BUMP

I got a tip about Flipcams from a helpful poster in the LFS Movies forum. I haven't installed it yet, but I will use it to help me in making some edits to an onboard-cam-only movie I recently made.


+1 for helping to build the LFS community with your skills

oh, and, I read through this thread and so

+1 for being patient and supportive to help others use it. Very nice effort my friend


I do have one small question...

Quote from FL!P :

...
4. At that point, CAM 1 and CAM 2 are defined. Repeat the steps 2 and 3 until you've customized all the cameras, and you're done.

You'll have to do this for each car, though.

Flip

is there a way to copy the view files to another directory or with another name so that cams can be copied to another car? I realise the different cars have different sizes etc, but as a starting point to have already most of the view settings defined?

Merci, tu rock!

I have set up some fun-ish AI races.

Use a smaller layout like Aston club or fern bay club, then put in many different cars, eg

3 UF1
2 XRT
2 FXO
2 FZ5
1 FXR
1 XRR
1 FZR

and then use a GTR class car yourself. If you are much too fast for them, use intake restriction up to 40%.

The reason for this is that after a few laps, the field gets very spread out and you begin to encounter cars to pass at almost every corner. It makes great practice because you get to use a lot of unusual lines as you drive around slower cars who are passing even slower cars.

The bad part is that a fast AI car will sometimes get 'stuck' behind a slower car and just ride the brake instead of trying to pass.

Quote from pine-fin :

Great race otherwise, video was not

You are right. And your criticism is inspiring me...

Maybe it would be good for me to come out from behind the couch and do a little editing. Maybe no heavy metal music but at least cut out some of the longer bits without action and replace with some bumper-cam and external TV cam shots.

Because after all a fine example of what LFS offers to a racer should get more effort than just ripping and splicing 22 clips of onboard video Besides, I have succeeded some test footage using the sped-up capture to get smooth video, which is needed for external shots.

I have already spent many hours on this simple project.. it's kind of scary, the more I do it, the more I want to add. It's addictive this video-making. :camera:


Thanks for the added comment, Smokey. Glad you don't mind being caught upside down for the camera

Quote from pine-fin :

Hah, what kind of a tactic is that first pass;

Force the guy infront of you to go wide by pushing him and then take the inside lane to pass him? lol is that how you race on ctra servers?

Video was boring, sound was so quiet I didnt even hear anything. You should have done some editing.

I am thinking the stress of the moment led to some unwilling contact.. at least that's what I choose to believe Actually I think those two know each other and race a hard style like that to make it interesting but that's just speculation. Maybe Evo or Smokey would care to comment?

It's worth noting that at the end of the replay, Evo apologizes for nudging Teedot as they approach the first chicane for the 'final' time but that's racing and I believe this clip shows some of the finest action you can get.


Honestly I'm not into rock'n'roll videos that have about 60 cutscenes in 20 seconds. I mean, I envy the vision, talent and dedication that people have to make videos like that (:headbang::rock_band) I just don't share the desire to watch them over and over.

:hidesbehi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhEJoCx4VQU


This replay was just too good to keep to myself. I didn't do any special editing aside from some level balancing, although I may substitute some external views into the video in the near future. However, this content needs no special editing as the action simply speaks for itself and had me on the edge of my chair urging Evo on

I used an on-board cam for the whole race, which I find gives good continuity.

Note the film ends abruptly near the end of lap 6 due to youtube content length limitations. for the curious, here is a synopsis of the final moments of Evo's race:

-krikey! not on the grass again.. phew! (end of youtube vid)

-darn these melted tires don't seem to keep the car straight

-thank god, the finish line, phew

...... :eek: WHAAAA??! there's still a lap???

haha! classic!


Hope you like it :hyper:


EDIT: after reading a tip by The Very End, here is a link to a higher-quality version on Stage6:
http://stage6.divx.com/user/Ca ... 8/Action-packed-CTRA-race

Last edited by CarlLefrancois, Thu, 11 Oct 2007 07:14.

Interesting post, if only because I wondered the same thing just a few days ago. I didn't think anyone would take me seriously if I suggested that physics could change per server, and I admit I like Becky's explanation the best.

On a server with no wind, and enough space on track to lap comfortably, I couldn't do my usual time at my "home" track that I practice on regularly offline. (in XFG so no weight restrictions or anything)

oh well, at least I'm not the only one who's mind is playing tricks on me

I vote 30 minutes.

since I got a bit more serious about being a pilot, I started practicing 30 minute races and I found the true joy of LFS is in being consistently close to my limit because then when I meet other good pilots on that layout we have excellent close battles.

true, it's quite long for public races, but I've lost count of the number of public races I was just getting comfortable in when the darn thing ended.

oh and btw thank you for your efforts in building something for the community +1 for GFC

my tip is race the layout in a slower car. in the uf1 you will be more aware of the slight camber and gradient changes around the circuit and believe it or not it's not much easier to get through the chicane without lifting. even one 10 lap race in uf1 should help you get lower times in a faster car.

along with racing the layout backwards to get a clearer picture of a corner's character, I find getting out of the car with SHIFT-U mode and looking at problem corners from different viewpoints (especially with a good replay going) will show you some truths about gradient effects that are hard to notice in-car.

this particular chicane is flat until just past the turn-in after which it is uphill (if memory serves) which means turn-in needs to happen very suddenly at the base of the hill so you can be on power up the hill.

People itching for new content have given up too easily.

Remember, Live for Speed offers you something truly outstanding in that little line of concrete boxes beside the start/finish. If you go off and study the mathematics of things like yaw moment, roll angle, spring frequency, then attempt to build your own setup based on that knowledge, you will see that LFS offers you a whole universe of racecraft ready to be explored.

In real life, the best pilots compete in trying to figure out how to get a tenth quicker, and in Live for Speed, so can you.

Quote from thestig99 :

The best I do is high 1:37's but it's usually in the 1:39 range... can you help me figure out where those 3-4 seconds are hiding? Any obvious consistant problems with my lines?

those 3 to 4 seconds are hiding, but not very far from you.

you are driving very aggressive. you want to take that corner faster than you ever have before. you want to be on the gas as much as you can, and brake as hard as is possible for that car. you want to steer just right and come as close to the curbs as possible. you want to drive the car the way you think is fastest.

reconsider, using these thoughts:

to get the best possible time, you have to eliminate your errors as much as possible.

once you are in 1:34s, you will be on the same line every lap.

how the weight of the car is located, and more importantly WHEN, is critical to the corner unfolding in front of you, instead of you fighting to find the corner.


to reach the times:

-drive slower
-focus on keeping the car absolutely on line, be willing to lose speed to keep on the right position
-do everything smoothly, no sudden braking rather ease on to brake, then hard brake at 100%
-minimize (best is 0) the time between the end of your braking and the start of throttle. at the limit, the end of your braking is doing a big job of turning the car in.
-get on the brakes a bit early, make sure you stay on the brakes late, right up to apex. it is better to fail to use 100% brakes than to let off the brakes before apex, because the all-important weight balance moves off the front tires and toward the rear as soon as you reduce brakes.
-be at 100% throttle BEFORE the apex. you have chosen a front wheel drive car, that means you want to pull the weight of the car around the bend to maximize your cornering speed. notice this also means you better enter the corner slower than you think, to make really sure you don't have to let go of the throttle to avoid the grass or steer too hard and screech your tires.

----------

where the seconds you want are relative to your youtube video:

bl1
T1 - hairpin / chicane combo
T2 - fast right hand at end of straight
T3 - uphill chicane
T4 - right hander before start/finish
T5 - uphill left hander before start/finish

start of lap:
T4 - not 100% throttle at apex, reduces speed into T5
T5 - not enough throttle. only a slight lift is enough to get the front of the car pointed at the apex. not 100% throttle at apex

total loss: 1.5 - 2.0 seconds. you lose speed all the way to hairpin

T1 - first actual turn of a lap, but affected by your previous T4 and T5. brake too early. time lapse between braking and throttle. not 100% throttle at apex.

total loss: 1 - 1.5 seconds. again loss of speed all the way down straight.

T2 - brake too early. not enough throttle to pull car through corner faster than it would normally go at tire limit

total loss: .25 - .5

T3 - missing first apex. this makes a pronounced S line that your car follows, giving you a fight to stick the car through the left hand turn. earlier turn-in and 100% throttle can pull the car in a straighter line up the hill between the apex, making less fight for the tires to turn and giving more for the car to power up the big hill. I have found using SHIFT-U and walking around, looking at this chicane from different places and different zoom levels helps see how it is built on a hill and where to aim your car.

total loss: .5 - 1.0


T4 - brake too early. not pulling car through apex enough

total loss: .2

T5 - the hardest corner. done properly, you exit from T4 on the bumpy dark green rumble strip in a big smooth right-hand arc. This means the weight of the car is steady and heavy on the left of the car. keep this arc until past the half-way point across the tarmac to the right verge. smooooooooth transition to straight steering then left steering, putting weight steady and heavy on to the right hand side of car. begin this steering left without letting off the gas. this is hard!! at this point you should be looking at the grass and thinking "oh sh1+ I'm going off". THEN lift but only just enough to make the front bite more so you avoid the grass. this makes the weight, already steady on the right side, move to the front right. at the same time, DING! back on throttle smooth but hard, this will pull the front of the car toward the apex, then on power through, just brushing the curb on the right hand. Make sure car is pointed along curb or just to the right before reaching this right hand curb. Like the previous chicane, you want to go as straight as possible up the hill, not some crazy S slalom with heavy screech.

total loss: .5 (because the start finish is coming soon. but time is again lost for next lap up until hairpin)

------------

so there it is, blackwood is unforgiving, but once you start driving smooth and feel the car shifting from left to right, only steer once per corner, brake once per corner and throttle once per corner, it will get easier.


enough will all the technical stuff

want to know what made me improve the fastest? pick some laps, say 15, then try to do a 15 lap race in under 24 minutes (or whatever is just a bit less than your actual time) drive with these prorities and I promise fast laps will seem much easier after the 4th race:

1) drive so fricking slow you are guaranteed to finish the race

2) do anything, sacrifice anything to stay on the line. slow down rather than stay on the gas and steer hard to get yourself out of trouble.

3) stay on the brakes until the apex. start earlier, it's ok! the 3rd race or so you will be on the brakes early and think "hey I know this corner, this is the same line I've been on 20 times. I know I can brake 10% for the first 20 feet then brake solid and I will not miss the apex".

4) any time you feel tight or stressed, breathe deep, turn down your force feedback, steer with your finger tips, decide consciously to go 4% slower for a whole lap, because you are so quick you can afford to be cautious.




this was longer than I thought. but I tried to keep it as short as possible. I hope it helps you get your 1:34 after watching your youtube vid, I know you can

I used the search function

some close racing at south city

Calling this a bug would be a strong statement, but it is a bit inconvenient and has happened to me more than once.

Sometimes I race offline with autogears, and when I join the CTRA server I get spectated as soon as I pit out with a message that autogears is not allowed. This is fine and good

However, when I take off autogears and try to rejoin, I get a message that I can't rejoin a second time until the race is over.

So yeah, don't complain and make sure to turn off autogears or you don't get to qualify and practice during the existing race. But this way I will only have 1 race to try for the lap record

haha. ok I suck.



edit: now at the start of the next race I was in the wrong car (GT2 instead of UF1), then I switched to UF1 in the pits and attempted to rejoin (after the little countdown timer on the rejoin button) but was promptly booted again with a "pit lane closed" message.

normally I wouldn't have mentioned it, cause that's SO minor, except that it counted for a "retirement" :frown: I am trying very very hard not to have any DNF and after 250+ races I had only 19 (still way more than I expected but I'll accept that) but having another retirement because the "pit lane is closed" is very frustrating.

If it's possible to smooth out these inconveniences, it would only make an already amazing system even more amazing. See? Ass kissing in progress :grin: CTRA rules! Long live CTRA!

Last edited by CarlLefrancois, Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:47.

Thanks for this excellent tool!

The mysteries of setting up a race suspension are clearing up a bit quicker thanks to all the info I can see in real time.

I wish I could offer some criticism but so far I haven't run into any bugs or problems, so my hat's off to you.

Quote from Becky Rose :

You've all forgotten what it was like before the STCC public servers first started, and LFS culture after an accident was to rejoin the track without looking, and barely anybody knew overlap regulations when overtaking. Most drivers now know these rules...

Just to back you up here and as a thank you for your hard work, I am one of those drivers who now know these rules

my best suggestion is to do one car / track combo exclusively for a few days. in my case I did xfg at fern bay green rev. slow enough to be easy to control, tortured enough to be worried about rolling

(which I did)

(several times)

but seriously, I made a goal time of 20 laps under 30 minutes (no wind) and by the 4th race I reached my goal time after wondering if I might not make it. if I go back now and try, I doubt I would manage it to be honest.

admittedly not as exciting as pack racing, I have to say that the payoff is well worth the investment, just to be able to fly around the track a little farther up the field

have you all seen those STCC videos available for download at http://www.simtouringcarcup.com/ ?

correct me if I'm wrong but those races are all held with high wind and even on treacherous bits like the south city classic chicane, no one seemed to be letting up much.

if our goal as CTRA drivers is to someday take part in races of that caliber, we need to be able to handle whatever gets thrown at us.

Quote from Austin31287 :

becz like aston nation t1 peopel somehow break and still doing 108 i drop down to like 94 if i do any higer i just slidee off =( somthing just pulls them back in i dont know how they do it

yeah, they are in the magic groove.

just at the right place, there is some more banking that keeps you from sliding. If you get 2 feet away from the apex, your outside tire will loose a few % of grip.

first of all, you are very quick for a new driver.

second of all, the fact you are frustrated because you want to go faster points out that Live for Speed isn't a game, its racing, and racing is damn tough. If it was easy none of us would be here we would all have "won" already if it was an arcade style thing.

If you want to be quicker, the fastest way is to drive a bit more slowly.

FOCUS on being at the right place, having your car be on the physical (haha) piece of pavement that is the best. If you are 20 inches from the grass before a corner, you will go 5% slower through than if you were 2 inches from the grass.

Trying to go fast right away is what many of us did ( / do) for years and it is very frustrating because you never end up ON the line. If you are carrying too much speed into the corner, you scrub your tires and fight with the steering wheel to get back into place.

If you go slow(er) and enter the corner at just the speed that your tires can handle, then you are on the gas faster and smoother and don't steer so much. That is where you will find your 108, trust me.

Welcome to LFS and see you on the track! ps CTRA is for getting quick fast.

Quote from JTbo :

I did decided to test annoying wing car that I never drive as I saw someone liking it a lot when driving one with motion simulator.

Can't really tell why, but it slides quite often if I touch loud pedal, it is like it would have minor acceleration and then insane slide acceleration, but hardly nothing between those two.

Also I found it incredible easy to catch in most situations (using 550 degrees with dfp).

Should it be like that or should set be adjust so that it does not do such things?

Hello, I watched your video and like Clownpaint said, that set looks horrible. The rear isn't properly accepting the weight and the front AR is too different from rear, making it a lot of work to get it back in line. I watched the video you made from competitor's product and the difference is that set is damped much more, is much more neutral balanced, and is on a track with less severe corners / less bumpy.

It is true what you say, WR sets are not the best for fun driving. But you may like the FO8 set for kyoto gp long rev that is on setupfield ( I attached it to post ) . If you try some laps at kyoto gp or maybe even national, you will have an experience much more like your competitor video.

But there is more too, you admit you don't drive FO8 much. From my experience I can see your lines are more like XR Turbo lines, where you approach corner aimed a bit wide and load weight onto the setup before corner. For FO8, start wide and turn in only gradually.

I think the sudden losses of grip you see are the result of your pre-corner weight setup that is coming back through the springs which are maybe under-damped in race_s (or at least not tuned enough)

Long story short, from a fan of the FO8, if you find the right set you will agree you can throw the car around and still feel comfy. I have a stable setup sent to me by senna that I will attach. I guarantee you will feel like the car is going where you want.

I also attached ky3r setup, which is super fast but when it decides to step out at the rear, you get really busy

This isn't a topic I would usually contribute to, I just don't see the graphics in LFS as they are more than adequate and my suspension of disbelief is complete.

My reason for posting is to pass on comments I have gotten from people who have seen LFS on my computer (pretty much all the visitors to my place get a demo ). They unanimously claim the graphics are really really good.

Sure, maybe they've never seen gran turizmo or even heard of any of these racing titles, but when they see out the cockpit of a vehicle in Live for Speed, they see what they would expect to see in real life.

I've never heard someone say "that looks grainy" or "why do the walls like like that" or "what's with those trees" etc etc etc, no, comments by absolute neophytes about LFS are along the lines of "wow, it looks real good, doesn't it?".

I used to be in the camp that wanted mods.

LFS Tweak and slickmod, ghostmod, etc are all very cool and build on one of the great strengths LFS has: its physics engine.

But LFS has an even greater strength and that is the community of racers that has grown over the last few years.

If it weren't for the restriction to only a "few" track layouts and vehicle characteristics, I wouldn't be able to have the kind of fantastic close racing I had yesterday on CTRA.

When I stop to think of it, LFS at heart is about intense online multiplayer racing, and for us to have that we need a large group of people who are all familiar with the same tracks and cars so that the real competition can be where it should be: driving and set making skills.

So I vote NAY!
Not because I don't like the idea of expansion and mods, but because I like the ideal LFS strives for even more.

Thanks again again to the devs for their vision, spirit and effort.

Quote from Goop :

*revised*
LFS
GPL
TOCA 2
Racing Destruction Set
GTL......... but only for the cars.

Ooooh Racing Destruction Set! I still have a floppy (300 K blocks) with a hundred tracks I made for that thing.

Thanks, that was a nice pick me up

:lovies3d:


What started with STCC has really grown and represents for me the effort being put in to making the best possible racing available.

My thanks to the team behind this great race environment, it's been the experience I needed to push myself towards the next level.

CTRA! Long live CTRA!

I know when I get my silver license I will have the feeling of really having earned something. And to think, we're just getting started!


See you on the track you fine racers you

when you're up for a change, try some of the slower cars. Depending on the circuit (south city classic reverse) even the mini can feel like it's going a little too fast when you push the limit

-1

the payback for all the effort wouldn't be worth it


having said that, if it did exist in LFS one day, I'd have a go at it for sure, but I would never expect to have a fun RACE there.