Track widening issue

  • Thread starter JJ72
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I'm only taking exception to people who stand by perceptions when it would be possible to actually generate some measurements. Why stand by an opinion when you could have facts? If the track is supposed to be 6 metres wide and you measure it in-game to be 8 metres, that's solid. There's no argument there.

With the videos, it appears that the width is different but there are possible explanations as to why it might not be. It's circumstantial evidence, not conclusive evidence.

I've never brought up whether or not I've been to Bathurst, because it's a perceptual thing. It was years ago, and I don't particularly trust my memory on such a thing over hard data.
 
I can appreciate that, but again as amar212 said, the issue stood out as soon as the first video was posted. I haven't commented on any of the other tracks because I have no real life experience with them, but for someone who knows Mount Panorama like the back of their hand and is very passionate about the place, the inaccuracy in the track model sticks out like dogs b#lls.

Now I'm not trying to boycot SMS or start a petition, I'm just offering my educated opinion. If you want to perform experiments and create evidence to help yourself sleep better at night, that's entirely up to you. At the end of the day, it's not going to change anything.
 
You're only interested in your own opinion, fine. Keep it to yourself. The rest of us will figure it out.

Working with a Miata (nice square car) as the basic unit here. (http://www.carfolio.com/specifications/models/car/?car=126269) 1 Miata length is 3995mm. Obviously I can't approach that sort of accuracy by lining up cars across the road, but we should be able to get +/- 50cm or so.

I'm trying to work with pieces of road that have some decent texture on them as it makes it easier to measure against. I'm going white lines to white lines.

Across the finish line is about 3 Miata lengths, plus a little. So probably about 13m.

On Mountain Straight there's a big Alpinestars sign about two thirds of the way along. Underneath that the road is about two and a half Miata lengths. I'm guessing about 10m wide.

Going up the hill there's a Greddy sign at about Griffins Bend. Underneath that the road is about 3 Miata lengths, about 12m wide.

Underneath the Hawk sign at Skyline, it's again about 3 Miata lengths, about 12m.

Coming down through the Esses there's a FIA GT1 sign. Underneath that is again about 3 Miata lengths, 12m.

Just after coming around Forrest's Elbow, there's a yellow crane thingy. Across the track in front of that, 3 Miata lengths, 12m.

Down Conrod Straight a way there's another Greddy sign. Underneath that the track is two and a half car lengths wide. 10m. I did it twice, I was so surprised to see a part of the track that wasn't 12m wide.

Last one, under that fancy pants HKS bridge thingy after The Chase. Seems a little narrower, but it's still about two and a half car lengths, 10m.

So oddly, the straights are mostly 10m wide, and the windy bits up the mountain are pretty much all 12m wide. That doesn't really jive with anything I know about Mt Panorama. I can't find any specs for the circuit anywhere, but I assume they must be available somewhere. If nothing else, if someone with rFactor or Toca could measure that version of the circuit that would be a start for comparison.
 
Imari
Not the videos again...

Get a car. Something nice and square preferably, maybe a Skyline. Look up the listed width for it on the 'net.

Find a part of Bathurst that you can find a decent measurement for. Any sort of measurement. Failing that, get some footage where the V8s are cheek by jowl across the road and use that to judge width.

Take your Skyline/whatever to said point in the track, and use it to measure off the width. Ideally, you'd do this with half a dozen mates and you'd all park side by side, but just doing it yourself parking up and then moving over should work OK.

And there you have a solid measurement of the track, without interference from FOV or any other weirdness that may be present.

I'll do it myself when/if my own copy gets here. Could be tomorrow, could be a few days. I live in Japan but I'm ordering in an English copy so it'll take a while. But if you're seriously convinced that this is a problem, it's a pretty simple test. Should only take you ten minutes or so really. Take some photos when you do it.

Just so that we're clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. From the videos, it does look really off. But SMS isn't going to come out and admit that they fudged it unless you throw hard facts at them, instead of perceptions.
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I enjoy reading your posts, always well thought out and from a logical view point. But it's clear that as soon as you hit the run up the mountain and take the 1st right hander that it's only 2-3 cars wide max and once you get to the 1st left hander of the mountain section it's clearly 2 cars wide max in real life whilst in-game its an easy 4-5 cars wide.
It's a small issue but it does ruin bathurst as the super tight twisty mountain section in between the full throttle straights is what makes this track so iconic.
Bring on V8 Supercars for PS3 pleaseeeeee.

All of the straight sections seem pretty close to real life, might be half a car width in it . But it's as soon as you make the climb up the mountain take the right hander and then that 1st left hander is really far off real life as is the rest of the climb downhill through the twisty section till you hit the back straight.

It's like they had the straight section set as Gt5's course maker Road Width Value : +3 for the straights and forgot to change it to road width -2 in mountain section.
 
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I agree, the straights don't seem too bad but as I mentioned earlier, the problem is most noticeable across the top of the mountain.

If you want to know for sure, take some measurements through the cutting and across Reid and McPhillamy Park and see what you come up with. If I were to take a stab in the dark, I would guess that most of the track (particularly through the cutting) would be well under 10m wide, based purely on my judgement of driving the circuit and watching the Bathurst 1000 there. If you want data, the only reference I have for you is Google Earth, where the track measures approximately 8.6 metres in width for most of the circuit, save for a few sections where it opens up a bit.

But anyway, see how you go. As I said, it's not going to change anything because it still looks too wide but give it a shot if you need to put your mind at rest :).
 
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After checking all the real-life tracks in games, this is my final conclusion regarding this matter. Since I was the one who initially started it, I feel responsibility to finish in personal behalf.

Despite I stated Nordschleife is off, I stand corrected. I found only 3 areas on 22km track that seems off, but in total I have to say that Nurburgring have been extremely faithfully recreated. My initial impressions were influenced by the fact I took a race there, not driving it in solo on the track.

After I switched from Fanatec GT2 to G25 and done some free laps , I was surprised about the actual feel of the surface and the road. Areas of Arenberg, Bergwerk and Karusell remains only places where track seems off, but since overall feel of the track is very different to GT5's Nurb, I am going to presume how discrepancy is result of different approach to modeling. In the end I find Shift 2's Nordschliefe to be probably the best recreation of the Green Hell available, comparable only with the one in GT5 - but I would go that far to say that in some areas of the feel of the track, S2 does a better job. There is something that makes driving very alive in S2 - I presume it have to do with surface modeling - which I find very satisfactory and intriguing. In conclusion, I redraw all my comments regarding inaccuracy of the Nordschelife.

However, all my comments for Bathurst stay as they were. As I noted in my initial post on March 2nd - the most dramatic section from Quarry to Forest's Elbow have been altered, influencing not only configuration and flow of the track, but also compromising overall approach to Mt. Panorama.

Above makes me even more sad, because all other RL tracks I've checked are modelled with astonishing accuracy, especially Donnigton, Brno and Suzuka - where Suzuka have to be my favorite since modelling has taken into account the actual horizontal curvature of the surface (they did the same on Nord) and heavily influenced approach to the corners.

In conclusion, Shift 2 packs a best available rooster of real life tracks currently available on consoles, and I have to admit that track modeling is the area where I really admire the SMS work. On the same subject I have to congratulate to teams that modeled cirty tracks - all of them are so convincing, fun and beautiful - I feel like driving Project Gotham Racing with proper simulation-attributes and that feeling is great.

I really hope that in some future game Bathurst will be modeled on par with other tracks. Until then, I personally put this subject aside because astonishing work on all other tracks leave no real place for criticism for altering done on Bathurst.
 
amar212
After checking all the real-life tracks in games, this is my final conclusion regarding this matter. Since I was the one who initially started it, I feel responsibility to finish in personal behalf.

Despite I stated Nordschleife is off, I stand corrected. I found only 3 areas on 22km track that seems off, but in total I have to say that Nurburgring have been extremely faithfully recreated. My initial impressions were influenced by the fact I took a race there, not driving it in solo on the track.

After I switched from Fanatec GT2 to G25 and done some free laps , I was surprised about the actual feel of the surface and the road. Areas of Arenberg, Bergwerk and Karusell remains only places where track seems off, but since overall feel of the track is very different to GT5's Nurb, I am going to presume how discrepancy is result of different approach to modeling. In the end I find Shift 2's Nordschliefe to be probably the best recreation of the Green Hell available, comparable only with the one in GT5 - but I would go that far to say that in some areas of the feel of the track, S2 does a better job. There is something that makes driving very alive in S2 - I presume it have to do with surface modeling - which I find very satisfactory and intriguing. In conclusion, I redraw all my comments regarding inaccuracy of the Nordschelife.

However, all my comments for Bathurst stay as they were. As I noted in my initial post on March 2nd - the most dramatic section from Quarry to Forest's Elbow have been altered, influencing not only configuration and flow of the track, but also compromising overall approach to Mt. Panorama.

Above makes me even more sad, because all other RL tracks I've checked are modelled with astonishing accuracy, especially Donnigton, Brno and Suzuka - where Suzuka have to be my favorite since modelling has taken into account the actual horizontal curvature of the surface (they did the same on Nord) and heavily influenced approach to the corners.

In conclusion, Shift 2 packs a best available rooster of real life tracks currently available on consoles, and I have to admit that track modeling is the area where I really admire the SMS work. On the same subject I have to congratulate to teams that modeled cirty tracks - all of them are so convincing, fun and beautiful - I feel like driving Project Gotham Racing with proper simulation-attributes and that feeling is great.

I really hope that in some future game Bathurst will be modeled on par with other tracks. Until then, I personally put this subject aside because astonishing work on all other tracks leave no real place for criticism for altering done on Bathurst.
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Heresy!!!








Just kidding, really thanks for the review.
 
Its that track so difficult that it justifies it being wide in the game or feel like it is - i don't care that much, just asking. However its kind of annoying ONE track has problems when the rest seem so accurate but nothing I can't overlook.

I see your passion for that track and I would be upset too if a racing game had Estoril or Portimão circuits.

Nice reading.
 
On the Nurburgring GP-F track, the short straight leading up to the hairpin at the bottom of the course seems quite a bit wider on S2U than it is in GT5. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
 
Nordschleife is massively wide in Shift 2, it really spoiled it for me, would be cool if i was racing a bus around the track though.
 
RomKnight
Its that track so difficult that it justifies it being wide in the game or feel like it is - i don't care that much, just asking. However its kind of annoying ONE track has problems when the rest seem so accurate but nothing I can't overlook.

I see your passion for that track and I would be upset too if a racing game had Estoril or Portimão circuits.

Nice reading.
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It is a very unforgiving circuit in real life, so perhaps that's why they changed it.

Or maybe they didn't realise they had it wrong, I have no idea. It is a little bit annoying, as you say, considering what a good job did with all the other tracks.

It's a shame because Bathurst was one of the main selling points for this game for me, hopefully someone gets it right in the future. Or hopefully Rfactor 2 comes out soon and someone converts the model from Toca 3/Rfactor 👍
 

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