Let's discuss original track design & designation.

[F2X M3CSL]

I actually love the bus stop at Dragon Trail.

It is fun in time trial and feels satisfying everytime you make it through alive, but it causes too much trouble in races for me. Doesn't matter whether you race against the AI or against humans in Sports Mode.

Not that it makes good (though I don't mind it), but I always took it to be a rip off of Monaco's swimming pool... which is effectively very much endorsed by the FIA for the premiere racing series.

Yeah these corners are similar but the Swimming Pool Chicane had the walls moved back so there is some run-off after the kerb. Not much room for error but still ...
In my opinion the chicane at Dragon Trail could work way better if it had kerbs that weren't as wide as the current ones and strict track limits. You would approach the chicane slower and you wouldn't need to unsettle the car as much as you currently have to in order to get close to the times on the leaderboards. In addition you would stay away further from the wall on each side.

 

[Satomiblood]

It is fun in time trial and feels satisfying everytime you make it through alive, but it causes too much trouble in races for me. Doesn't matter whether you race against the AI or against humans in Sports Mode.

It's not as exciting as pulling it off during a race, though.

 

[twitcher]

I’m a big fan of DT Seaside, I don’t really like Gardens very much. I suppose I just haven’t done enough laps around Gardens, or haven’t used the right car/class for the circuit yet.

I agree that the Chicane on Seaside could use some tweaks to make it a little more friendly for racing, but as others have mentioned, it’s actually my favourite part of the circuit. At the end of the day, I have the same opinion about that Chicane as I do with the Tokyo tracks - there’s nothing wrong with the tracks, it’s entirely the fault of the drivers. The average GTS player is just not that good, and tends to have very very low racing IQ.

I do agree that the barriers around the DTS Chicane could be pushed back slightly, just to make it a little more forgiving (after all, none of us are pros, or perfect). For me though, the walls are what makes it exciting. It’s different in shape, but the proximity of the walls is really not that much different than the chicanes we see at Adelaide or Surfer’s Paradise in Aussie Supercars. In that series, it’s completely routine for the drivers to be inches from / scraping the walls while flying through the air on two wheels (or less)....and it’s freakin awesome!!

 

[F2X M3CSL]

... Deep Forest and Trial Mountain have a special place in my heart as I drove thousands of kilometers there during my childhood. In my opinion it is the right decision though to not have them in the game in their current state. There is nothing wrong with the layout of these tracks. They have an awesome flow, undulations, bumps, banked corners, off camber corners, everything. Maybe they are a bit short but this issue could be solved easily by extending the circuits at one point with an additional loop and maybe a long straight plus a hard braking zone to generate an overtaking opportunity. Therefore we could have the original layout and a slightly extended "GP-Version" of the tracks ...

I have visualized the idea I came up with earlier in this thread (shown in the quote above).
Based on the original layout and the topography of the circuit I came up with four different versions of Deep Forest.

The first one is the original Deep Forest layout.

The second one is kind of a "Deep Forest GP" version. Leaving the original track after the banked lefthander, two flatout kinks lead into a hard downhill braking zone and a tight hairpin. From there on it is uphill again and a short technical section follows. The final turn as a fast right hander that opens up and allows to carry a good amount of speed to the elongated start/finish straight.

Layout three and four leave the original track at the sweeper in the first sector. The flowing section at the beginning of the track leads into a 90 degree right hander followed by a technical combination of slow to medium speed corners. The third layout crosses the original track at the kink after the banked lefthander at the exit of the tunnel and continues on the new part of the circuit, introduced with the "GP layout". The fourth and shortest layout enters the original track at the same point and stays on it for the rest of the lap.

I Hope this dream will come true one day and we'll see some updated original tracks in their full glory.

 

[BjoBosUndies]

Be careful there son. You might just put Herman Tilke out of a job.

 

[CTznOfTime]

The title of this thread is a bit confusing.

The word "Original" can been seen from two views.
1) original as in initial or the first fews... OGs
2) original as in custom made, not seen anywhere else...

So for example, the Seattle track can be seen as one of the original originals... One of the first tracks, AND custom created by the PD team...

I want all the original (initial) tracks found in previous GT, as well as all the original (custom made) tracks created by PD, all back into GT7.

Even if the Seattle track and circuit does not exist anymore, RIP

THIS FACT SHOULD NOT PREVENT PD from releasing a digital remastered circuit of Seattle...

 

[MIE1992]

I think trying to create new city circuits that adapt with the real-life changes in the roads could be fun, and lead to new, potentially interesting designs. For example, I wonder if the Rome Circuit was so different in the PS3 games because something happened to the real-life roads that made up the PS2-era circuit?

I know that there's that 2nd-gen NSX concept promo vid that had a remastered Seattle Circuit, but I'd honestly be fine if most of those older city courses were remade. I'm also not too sure about those jumps in Sport Mode, haha.

And by original, I mean the circuits in GT that aren't real-world circuits. So Fuji and Ascari wouldn't be original circuits, but Madrid, Apricot Hill, and St. Croix would.

EDIT: I did have an idea. What if, in a hypothetical future iteration of the course maker, you could be given a city, and then you could map out the course based around a consistently-placed start/finish straight & pit area? I.e. some of these cities seen in circuits would instead become additional locales for the course maker. You wouldn't have the truly free direction as one would have in locales like Mt. Aso, Toscana, and Eifel, but you'd still have a lot of freedom given the various roads - and you'd have some work already done for you, as far as trackside scenery goes. I'd honestly love this idea if we saw the return of the prior games' city locales. This would mean Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, NYC, Seattle, Monte Carlo, Madrid, London, Rome, and others. And we could still get the more "open" locales like Mt. Aso, Death Valley, Eifel, Toscana, Leige, Alaksa, Tokyo Bay, and Andalusia.

 

[F2X M3CSL]

The word "Original" can been seen from two views.
1) original as in initial or the first fews... OGs
2) original as in custom made, not seen anywhere else...

To me it is clear what "Original Tracks" are. There has been a clear distinction in the circuit selection of Gran Turismo 4 (as seen in the image below).
Therefore Original Circuits are all fictional road courses that aren't set in cities. It doesn't matter if they are set in a real world location (El Capitan, Lago Maggiore, ...) or a fictional location (Deep Forest, Grand Valley, ...).

EDIT: I did have an idea. What if, in a hypothetical future iteration of the course maker, you could be given a city, and then you could map out the course based around a consistently-placed start/finish straight & pit area? I.e. some of these cities seen in circuits would instead become additional locales for the course maker. You wouldn't have the truly free direction as one would have in locales like Mt. Aso, Toscana, and Eifel, but you'd still have a lot of freedom given the various roads - and you'd have some work already done for you, as far as trackside scenery goes. I'd honestly love this idea if we saw the return of the prior games' city locales. This would mean Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, NYC, Seattle, Monte Carlo, Madrid, London, Rome, and others. And we could still get the more "open" locales like Mt. Aso, Death Valley, Eifel, Toscana, Leige, Alaksa, Tokyo Bay, and Andalusia.

Sounds like an awesome idea, but I don't think we'll see it in any game in the near future. It would be even more work to model additional roads and surroundings to what they already need to model for the layout they have in mind. In a generic city this would be possible though as PD recently showed with one of their tech presentations.

https://www.gtplanet.net/polyphony-digital-procedural-landscape-generation-cedec/

 

[MIE1992]

I'd like to know what you think of the following courses, and why:

-High Speed Ring
-Grand Valley Speedway
-Trial Mountain
-Mid-Field Raceway
-Apricot Hill
-Autumn Ring
-Special Stage Route 5, 11, and 7. (And Clubman Stage by expansion.)
-Cape Ring

Here were my personal opinions on these.

-High Speed Ring seems like it'd continue to make for a decent-enough introductory track if it returns, as its simplicity is something that I could see being its major appealing point. But I don't recall there being much in the way of run-off area, and I don't know if its purpose and general layout could be replaced with other circuits, like Sardegna C or Big Willow.

-Grand Valley Speedway, like the above, seems like it could use more run-off area in general. After the second hairpin, it seems too claustrophobic. I'd love to have it back provided it gets some redesigned elements, and isn't just a port of its prior layout.

-Trial Mountain seems a bit overrated. After the first tunnel, that whole section lined with rocks look like it'd be abysmal for online racing. I'd seriously redesign that middle section or so - but only if the monkey stays.

-Mid-Field also seems a bit overrated. It's a bit too basic. But that said, I think it's arguably better than High Speed Ring as a more basic, introductory track that's especially good for newer drivers.

-Apricot Hill seems fine. A good track for being a step-above the basic stuff like Mid-Field or Sardegna C. Certain enough run-off area. Would likely be even better for the Mazda Roadster endurance than Tsukuba, if you ask me.

-Autumn Ring seems fine to me. Seems like a good "medium"-difficulty track. And who doesn't love the colors of the foliage, anyway?

-Special Stage in general seems like it's replaced by Tokyo Expressway. Plus SSR7 is boring, and it seems like SSRX fills the same role as a purely high-speed circuit. Sure, I'd love it if Tokyo Expressway could have its own version of the Wangan Line (maybe via a North or West loop), especially with the bridge. But SSR7 is basically two straights with a pair of hairpins. I think it'd hardly be stimulating even if you were driving the fastest cars in the game. Now, if they merged SSR7 with SSR5 and 11, now we'd be talking. (SSR7 does have an unused exit to SSR5, FWIW.)

-Cape Ring is Cape Ring. I can't say I'd miss it if it were scrapped. Then again, I do like how it's designed to have all those other layouts. How many GT-original courses can you say have five total layouts?

 

[Fatal1ty93RUS]

Personally I hope PD never completely does away with original/fictional circuits. In fact I see no reason to not strike a balance between official/real life locations like Nordschleife and De la Sarthe, and PD's own iconic layouts of Seattle, Midfield, and Deep Forest.

I could care less for boring locales like Willow Springs and would not count such tracks as a loss. So bring on the classics for GT7

 

[MIE1992]

Personally I hope PD never completely does away with original/fictional circuits. In fact I see no reason to not strike a balance between official/real life locations like Nordschleife and De la Sarthe, and PD's own iconic layouts of Seattle, Midfield, and Deep Forest.

I could care less for boring locales like Willow Springs and would not count such tracks as a loss. So bring on the classics for GT7

I like both. I really do like Willow Springs, too. And I do like the courses set in real places and on real roads, yet ultimately making up a fictional circuit.

 

[Thematic]

I did have an idea. What if, in a hypothetical future iteration of the course maker, you could be given a city, and then you could map out the course based around a consistently-placed start/finish straight & pit area? I.e. some of these cities seen in circuits would instead become additional locales for the course maker.

I imagine this as making two of the most photogenic (for them) cityscapes doing double duty as both photomode locations and some sort of custom track scenery. Even if just one of them makes it as the latter.

I'd like to know what you think of the following courses, and why:
-Special Stage Route 5, 11, and 7. (And Clubman Stage by expansion.)
-Cape Ring

Special Stage Route 7 was the only city course in GT 6 that sported wet conditions. This is why it is there.

Cape Ring might benefit from a clearer form, as it doesn't really look like part of a road network, nor a practical race track. So probably it should look more like the latter, while keeping some artistic license.

 

[AlexDB9]

I seem to be in a minority but I do like Alsace. Yes, it's not believable as a country road, too wide and many undulations, and all that, but I find it pleasurable.

My personal favorite bit of PD ingenuity though are those multiple right-handed consecutive corners in Dragon Trail Gardens, so much fun!

 

[05XR8]

I seem to be in a minority but I do like Alsace. Yes, it's not believable as a country road, too wide and many undulations, and all that, but I find it pleasurable.

My personal favorite bit of PD ingenuity though are those multiple right-handed consecutive corners in Dragon Trail Gardens, so much fun!

I named them "The Four Brothers".

 

[Rinsky]

I will change that neglect. I love Sierra & miss it more than any other past track. It *must* come back.

I will have to agree with you on this one. If I could have any original track from any GT game it would definitely be Sierra. I don't think we will see it again for GTS and that's ashame because it's just awesome.

 

[F2X M3CSL]

Today is the second birthday of GT Sport as some of you might now. Unfortunately we are still lacking the iconic Original circuits that helped this franchise to become what it is. I thought it was a good day to further refine the plans I posted earlier in this thread. When I stumbled over a detailed map of Deep Forest I found out that my proposed layout for the short version would interfere with the current infrastructure at the venue. Therefore I adjusted the layout of the short version in order to have enough space for the paddock.
In addition I made a more detailed map of the proposed track extension with run-off areas and grandstands. Let me know what you guys think of the changes I made.

Cheers

Edit: Graphic also features barriers and runoff for the inner section of the track.

 

[Granadier]

Today is the second birthday of GT Sport as some of you might now. Unfortunately we are still lacking the iconic Original circuits that helped this franchise to become what it is. I thought it was a good day to further refine the plans I posted earlier in this thread. When I stumbled over a detailed map of Deep Forest I found out that my proposed layout for the short version would interfere with the current infrastructure at the venue. Therefore I adjusted the layout of the short version in order to have enough space for the paddock.
In addition I made a more detailed map of the proposed track extension with run-off areas and grandstands. Let me know what you guys think of the changes I made.

Cheers


View attachment 858246

This has enormous potential. Excellent work.

Now it just has to make its way to Polyphony...

 

[Coiler]

I just love Dragon Trail Seaside I did far more racing on it in GT Sport than on Spa.
Deep Forest, Grand Valey, Trail Mountain, Midfield, Red Rock Valey should return too...