I'm glad its not that way. EA has a knack for ruining great things. Anyone play the Juiced demo before EA got hold of it? I don't want to be collecting "NOS points" or earning money for LFS races. I'm excited about iRacing but not that it is subscription based. Sounds like hyped up bull to me. Surely there is a way to add more texture to the existing tracks without laser scanning?

Laser scanned? I would like to have higher resolution elevation data available from a google earth type application. I would then like to be able to select an area of land, trace out a track or route, and then import it into the simulator of my choice. The sim would then automatically generate a track, which could then be elaborated on by hand if I so wished.

It would help if sim developers would actually start sharing tracks rather than reinventing the wheel (so to speak...) everytime 'Joe Simcrafter' fancies creating the next gen driving experience....

And I'd like a big pair of boobs full of beer.


You're never going to get anything where you can just select an area anywhere in the world and instantly get heightmap data of anywhere near a resolution good enough for use in sims (trust me, I've tried), and especially not for free.

Quote from AndroidXP :

- I would pay for them, but
- It wouldn't be terribly important to have them now, and
- More fantasy tracks with maybe a bit more attention to a characteristic, bumpy surface would be fine too

+1. Make existing track surfaces higher-res (the little bump at the last turn of Aston Cadet is the best feature of the track next to the corkscrew, especially in an MRT).

However, the fact that the devs have been offered a laser-scanned real track for free and turned it down is really sad.

I have to say that it would be great to have at least one real track in LFS, BUT, only if it's laser scanned, yes, to have the most realistic presentation of the real one, it sure wouldn't hurt. Good fictional tracks are also great but why would i mind watching some video on Knockhill with Formula BMW and then replicating it in LFS
But the way LFS is going right now, i don't think this will become a reality.. We'll get the chinese patch in July probably, and then a "cockpit's patch" in Christmass... or there would be an anouncment that cockpits couldn't make it in that patch and they will be ready in July 2009, and by that time i would have summer holiday on Mars, and people will be flying their cars like in Fifth Element...

Piddy, first of all thanks for eastern creek. Second if the devs dont want to open up the game to outside editors, how about for the community to work with the devs and give them the content to put in game. I.e devs set a format of the track to be imported say 3d Max, community provides it. Devs review, comment and finally release it when both partys are happy. That way they maintain complete control.

I remember when Driver Emporium or ASS first opened that there was going to be a outside car added created by Sketchi. But it all seem to fall apart.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

You're never going to get anything where you can just select an area anywhere in the world and instantly get heightmap data of anywhere near a resolution good enough for use in sims (trust me, I've tried), and especially not for free.

"Oi, Leonardo, wtf is that?"

""Well, you wind it up and when you release it, it travels up into the air. Vertically."

"Right...."

"People will fly in these one day"

"Wanker"

I used to work at the second largest/most known/etc. racetrack in our country Autodrom Most (it was the first to be built, but now is secondary because it does not correspond to the latest safety rules of FIA / FIM). It has some very interesting corners (especially the "old version", a small chicane after the start/finish straight followed by a long lefthander, in most cars taken at full throttle, usual speed there is way over 200 km/h (120 mph)) and the drivers say the whole track has its specific "flow" and its more interresting than the GP track in Brno...

It is now 3 years back, when I went to the owners of the track and asked them what they think about getting their track in LFS. They were exited about it and were all for it. Their only condition was that the track has to be modeled as it stands, with all banners etc. Otherwise no fee, it would be for FREE.
I told this to the devs, even got them a very accurate GPS data of the inside/outside/ideal line of the track, but they said maybe sometime in the future... Years passed, the track has just recently been made for rF and the owners lost their interest in getting the track in LFS.

I call for new track for a very long time now... LFS has become boring for me for the same reasons Becky posted. I drove all the corners too many times already and when I organise a league I just have a strong feeling of deja-vu when selecting the tracks for the next league... I don't know the intentions of the devs, but letting such an opportunity to slip through their hands is a bit sad... I just hope they will awaken soon and realize that
LFS needs some new content (tracks especially) to keep the people interested.

Eric does indeed a great job modeling the tracks, but he still is alone and because I helped the guy who made the Most racetrack in rF I know its very VERY HARD work to make a good track. Opening LFS to free modding is a way to hell, I agree. But I just don't understand why the devs can't let people make tracks, use them offline only and choose only the best into a official patch for online use...

Sorry for bumping this thread, but I just want to throw out my opinion.

LFS don't need fancy laser scanned tracks, nor real brand cars.
To me LFS is good with fictionally contest, that may be based on real stuff.

What lfs needs now is new tracks. The car selection is good as it is now, more rallycross cars and it would be awesome, but it's not a must. I remember that we got this new config no SO, but IMO a extra config doesn't help for more than 1 month.
We need a new envoriment, with different configs, so it can bring some good life back to LFS, where people had to learn the tracks, and just not doing hotlapping all the time since they have driven every darn combo xxxx times.

LFS is atm a big racing game, with a lot of tracks, but there's been no new tracks for, around 4 years now? - and it's time that something happens with the track seletion.
Can't the devs show what they have done about new tracks the latest years? I know they did big updates to SO and BL, but if that's the only thing that has happend on 4 years, then I would be sad

@Chaos: that's shocking news, it was indeed a great opportunity for the community to have at least one rl track (and from what I see in rf it's a great track).
I don't understand why the devs still keep such a negative attitude against rl tracks (even when they are offered just to dictate the community -or a small talented fraction of it- for the track making instead of making them themselves). I respect their decisions though!

I beleive that rl tracks are essential for LFS future, since things now are not the same as they were some years ago. The competition nowdays is a lot stronger (re-birth of rf with the real feel plugin and proper car physics, i-racing, race07) and "leaks" from lfs to those sims happen quite more often imho and also more newcomers are attracted from those other sims. I think the devs realise that and I beleive sooner or later it's invetible to include at least a couple of rl tracks in LFS (laser scanned or not).

Quote from nihil :

"Oi, Leonardo, wtf is that?"

""Well, you wind it up and when you release it, it travels up into the air. Vertically."

"Right...."

"People will fly in these one day"

"Wanker"

Note the 'not for free' part. You can already get heightmap data of most places in the world (although nowhere near good enough to just lay a track on top of it in a sim), but you have to pay through the nose for it.

Quote from nihil :

Laser scanned? I would like to have higher resolution elevation data available from a google earth type application. I would then like to be able to select an area of land, trace out a track or route, and then import it into the simulator of my choice. The sim would then automatically generate a track, which could then be elaborated on by hand if I so wished.

It would help if sim developers would actually start sharing tracks rather than reinventing the wheel (so to speak...) everytime 'Joe Simcrafter' fancies creating the next gen driving experience....

Buy SimCity. You can even drive around in your city

Quote from Chaos :

I drove all the corners too many times already and when I organise a league I just have a strong feeling of deja-vu when selecting the tracks for the next league... I don't know the intentions of the devs, but letting such an opportunity to slip through their hands is a bit sad... I just hope they will awaken soon and realize that
LFS needs some new content (tracks especially) to keep the people interested.

Isn't that normal in racingleagues? Schumager didn't moan he had to drive Monza year after year (not saying i would not appreciate new content)

Quote from marzman :

Isn't that normal in racingleagues? Schumager didn't moan he had to drive Monza year after year (not saying i would not appreciate new content)

True, it is normal, but he drove there one (ok, maybe a little more) weekend in a year... and there are many MANY more leagues/races in LFS in one year then (in) one F1 season...

Quote from marzman :

[snip]

Isn't that normal in racingleagues? Schumager didn't moan he had to drive Monza year after year (not saying i would not appreciate new content)

Why should he? He was driving one of the most famous tracks ever in motorsports!

Quote from migf1 :

Why should he? He was driving one of the most famous tracks ever in motorsports!

Not to mention he was being paid as well...

And paid well too

what the hell is a LASER SCANNED TRACK!

You scan the track with an...ermm...laser, so that it's the same size and shape in-game as the real one. The laser picks up the actual track, and then when you upload the results to a PC, it ultra-magically converts it into a track for a game.

Quote from Mike85 :

Imagine if someone produced a 100 million dollar budget racing sim. Laser scanned tracks, real tracks, new physics model, all the requested features, ..... That won't happen, because racing is not that popular.

Isn't that what iRacing is? With a bigger marked it would be cheaper for the consumer but i don't think development of iracing was cheap (i don't know if it was "milions" but i don't think it was cheap compared to other "games").

Quote from marzman :

Isn't that what iRacing is? With a bigger marked it would be cheaper for the consumer but i don't think development of iracing was cheap (i don't know if it was "milions" but i don't think it was cheap compared to other "games").

I've read somewhere that they spend around 16 million dollar

eastern creek is a impressive piece of work. i really like to see this track or something similar in lfs.

seems that there are mixed opinions about this topic in this forum, but i am pretty sure, that most of the "ney-sayers" haven't driven a single lap on eastern creek. they don't know what they are missing.

keep up the good work. i am looking forward to your next release. if not for lfs, then for rfactor.

i think laser scanning will be the most effective, fastest way a building a track in the near future. it just costs money, but time is money too......

p.s.:
i am sure, that most of us have done more laps on blackwood than schumacher in monza.......

LFS is known to have some of the most realistic car physics, having a real track would imcrease the realism and i think that it puts the hard work in making the cars realistic to good use.

If you're in to fantasy tracks then trackmania is what you should be playing...

Quote from Sternendaal :

I've read somewhere that they spend around 16 million dollar

16 Millions? I got to see the source (wrong spellled?) before beliving that.