin was used in the original circuits if you look at the footage from some of the last races around '96 you'll see that there is a very tight hairpin and interestingly enough it was one of the best spots for overtaking. As for them going each way Te Papa has some big glass windows looking out over the road around where there restaurant is, imagine having lunch watching cars zoom either way outside

Hi,
Well, with that speed that's exected there and all the overtaking action surely going on, plus wirtually no escape space on the sides... I'd still think it's too narrow - based on Gmaps. But that's only what I think, nothing more, nothing less

As for the hairpin - well, OK

bio

[Puzzle]

another one. more getting a hang on sketch-up than anything else. think of it as a single layout club track about 2km.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

The thing with sketch up is that you can draw to scale.

Do your circuit shape. Off set by the track width you want.

Highlight the inside of the circuit then right click for the area selected tool.
Divide that value by your offset and there is the circuit length in metres divide again by 1600 for miles

[Puzzle]

have had another crack at wellington street circuit with the bottom now going into the CBD and providing some characteristically street circuity corners and freeing up alot of jervois quay for a pit area and a chicane after the top hairpin also after the front straight which will now be the start finish straight there is after the first turn a new section through market lane than diverts the route into a twister narrower one but that contains together with the chicane the issue of cars reaching very high speeds down a very long high speed section before they come into tighter corners elsewhere

[ECW Dan Selby]

I like that alot! I love the 'step' effect with the left/right/left/right. Really cool.

Selby

[Puzzle]

ECW: I actually like my first one better but decided that as bio had raised some very reasonable issues about some parts of the track combining dangerously high speeds with quite tight narrow roads and likly overtaking maneuvers that I'd have another go. ideally you could take the twistier section after the start finish straight along the water front and around the museum instead of through the very confined and narrow market lane but this has been developed over the years into a pedestrian area and would basically have to be completely rebuilt for a race track much the same can be said for anything that cuts across cuba mall and wellington in general has been developed with pedestrians in mind which for everything other than running a street race through here is probably the smarter decision on part of the council. the bit of wellington that I'd actually want the most in a circuit is bowen street up near the parliament buildings which sweeps up a nice incline behind the beehive and in must places is very wide but the only way to loop it back around into a circuit would be via suburban streets.

[Puzzle]

I was planning to you know go out tonight, meet new people just in general not be a hermit but instead I decided to draw a race track
StreamValley
idea with this one was to build a race track around two natural constraints common to NZ: waterways and the dimensions imposed on usable land spaces by there position at the bottom of steep sided valleys (you'll have to imagine this one with my sketchup skills a stream and circuit take long enough) which tends to lead to long narrow strips of open land. to turn these to the advantage of the facility the circuit features a main start finish straight that is just short of two kilometers with the cars running down to the first curve at the bottom of the circuit (for reference the top of the circuit is the section where it crosses the stream[just looking at my pictures again i stuffed that on up!]) that takes them onto the sweeping back section that roughly follows alongside the path of the stream till they come over the first culvert into the top complex that winds through several turns till the cars are heading back toward the main straight via the final chicane. as the full track is rather long two extra turns are included that can bypass sections of the track should that suit the even being held and as these are situated before and after the pit are the track can also be run in a flt oval configuration.

notes:
SBF: i had a go with the method you mentioned but as i had buggered around with various bits of the track whilst making it it doesn't have a consistent track width estimating the the full track at averaging 20m width gives me a value of approximately 6km and with the oval that should be about 30m wide all around it's about 1.4 km.
in some areas I've shown a solid barrier there would also be barriers for the pit area and with the full course in use temporary barriers would be erected so that no cars could find themselves flying straight on into a wall. As i couldn't find any textures that represented them well i've done the tyre bundles with checkerboard sides and granite tops 'cause if they going to look completely unlike what they are they may as well look like stylish kitchen furniture.

[bio]

Originally Posted by Puzzle

notes:
SBF: i had a go with the method you mentioned but as i had buggered around with various bits of the track whilst making it it doesn't have a consistent track width estimating the the full track at averaging 20m width gives me a value of approximately 6km and with the oval that should be about 30m wide all around it's about 1.4 km.
in some areas I've shown a solid barrier there would also be barriers for the pit area and with the full course in use temporary barriers would be erected so that no cars could find themselves flying straight on into a wall. As i couldn't find any textures that represented them well i've done the tyre bundles with checkerboard sides and granite tops 'cause if they going to look completely unlike what they are they may as well look like stylish kitchen furniture.

That's exactly why many of us stopped using Sketchup - way too much pain for the gain you get from other software, like Blender or BTB, with much less fidgeting

Sketchup is a great tool, but it becomes evident rather soon that it wasn't desigend for this kind of use. SBF's designs show that if you're really good at Sketchup, you can do good things - but BTB or Blender will work better with the same amount of effort put into it. And there are things that simply can't be decently done in Sketchup - like track or terrain elevation - while they are easy with BTB or Blender.

... and that is all my opinion only, of course

bio

[Puzzle]

Originally Posted by bio

That's exactly why many of us stopped using Sketchup - way too much pain for the gain you get from other software, like Blender or BTB, with much less fidgeting

Sketchup is a great tool, but it becomes evident rather soon that it wasn't desigend for this kind of use. SBF's designs show that if you're really good at Sketchup, you can do good things - but BTB or Blender will work better with the same amount of effort put into it. And there are things that simply can't be decently done in Sketchup - like track or terrain elevation - while they are easy with BTB or Blender.

... and that is all my opinion only, of course

bio

Hmm may have to look into this the main reason I have sketchup is to do this though i hope to find other uses for it may have a look at bobs track builder. in the mean time any feedback on the track itself?

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by bio

That's exactly why many of us stopped using Sketchup - way too much pain for the gain you get from other software, like Blender or BTB, with much less fidgeting

Sketchup is a great tool, but it becomes evident rather soon that it wasn't desigend for this kind of use. SBF's designs show that if you're really good at Sketchup, you can do good things - but BTB or Blender will work better with the same amount of effort put into it. And there are things that simply can't be decently done in Sketchup - like track or terrain elevation - while they are easy with BTB or Blender.

... and that is all my opinion only, of course

bio

Nice track, Puzzle. I like the idea. Also, thanks for the heads up on BTB and Blender, bio, because I found out that I am disliking Sketchup immensely. I can't get BTB to download on my computer, though. I tried the trial version, but it doesn't work. Could you give me a run-through?

Don't mean to spam on your thread, Puzzle.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

If you'd like to start a how to/ tutorial thread for BtB and blender, then please do and I'll sticky it, in the same way as the sketch up tutorial.

This post will be removed from this thread as off topic

[bio]

Originally Posted by ScotsBrutesFan

If you'd like to start a how to/ tutorial thread for BtB and blender, then please do and I'll sticky it, in the same way as the sketch up tutorial.

This post will be removed from this thread as off topic

Ahhh... Just to think I had a well edited tutorial on both readily available (I made them for another site, but never got around to posting them) on the PC that died on me a couple of weeks back...

bio

[Puzzle]

Originally Posted by bio

Ahhh... Just to think I had a well edited tutorial on both readily available (I made them for another site, but never got around to posting them) on the PC that died on me a couple of weeks back...

bio

please if you can get those back and posted that would be awesome. I have downloaded blender and from my minimal playing around with it I'd guess it would be an awesome tool for alot more than just messing about with fantasy race circuits if only I had the slightest idea what I was doing

[ECW Dan Selby]

Originally Posted by bio

Ahhh... Just to think I had a well edited tutorial on both readily available (I made them for another site, but never got around to posting them) on the PC that died on me a couple of weeks back...

bio

What's up with your PC man? Is it fixable?/I'd like to play Kyiv (sp?) again...

Selby

[Puzzle]

this was going to be a tsukuba inspired club circuit but somewhere along the way it became very manfieldish 3600m long

[bio]

Originally Posted by Puzzle

please if you can get those back and posted that would be awesome. I have downloaded blender and from my minimal playing around with it I'd guess it would be an awesome tool for alot more than just messing about with fantasy race circuits if only I had the slightest idea what I was doing

The problem is tha my PC that I'm storing all my stuf on seems dead. I'm still hoping though...

bio

[bio]

Originally Posted by ECW Dan Selby

What's up with your PC man? Is it fixable?/I'd like to play Kyiv (sp?) again...

Selby

We'll see...

bio

[bio]

Originally Posted by Puzzle

this was going to be a tsukuba inspired club circuit but somewhere along the way it became very manfieldish 3600m long

Sometimes simpler is better - like here. ery simple, but looks very exciting.

bio

[Puzzle]

I have checked out a couple of blender tutorials online and one of them mentioned setting a track layout created in another program as a background image and building the layout in blender using the background image as a template. I tried to do this but the only image files that came up in the browse files window were sketchup files and they didn't seem to load. can you do this? what sort of files can be set as backgrounds in blender? i actually find sketchup really easy for doing track outlines it's just that there are silly little things that keep it from doing anything other than really basic layout, no elevation change designs.