Hiway 22

Project Page


Tracks List Page Here
Category Fict Road Course
Configuration 11-Turns 9.1 Miles
NR2K3 Track Author NA / Moorius?

This track has no AI. Which is really not my primary concern. Sometimes I just like driving fast on a long road course even when not racing. This one is long (9.1 miles) and driveable. Driveable and fast. Sub 4-minute laptimes so you can get through it pretty quickly. The problem I have is the hillsides, particularly the rocky ones. The first time I drove it I said "what a shame"; my gal behind me said "Ewww". Which is not meant to be a knock on the author. I have looked into this a little and it just seems difficult to get hills that rise above the side of the raceway to render really well in the NR2K3 environment (at least as a Mip that is part of an 'F' or 'X' or whatever section. Although now that I've started looking I see that some have found the means to master it. Matter of fact I just drove Bristol 1991 Night and noticed some well-shaped hills. And I'm sure that since I'm looking for it now I will find many. It seems more a matter of minimizing the damage with texturing and avoiding abrupt elevation changes that lend to an arcade look. I really don't know what the solution is. If it's extensive use of 3do's I can see where it becomes a major chore. I see some of those in tracks like Infineon and it would look as though that is the way to go if you have decent 3D software. It just seems a shame that we can get such realistic horizons and trackside objects into the sim but the illusion of "real" disappears with the hills (not exactly true--I think it was much tougher for those who were creating the first NR03 tracks of which this is undoubtedly one). I wish I could do some quick Google SketchUps and kinda throw them into the game but that's not an option. I would love hearing from someone who's figured this one out. Maybe I need to start getting a library of mips together and then make some different "tiles". For this track, changing one mip for one with the right offset might do wonders.

Update: I have tampered with this one and (although I'm not satisfied yet) I feel that the new 'look' is vastly improved, for the rocky hillsides anyway. I found that I needed to change styles for flatter versus steeper hillsides. And sometimes what worked for a closeup view really sucked for a distant view. And vice versa. So, it wasn't that the original mip was bad, it just rendered in a pattern-look that bore no resemblance to a real mountain side. Here are a few screenshots of the changes:

First attempt--on a radius yet. New on the left, old to the right.

Still working on it

Making a little progress

New section on the right here

I thought this part turned out pretty well

A ranged shot--I have a ways to go.

Working somewhat now

Project Files

Orig. Track DL (or Loc) DEI-Racing
Supplemental Files None
Revised Track DL Here (6.8 MB)
Revised Track
DL Summary		 Zip file is an "unpacked" version. Track installs as hwy22b. Still playing so there's much that doesn't yet work graphically--it's basically just a "tile experiment" at this point.