Monday, February 8, 2010

A return to track building

I'll begin with some back-story on just the track building: A little over a year ago i started hanging out around the "MCO MOD for rFactor" message board, and wondering about the old MCO tracks. I think it took maybe a day of posting before i became aware of Bob's Track Builder and realized it was finally possible to rebuild the old tracks.

Immediately upon discovering this, i purchased BTB and rFactor and began watching a gazillion tutorial videos. Before i knew it, i was hideously obsessed with working on a rebuild of Skoggit County Road and got a surprising amount done on it in a fairly short time.

Unfortunately, that particular version of the track builder had some limitations that made the task more cumbersome and difficult than i had patience for. Along with that and the less than adequate number of prefab track models available to the community, i started to slow down. About that time i got a promotion at work and it was clear i needed to stop the track building all together.

Now that i've been gone a year, MUCH has improved with BTB. I've also found enough prefab models available that i can build the towns of Skoggit to look more like the original version. But most importantly, i've got the time and interest to start working on it again.

During the first few days of getting back in the swing of things, i found that my old track project wasn't playing nice with the new version of BTB. After much information digging and many failed attempts at updating it, i threw in the towel on that project and started over from scratch.

It sounds painful when i think about it, but in reality, it was the best approach. I could build it right from the start with a far more knowledgeable method and a whole new set of models that actually fit the track.

Speaking of models, i'm sure some people will argue that i could just build my own. Well, as nice as that would be, i'd never finish building the track if i got caught up in model building. That isn't to say i won't build some here and there when i need to, but i'm not about to build an entire town. If someone ever wants to join forces and help me re-model the track(s) with more MCO themed models, i'm all about it. But until then, i'm just going to focus on getting things feeling right, looking decent and functioning as raceable tracks.

So that's where this blog begins...

4 comments:

  1. Good luck! I'm looking forward to following your progress!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Roadweasel! I'm also looking forward to much progress. I'm especially excited to build in an area that didn't exist in the original that ties it all together into a circular track. I've got it roughly mapped out as a bridge over the last road out of Hicky's Ridge. I think it's going to be pretty cool. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. good to see you workin on it again man, have been racing grid some but in middle of reformatting computers and such atm, so last couple of weeks been kinda away or tryin to reinstall the junk i thot i backed up but was lost.

    Sleep

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hear ya - I recently wiped a laptop so I could put win 7 on it. It's only a week later when I'm STILL putting software on it that I realize what a pain in the ass it all is. I have to say, though, I really like win 7. It forces me to be more organized... which I'm not, normally. Anyway, I stilll hope to hit some tracks with you and Con one of these days. I just need to knuckle down and finish grid.

    ReplyDelete