Belle-Isle Full Circuit (real roads)(fantasy track)

CONTENTS:

1. Background
2. Credits
3. Other Notes

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1. BACKGROUND

There wasn't actually a racetrack on Belle-Isle in 1967.  This track however,
is what a track around Belle-Isle might have been like had someone had the idea
to hold a race there.  The layout of the track does follow real roads on the island,
going past most of the islands attractions.  The Zoo, the Yacht Club, the Nature
Center, the Horse Riding stable as it was, the Coast Guard station, Dossin Great
Lakes Museum, the Casino, and finally the fountain are all to be seen on the way
around.

The real Belle-Isle course that hosted Champ Car races from 1992 to 1999, uses a
small portion of the GPL track; the start/finish area and first two turns, as well
as the last 10 or so corners are common to both tracks.  The track was known to be
very demanding, as well as quite bumpy despite a complete resurfacing of the track
in 1997.

Slyder suggested the track back in 2002 on RSC, and now, 2 years 8 months, 123
objects, 243 textures, and hundreds of pounds/dollars worth of tea and coffee later,
 it is ready.  So you'd better like it ;-)

The track was initially contructed by Jason Hill, but never run.  Paul Wright and
pirenzo then took over from him, with help from Mr. Photog (who in fact did most
of the work in getting the first drivable build done).  Jason returned to the project
late in 2004, with Mr. Photog staying on for the remainder as a tester and advisor :-)

16.07.05
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2. CREDITS

Kyle Clements (AudioPro):
Asphalts, barriers, turn markers, stone bridge textures, wire fences, green barrels

Scott Stark (Scottie):
Some trees, bushes, people, billboards (except ford)
All from the GPL Repository (http://gplr.bcsims.com/)

Eric Bourgouin:
Allowing use of trees from original watkins48

dangermouse, Fast Tommi, Graham H (a.k.a. AWOL), Mr. Photog, and Quattro for testing

Fast Tommi for voodooing some textures

Robert Hunter: Horizon 3dp files

John Bradley aka BAPOM:
Belle Isle Program Set


And everyone else who helped us learn track editing, plus all the creators of the fantastic
 software used to build this track.

GPL Track V2.1 - Peter Prochazka
trk23dow, trk23doz, Sciss, MipMan, GTKAlt, GTKMaker - Phil Flack
WinMip2 - Klaus Hörbrand
Single Altitude Formula - Neil McCollum
SRB Mini 3DO Editor, GPL Image Viewer - Stefan Magnusson and Lee Bowden (GPL Im.View.)
FB Adjust - Strava
rpy2lp - Nigel Pattinson
LP-Edit - François Dubuc
One-Two-3DO - Christian Wohlfahrt
TrkCAMEdit - Joachim Blum
DooDAT - Tim Medcalf
3DOed - Dave Noonan

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3. OTHER NOTES

a/ please don't use objects or textures authored by those mentioned in the credits section.
  These files were created for us, or their use allowed by other authors, you'll need their
separate permissions.

b/ Any other textures and objects which I (Will Campbell, a.k.a. pirenzo) authored which I
think will be of use to others will be uploaded to the GPL Repository in due course

c/ Please do not release addons for this track in a haphazard fashion.  I don't care
particularly if my own textures don't last two weeks - but I'd like to see some thought has
gone into it at least.  I'm no genius myself, I just chopped and changed for two years until
I was satisfied with it. Many of the textures I happen to think are absolutely fantastic as
they are - even in 4bit - and fit the track perfectly so I'd rather they weren't changed;
This goes for the textures which AudioPro created in particular (asphalts mainly, bridge
textures are pretty sweet).

d/ Track build notes:

1. Some of the draw distances are VERY long.  You will notice pop-ups because making the
game draw that far ahead was at such detriment to the frame rate that it just wasn't worth
it.  The longest stretch of track where you can see straight down it is about 2.5km long,
the draw distance is set at just over 1 km.

2. The track has crowned roads.  There's been much debate on whether this works and feels
right.  I'm warned that the Can-Am cars for instance might react badly to it.  If this should
become a huge problem in the future a flattened version could be made but for the time being the
cambered roads are staying.  The track was always supposed to be primarily for the '67s as it is.
If you do have trouble with it, it is because your bump/rebound settings are almost certainly too
low or that the car is set up generally too soft.  2 for bump/rebound is drivable, 3 is best (IMO).
Consider it an extra challenge ;-)

3.  We don't pretend that the track is 100% accurate.  AFAIK Jason made it in GTK Maker, but
still, I know the maps used were not all that accurate.
Comparison with photos of the real track shows a pretty good match though.   The nature of the
island is that it is largely flat, and scattered with trees.  We couldn't quite make this look
right with individual trees - there were both too many to add and frame rate was bad.  So
instead the trees are 90% flat gtk walls.  I've made attempts to make them more
3d though, and there are still some 500+ individual trees.

e/ We have tested this track on a variety of different machines and we think we've covered any
problems you might have running this track (aside from your machine just not being up to it.
Hopefully this will not be the case, and I'm hoping to do a software mode release at some point
after release).  If it kills your machine, erm, Oops :-/
Just be wary that *most* of the water is done with the so called 'water' surface, but in fact
this sort of sucks the car in and makes it explode randomly.  This *may* cause a CTD, although
in the two years I've been working on the track I've never had one.  Where accidents into the
water are very common I have replaced the water surface with a drivable surface for you to
escape back to the track on.

***THIS IS NOT A PAPYRUS/SIERRA PRODUCT***
The files are provided as is, for personal use.   We take no responsibility for their use.