EA Sim Racing ( intended as a NR2003 rep from EA? ) was a mjor fail for me - the AI pissed me off..... alot - as well as a certain lack of customization in the garage as well in cosmetics.
In the end - I have still had the most enjoyable fun in LFS over all - however.
( PS. GT5 'Test' build was at the local rAge expo..... I was dissapointed - I will not be buying Gran Tourismo 5 final.... when it is released - due to the lack of realism in the garage/customization )
Gran Tourismo 2 will always be my fav in th GT series.... while LFS still seems far more interesting to me.
1: Your missing the point of LFS altogether. LFS isnt about content, it isnt about graphics..... its is a dedicated online sim racing design to bring you a great online and realistic racing experience - updates for physics and bug fixes take highest priority.
You can get a bigger version when u find my photobucket - or my facebook. =) Good luck.
There were a total of 14 cars modeled , only 4 models have been used ingame in the 2 year period so far and only 5 of them are 'official' ( because I have the power to mark any 3d content as Official or not )...
JustaSimFan.... ( and the rest that bitch about slow development )
Try to understand this: The following is the same kind of stuff ( but simpler ) to what scawen has to look at daily. Scawen is a great math expert in my eyes. Scawens tyre model - is likely about 10 times more complex i believe.
Slinger is trying to work out realistic Tyre fixes atm due to our cars spinning unpredictably and incorrectly at times over bumps - after stating that "even though RCX is based on 2 previous arcade games, he sees RCX as a simulator in terms of physics".... which is why:
Quoted by Slinger(mat) in the RollcageX Development Project:
Even though he is describing it - the "average sim racer" is unlikely to understand this.
Hell - not even I get half of his formulas... gets confusing very fast.
Try it . Its a great challenge - and challenging things such as this are always fun.
This is why Scawen is developing LFS in the first place . because - even though it is "work" - he enjoys programming.
Like any artist - development is 'artistic and creative'. Regardless of what you code, You are always 'creating' something, a part of something, or a friend of something that makes something else do something really coll, or creative.
Generally early programming can be easy to learn - until the time comes when u want to code something as big as this - then the 'one project' becomes your occupation for 4, 5, 9 or 20 years.....
RollcageX is potential to us. And like Scawen says " will be finished when it is done".
It is impossible for a developer to accurately predict how long it will take to update some code.
One bug fix can lead to many - you end up following a chain that leads into another chain , and then into another 2 or 3 chains of linked errors. Then you have some obscure thing floating off were you dont see it - that will eventually become a problem later.
That obscure thing turned out to be the physics in LFS. The Tyre Model failed to demonstrate acceptable realism when a real car was tested on it - and the ABS failed to behave like it should.
So Scawen starts fixing it... but in the process, Scawen finds a bug, or an issue - he follows it until he ends up with various areas in the code that needs to be updated.
In the end the code is updated and some testing is put in place - he finds it isnt "fast" enough for slower PC's....
.. so what happens?
.. Right back into various areas of the code again - to now optimize it .... while fixing other bugs "as he finds them".
Because of all this - Content updates are something that will get in the way of his productivity, and shouldnt be dealt with at this moment - because he has been working on so much code - that has to deal with the addition of a single car....
So Please..... just stop this already. LFS is doing fine as it is. If you can understand the amount of work this is - even for Eric too.
Just because you havent seen much from Eric doesnt mean he is doing nothing. Keep in mind that Rockingham suddenly appeared out of nowhere - and it was already 'mostly' complete.
^ That is proof that - Eric could very be working on something - and just like Scawen , prefers to stay quiet until he has something worth while to show. Most likely.
It makes me sick when idiots run around calling the developers 'lazy'... and say that 'lfs' lacks content - when the fail to keep in mind that - with 3Developers in LFS , versus 10 , or 20 developers in another sim or game... is a major difference , and therefor CANNOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BE COMPARED IN TERMS OF DEVELOPMENT SPEED UNLESS DEVELOPMENT ACTUALLY ****ING STOPS ALTOGETHER.
Got it?
...
And yes - I am relaxed at the moment. I have too much work on my hand.
@MadCat: U can never know until something like that is tested =)
WTF - THAT is impossible.
Wrong - that is easier said than done.
Get Car - Start Editing....
After you optimize and update mesh:
1: Error Correction, Rats Nests should be checked - HDRI support if required should be checked.
2: Because the mesh was edited all UVW texture cordinates for all channels except reflections will be invalidated...
.. you now have to remap all UVW coordinates to the precise detail and fitting that it was before - or even redo it completely.
3: Any burn-In Radiosity ( or BSP ) texture layers have to be done
4: Testing - and repeat steps 2 - 3 until correct....
Time - 2 -8 hours for the UVW fixing by itself - nevermind the mesh editing and optimization - a High Poly car will take a quite a while.
Opinion: Its always better to model a car from scratch - you know you own mesh better than anyone else. Especially since you don't have to deal with Import complications from other non-native formats.
And no - you cannot use NURBS in this case..... in case anyone starts thinking about it.
5: Now you have to deal with IK linkages for Suspension parts....
... etc ....
What MadCatX said is right - Reducing a high poly model is not a trivial task.
Utra high detail imports will take - well - ages - if you don't want to **** it up.
Just so you know - Correct UVW unwrapping for texturing, as well as multi channel texturing ( for shaders too ), will sometime take longer than actual modeling itself.
I spend alot of time testing individual ( and generically un-announced ) car models for RCX ----
This is how I test weather there are too many polygons on my models: ( we want at least 20 cars on track - maybe 50, about 100K vertext maximum per car, and a 200K maximum environment before it gets segmented )
The car in the middle is drivable, the rest were swapped with Physics Test Geoms for dropping and testing framerate in out WIP racing engine.
I pushed up to 50 cars, But alot of engien work itself is needed to enhance rendering performance before we code in textures....
This car's mesh is considered mostly complete. The part I hate - is described above - because ill have to go through it later on.
On another note: Try to guess how my original RCX Car #8 counts - how many polygons do you thing are in it? ( Excluding wheels ) You will be pretty surprised.
The problem with adding rain - is the difficulty of cars handling like real cars in wet weather.
Something that cannot be thought of until the tyre model is finished - but when wet weather developments - someday begin, it might mean the tyre model could have more flaws found in it.
Be careful what you wish for unless you are prepared for the wait.
That is a gray-area that a developer takes if he is willing to risk it. Some people will notice things even the devlopers never see - and puts projects at risk.
RFactor uses fictional ccar names by fictional developers....
Lets say that - since my altar ego is Morugan Kodi..... I could turn to Rfactor and say "- Hey - Your Manaufactur for some cars is Kodi - I was born before your game - you owe me money bitch" - so not only do they have fictional manufactures... but the car designs are very very loosely based on the real cars in design to avoid issues.
We had a issue in RCX when relating to RC1 and RC2 - with names such as Vostok, Team Unity, Matrox.......
.... We are entitled to use these names freely so im going to stop talking aout it - It will defeat my own point.
Our cars are inspired by RC1 and RC2 - but are intended to be more realistic - but because of the team names - if we were commercial we would be in the shit if we hadn't asked Sony Liverpool - email ( Formerly Psygnosis ).
Sony Liverpool have already cleared up names... they are awesome.
Toshiba Satellite P300 - which I owned - gamed, and developed on for 2 years: Came with a ATI 4700HD card - which was powerful enough to run Far Cry 2, Crisis at almost max settings -
I bought it in the USA - $400 discount from fresh model because of (My Geneva ########) - a special card you carry around and they almost worship you.....
Toshiba put pretty powerful and complete GPU solutions in their boards. And the on-board laptop speakers have very nice sound for their size.
The only problem I could ever find with a Toshiba is the ATI driver must be downloaded from Toshiba, instead of ati.com..... however - since most ATI drivers use the same DLL set - editing the driver inf files in catalyst was a easy workaround to this....
the 4700HD is the mobile version of the PCI-Express 4500HD , only differs in GPU memory for the most part. And it is powerful enough for most games.
So - what you are saying - is once again, is all assumption , with very little fact or proper research before you open your mouth.
At the time this sleek black 64bit Toshiba was priced at USA $1400 at Circuit City..... they charged me $1000 brand new and allowed me to deal with OEM instal myself to rid of the extra crap OEM installs tend to have.
17 inches of a laptop I totally enjoyed working on... was one of the most enjoyable laptops I ever worked on.
I dismantled it 3 times for cleaning and servicing - it is easy to upgrade too. P300 had 2 ide hard drives and could take ddr2 ram on 2 channels.
And - no - most Turbo Squid car models - are not shown in real time renders.
Lol - a week? Impossible if you want that level of detail.... AND make it work in game...
$40,000 a year? The US-Army pays you more than that - even as a E0 to E4 ranks it is possible....
Hell u can get a sign up bonus of 20K to 40k anyhow... just ask your local recruiting office.... No need to talk bullshit about an industry that is far more complicated than you think.
1: Base model
2: test
3: model it more
4: test and compare to concepts or base, fix rat nests in mesh, remove excess detailing
5: model until 'mesh' is finished
6: LOD implementations - or LOD detailing in mesh - optimizations
7: UVW unwrapping, textureing
8: creating textures when tested unwraps are right
9: additional textures for Shine,Ref, Normals Mapping, etc......
10: IK a and suspension animation linking ( 3D Modeller's Job )
--- suspension animated mesh works correctly? Mesh breaks?
--- animated doors?
--- non-hinged animation bits?
11: constant in game model tests - and game editing tools testing of 3d models
This takes more than "a week"....
If the models is for a Licensed Ferrari - you will likely have to go back - weeks or even months later - to adjust the mesh and textures for anything that doesn't match the real car - especial when they enforce that as part of an agreement.
You definitely don't know what u are talking about.
Only the larger game development companies have Hollywood Budgets, some even get sponsorships.
90% of all game developers & designers have average , or less than average income after costs.
Licensing labels and permissions often are not "royaltie free" - EG: Toyota could allow their cars into GT5 - but would require Sony to pay them for using the label, and car labels. If the devs dont have a licensing agreement - people get sued.
You have answered in a way that gives me an excuse to troll you...
DirectX does not render on your Processor - sorry ....
There is no Software Rasterizer for LFS - what you just said ... is bullshit.
If you unplug your graphics card - the PC will fall back to Onboard Graphics.
A pc without either a Onboard GPU or a GFX card - WILL NOT run LFS - because LFS does not have a emulated software rasterizer.
I ran LFS for 1.5 years on a 1.6 ghz Celeron - All Gpraphics run on a GFX card - especially if LFS makes good use of VBO memory to store mesh and some other data on a graphics card.
The reason it ran fast - was because I had a decent 256MB Radeon. GFX cards make the difference on ALL OPENGL and DIRECTX GAMES...
Ill say this one more time:
ONLY GAMES WITH SOFTWARE RASTERIZER SUPPORT/BUILT IN WILL RUN WITHOUT A GPU.
Modern Graphics cards even have Physics processing built in to tack that strain off of the CPU - LFS uses DirectX 8 - there is no ways in hell LFS will run without a GPU at all.
Even if Scawen decides to upgrade the API to DX9 ( not higher, as the highest available for XP is 9c ) - everyone here will still be able to play it - as he can still also 'leave' the DX8 api functionality in game for the 'rare fallback'.
...
Go study a modern set of computer books - I suggest the latest "For Dummies" series in your case. Then - go learn some software programming in C/C++ and .Net - and then study Game Development - while reading GPU and PCI-E Pipeline stuff in the nvidius web pages....
Computers For Dummies,
Learn C++ - for dummies
Database Programming - For Dummies
Game Development for dummies, DirectX for Dummies, OpenGL for Dummies, Game Physics, AI, API's, 3D Modelling etc.....