Select Modders to Enhance Official Tracks

After some people, including myself found the Nurburgring GP lacking in terms of trackside objects I wondered whether Kunos could possibly allow select, respected and willing track modders to add more to the trackside.

This wouldn't necessarily just apply to the Nurburgring track (this just probably needs it the most) but it could also work for other tracks. Additional static crowds could also be added to relevant places on tracks and possibly static crews on the pit walls or maybe some more 'decoration' in the pits. It could all add up to a more atmospheric track that feels full of life and help give a more immersive experience.

I know the tracks are not available to be modded or edited (from what I've heard) but Kunos giving access to just a couple of modders willing to do this could work out quite well in my opinion.

I should also add that I think something like this is being done for car skinning with one modder doing skins for cars that will be included in the official release or am I mistaken?

PS: Sorry if posted this in the wrong place, I wondered about posting in the modding section but choose not to and I couldn't see the suggestion section, am I being dumb or as it gone?

 

no, official tracks should stay official

 

Well they still would be official tracks. They have just been enhanced by certain modders with Kunos permission. They are already doing this with car skins in fact and the ones done by this modder are 100% official.



I should make it 100% clear that I'm not talking about the actual grey bit of track itself. That is all perfect Just trackside objects

Let me take this image (credit to eobet) from a thread regarding the Nurburgring objects:


The difference is massive! Silverstone on the other hand is excellent but it could still be improved with more static crowds and crew on the pitwall etc:

 

There's trackside objects? I will try to look next time I am spinning off into the kitty litter.

 

Sound like a good idea to me, and they could make it optional for those who would rather have the kunos official version.

 

So, what you're saying is that Kunos team suck at their job and they should allow someone else to do it for them!

Let me guess... when somebody invites you to their home for dinner, you also wonder if they could possibly let someone else do the cooking.....

I wonder, do you have any idea what manners are?

 

Well I would ask you the same question...

None the less I will come back on point. I'm not saying they have done a bad job, you implied that, they have done an excellent job. Every track in terms of the road is fantastic (which I already said). The trackside objects (and even bits you can't really see) are still very good at places like Imola and Silverstone (see the above diagram) but they could just be enhanced. Nurburgring is the only one I would say is perhaps lacking more than the others.

I hypothesized the idea of modders helping out as they are only a very small team and only one guy working on the tracks I believe. So clearly he is a very busy man and I'm sure working hard on modelling Spa among other things. So its just an idea that I wondered may help their already great tracks become even better without expending time where it is less needed.

Finally I should add that I am nitpicking. Chasing perfection is not attainable but if we chase perfection we catch excellence. That is a never ending process, everything can always be better. Everything.

 

AC is still pre release so nothing is necessarily finished, Im glad to have Nurburgring to drive as is and really I dont notice the fact there is stuff missing way outside the boundary. However looking at how much detail Silverstone has I see no reason why the guys wouldnt want all tracks to be at the same standards come official release. If you want everything to be perfectly polished then maybe you should have waited til its finished before buying it as the entire point of pre release is giving it as is while its being made and nothing is final.

 

I never said everything should be perfectly polished right now, it may get added to it may not. I just suggested an idea to add to the immersive experience of the track without affecting the teams work load significantly (or that was the idea), im already enjoying lapping everything we got! I brought early access and I'm very glad I did. Look at all my past posts and I have been 99% praising what I have seen. I have played several early access games and the quality of this early access is extremely high. So i think you have completely missed the point of my post...

 

It´s called Freelancing!

 

You did say that you want other select modders to finish the tracks, I am quite sure Kunos can do a pretty good job with all their content. If there are modders out there that are so much better a making tracks why dont they go and make them from scratch? even better still make entirely new tracks we dont already have to a standard that exceeds original content Im sure nobody would complain about that. The last thing we need is people making dozens of modified versions of original content, also in most cases these more detailed tracks will perform much worse on the average users computers. Also I really dont see how you can say how anything will be until its at least v1.0 so rather pointless even for these modders to do something that will likely e done by the devs. Sure texture updates shouldnt be an issue down the track if that is all it is and doesnt change any geometry on the track, but the devs have clearly stated there is not to be any modifications and re releasing of any original content being theirs or any other devs.

 

What I said was using a couple of modders that Kunos selected and gave permission to edit the tracks. I said this purely because the tracks are locked from any person just editing them (and rightly so). So a certain modder or two could be approached by Kunos and given permission to add a bit here and there (where Kunos ask for something or state it is allowed to be added to) and of course presuming that the selected modder was happy to do this. I guess I'm more talking about the bits that can't/wouldn't be laser scanned. I'm only talking about one or two modders here.

Plenty of modders will create new tracks and there will be many fantastic tracks that I look forward to driving on. Modders however don't have the ability to accurately laser scan the track and as such the track surface won't be as accurate as the Kunos ones. I'm just talking about trackside objects only, so crowds for example. I very much doubt they were laser scanned .

And your right this is not V1.0 and it wouldn't be a massive surprise to see additions made to the track in an update some time in the future well after V1.0. Version 1 doesn't mean that's it, everything is done, move on to something else. They want to support this for several years so yeah we may see improvements by kunos themselves in the future well after v1.

EDIT: Not saying Kunos can't/haven't done an excellent job just that a modder or two will alleviate the workload if they were going to improve the random trackside objects themselves. Of course if a modder would do this for free or whatever is a different matter, I don't have enough knowledge about modders if they would something like this with a thank you in the credits.

 

If they cant handle the workload themselves and see this as a priority I don't see why they just wouldn't hire a couple of very good modders to help out with tracks. This is very common in the business and is how many guys have turned a hobby into a profession, most recently feels3 got hired by simbin after showing his amazing talents with some RF2 tracks. If the devs find that they are doing ok financially and want to improve their product then surely they wil just hire some more guys either already working in the industry or make an offer to some high level hobby modders.

We don't really know whats going on there though and how they are staff wise and financially but it seems the pre release has been more of a success then many predicted and so they may be able to expand their team to everyone's benefit if they feel that is needed and a viable option.

 

Yeah it's probably rather cheeky of me to think they could get someone to do it just for a mention in the credits but I can live in hope. I doubt it is high in their priority, there are certainly more important things to work on in terms of tracks (AI/MP coding surely isn't linked to the tracker modeller) such as building Spa (can't wait to drive on that).

Anyway, just an idea that popped into my head this morning

 

Stop using that Nurburgring picture as a reference for how it should look. It was taken during a Rock Festival. All sorts of stuff all over the area that simply isn't there normally.

Not saying Nurburgrig and Mugello couldn't do with a few extra objects mind you, but they are clearly conversions from FVA which was their first attempt at building Laser scanned tracks on a budget. They still look fine to me anyway for free content. As long as the DLC tracks are up to the standard of Imola/Silverstone i'm more than happy. I dont think we need modders adding to the official tracks.

Though i do wish the official tracks weren't completely unmoddable. I absolutely hate all the "Kunos" advertising hoardings on the tracks. They are the only real immersion killers i can see. Some real advert packs would certainly ramp up the realism.

 

Flight sims often go down this route. Accurately Populating maps with objects takes a huge amount of man hours, modders have the time, however paying $1000s for licensed satellite imagery and detailed terrain mesh is what the developer does. Putting the two together and you have the ideal situation.

Same goes for skins, pick the best and install them with the official patches.

 

Ah okay, my bad! So ignore the photo but you can see Silverstone is definitely more detailed but maybe in the future this will get added to but it isn't the top priority.

I felt Mugello was better personally. Is that also taken from FVA then?