Non-laser scanned official tracks planned?

Looking back at the last official Track (that actually exists) from Kunos, one has to admit, that its been a while since Kunos pleased us with a track. We get cars en masse, but the official track selection is pretty slim and if it wasnt for the brilliant modding community, AC would be a rather "dull" experience, driving on the same tracks over and over again.

Now if we look at mods like Zandvoort (which Kunos implemented in the game officially), this mod was not laserscanned if i am not mistaken. However it is of very good quality and an enjoyable track in the game.

Now we take a look at mods like Donington and Paul Ricard, or also New Jersey, these are tracks with the same or even better characteristics in terms of track quality, and you dont really notice that they are not laserscanned. The layout is pretty much spot on, the track mesh is great and the trackside details please the eyes.

Kunos planned to laserscan mighty Laguna Seca, but they ran into some problems and this whole task is quite a tough one for sure... imagine how much effort it takes to laserscan a track that you are given limited access to, and all the equipment you will have to organize.
I am wondering, why they dont focus on modelling racetracks without caring to laserscan them? We can see from above mentioned mods, that track quality can be achieved without laserscanning and are good enough to use them in the game, we dont really need to have all tracks laserscanned. This way, they would save money and time on laserscanning and would only have to obtain the certain licencing for the tracks.

Its nice to have laserscanned tracks of course, but personally, id rather have a couple of more tracks in the game, that are not laserscanned, than only a small track selection of official tracks that are all laserscanned (except Zandvoort of course).


What do you think of this?

 

Because the community threw a giant steaming hissy fit over the inclusion of Zandvoort, and it was free.

Anyways, there is a valid reason that Kunos made AC mod-friendly:

 

yes, it was free because Kunos didnt licence it, thus they couldnt ask any money for it.
However, they could introduce new tracks in DLCs if they licence them, doesnt matter if they are laserscanned or not as long as they are of good quality (accuracy, visuals, etc)

oh, and about your posted picture of 240 tracks: yes AC is incredibly modding friendly (luckily) but a lot of the tracks you have in your library are lacking quality, you cant deny that, i am quite sure.
the amount of top-notch quality, that are up to vanilla-track standards, or even higher (?) is rather limited to 10, maybe 15 tracks at best

 

Kunos licensed it, hence it having it's official name and likeness in game; they also paid the creator for it and then paid their in-house employees to put the final polish/quality control on it.

 

I wrote about this somewhere else in this forum in the past but... it appears to me that laserscan data also much preferable for making a track. Whatever the technology used, anything that gives you accurate data over the track, track surface and immediate surroundings should be huge help in making the track as accurate as possible. Laserscan isn't just about having an accurate road mesh. Really, between licensing (have to do anyway), travelling there to do more on-location research (preferable to do anyway) and laserscan data the latter is probably the least of their headaches - my assumption.

 

It's like painting by numbers when you have good data. LS data would indeed speed things up. Even aerial LiDAR cuts down on the building time considerably!

Either way though I'm pretty sure this horse is dead. It's been beat to death many times.

 

i did know they paid the creator and polished the track before releasing, but since they didnt ask money for it, but i didnt know they licenced the track too. why did they had to do so? Modders dont havt to licence the mods, be it tracks or cars, if they dont ask money for it, do they?

 

LilSki, glad you mentioned LiDAR. This was exactly what i was thinking.. it is way less hassle to use that data and create a good enough track, than to bring all your equipment and your team to a track somewhere on a different continent.

 

Depends on the track.
There are quite a few tracks that can be very enjoyable, laser scan or not.
But then, there are some tracks that – in my opinion – have to be laser scanned, otherwise I think the experience would be partly spoiled.
Examples for this are of course the Nordschleife, Laguna Seca or Bathurst. Each of which has some very famous and pronounced elevation, which make up the basic characteristic of the track.

But scan or not, the track has to be licenced and done after all and that's where the problem seems to be.
Even if taking a model from a modder, you still have to verify the origin and licence of each element included in the model.

Marco also hinted in a stream last year, that after Zandvoort they stepped back from that approach, because the reception by the community wasn't that good and also because the time to check (and possibly replace) parts didn't fully justify it.

IMO, having tracks as mods isn't a big deal, the main issue is that you will get the unavailable content message too often, if you're not actively downloading the tracks.
Hence many server providers refrain from using mod tracks too often, which is a pity, because as you stated, some of them are of amazing quality. Some are even based on laser scans or similar techniques, like Tor Poznan.
The solution here would be to have Steam Workshop support (or similar), especially integrated into the launcher, thus downloading a track (or car) if you want to join a specific server.
This way, mod tracks could be properly integrated and the whole issue would – mostly – disappear.

However, the Kunos team so far did not show any interest in providing Workshop support and the shutting down of the car/track/livery mod sections in the forum does not suggest that this will change in the future.

 

It's a grey area. Actually it's illegal, but most companies tolerate mods because it would create negative press if you stop mods.
Nevertheless, it has happened ocacionaly which usually means the end of a mod.

As pankykapus wrote above, as a company you have to licence the stuff, otherwise most likely a lawsuit would be the result.

 

To make any track official and use the name and likeness of the circuit they need a license, if they were to make a community mod type track pack they would need to license all, pay the original creators most likely then also add some time to ensure it matches quality of other tracks.

In terms of PC users if they are too lazy to DL and install the top quality tracks its really their loss, for console users they don't have that option. There is also lots of crap released and looking at some tracks that I think are very poor and uninstalled soon after seeing many give it a 5 start rating means that many looking at mods may actually go by this rating. See its junk then avoid mods in general but that's an issue with their ratings and so many rating poor mods so highly then complain when a top quality mod like Zandvoort goes official.

Would the costs and time be worth releasing such a pack? only they know but the Zandvoort mess in the forum most likely has made them ditch that idea so you can thank a big chunk of the PC community for that one. Sure I would have loved a scanned version of the track but without one its the best we have by far so a very welcome addition.

 

modded tracks sucks. the road surface does not feel real. it's not the same ffb effectthan kunos traks

 

Have you tried Bridgehampton, paul ricard, riverside, VIR, New Jersey, Zandvoort etc or are you just trying the poor rips not the quality scratch made tracks?

 

^this. Get yourself some high quality, high effort tracks by skilled modders and then report back.

 

thanks for clarifying that, i didnt know that the unlicenced mods are in a grey area.

 

well yes, but i assume the effort to laserscan is way higher than to mod it with LiDAR data or something like that. Hence my original question

 

This is the reason pcrs iir name correctly called their track iirc: "Belgian Forest" and NOT... "Spa Francorchamps"

 

lazser scan, I bet the marketers and PR folks love this terminology. especially where you cant prove otherwise. that's the future of all this nonsense. all any of the companies have to do now is simply tell you "its the bestest everererer ever". one thing I notice in that using actual lidar data and for example concerning Iracing, there is something wrong there if their tracks are laser scanned, I wont go into it, but its my belief if ihad to I could demonstrate at least 1 of their so called lazer scanned tracks was not built to that standard at all. at the end of the day a track is only as good as the person making it, good data helps and makes it easier through less error margins being possible.