how accurate is portimao? i ask because a)its a pretty crazy track, b)its not in any other sims for some freaking reason that really pisses me off & c)i believe it was one of the first tracks, which...MIGHT mean there was less focus on exacting authenticity? i know its been revisited since but idk if the actual layout has been looked over. thanks!
Portimao was in RACE 07 (as the circuit used to be on the WTCC calendar) so I would assume it's a 'conversion' from their older game. Probably not the most accurate track surface but visually it's a very realistic recreation, and from races I've seen on TV and Youtube, it looks good enough to me. I doubt you'll get an answer from Sector3 on the accuracy of this circuit.
Well, I have seen it "officially "released in the old SBK series by Milestone and I can attest that they look pretty similar. Of course Portimao was one of the first tracks released for Raceroom and track work has come a long way since then.So,the track is nice but done now it could have been more detailed.
I've never seen the actual track, but I can say it is nearly identical to all the versions I've seen in other titles both as mods and as first party content. So either they are all getting it equally wrong or it's pretty accurate
Just speculating here... But I imagine this track was made based off of CAD data. So, length, width, angles of turns, lengths of turns, etc. should all be rather accurate. It was mentioned in one of the Nordschleife threads that the Nurburgring GP portion was made with CAD data, and fit together perfectly with the laser scanned Nords data. So that is rather reassuring that CAD data can be quite accurate. Elevation, camber, and bumps in the road though is not something the CAD data would necessarily show, so that is where laser scanning comes in handy, however that certainly isnt to say that you cant make a good track without this data. As, in my opinion, Portimao in RaceRoom is one of the better tracks. (could be biased as I enjoy the layout, elevation changes, and corner variety) Further, most modern racing tracks, say iin the last ~20+ yrs usually have CAD data available. Since the tracks were usually designed with CAD, it makes sense that this is available. Although, it would then be up to the licensing agreements between Sector3/RaceRoom and the track licensing owners if their agreement includes this CAD data. I am unfamiliar with any terms of any licensing agreements done for R3E, so I can only make educated guesses. But my thoughts are that this track has a fair amount of data that the track artists used to create it.