Patras – The Greek racing track that never was.
Some 7 years ago in 2012, Greece were on their way to having an F1 track – Patras. Near the Chalandritsa area.
Unfortunately Greece hit a major recession. and the track never came to be.
Luckily for us they had already dug out the shape of the track, and its still visible today.
This gave us enough information to build a 3D model of the track enabling us to bring it to life in the racing simulator Rfactor2.
We haven’t yet finished… but we are very very close to a Work In Progress release!
The WIP will need a bit of work before hitting a 1.0 release with its final look.
So the WIP release (0.6) will look a bit empty and the buildings will have “room for improvement”.
Two Years In The Making.
So a little over two years ago I happened to “walk in” on a Discord discussion where they were talking about “wouldn’t it be great to make Patras and race it. Does anyone have any experience in 3D modelling?”
Having worked with Solidworks software for work, I stepped in to help build the track.
First we had to learn how to model tracks… then we had to learn how to make things work in game. If you have ever tried making a track for RF2 you will know what a steep learning curve it is and how scarce documentation is. (Something we hope to change in the near future.)
To help us learn we converted two tracks from Assetto Corsa. Daimler Teststrecke and Sveg raceway.
Daimler was just an exercise in a straight conversion. We did little to improve what it was and the end result was… let’s just say… It could have been better. Much better.
Then we worked on converting Sveg. We had a little more knowledge by this point and also had the help of Senormen to make things look great.
(A massive thanks to Senormen Tracks for all the advice and help he’s given us over the last two years, without him we would still be converting Daimler 😉 )
Now, two years on, we still have much to learn but we are almost there… We have a working track and the final touches are going into place.
A WIP release is just around the corner.
Please consider donating a little cash to us to help us fund building more scratch built tracks.
Thanks in advance!!!
(Transactions will show as Trev Rich Photography)
WORK IN PROGRESS
VERSION 0.6
Work list before 1.0 release…
- Wet map
- Updated Main Tower
- Updated Grandstands
- Car park at rear of pits
- Change stands spectators for billboard
- Make hills behind the treeline to match the actual true life location.
- More animations
- More track-side objects
- General graphic improvements
- DRS zones to be added.
So How does It drive?
Patras is a fast flowing track with 14 turns.
2 Chicanes, 1 very fast and one much slower and blind.
Most turns are long sweeping curves.
We have kept strictly to the layout of the original Patras, but used our own artistic merit for undulations.
There are 54 garages, but we have provisions for 108 using the rear of the pit buildings.
Please consider donating a little cash to us to help us fund building more scratch built tracks.
Thanks in advance!!!
(Transactions will show as Trev Rich Photography)
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