I really wouldnt know about that, but since Dygear said that Windows was skittish on Java, and not the other way around, I figured it was Microsofts fault.

I stand corrected

Quote from Dygear :

(You knew someone one going to ask this)
Could you make this in C, C++?
Windows XP x64 is very skittish on Java.

Then the guys from microsoft shoulg get their act toghether and make sure my program runs on that platform.
I dont think I am using any fancy stuff, so if my program doesnt work, then I dont think any program except form the Hello, world! will work.

Quote from SchneeFee :

i am rather thinking about making videos, than creating permanent trackside cams. Whats the reason for this restriction?

It happens quite often that you see all sorts of graphical glitches if you are outside the track bouds (or go higher then 2.6m).

Quote from Hyperactive :

I am still waiting for the nude spectator mod for LFS

And that mod doesn not mean a moderator

How nude can 30 pixels be?

Quote from tristancliffe :

Yes Pablo, thats about right. So I can, say, start off REALLY high, and the camera zooms into the track, and into the garage. If this movement could be repeatable (like a macro) then it could make movie makers lives a lot easier. Espcially if the default zoom/height limits are relaxed.

And you don't need to call me tristancliffe - Tristan will do

That is actually a pretty good idea. I just added it to the planned-features list Dont count on it to be a feature in the first versions though

Quote from SchneeFee :

will it be possible to place a camera outside the trackarea? I always wanted to see this in LFS. It makes really cool atmospehere when u see a full Grid starting from the audienve POV or from behind a fence.

(Check out CCM (Camera Control Master) for GPL to see what i mean.)

Yes it will. However, there is a reason that you normally cant get in those areas, so these cameras should be placed wisely.

The last race saw a lot of new teams, and some of them were planning to race in the upcoming events. Because I have not kept track of all the plans and intentions (and because plans can change) I ask all the teams to post here if they want to race in the next 6h race. Also because some teams have the capability to enter a secondary team (since the race is short, 3 drivers per team should be enough) it is important to know this well ahead of the event.

If a huge number of teams want to race, we might increase the limit of 15 teams.

Current starting list
tHUNder Racing
ITEK Racing
teamnic
MasterBlasters eV
Estonian Endurance Racers
Shock.fx
Pedal to the Metal
HFD
Cyber Racing
Ocrana 1
Ocrana 2
POD
n!faculty 1
n!faculty 2
NB: the order of the list above doesnt give you any rights whatsoever

Last edited by Frankmd, Sun 26 Feb 2006, 15:32.

I guess it would be easier to just simulate a force, rather then creating some code that allowes you to artificially move the cockpit, while it actually isnt moving etc.. If you are able to simulate 4 tyres and downforce, it shouldnt be too hard to apply a moment somewhere on the car that is proportional to the rotational speed of the engine.

For the people that have insim experience...

Quote from InSim.txt :

State flags controlling this packet
-----------------------------------
The relevant Flags that can be set are :

#define ISS_SHIFTU 8 // in SHIFT+U mode
#define ISS_SHIFTU_HIGH 16 // HIGH view
#define ISS_SHIFTU_FOLLOW 32 // following car
#define ISS_VIEW_OVERRIDE 8192 // override user view

Does this mean that changing the other flags does not influence the state of the game?

Quote from tristancliffe :

A suggestion. Would it be possible to have the cameras to be moved, zoomed, rotated in real time, BUT also export the motion to a file. That way we can share camera postions AND movements, and also make the camera move automatically.

This means for someone like me (a noob) who wants to record a particular camera movement with LFS in full-screen and no second monitor would be able to create the camera movement and then have it play automatically with the camera control software in the background.

Just a though, and poorly explained I guess.

At the moment you have 2 sorts of cameras:

-moving : these cameras will automatically zoom, rotate and pitch according to the position of the car you are looking at relative to the camera.
-non moving : these cameras will just look in a certain direction and not move in any way.

Actually the name 'moving' is wrong, because neither of the cameras are actually translating. Translating cameras will be investigated tho (Im 90% sure it will work).

The camera positions are stored in an external file, so you can make these files available for download.

EDIT:
I think I see now what point you are missing The program cotrols the camera, but the userinput is the player to look at. You will see a list of buttons, all representing a player, you press one button, and the program will follow the car around the track.

Last edited by Frankmd, Mon 20 Feb 2006, 12:45.

Quote from Messiah :

You can rotate, pitch and roll your cockpit and custom view camera (Frankmd: Set the 'view override' flag in CamPosPacket IS_CPP for making the "roll" value work.). You can go beyond the limited like 5m height in Shift+U mode but you cannot "roll" (/tilt) the camera and no other camera can be rolled atm. You cannot change the FOV to below 12° or abover 120°.

Indeed, the only way to have one (really only one) camera like "mounted" is to use the custom view. The custom view settings cannot be changed via InSim though.

I havent done any tests with this yet, but I dont really understand. First you say that you can set the Roll value using a CPP packet, and then you say you cannot control the Custom view camera with InSim...?
Oh, and the FOV can be put lower then 12 and higher then 120. Everything between 0 and 180 degrees will work, except 0 and 180 themself. I think that the values serve a reason however, because some graphical glitches will occur between 0 and 12, and 120 and 180. So for a moving cam I dont think going lower then 12 is smart, but for a static cam you can easily use 2, as long as you place the camera on a 'smart' place.

Quote from Messiah :

For the cameras.. it will be tricky to get the cars onto screen while in Shift+U and taking turns, won't it? I don't know if you can calculate the correct heading value constantly just by knowing "I am in front of the car" and the car positions/heading from IS_MCI packets. But nice Shift+U cameras were always awesome in videos IIRC

At the moment the program predicts where the car will be in X milliseconds, since the camera will take some time to move fluently to that position. At the moment it only uses the heading, velocity and the current xyz values, but I think that some improvement can be found in the Angular Velocity field, and also taking the first and second derivatives of the xyz values can maybe help too.


As for the 'interesting-moment-prediction':
I think it is impossible to have a really good realtime predictor. I think you can make something that works well but not really good. However if you would store all the MCI packets in a separate file (with some sort of timestamp) while watching a replay the first time, the program is able to look into the future the second time you watch the replay. For replays a lot of people are going to watch, one person could take the noble task of running the replay the first time, and then send the 'prediction-log'-file to the other people who want to watch the replay.

Currently it works with one file called cameras.txt which houses all the cameras (so it's not hardcoded into the program). I will most likely change that to a system where you have a file for each track (or each area of tracks), so you can manage the camera settings yourself.

What is noobTV?
noobTV is a tool that allows you to control the camera in LFS from outside the game. It also adds the possibility to use and define custom camera positions, which will have more features than the standard camera's in LFS. It is written in Java, so you will need the Jave runtimes you also need to display some content on websites. The program will look like a generic Windows program, with some buttons (at least one for each player) and a few lines that display the current status of LFS and the tool.
The main reason for this tool is that I think the regular LFS camera's don't show a good overview of the cars on track. Also the number of camera's is in my opinion too high, meaning that the camera is constantly switching, especially on tracks like South City.

How can I use it?
The program is intented to be connected to a local LFS game, with LFS in windowed mode or with LFS fullscreen and the tool on a secondary display (secondary monitor, like a tv). It should also be possible to run the tool on a different pc (such as a laptop) as long as that pc is connected to the LFS pc via LAN (since the network load might be heavy and loss of packets will make the image less fluently).

When will I be able to download it?
Look further in this thread

I dont understand what it does
Because images say more then a thousand words, here is a little video clip for you. I told the tool to focus the camera on the yellow/white car (someone from the Z30 team) while it is driving around Blackwood. All the camera movement/placement is controlled by the program, I didnt pause LFS to move the camera or something You see that the camera positions are different from the ones originally in LFS.
Click here to download the movie.

What are the current features?
Check out the readme

I will use this thread to keep you informed on the tool untill I release it (then I will post some thread in the LFS Add Ons subforum).

Latest version
v0.8

Last edited by Frankmd, Mon 4 Dec 2006, 18:48.

I should add that the original tool was made by Smith (who also made the stats tool), and not by me

Quoting something in German never makes a message more trustworthy.

Cant you just post these threads here:

http://www.lfsforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=22

Thats what that subforum is made for. This is really the wrong place, especially if you keep posting it every day.

Quote from GP4Flo :

It's really frightening, that there are so many people in the RSC forum talking about things they don't seem to understand. If you don't know what you are talking about, let it be or take a look at a physics book first. Gravity on earth is just g = 9,81 m/s². To calculate the gravity for a car you take it's weight and multiply it with g to get the downwards force. Nothing complicated, just simple math: F = m * g.

I can't really understand how you can program gravity wrong.

Weight = downward force
You take the mass and multiply it with g to get the downward force.

I dont think the gravity model of rFactor is wrong. I think the mass, or massdistribution of the rFactor cars is wrong. I recall reading something about massdistribution for the porsche cars in rF. They were not realistic, but did provide a realistic Porsche-handling. The discussion was wether this trick was a bad or a good thing.

But it could also be just a bug when a car is at some special spot. Maybe the gravity is correctly modelled when the car is on track.

I think an Insim server (the game you are communicating with) can only take 1 connection, so trying to make 2 connections will result in that error.

Quote from Racer Y :

A couple A years ago this Italian guy was stationed in Iraq and posted a photo of himself and some Iraqi kids with a sign that said," I love LFS".
At least I think he was from Italy.

That was one of those 'fill in your own text and get a picture' scripts. It would let you type any text and it was placed on top of the sign. I believe the original sign said something not very nice...

Wow, that looks hot Thank you Tweak

All the other teams will just go with the flow? Please post if you still have a date you prefere.

We already DCCed about 170mb of replays. I didnt have much of the last bit however, so someone should still send that over (I think, but not sure).

If you pm me your email (preferably an adress that can take large files), or even better the logindata for an ftp, I could zip all the parts I have and send them over. I should have the start and the finish at least, and some parts in between.

Results are now official. Standings will be updated soon.