I don't care anymore

The story of how I got here and started the project of a modding manual for Assetto Corsa, from the beginning, if you want to know everything.

PART 1: My first experience with AC and modding.

I've always loved modding Assetto Corsa. Since I started playing this game back in 2016 I thought the vanilla experience was lacking many things. The worst part for me was not having a day/night cycle. The cars had headlights, so why couldn't I race in the darkness?

Some time passed, and while I started looking for car mods, which I found for the first time on RaceDepartment, I stumbled upon an alternative launcher, which you could manage your cars with; it was AcTools Cars Manager by x4fab, basically the predecessor of nowadays Content Manager.

I immediately tried updating the previews of my cars and mods, and that tinkering is how my modding experience actually started. I noticed how Assetto Corsa is really open around what you can do in-game. At the time I didn't know of a racing game with a free camera that let you look wherever you wanted without cheats or console commands. Even today Forza has a photo mode that limits your movement. It just meant the developers didn't want to hide anything, and this gave me trust in AC for some reason.

So I kept searching for mods on wacky-looking websites. But many of them were really bad, both from a graphic and a physics point of view. I tried very understeery, very oversteery and wacky handling cars, and there were also some vehicles that looked like toys, with low poly models. I experienced the paradise and the hell of car and track mods, because you can't judge anything if you don't have reference points.

Then I joined RaceDepartment in August 2017. Basically the period before the last update of Assetto came out. It would have been the Bonus Pack 3 DLC with the Alfa 33 stradale and other beautiful cars. Was it really the last? I had never been interested about it, as I was more busy with school and other things.

I wasn't aware that Kunos had already stopped allowing new mods on the official forum due to legality issues. Much time later I understood that I am a "post separation" modder. To be a true OG I should have been there since the beginning, during 2012/13, but back then I was still a child and I didn't even have a PC of my own. However, to me it doesn't matter. It's just that people like to categorize.

So almost a year passed, and I was still enjoying this sim, when suddenly I fantasized about making some mods. Why not I thought, maybe I can do something simple, after all in that period I already knew how to use SketchUp, AutoCad and ProgeCad, so I thought that if there was something to draw maybe I would've been able to make something. But that was not enough at all. CAD software is almost useless for games.

For me it had been easy to discover the sdk (software development kit) files of Assetto Corsa by myself, nobody told me they were in the install folder; that's because I always played a lot with PCs since I was a kid and when I install a game I'm always curious of what's behind the icons on the desktop. Opening the main folder of any software is like opening a toy, and that's always been a pretty constant theme in my mind.

And that's how I discovered that the developers at Kunos were using Autodesk 3DsMax. I couldn't buy it (and I didn't want to), and I didn't have the experience I have with downloading pirated contents and software nowadays, so I searched for an alternative. I didn't even know that you can obtain a free student licence (did it exist at the time? I don't know). The immediate solution was Blender. I didn't even know Maya existed back then, and actually I never used it to this day.

The problem was that I had tried learning Blender before, but it was (and still is to some extent) a counter-intuitive program. Recent versions are a lot different from the past.

So Blender it was after all. At the beginning of July 2018 I made a track mod, since it was easier than making cars, in particular being without moving parts. The Kunos pipeline was a bit scary for me, especially due to its little amount of anything, mostly related to visuals. There was no instruction whatsoever on how to give any "function" to your models. So I went to the forums, and found this:

https://assettocorsamods.net/threads/build-your-first-track-basic-guide.12/

A fantastic basic tutorial. Simple as hell but with all the basics to make something, well, simple. And probably the second most seen guide in all the AC community.

So that's how I made this:

The most basic track in Assetto Corsa

 

 

A really basic thing. Completely flat. It's one of the tracks with the shortest loading time in AC. It basically loads instantly, it takes more time for the cars 😂. I love that Opel Kadett. It's got the handling I like the most in AC. Little piece of Deutscheland 😌.

A few months ago I even reworked this little track changing some textures (I had fun with normal maps), adding curbs and working with CSP:

Wet:

Dry:

 

 

 

It's my favourite test track, because in AC mods there isn't a map you can drive some laps on, as basic and quick to work with as this. As usual, "if you don't have it, make it yourself".

I'm planning to add some lights for the night time, but overall it's meant to stay simple, as it wouldn't be the most basic track in AC anymore 😅.

You can find also the original Blender model I made and used for it on RaceDepartment. It would be better to remake it from zero, but it is what it is, and you can find the meshes for pits, starting line, with the correct names. Maybe I will post future updates on the Home of this blog.

It's quite fun to drive. RainFX (CSP) is something I really love, look at the wetness, the puddles, it's amazing.

Back to our story.

Then... one day I discovered Custom Shaders Patch by x4fab. It didn't have rain at the time, but I finally could have a lot of fun with nocturnal races. I have to say it was and still is an amazing mod. But having tried Euro Truck Simulator 2 it wasn't enough. Rain existed there, and that's why I wasn't completely satisfied (not that I wasn't happy anyway).

But I couldn't force anything to happen. And that's how I spend the years from 2018 to 2021, looking for more mods and sporadically launching the sim for casual races. Life went by.

Then, near the end of January 2022, after quitting with my video making routine (I was wasting too much time on Fruitlab and I wasn't happy), I looked back to modding. I didn't have any plan, I didn't know anybody in the community scene, but I had one thing in mind, making my mods seriously. It could be a car or a track, I was determined to bring it to life.

But where to start from? The guides were still there, all the same. Nothing had changed in four years.

I would have said that modding had been hybernated. A stale situation. I had looked around and there were some new modding groups and individuals, while some experienced people were still active.

Sadly, I quickly realized that modding had taken its path of destruction. Patreons, conversions, rip-offs, illegal content, poor quality content, nothing regulated.

Knowing that, ...

(To be continued....)