I am laying out a new track and was wondering if it was possible to do something.

The track has an infield smaller track. Would it be possible to lay out the larger track and then insert curved sections through the infiled to portray the smaller track with out screwing up the ai? The ai would not race or pit useing the smaller track it would strictly be for online use (be able to exit the track if you have damage) and for visual effects. The infield curve sections would not connect to the outer tracks center line. I realize there are issues in makeing sure the heights match up but I can take care of that. Below is a basic example of what I am talking about. The larger track is what you race on, the "inner loop" is strictly a graphic "thing".

Is it possible to have "Sections" not connected to the "racing" sections with out messing up the ai???


Thanks,
Frank

In my experience, I would say the answer is no. I tried doing that once before. The extra segments confuse the ai and it would be almost impossible to write an ini. file for that. To achieve what you're talking about you'll just have to lay x, f, and w sections until you get to the center of the track. You can open Iowa Speedway up and see how the infield 1/4 mile was done. However, you're gonna have that dead space in the center of your work that will require a mip of to cover it. If you try to cross your x sections to cover it, it messes up shadows big time. So, plan on creating a mip as part of your corner. Or, some guys have created an actual mip of the whole area so your whole turn for the inside track would just be a mip. You can also see the infield mip used at Iowa instead of using x, f, and w sections to create the infield. The less segments and sections you use, the higher your frame rates will be. Open up Evergreen_PWF and you'll see the mip they used to create an infield oval. Last, if your infield turn crosses the center area and people will have access to that part of the track, I would recommend using the open on left/right function in Sandbox. That will prevent them from running into an invisible wall. Hope that helps.

For Star Speedway I did something similar.
You can kind of see it in this pic:
http://www.hpcors.com/gallery/Star/NR2003ss006

Basically, a road runs from the middle of the front stretch at the s/f line through the infield and then angles off to T3. I did this by using asphalt f sections (rather than new segments) and then checking open segment on left as Omod talks about.

Drivers can drive the infield road and can actually turn a better lap time using it! So, I had to use the AppRuleInnerLoop controls in the track.ini file to give 'um a black flag if they try to do it during a race.

Not sure this is exactly applicable, but might give you some more ideas to churn on.

-Mark R.

Mark,
Get off the forum and get back to work on Lee USA.....

Thanks guys, I'm getting alot of good info on this. Omod, It would definately cross the center section and I can't use the f section idea (already tried that) because it makes the radius of the corners all whacked out for the "big" oval. As for the frame rates, I'm afraid that it will have to be sacraficed as the track has very irregular widths and back straight. As much as I try, I keep haveing to split sgments all over the place to keep the integrety of the real track.

I will have an update on this for you very soon.

Thanks again,
Frank