Venari's Circuit Showcase - #1 (20 circuits!)

[Venari]

Welcome to Venari's Circuit Showcase!
Issue 1, introduction and initial 20 circuit extravaganza!

I like to fiddle with the track path editor (as do we all) but only some circuits make the grade. Those that do get studied, refined, reprofiled and fully featured... and presented to you, lucky GTPlanet racers.

I like to be creative for tracks, rather than slavishly copy an existing venue... that said, occasionally I'll find a circuit I like the look of and want to recreate. I did the Sonoma track because I wondered how to get elevation to match a circuit, and luckily it came out 'right first time'. I don't think I'll get that lucky again.

I prefer to use Andalucia, as I find it the most decorative and pretty location. Even now, I'm still finding new 'unplaceable' decor cropping up from time to time. That iron-gated driveway up to the villa nearly made me crash first time I saw it.

Eifel has its moments - for open, fast tracks and elevation change, you can't beat it - it's just when things get tight, you can hardly put any track paraphenalia down which is disappointing. Still, some epic tracks large and small will be appearing here.

Death Valley puzzles me... the nature of the track edge makes it harsh to race on - I like a bit of curving to rumble over - so I haven't really 'got it' with Death Valley. I will continue to play with it every now and then - maybe adventures with mcuking around with the files will help and get some of the hilly terrain in the 'forbidden zone' into play... who knows.

Every now and then, I'll post up a circuit guide or hint or even a new circuit(!) and I welcome you and hope you too will contribute with videos and race/cruise/arty photos from your time on my tracks. Occasionally I'll pass judgment and praise (or rampant scatching criticism, mwuahaha) on a 'Track of the Week' or other track I've tried and like (or loathe!)

Sometimes I may put up a 'temporary' circuit, something I've developed for test which won't be submitted into the track database. It will usually be something experimental, contour trialling or somesuch, and I will ask for feedback if I'm thinking of developing it further, or simply leave commentary as to why I've done what I've done and try to illustrate my thoughts on the TPE with examples.

If you have any questions or would like help with racing lines, setups or anything to do with my circuits, just ask here. I ask that you in return review the tracks and be honest, I don't mind criticism, especially if it's constructive and I can learn something new.

Also, I don't mind advising on your track creations and will happily answer technical questions on how I achieved a certain corner or elevation change.

In the meantime, here are my circuits - enjoy!

Venari.

 

[Venari]

wip - awaiting links and pics
N.B. Some links are GTP database links, some are direct GT 'My Page' links.

Achterbahn - Eifel

My first track. It's here as a reminder that people like different things. There's a 'bombhole' before at the bottom bend that I don't like but at the time didn't know how to fix, so I left it. The rest of the track was great as a first effort (to me), that bit not so much. However, others love that kind of thing - so sometimes it can be a good idea to leave in something you might think is not great. Others may think otherwise.

Broadello Park - Eifel

I wanted to recreate Mondello Park, but the start-straight was too long. Then, the 'real' curves were just too bumpy, so this was an early exercise in 'smoothing' the surface and anchor removal.

Casteldon (Donington F1) - Eifel

I laid Donington down, but a track which was never made - the F1 proposal. The elevation changes of the real Donington weren't a goal, but this wasn't bad. I may revisit the circuit layout with the advent of the contour maps from this community - I might be able to find some better real estate. That said, I like this layout and it drives well.

Smörgåsbord - Eifel

An exercise in simple, small tracks for medium PP road cars. I wanted few corners but some interest. The big elevation changes make the first corner a deceptively complex beast, and then the chicane is fun to perfect, and the final complex is also tricky. I was very pleased with how this turned out, packing a whole load of technical nuance into a very short, simple loop.

Anglesey Circuit (Extended) - Eifel

A simple real-life layout, adjusted to suit the TPE. Not the best Eifel creation, but engaging and fun for those who know the circuit.

Circuit of the Columbias (CotA Homage) - Eifel

The great debate about the elevation changes on CotA inspired me to try it on Eifel. After a lot of faffing around with Google Maps and P'shop, then endlessly fiddling with anchor points, again this was more an homage than a 'recreation'. CotC has a couple of complexes which are very satisfying to get right but I think it suffers from Eifel's large elevation changes. If there weren't already a million CotA tracks, I'd revisit this... Maybe on Andalucia?

Circuit Paul Ricard - Eifel Flat

I've always liked the Paul Ricard circuit, so like many others, I gave it a shot on Eifel Flat. I'm pretty pleased with it, and used it to get experience of laying out many different circuit variants. I think I put down about a dozen? I won't list them here, although everyone likes a nice long straight, I think the 3C / WTCC variant is best for racing GT cars.

Sonoma Sportscar V1 / V2 / Stockcar - Eifel

Ah, this was a lucky surprise. As featured on 'Track of the Week', and later updated to include the StockCar layout, this track is great fun with fast road cars as well as GT300/3/500 & stock cars.

I just picked a startpoint which looked as if the contours were right, and they were. I used Google Maps and P'shop to make a large bitmap, and measured off corner radii and straight lengths, transposing them to the TPE by both number and eye. It doesn't match completely, but it sure is a heck of a lot of fun.

Circuito de Santa Mónica 70s / 80s Cortocircuito / 90s - Andalucia

This was the doodle that made me fall in love with Andalucia and decide to put some effort into full presentation. The scorchingly fast and scary chicane complex and drop I am truly proud of and is remisicent of a time when men in car were real men in real cars, racing circuits were real racing circuits, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

On request from @Ryk I developed a shorter version, and also I added a slightly smoother variant for faster roadcars. This got me into thinking of multi-use circuits and I developed...

Circuito Hornachuelos (LM / National Long / National Short / Club) - Andalucia

I had a lot of fun with this. I seem to like compact tracks that fold in on themselves, and they also give scope for many variants. Developing variants is tricky and time consuming, but I find it fun, especially this one where I traced out the locations of the anchors and rebuilt part of the track completely for the Club variant so I could run the section of track in reverse.

I also found the restaurant on the LM track by accident, and then that section of the circuit couldn't change. The number of small variations I deleted and redid because it moved the first restaurant... well, I can't tell you.

If you're limited on space, shh, don't tell anyone, but LM and Club are the ones to have.

Thunderhill - Andalucia

California's Thunderhill Circuit was a request from a GTPer who liked Sonoma and wondered how I'd got the elevations so good. Just lucky, but I gave Thunderhill a go at his request. Aside from the 'lump' of turn 6, I think this turned out quite well, the overall character, elevations and feel of the track is there (even the windmills at Turn 1!) but it very clearly outlined the limitations of the TPE.

Eifelafel National GT - Eifel (Full description coming soon)

After the fast open circuits, I wanted to try making tracks to suit slower cars so I named this for fun as 'Eifelafel', wanting to try Eifel again to see if I'd ignored it unfairly. The study of elevation maps (ongoing) meant I was happy to give this layout a try and develop it into something fun but not too taxing for low PP cars. As it happens, it didn't turn out so well for them, but this is a cracking short GT300/GT500 circuit, hence me making the title a little more grandiose.

Lakeside - Andalucia (Full description coming soon)

So, I returned to Andalucia, picked a nice spot and a narrow track, and got down to making a proper 450PP track. This went much better for 'slow' cars, and gets a bit scary with anything over 500PP, precisely what I was looking for. It's not all about the Grand Valleys - we need our Autumn Ring Minis too!

Coeur d'Ecosse - Eifel (Full description coming soon)

A bonkers fast GT3/LM track that arose out of a conversation with @daan about elevations and 'grand vistas'. I was again trying to prove that Eifel can look great after I had downloaded a track which looked fair on the PC screen, but showed up some technical issues with draw depth and just lack of trackside interest.

Eifel has a habit of not giving you trackside space to lay down that essential 'clutter' that makes recing through an environment fun. Analucia does it much better and I hope that in future updates of the game and TPE that extra elements are added to all the circuit options. And some more environment options would be good too!

 

[Venari]

Reserved for circuit technical detail table

 

[Venari]

Reserved for circuit lap records table

 

[Venari]

Reserved for other notes and thanks.

 

[Venari]

Experiment!

I've been trying some contour matching experiments using various methods. One of them developed into this hillclimb circuit.

Key things to look out for on this track:

• 823ft/250m winding climb over about 2.5miles/4km before the 'triangle' on the plateau then back down in less than half that! (Or, roughly about 1 in 16 up, 1 in 7 down!)
  
• It's 7m wide. Racing... probably a challenge!
• There are marshall boxes at all the split time points.
• Initial climb across the hillside, then it rounds and climbs more gently with the contours of the hilltops, with the occasional dip.
• Watch out at chicane A - it's hiding behind a nasty crest. Stay right near the rumbles.
• The first right at B is quite fast, but you need to get over to left and brake hard, as the second right is tight and just over a camber change in the road. I thought about flattening this one out, but it's actually pretty challenging to drive around successfully.
• The end of C just tightens and tightens. After you come off the inside kerbing at the entry, come off the thottle and coast around, letting the car go wide before the obvious 90 left leading to the hairpin.

Hillclimb Experiment Map

• Venari
• Nov 18, 2015

I'd like to write some bumpf for this one and publish it, but I'm not sure the fast return is good enough (it was made so direct because I simply ran out of track.)

Feedback appreciated.