Quote from EeekiE :

No-one does, if they did they wouldn't have even bothered with LFS, but that doesn't mean people should be pounced on for asking for a real track.

Who's getting pounced on? People are just expressing their thoughts and opinions about it. If that happens to be different from other people's opinion, then so be it. It has nothing to do with pouncing though. I just don't like to see my words twisted.

Quote from George Kuyumji :

Lets not kid ourselfs, we would all immediately download a LFS representation of a real Track as soon as it would be available.

Yes, me too. But we would all immediately download a new fictional track as soon as it was available as well. So no big difference there.

Quote :

Following some LFS Fans logic, we should ask for the Raceabout and the BMW F1 car to be taken out of the Sim, because we dont want representation of real life things.

...please actually try to understand what is said. Neither me or anyone is saying that there should be no real life things in LFS, let alone be taken out. Some people just don't see real life based content as a necessity. Your twisting a statement completely to the other extreme, not following some members' logic. Or can you point me to a post in this thread of someone saying real life cars to be taken out?

Would I like the ring or any other RL track in LFS? Sure, the more content, the better. Do I feel LFS is incomplete without them? No.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Correct, there was S4 planned, to be released quarterly.

Boy, weren't they an optimistic bunch

Quote :

Why would it fragment the userbase? As long as a)everyone pays the same and b) there aren't too many updates to get confused with (e.g. 50% of people have rain, 50% of people have day/night, but only 20% have both) then I can't see a problem. Obviously chucking out every new feature as a pay-to-play patch will cause problems, but waiting 4 years for S3 would be as annoying...

I guess most people would upgrade instantly/soon with every new update so the problems would be temporary I guess.
As far as waiting for S3, I guess those same features would be delivered in "sub-stages" as well in the form of incompatible patches so the waiting would be just as long in the original plans I think.

Quote :

Who knows how they will do it - I bet they've thought about it and have a plan. Maybe they'll just have car/track packs for sale, and leave the physics as free patches, so we all get rain, but only those that want it get 'The Rally Pack' or 'The Supercar Pack' or 'Track Pack 3'.

I think that would be a good idea, seeing as the difference over time between S1 and S2 is basically only in the content as well.
Anyway, it's not that I don't have faith in how they'll do it. Ultimately all is fine to me, I'm not going anywhere

Quote from tristancliffe :

I think it was Vykos, in another thread, that mentioned (and reminded me) that Scawen was considering alternative ways of 'finishing' LFS, doing away with the Stage format, because of the time it took to get to S2. (Remember, LFS was originally pencilled to be finished (S1, S2, S3) over a period of a year, which went out of the window in the first few months).

Wasn't there an S4 planned originally as well? If only for a short time? I think I remember reading that somewhere once, but I could be wrong. I hope they'll stick to the original plan though, wouldn't the alternative way cause a fragmentation of the userbase?

Quote from George Kuyumji :

It doesnt "need" it, but it should of course have one. Any serious Simulator should have a real Track.

I don't understand that. First you say LFS doesn't need a RL track, and then you say that it should of course have one to be a serious simulator. It's quite contradictory if you ask me.
I wouldn't mind a RL in LFS, but the reason as to why it is a "necessity" to some really escapes me.

Quote from d6nn :

if using those textures, will they decrease performance of lfs/pc like lowering fps...

I use quite a lot of custom high res textures and the loss in fps is negligible although it will depend on how much ram your graphics card has.

my own custom startpage which provides links to latest headlines and stuff like that.
soon after that lfsforum.net

Excellent, those look really lovely The FZ interior is stunning. Can't wait to get my hands on them

Quote from neglouseight :

Couple questions. What are you guys using to open the 3D files from LFS? And what are you using to render? I'd like to render my F1 team paint scheme I made. But using Bootcamp I don't have any 3D software on the PC side. Nothing on the Mac side to open the models. Thanks.

3D Studio Max and a rendering plugin like Brazil or vRay are the most used.
They aren't the actual models used by the game itself, but the CMX files made specifically for the CMX Viewer. See the additional downloads section on liveforspeed.net if you don't have that already.

http://en.lfsmanual.net/wiki/3D_Render_Tutorial

Quote from Indiana Jim :

Perhaps you are a little confused here. Windows is an operating system, not a game.

Hence why I used the term "software"... I know how to differentiate a game from an OS thank you.
An operating system and a game both fall into the category software wouldn't you agree?

Quote :

In fact, any PC manufacturer that calls his computer an "MSDOS-PC" and uses Windows as an operating system must pay initial royalties to Microsoft. Those royalties are included in the license that MS issues with Windows.

Hmm, yeah. What does that have to do with anything I said. I know how MS licenses work trust me.
How often do you see the term "MSDOS-PC" being used these days anyway? I never see it.
Mostly they're just called a "PC" or a "Designed for Windows XP/Vista PC", and occasionally still "IBM-compatible PC", as IBM created the original version of what we refer to as PC's these days.

Quote :

But I presume that you are not aware of the law that the EU passed last year. In essense, the new law on software says that any software sold in Europe has to be sold as "open source". In other words, the software developers have a legal obligation to surrender the source code to the buyer. LFS included. In that sense, yes, you own the software.

Your interpretation of that law is incorrect or incomplete at best.
And besides, being able to see the source code of a piece of software does not make you the owner of the software. Even if for instance the Windows source code was opened up completely, wouldn't mean you would be allowed to alter it and distribute your own version. You do not have the same legal rights the owner has.

Quote :

That was debated in an EU court against Microsoft, for which MS developed the new operating system, Vista.

So let me get this straight, MS developed Vista FOR the EU?

Quote :

I have all the versions of Flight Simulator clear to FS2004 and I have been able to play them all online without having to pay any extra money.

Good for you. I am however pointing out that not all games (if any) have a 100% official guarantee for it. I know that's a stretch and a bit anal but so is the scenario of all three LFS devs vanishing from the earth so to speak or LFS getting in trouble with the EU.
Just because you are able to point out a game that you're able to use years after purchase doesn't mean it's like that with all games. You certainly don't have any legally binding guarantee by the creators.

If the LFS devs would have to go out of business they could make sure people are able to keep on using it. For instance by releasing a patch which would permanently unlock all copies. And they could give out details to the community how they could set up their own masterserver. After all, the servers which LFS are played on are independent of the developers.

Last edited by joen, Sun 25 Mar 2007, 21:01. Reason : spelling

1. skins in skins_x could be private
2. you're probably missing the default helmet skin or you renamed it.
3. please try to write at least remotely proper english

http://www.lfs-gear.com/TUTORIALS/TuT_NameSkin.html
http://www.lfs-gear.com/TUTORIALS/TuT_UseSkin.html

options->game->F1 to F8
and
options->controls->CTR+ and ALT+

Quote from Anathema :

RAC Raceabout Skinpack
Comments welcome.

Wow, nice job mate! Those are awesome Especially the orange and red versions, really nice

Last edited by joen, Mon 26 Mar 2007, 14:52. Reason : spelling

Quote from funnybone2 :

yea sure why not? just join the forum and say so and there you go

I think that's going to be a problem:

Gooran
No longer welcome

Quote from wheel4hummer :

What about the LAME encoder?

LAME doesn't offer binaries, only the source code. Not by the developers at least. I believe that makes the difference.
Once you build an app using the MP3 format I believe licenses come into the picture. Not a big expert on the matter though.

about using mp3, afaik using an mp3 decoder in the game would result in the devs having to pay license fees to the patent holders of the format.
ogg is open source and not subjected to license fees.

And how is someone else going to encode an (I assume) huge uncompressed video on your PC?
And couldn't you have made a less idiotic topic title?

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Yeah, like a bump map, but with light instead of height. I use Brazil and there's a slot for Luminescence on the main panel for the material. If you use a normal 3DMax material, theres a slot for 'Self Illumination' in the Maps tab, which is pretty much the same thing, so VRay may use that name.

Ah ok, I remember the self illumination now. I'll check it out later. Thanks

Quote from Crashgate3 :

They're basically just a texture that glows. Any parts that are black won't glow at all, and any parts that are other colours will glow with a strength depending on the brightness of the colour. The way I made mine was to just use the interior2.dds texture and make another one where I'd painted over everything in black except for the glowing parts of the intrument panel.

Thanks. So just like a bump map basically? But do you put the texture in one of the materials' slots? Like you do with a bump map? I can't remember if there is something like a luminescence slot, and I can't check it right now. Are you using Brazil? I'm using vRay so maybe it's different there.

That's funny, I've been working on adding instruments in the interior as well, but for the raceabout

Looks nice, could you tell me a bit more about how to use a luminescence map? I like the way the instrument panel reflects in the window glass.

Good job

If you want to find out which codec an .avi has been encoded with, you can use this handy little program: http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

Quote from lizardfolk :

Why not the CoT? The CoT looks so cool: http://www.wcoy.com/car-of-tomorrow.jpg

Matter of taste I guess. I think it's hideous.

that reminds me, if you really want to convert the files use www.irfanview.com
It's a lovely freeware image viewer and it does a great job at batch converting. You'll have to download the plugins pack for dds support, it's available on the same page.

@Crashgate3: afaik the dds plugin for photoshop works with psp too.

searching is good:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=19691

I'm sure it would be possible to create an option for the user to either use dynamic environment mapping or fake reflections so people with slow systems would not be harmed by it.