Trois-Rivières - READ ME

Trois-Rivières V1.0
November 2005
Introduction

- This track project started in October 2004 after I first tried to convert my Trois-Rivières Nascar Heat track to F1CE as a RSDG member. It is now a faithful reproduction of the real track located in the city of Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. It isn't a conversion from the NH track or from the PWF N2003 version. It is completely new and designed for rFactor.
- You can find more informations on the real track at :

- www.gp3r.com
- www.motorsport.com

Credits

- Michel "Cowboy" Martin who is responsible for furnishing most of the data, measuring on site, testing and measuring/testing again. Without him that project would never have reached that level of quality (and I wouldn't have done it).
- Gjon, Joe and all ISI people (www.imagespaceinc.com) and ISI beta testers. They were always there to help, to comment, to debug, etc.. They made that project the best editing experience I ever had. To sum it all : PROFESSIONNALS !

- I used and edited these 3D models and textures from rFactor :

- 3D models and textures : Bridges, starting and pitlights, tents, cones, portable toilets and tires barriers

- Textures : Track, wall, grass and guardrail

- Thorsten Rueter for the cams, the loading movie and the 45 feet trucks and buses textures
- Greg Renfro for texturing the Porte Duplessis, the church, the kindergarden, the hippodrome buildings and the barns
- Speed12 for the AI
- David Noonan for his tools
- Jan Kohl, The Pits (www.theuspits.com) and TPTCC members for support and testing online the beta track
- RSDG (www.rsdg.net) members for introducing me to editing ISI sims and giving me so much motivation with their Sport Car Challenge for F1CE
- My wife Marie for her patience, strength and support !
- The Trois-Rivières GP3R race organisators who gladly accepted that we freely use their logos and name
- Artists from Papyrus who started that love for sim racing and editing.

- I used as a reference and edited these 3D models and textures from various Papyrus sims :

- Buses and 45 ft trucks 3D models
- 2D people and trees textures

- All other 3D models, textures and graphics by myself

Hardware

- The track was made and tested with a Viewsonic VP181b monitor, 1024 MB 2.8 P4 system running WinXP SP2 home edition
- The videocard is a ATI Radeon 9800Pro 128MB DDR, driver 7.97, equilibrated setting
- I run Trois-Rivières in 1280*1024, 32bit in DX8, rFactor config antialiasing on level 2.
- All graphic settings set to full/max but number of car seen set at 6. With 9 AI I'm getting 30 fps on the back straight.

Notes

- The berms and manholes are modeled in 3D
- The drop in Turn 1 is a reproduction of the real one (not a bug)
- The manholes are 0,5 in. deeper than the surrounding track. They use the grass physic data.
- No tires barriers are movable as I didn't want to interfere too much with racing between the walls.
- If you find the "holes" (and I let a few) through the walls and fences you can drive off the track to the limit of the simulated world (you risk being disqualified though !). I made most of the outside buildings and objects collision free to lessen the computer workload.
- The devil and canoe logos on the main straight are from my favorite beer "La Maudite" d'Unibroue.
- The sun position is true to scale though I had to "play" with the latitude position (real TR is 46 deg) and lighting levels in the gdb file to make the sunrise time truer to reality.
- Track detail levels are :

- Full : all objects
- High : Full setting less : PA system, half 3D track workers, half ambulances, half firetrucks, half pickups, half portable toilets, electric lines, half 2D trees, half 45 feet trucks, half buses, video screens power supply
- Medium : High setting less : all people in the stands, cranes, all ambulances, all firetrucks, all pickups, all fences posts, all portable toilets, electric poles, all 2D trees, half 3D trees, all 45 feet trucks, all buses, all parks ligthing poles, all soccer goals, all camera stands, all video screens
- Low : same as medium (not implemented)

- You will gain many fps by lowering the shadows setup from max to high (but in max you have the shadows of the trees and bridges on the cars-Wow !)
- This track or its contents can't be sold to anybody under any form. It is meant as a free product for hobby purposes only. Please don't distribute it without first asking permission from The Pits.

Bugs

- Traces of contact on the walls and tires may protrude in the track (the object supporting that texture is simply too big and I wasn't able to correct it for now)
- Don't use the Rolling start and/or Full Course Yellows features until we issue a patch for the A! (should be out in december)
- Fuel usage adjustments are rough estimates

Could have been better

- Better 2D people textures (I want to double the resolution and redo the crowd)
- 3D spectators cars, RVs and towings could have been added
- You will see some lighting flashing on the track surface (front and backstraight). I don't find it too obtrusive. This is due to to the too low number of polygons of the track surface at these places. I tried to tesselate these polygons but I was creating artifacts on the walls. Think of it as bad asphalt patches !
- I had begun to do in 3D all the houses on Des Forges street (south of the Porte Duplessis) but it was too time consuming and release would have been delayed (Sorry Cowboy for the time lost on reference pictures !)
- Use of DX9 feature as for now I used only shaders that were also available in DX8

Next project

- Probably St-Jovite if a real good 2D artist want to do the automnal forests and colours (I have an alpha track layout running in rFactor)

Feedback on TR or 2D texturing help for next project

- Write me at g_bump_benoit@yahoo.ca

Gilles Benoit
www.theuspits.com