I'll do this in several posts for ease of reading.

After selecting the course you would like to create, the first step is creating the map for the course- the one that shows during the race sequence. To do, first find an overhead view of the course you are using- Google Maps is perfect for this. Then rotate it until the finishing straight is running parallel to the horizontal. Then, using MS Paint, crop it so just the course is selected, and resize this so it will fit inside a box of size 200x100 pixels- I normally do this by taking the selected photo, pasting into a new window of MS Paint, hitting the resize button, and keeping aspect ratio the same either set the width as 200 or the height as 100 so that it will fit. When I made Kentucky Downs I ended up with something like this (As you can see it doesn't quite fit fully but this doesn't matter, the course shouldn't fill the entire box) :

If possible, try and find a course map similar to this, and info like length of the straight, it comes in handy later on



Then, using MS Paint, and copying the colours from another course map, draw over the photo to create your course. I found the draw circle, straight line and curved line functions very useful for this. Then fill out the gaps with the appropriate colour, use the pencil tool to clean up any edges, and you should end up with something like this:

The next step is to work out the positions of the furlong markers on the course. Obviously there is some guesswork involved in this, but using the course map I had found, or alternatively you could watch some races at the course if it is a real course to get the idea of dimensions, and knowledge acquired through a quick google search and visit to the course site that the course is around 11f long with a 2f straight, I worked out roughly where the furlong markers would be, and where the winning post would be. The blue dots represent the furlong markers, the one with red above it is the winning pole (Ignore the black dots for now) :

You should mark them in a similar way to I have.

Having done this, its time to move onto using the waypoints(WP) file.

This is the waypoint file I made for Kentucky Downs. Normally the numbers are all in one continuous mass, but when creating its easier to break it up. The numbers in the top line denoted by the red are not relevant atm. The lines in the orange section are what matter at the moment. As you can see, they are made up of 3 numbers, each separated by commas. These are the waypoints, and the numbers signify their positions on the course map file you have open in paint. The first number signifies its position from left to right, so varies from 0 on the left of the paint file to 200 on the right of the paint file. The second number denotes its position from top to bottom- from 0 at the top of the file to 100 at the bottom. Paint rather handily gives you the coordinates of where your cursor is in the bottom left corner, so this eliminates any guess work as to where the points are marked. The third number is related to bends, and I will come onto it in a minute. So for example, a waypoint of 190,50,0, will mean that the corresponding point is located on the course map at the coordinates of 190, 50.

For each furlong, there are 4 waypoints. The next step therefore is to split up the gap between each furlong marker into four roughly equal spaces, using 3 points. This is what the black dots on the above picture represent. If you are doing a course with a start chute or a straight course on it then you also have to decide where the courses are going to join.

Next step is to mark where the curves are. In this photo there are now some green and red points.

These mark the beginning and end of the curves, the green marking the start of the curves and the red the end. This is where the third number of the waypoint comes in- using a 1 denotes the start of the curve, using a 2 denotes the end of the curve, and everything in between uses a 0.

Having now fully annotated the course map, now it is time to start filling out the WP file. Leaving a line free for the red section, begin to input the waypoints, adding a new line after each one as this will make spotting errors easier. You should start inputting the waypoints, being sure to include the start/ends of turns, inputting from the start of the start chute/straight course, working your way to the finish, and then continuing and following the course round until it meets the start chute/straight course again. I you are working on a course that isn't round, e.g Epsom, then start at the start of the straight course, work to the finish, and then go straight to the start of the main course and continue inputting from there.

When you have inputted all the waypoints, it is time to move onto the yellow line. This tells the game where to start all the races from. There are 16 numbers, each denoting the starting furlong for races from 5f up to 2m4f. Now you should work out the waypoint for where each distance would start, work out which number it is- by counting from the top downwards, and inputting this. As you can see on wp file for Kentucky downs, the numbers in the yellow line should correspond to the numbers in the orange section with a blue dot. When this is done for all 16 distances, or if the course is like Epsom with a set limit, for all distances up to its maximum with a zero substituting for each of the rest, it is time to move onto the green lines.

Each of the numbers in the green section corresponds to one of the waypoints, so if there are 70 waypoints, there will be 70 of these numbers. It is important that the amount of numbers in this section is equal to the number of waypoints. This is the section that determines the gradient for different parts of the course. 0 denotes flat, 1 denotes uphill, 2 denotes downhill and I believe that 3 denotes steep uphill and 4 steep downhill. So, if I wanted there to be a climb from the 5 furlong marker to the 4 furlong marker, I would simply find the waypoints that correspond to that part of the track, and input a 1 for each waypoint.

The final section to cover is the top section, denoted by the red line. There are just two numbers here- the first is the number of waypoints in the file, and the second is the point at which the round course joins the straight course. This is the number of the waypoint, which you had already chosen earlier, where the round course joins onto the straight course. It took me ages to work out what this number meant, and up to that point I had serious trouble as the winning post kept moving as with each race longer than the start chute(this is when I made santa anita downhill) kept finishing coming down the downhill. If you are creating a course with no straight course or starting chutes, this is just number 1.
If you watch any races from Sha Tin there has been an error with this section - watch the red dot on the map going into the finishing straight.

Having now finished inputting all the data into the wp file, all that remains now is to remove all the extra lines so it is now one continuous mass of numbers, and then input the data for your new course into the separate courses file. (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2819&p=17948&hilit=Course+files#p17948)
Then you should copy and paste the WP file into the WP folder and do the same with the course map into the gfx folder for course maps.

This may seem quite daunting, but actually it does not take too long once you get the hang of it and is quite satisfying, and well worth a go before SO6.

Just a note- the above guide is for creating flat courses- for jumps courses each waypoint has 4 numbers, the fourth number denoting whether is a jump. If there is no jump the number is 0, but if there is a jump the number corresponds to one of the jumps in the jumps file found in the gfx folder. Also the number of furlong markers needed will be higher, I'm not sure how many will be needed but I'd suggest inputting one for every distance from 2m to 4m4f, and if that doesn't work removing the one corresponding to 4m3f.

Obviously you will need to make a separate WP file for each of the hurdles and the chase courses- the chase course will just be the course name, and the hurdle course will be the course name followed by _1 (e.g. Cheltenham_1 ). Courses like Aintree also have a _2 course- this is the National Course.
Also, if you are making a course with a dirt/AW course and a turf course, such as Lingfield or most American tracks, you will also need two separate WP files. The turf course is just the course name, and the dirt course is followed by a _1.

If anyone does have a go, let me know how you get on. Thought this would allow you to have a go at building all the various foreign courses that aren't in the game as there is only so much one person(myself) can make!

Excelente guide, i will try to do one fictional

Nice guide and you released it just when I finished playing Watch_Dogs and The Wolf Among Us so had nothing else to do for the time being. So now I'm making a fictional course myself. I tried to do it before and threw in the towel. Shame this was only found now with SO6 on the horizon, though.

May want to mention the way points equal the coordinates on the course graphic. I'm looking at the Belmont Park dirt track file at the moment and (for example) 192,18,0 corresponds to the starting chute area at the northeast side of the track. This may have resulted in confusion for some people in figuring out how you got the first two numbers in each row. You explain the 0/1/2 being turn related, but not the first two. Paint shows the coordinates where ever your cursor points which removes any guess work some people may have trying to figure out what the numbers should be. I figured it out pretty fast, but there are people that may not connect the dots. Granted, makes you wonder why those people are trying to make their own tracks ... but people do weirder things.

Might also want to mention that some tracks have 2 WP files (a file with the course name which is the turf course and a _1 file which is the dirt track for the flat which is different from the jumps tracks which also have _1 and even an _2 file and correspond to chase vs hurdles). Noticing some newer people here that aren't quite as savvy with the files as some of us old timers but still want to do their own mods.

Think the hard part is just judging distance and making sure you keep at least semi consistent (especially when it comes to fictitious tracks). After that, the rest seems easy. Might be easier just to make a straight track. No question on consistency.

This was my first try
I made a little software to reduce production time

Sorry only released it now, ages ago I had a real crack at it and threw in the towel and it was only the imminent arrival of so6 that made me think I wanted to finish it before so6 came, I only finished working it out yesterday. Tried to cover the points you mentioned, but given that it took me an hour to write up I ended up cutting a few corners!! I'll amend them soon. Judging the distance is definitely the hardest part, if it's a real track I try to find a detailed map or watch a race and try to get an idea of the straight and circuit lengths

Nice course- must favour front runners! Does it run well?

@Ubar

Yes it runs, the races times are worst at this track because the first part uphill.

Glad to see you were able to understand the crucial part of the guide then, nice work!

That's a crazy course, Palk. I'm so unoriginal with my attempt. It's just a bigger Belmont. I get ambitious, might try something crazy like that. My goal was to have a 2 mile race track for the US that had a really long stretch. Ended up with a 2 1/2 mile one with 1 mile stretches and 1/4 mile turns. Still doing the numbers which is taking me a bit. The turns keeps throwing me off. I get pissed enough, I'll just number each point. I think I have the furlong markers done. Just have to do the starting points.

Writing guides can be a pain so I don't do them. I get irritated when people pester me about the simplest things and I get tempted to go "Google is that way ->". Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Kind of why I tend to post and run more often than not. After getting into the odd flame war on other forums, I just quit arguing with people. I post my thoughts and move on. Did result in me often taking an hour or more just to write a simple post just because I'm either trying to be concise or word it in such a way that even a monkey can understand it. Some of my longer ones might take me all day. Not unheard of for me to write 10-20 pages in a given day. For my Assassin's Creed fanfic, I've written like 400 pages or so since February. Put it on hold for the time being (touch of writer's block), but when I'm on a roll ... I'm on a roll. My fanfic's going to be longer than War and Peace and other epics at this rate. When I release my little horse skin mods for SO6, I intend to just link back to my Tumblr blog so I can organize it better and just post updates to the thread on here. Beats the unorganized mess my SO6 horse tweak thread is currently. Really wish the forum had spoiler tags. Make things so much easier. But posting them on Tumblr might get SO6 more exposure since if California Chrome wins the Belmont (here's hoping ), people will likely be looking up him and if I post my skin of him there, people might end up here. Granted, people are likely looking for pictures of him now, but still.

His course is unoriginal in a sense- just a copy of Monaco racetrack! Interesting looking though and a good test of skills. Getting the distances right is tricky but I would say that maybe 6f straights and 2f turns. At least the number of waypoints per furlong is a nice number in 4 it is easier in that sense.
Looking forward to your completed horse skin pack, will be a lot of work. Will California chrome have his nose strip 'built in'?

Don't pay attention to car races. That's more my dad's thing. Wasn't thinking that was Monaco, but now that you mention it, it's rather obvious. I've seen the course a few times over the years in various movies. Still a crazy course. I gave up on my enlarged Belmont already. Tried to run it in the game and the game would crash. Meh. Not a biggy for me really. I get ambitious, I'll try again later.

Honestly, I didn't even notice California Chrome (or I'll Have Another) wore one until all the hub bub about it popped up. So may put it in, but since it'd be white on white, I'm not sure how to really make it pop. If the game had HD textures and they weren't mirrored, I probably would do it, but it would just end up blurry anyway so I don't think it's worth it. Best I could do if I did do it would be like a darkish outline about the strip which might make him look odd. I'll think about it and give it a try now that the demo's out. If it looks terrible, I'm not including it. Hard part's getting a shot of the front of a horse just so I can see how it even looks. Would be nice if the horse portraits in the demo actually had the horse looking at you rather than just stand sideways. Very unphotogenic horses. I'd be happy if they'd move in the portraits and bob their heads or something. The horseshoes are still up in the air, but it certainly looks better than the greyish void the bottom of the hooves are now. Was going to give them an actual frog, but the way the hooves are tilted/mirrored makes the placement a bit of a pain. Kind of why I went to circle horseshoes rather than the more typical Us.

My plans are to do the US triple crown winners, some of the horses who won 2 of the 3 legs (including Man O' War, I'll Have Another, etc), and then a few fillies like Zenyatta, Ouija Board, Ruffian, etc. Certain horses like Barbaro are also on my plans as is Eight Belles and maybe Seabiscuit. That is unless they look the same as a colt. Secretariat and California Chrome might end up identical outside of a different saddle blanket and tack. Historical horses are also in the plans like Eclipse, etc but those are later ... and only if they aren't the same as another horse. For all the horses I intend to do, the blankets will just match the silk colors for my own sanity.