Track Building: Episode 1

[@RustyRussell_YT]

Every time I start a new track I come back to this tutorial🤓 It's like my mantra. Thank you so much for this!

[@jimjamjiggles9613]

Yes, a proper in depth track modding guide and from someone that's back catalogue of quality tracks. Thank you.

[@AudioJellyfish]

Dude, you are the king of 3rd party tracks The first tracks I go for to download are always Lilski ones. Thank you for everything

[@mancraftwithflyinryan6483]

LilSki I do love your WGI track, it was my home track growing up. Looking forward to hopefully someday modelling the old public road circuit around the glen, I haven't driven it since the old Grand Prix Legends days.

[@thesourceofthenile]

Awesome stuff! It's great to see a proper tutorial showing how to make tracks with LiDAR data.

[@gsparrow321]

Hey thanks for all your hard work and contribution to the community! It's much appreciated!

[@jasoncarlough]

Thanks a lot, this might just be the inspiration I needed to finally work on a track that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

[@CBCJr6]

Brilliant Method!! Great work as always.

[@TedHough68]

Hey Liski - thanks for putting these out, they're great to try and get started with! Edit: I fixed an issue I initially had asked you a stupid question about; thanks for the guides have a great day!

[@morphykg1503]

Thanks for the great series. Anyone having an issue where you can't export/save mesh as FBX? I don't see an option for it in the dropdown menu for the file types.

[@anlozturk8565]

If there is no lidar data, how can we create it?

[@rehaanqureshi1709]

Where do I get those images you import into Cloud Compare?

[@panchoball7830]

I'd need this answer too, did you manage to find it?

[@Tigerbear62]

I'm wondering how you would go about locating LiDAR data outside of the U.S? In places like the middle east maybe.

[@LilSki3]

Every country is different. Some are free and some you have to pay for. Really have to do your own research to find if data is even available and if you can obtain it.

[@Tigerbear62]

@@LilSki3 I did some searching and couldn't find any publicly available data sadly. Is using google maps/earth a decent alternative? Thanks

[@LilSki3]

@@Tigerbear62 No GE alone is not accurate enough unless it is one of those "photogrammetry" scans that some areas have in GE. Aerial photos alone are not very accurate since elevation scews the angles. I've never had a GE image fully line up with data. You usually have to line up a section at a time when using it to place objects. Once upon a time it was possible to extract that 3D data from GE but I'm not sure it's still possible.

[@Tigerbear62]

@@LilSki3 Thank you for your help!

[@edjjit]

@@LilSki3 there is a way to get the data from maps but as you said it is nowhere near as accurate compared to lidar, have been messing with gis and osm addons for blender they work well for the most part if you wanted to make a track that is not covered by lidar. it also has options for road curves and basic box buildings. thanks for your input to the community its insanely good !!! just what im looking for to make tracks.

[@mrfulgore7922]

Many thx for taking your time to make the tutorials, always wondered how to start to make a "mod" track;) love all your mod tracks for Ac and still drive them weekly :)

[@daveacorn782]

Hi, I am making good progress but stuck a little, I am doing this road course, but I am trying to do the beauty fill (21:37) and when I do this it does fill in the track but also connects the outside and inside areas of the track where it is able, I am assume I am missing something in how I select the vertices?

[@LilSki3]

If you pay attention you will notice I filled in the ends by hand and when I selected them all after the two center verticies were not selected. This forces it to fill within the track bounds and not in the infield.

[@daveacorn782]

@@LilSki3 Ahhh I saw that but didn't catch on as to what was really happening hahaha Ok I will dig into it further to see if I can get it to work. Its the filling in I think that I am missing. Thanks so much as always :)

[@catalyzt]

I have no clue what was going on in the blender section of the video. Does anyone have any good beginner tutorials for it?

[@TheZuxiK]

You should also split the lidar data into different classifications using something like lastools so you have a different point cloud for the ground and the buildings/trees. This way you shouldn't need to do as much smoothing on the terrain in blender.

[@CBCJr6]

This makes it so much easier to shrinkwrap! Go to video 2 and chedk out the first 5 min!

[@BCEngineer321]

After I did the transformation the image disappears. how do I get it back?

[@carbonmonocoque2239]

please how you import the point cloud into blender ? ihave no fbx export option in cloud compare.

[@protomor]

I still reference this. Thank you so much.

[@stupidrainbo]

Wait, where did you get the point cloud file? Is that feature built in to cloud compare or did you find it somewhere? EDIT: Derp, I didn't see the description and/or remember the first few seconds of the video. That link was actually very helpful, I was able to download some REALLY nice data on the racetrack near me. :D

[@gunnarray2342]

How do you download the data from the site? I only have the option to download all the data within the area.

[@nikjavor]

Hi! I don’t really understand what you did at the beginning. Where did you get those files? What are they?

[@y0ink__90]

hey lilski, when doing the shrinkwraps and subdivisions for the first time- how do you deal with a track that has multiple layouts? I'm making a karting track and i'm rather stuck lmao

[@LilSki3]

Multiple layouts kind of suck but the same process applies. Depending on the track I usually pick the "main layout" and treat that as the complete loop. Then any offshoots for multiple layouts I would do individually on their own curves using the same basic process. It's OK if the physical meshes overlap a bit initially for testing. Once happy with everything you may want to boolean one to cut off the excess so there is no overlap. For example on Watkins Glen the classic short course is the main track loop. The bus stop and boot were both on their own curves and joined up where they meet the main loop.

[@y0ink__90]

@@LilSki3 ahhh ok! Cheers :)

[@y0ink__90]

@@LilSki3 also, should the pitlane be included? The kart track i'm doing has an outfield pitlane, although i could be getting ahead of myself.

[@LilSki3]

@@y0ink__90 I usually treat pit lanes like the other layout pieces. On it's own curve and joined up to the main layout.

[@y0ink__90]

@@LilSki3 again, thank you! Appreciate it :)

[@AlbinoGoudvis]

scale needs to be 100 while importing fbx. It's 1 by default.

[@dathyr1]

Wow, Thank you very much for these tutorials on track building. Like you said, I also need to learn the basics of these programs and is the first I have heard of Cloud Compare. I Know you went through the smoothing phase somewhat quicky for what I know about Blender, I need to watch this several times, not sure if you will go into to that in a little more detail, but thanks for what you have shown. you went back to a version 2.7 for your editing, can we do the same thing in version 2.8 or latest version of blender? Look forward to future episodes.

[@LilSki3]

Everything I do in this video in 2.79 can be done in 2.8. It's just a slightly different (better) interface than 2.79. My brain is just currently wired for 2.79 and haven't made the switch yet to 2.8. The only time a difference will come up is when I get to making materials for textures. At that point I may do it in both versions to show how it works on both.

[@dathyr1]

@@LilSki3 Great thank you for your reply. take care, Dave

[@jlcjbracingmods9166]

Hello Lilski thank you very much for all the videos you make to help us. Sorry to bother you but I'm having a problem I don't have the choice of exporting in FBX on Cloudcompare so I'm blocked from the start ☹ Thank.

[@daveacorn782]

As I mentioned in other posts on this I have to say it again, amazing set of videos, I use these constantly as I am learning the RIGHT way to build tracks. So to my question, unfortunately I can only get google maps data for my track here in Canada. They are not a open on sharing the lidar data. So I have the data downloaded from google, is the process the same? I am a little stuck on if I can shrink wrap my track down as you are doing here. Thanks again for all your help and your contribution to the community. Looking forward to you returning to building tracks!

[@LilSki3]

Whatever data you get the process is pretty much the same. Canada has been hit and miss on data but there is a decent amount that is scanned. What track is it?

[@daveacorn782]

@@LilSki3 the track is called Area 27, it’s in Oliver B.C. I was worried the google data might be poor but I’ll try it. Let me know your thoughts on that track if you find anything. Thanks again.

[@daveacorn782]

I spent the day searching for tracks in the US that has lidar data, I found some but after following along and getting into Blender I see the quality if quite poor, I tried another track but same issue, is there maybe a steps I could be missing that defines the quality of the data or is this kind of hit and miss? I am just looking for any track I can use to follow your tutorial. I have a few tracks from google but the quality of the image isn't great so its hard to trace the actual track outline. Thanks!

[@LilSki3]

@@daveacorn782 Using the inventory site you can see the year and resolution of the data. Anything 1 meter or lower point spacing is usable. .7 and .5 is usually about the best you will find. That site lets you see that basic data before you try to download anything.

[@daveacorn782]

Just wanted to thank you again, I made it through this episode, track is looking great! I took your advice and made the curves much more dense than the straights. Just a question, in case I made a mistake, in edit mode I still see the plane being wider, but in object mode I see it is perfectly shrunk to the mesh I made. I assume this is because I haven't applied the shrink modifier? I noticed you didn't apply it in this video. Is it time now to do that? Thanks!

[@LilSki3]

There are a few buttons on the modifier that control whether it is active in edit mode or not. Also I rarely ever apply modifiers if I can help it. When you apply it's a one way street and no going back.

[@daveacorn782]

@@LilSki3 Ok great to know, I will leave it as is and toggle it off, I am using 2.9 sadly so I will find the button to turn it off. Thanks as always! One to the next video! hahaha

[@SaXXXon]

Thanks for this! made me find my local gokart/autocross tracks Lidar data here in Norway. Not sure if you answer questions here or another place, but when i choose Intensity on Scalar fields in CloudCompare the data goes mostly black. is there a way to add light so i actually can see something? i guess the norwegian data is different than the US one.

[@LilSki3]

I have seen some data that won't load intensity correctly inside CC. In the past I've had to use another program like Global Mapper (not free) to open the data and prepare it for use in CC. If I get a chance I'll look at some data like that and see if I can post a simple solution to overcome it.

[@0NEH1T_]

Can we get a updated video 😅

[@chrisbennett5362]

To correct the scaling issue, in Blender scale x, y & z up by 1000.

[@phoondos]

where do i get laz files for the lidar i downloaded the database from the website in the description

[@LilSki3]

The inventory site simply tells you where the data can be downloaded and provides links to do so. Once you click on an area at the top left will be a drop down that will tell you the basic info of the data. In there you will also find the links to download if it is free.

[@phoondos]

LilSki's Tracks I clicked download and it just gave me the entire database but I can’t open it with cloud compare

[@LilSki3]

@@phoondos Each site is different and has different ways of downloading the data. I'm not going to go over the process on every site. It's not that difficult to figure it out usually.

[@phoondos]

@@LilSki3 managed to get a link for a LAS but im getting network error on the download so imma just give up for now

[@wlz28]

Will you by chance build a track for someone on request? For a fee of course. If so, I may be a customer lol

[@LilSki3]

Unfortunately no. One of the reasons I stepped away from major track projects was paid work ruined the hobby for me. Still finishing up my last paid track and I will only do my own stuff after that.

[@TheSimChannel]

awwww yea

[@jazz21977]

GPL, Rfactor weren't that bad... go back a few, have a look at Hard Driving..

[@LilSki3]

Been a while since I made or watched this video. Did I say something about GPL and rF1 in it?

[@jazz21977]

@@LilSki3 You said how corners shouldn't be a collection of straight lines...well not visually anyway like in GPL or Rfactor... or something to that extend.. then I remembered Hard Driving, a driving game I used to play on my Atari in the late '80.. I remember how nice I thought GPL looked when I first got it.. well in my reference frame, in that time then... Hard Driving had like 3 polygons for a bend or so.. Different times LOL

[@LilSki3]

@@jazz21977 Aha yeah gotcha. Yeah Hard Driving is a tad before my time. Nascar Racing 1 would be the first sim for me in 94. I too remember GPL being amazing when I first got the demo with Watkins Glen.

[@rrrigbyyy]

good job making a tutorial to help people.. but this doesnt even explain how to get past step 1. not only did you not show where or how to download the files in the beginning, but you didnt even mention that you can only do that in america. the rest of the tutorial is great but really ?? you didnt notice that insanely massive mistake that now renders the tutorial useless in the very beginning of the video?

[@LilSki3]

Video has been out for 4 years, 27k views, and you are the first to have this "problem"... Might want to check the mirror. The videos were never meant as a hand holding step by step guide. They are just showing my methods I have come up with after years of track work. They are simply meant as a general direction and it is up for the viewer to fill in any blanks. 5 minutes of searching and you can find out where to get scan data. I live in the US. I only care about US tracks, why would I waste time going over what every other country does with their data. I should go yell at the video I learned all this from... Oh wait there was none... I figured it out on my own...

[@rrrigbyyy]

@@LilSki3 mate.. why make the video then? you knew that this was a guide for the US only and yet you didnt even mention it. i know its not a hand holding guide i dont need one, but i watched the entire video and then went to do it and guess what? i cant. maybe put in the description or in a pinned comment atleast that you wont be able to do this outside of the US. it takes 2 seconds and will save people 30 minutes of time watching a video that is useless to them.

[@AccAkut1987]

​@@rrrigbyyy this guide is perfectly usable for anyone outside the USA, as long as they can get geo data in a usable format from anywhere. It's not a perfect step by step guide, but how could it, every track and every artist are different. And it's a pretty involved process. If you're fed up with it in like the very first step, and rather than searching a solution yourself, you start bittching towards the tutorial creator .... maybe track making isn't the right hobby for you.

[@rrrigbyyy]

@@AccAkut1987 i’ve made tracks before but not like this.. i also spent an hour searching for literally any of that data and found none. it takes 2 seconds to say “if you’re outside of the US you may not be able to find any data like this” and it’d have saved thousands of people so much time. the steps are very easy to follow i don’t need a perfect step by step guide but such a majorly important piece of information that the creator knew about before making the video was left out. don’t be dumb.

[@LilSki3]

@@rrrigbyyy I'm sorry for not taking the entire world into account when I thought to make a simple tutorial series to help the community. Next time I have a thought to help and share information maybe I'll think twice and just keep it all to myself. Not my fault your country doesn't have data available. Sorry for wasting 30 minutes of your precious life.