Lastly, I will need the community's help making more sense of the modded editor. Availability, what's possible, etc. You guys are the experts here!
PrivateJoker's no-checks APK is available here -
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...racks-discussion.337816/page-14#post-11336486
This is really beneficial for creating good tracks. NOT because you can make crossovers, but all the other less obvious freedoms make for better tracks in less time:
In descending order of importance, IMO:
1) You can import an image file for any theme, not only Eifel Flat. The main use is to import a contour map of the theme you are using, so you can understand the elevation as you create the track. This means, finally, you can create tracks that relate to the terrain in a realistic way, eg a series of hairpins that actually ascend a steep hillside, with a lot less time-consuming trial and error than with the official version.
2) You can put the start/finish straight anywhere, giving freedom to use the terrain you can now see. This also opens up crests/dips in the start/finish straight.
3) When creating the track, you can put the markers anywhere. With the official version, you end up shuffling one marker a little bit, then the next, then the next, then moving the first one again in an endless round of adjusting to get the track where you want it. With the no-checks version, you drag each point directly to the desired location - it doesn't matter that the intermediate states are 'invalid', once you finish moving all the points you will be back in a valid state anyway. Makes trackmaking much quicker and easier, especially when revising an existing section of track.
4) You can bring two sections of track closer than the official version allows. This isn't that significant, but it allows more perfect replicas of some real world tracks. It also creates some nice graphical effects, e.g. feeling the next section of road towering over you as you approach a hairpin, or running the back straight over the roof of the pit garages, which can help give TPE tracks some much-needed character.
5) You can make corners tighter than the official version allows. GT6 copes fine with turns quite a bit tighter than the offical TPE permits, and throwing in a few tighter curves can again make courses feel more interesting. Some caution is needed if you want to run the AI - it's possible to create actual 'hard' 90 degree corners, like a street corner or a 'bus stop' chicane, but the AI can't cope with them. They render and drive fine though (as long as camber is minimal).
And two things which aren't especially helpful:
6) You can make courses longer than 10km. Generally I don't think this is helpful, as super-long courses are usually fairly boring, and the PS3 will crash if you try and make it too long.
7) You can make courses with crossovers. Sadly, you still see the banking for the track you are crossing, so (at best) you end up driving 'through' a green wall rather than having a proper bridge or tunnel. Therefore I don't think this is particularly useful for actual fun tracks.
As a result of 1-5, using the PrivateJoker APK enables creating better tracks with less time and hassle. If Sony are ok, I think we should be trying to encourage as many GTPlanet track creators as possible to install the PJ version, because I think it will lead to more cool tracks for us all to enjoy.
