7/28/2018 Hi, I started a Pikes Peak Hillclimb track build from the ground up. Using data from Google and Sketchup, I built a 3d mesh of the area, which for now includes the entire track and some of the surrounding countryside. The track layout can be seen on the map, thanks to how the mesh is pulled into Sketchup. I exported the mesh to Blender, with that I'm building a heightmap to bring into Beamng Initial heightmap, still very much untweaked and in need of more land. The black area is a reference height of 0, so I know where lake beds should be. I plan on adding more of the surrounding area, this is for now just a test to see what I can actually create. As it sits right now, the total landmass will be 45.25 (117 square kilometers) square miles, which is (i believe) a 1:1 scale replica of the track and area around the mountain. This map will be slightly smaller than the Tennessee county map and the American Roads maps available today, with the main difference being that Pikes Peak will only include the track, not any other road features. The track itself is approximately 12.5 miles long (20 kilometers). Based on the Sketchup model, the mountain will be 4885 ft (1488 meters) from the start of the track to the peak, which is accurate with what the height from wikipedia is (4720 ft/1440 m). At this point, nothing has been added to Beamng, and I'm not able to devote a huge amount of time to this project. The largest hurdle is accurately creating the landmass heightmap. Blender's compositing nodes are very useful, and I think this will ultimately spit out a great map. Once the mass is into BeamNG, ill be able to tweak the terrain with the tools in the game. After the terrain is created, I'll have to spend a considerable amount of time watching Pikes Peak HC runs and referencing other games to see how the flora should look around the map. Thankfully, most of the off track map won't be easily accessible by car, so I'm able to cut down on time and resources with that. The focus of this map is an accurate representation of a very famous hillclimb course, and not creating a beautiful area to explore. I will try to update this regularly, but I'm a weekend warrior thanks to my job. I won't give a release date or an ETA, but I will try to release pre-alpha, alpha, and beta maps as I go. The first release will most likely just be a landmass without a track, just as a progress update. Thank you Update 7/31/2018 I imported the rest of the terrain, a 6.73x6.73 mile area around the track into blender. I created a final heightmap of just the terrain. I managed to get the terrain into beamng, but it the heightmap needs tweaking, as some areas aren't being interpreted correctly. Because that heightmap is complete, other than compositing tweaks, I've decided to move onto creating the road. To do this, I will once again be building the track in sketchup using the geolocation feature. As shown, this mesh will have the google earth picture textured over it. This is at the end of the track. As a test, I exported this to blender: Success. From here, I will begin to grease pencil in the road, all 12 miles of it, like so: With the grease pencil road created, I can convert it to a mesh: Now that there's a face for the road, a road heightmap can be created. I haven't done this yet, but the process is the same as creating the terrain heigtmap. The difference here is that the road heightmap will be brought into beamng first, meshed and textured, and then the terrain heightmap will be brought in afterwards.
Maybe Ewanc could give some tips: https://www.beamng.com/threads/pike...limb-for-0-11-and-up.51052/page-2#post-817215
I've been able to overcome some of the more technical hurdles, like importing the heightmap and meshing the road. From here, until I start making things in beamng, its just a lot of tedious work.
Oh man... I didn't see this thread until now. In an Ironic twist, I unknowingly released my version of Pikes Peak this afternoon, I'm just awaiting final approval. I'm so sorry if I end up stepping on any toes. It looks like we have been working in parallel, using very similar methods, I just got a 6 month head start. I hadn't released it last spring because it has technical issues with the elevation being so extreme from base to summit that the terrain's road surface is bumpy for on-road vehicles. I only released it because I had kept it for soo long that I just wanted to share it with the community, and maybe they would help sort out the issues. I put some WIP details on the old maps page a while back. https://www.beamng.com/threads/pike...limb-for-0-11-and-up.51052/page-2#post-804161 Ive always loved the Gran Turismo 2 Pikes Peak Rally level. That's why I built a version of this map for Sports Car GT back in 2004, when I first started modding. I like what you've come up with using such simple resources. Ive been mapping out the Grand Canyon the same way since there is absolutely no GIS data for any of that area. I was lucky and got in contact with The Colorado Geological Survey, who are very generous. I was able to get most of the mountain at 1 foot resolution LIDAR, and the rest of the region at 10 meters per pixel with USGS DEMs. Ive already done all the grueling stuff and It would be pretty cool if we combined efforts and made something really awesome. Right now I'm going back over the LIDAR in 3DS Max and modeling a more detailed and smooth mesh based road over the terrain, since the terrain file is so harsh. Id like to just place the road mesh directly over the terrain.
Thank you! Don't worry about toes, I think it will be interesting to see where both of these end up. I'll definitely check out your track as well. I decided to make this one day on a whim, because I've been into rally for a long time and I didn't see any recent versions of this track. That's impressive that you were able to get lidar data, that's basically the holy Grail of heighmapping.
