Downloaded and tested it.
I already knew the circuit and that's a good visual improvement for an underrated track in my opinion. Fun street circuit with low powered cars that needed some love at some point, but still there are some flaws that already affected the original version of the track. The main one is the timing object positioning: if you go to the pits, the timing object on the finish line does not score you (because the left one doesn't cover the pit lane) and when you rejoin the track you are tracked as one lap down. To fix it, it's necessary to move the left timing object far left, beyond the pit area. Also, if I remember correctly, all the timing objects are positioned weirdly around the track, so the first intermediate is positioned immediately after the finish line, which doesn't make any sense.
Some time ago I tried to "give some love" to the original track a little, so if you don't mind I'd like to give you some suggestions of what I've done in my version and what I wanted to do:
- In the 3D file, try to fix the timing objects as I said before, and also try to flatten the asphalt a little bit. In my opinion the original track has too many bumps (you feel it especially driving F4 cars and similar), but especially at the end of the back straight seems like the car is about to split in half, and ok, it's "provincial Russia" but anyway it's too much
I've done it in Blender (yes, all the format conversions are quite a pain in the butt) and the track became way more enjoyable all around;
- Implement some better asphalt and groove textures;
- Add some surroundings. I get your point to get rid of the awful original 2D trees, but now the scene looks too empty in some sectors, so try to "compensate" it. A line or two of your new trees on the inside of the back straight (since that area is supposed to be an urban park) can do the work, as well as some spectators on the side of the road.
- Try to rework the pit lane. In my version I did this: I retraced the AI line to force them to stay on the left side on exit to avoid some dangerous rejoining, then tried to design pit entry/exit lines that were more recognizable from the normal traffic lines, and finally added some sort of gazebos to add some life to the pit lane.
- Also, I noticed that some spectators on the main straight's grandstands seem to float in the air.
Keep up the good work!
If you want, I can pass you my personal version (with fixed timing objects, more flattened asphalt and some additional pit lane objects) so you can get some inspirations, let me know!