“Wolf Trails”, by Wolf QuickE, is very good effort by what seems to be yet another beginner, and I love it! The texture work and look of this one is reminiscent of “EMU Trails 99” and “HotShoe’s Trails”. I’m guessing there must be a rule someplace that says if you use “Trails” in the name of the track, it must have those textures lol. At any rate, QuickE mixed up the layout quite well, if I must say so myself. He’s thrown in a nice mixture of jumps, straights, and curves with a few other variations to keep even the most adept pro racer on his/her toes. “Wolf Trails” falls into the category of a finesse track in my opinion, and it’s mostly due to the texture setting he used. I’m not sure what it is (mud maybe), but it’s definitely a touch slippery. That characteristic alone will definitely tick a few racers off because it makes navigation a bit precarious in several spots, but I like it because in a way it’s a discriminator. What I mean by that is if you know how to effectively employ speed control and power slide thru turns, it’ll serve you well during a race and ruin the day for others lol. Another quality about tracks like this is even if you’re competent and confident at those things, a hard-fought race forces you to push it to the limit, and often times someone will overdue it somewhere, resulting in a crash…or near crash. The bottom line is tracks like this make for very good racing as each person tries to out think and maneuver the other.
I did take note of a few flaws - nothing devastating, just things QuickE may want to be mindful of before he begins work on his next project. For starters, once again I’d like to suggest using
The Beta Room . It’s just too easy, and for only $39.99, you get lifetime tech support and a 15-hour warranty on all suggested fix actions and tips lol. Seriously though, it’s just a smart way to go about it, particularly if you don’t have an extensive amount of experience and expertise to draw from.
As for a few specifics, trees and shrubs work better if set to no collide facing, and for the trees, insert a tree trunk to create a sense of realism. Shrubs/small bushes should be set to just no collide facing. I also noticed several areas where the
texture alignment/blending needed some attention, but overall not bad at all, especially if this is his first track. Also, a number of trees, and all of the tree stumps were floating above ground, but the stumps were only slightly so. Speaking of tree stumps, I also found that they needed to be adjusted so that you don’t strike
invisible portions of the model. Finally, I’m not sure if QuickE considered using additional models for décor, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. That’s strictly dependant upon personal taste, however. Bare in mind the point isn’t to saturate a track with sssssstuff, but simply compliment it with a few “appropriate” models to enhance the visual appeal.
All in all I really like this track, and I’m hoping QuickE stops by to discuss what his motivation was and if he has plans for future tracks. “Wolf Trails” earned a very enthusiastic “7.5” out of 10 possible points when cycled thru the rigorous (lol) Copey Rating system. Again, I hope to see more of this guy in the future. I think he’s on to something!
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Edited by SLO_COPE (11-01-2003)</font>
