No no no no!!
I don't care for being able to add my own hills and dips and stuff. That would almost be like asking for the track editor Eric uses to be released. I just want a rectangle arena filled with sand that forms hills and dips already and on which I can place autox objects to make my layouts.
Believe me, if we place the objects on hills like that we don't need to be able to make our own hills for our layouts to be original and different from one another.

So I was making a AutoX layout the other day and then it struck me.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to put those objects on a big area of dirt/sand/soil instead of tarmac? I'm thinking basically of a square place, about the size of the autocross arena (AU1) and filled with sand, and of course not flat but full of dunes/bumps.

So what do you think about that?

Quote from ORION :

Thus you must write sth like "complex trees - no, not in mirror, yes", or like Scawen (Disable trees).

Or you could have a simple "mirror" setting which on full level shows everything, on high level shows a bit less, medium a bit less again, low the minimum for the mirrors to be useful (track with no scenery and, say 1 or 2 cars behind) and a lowest setting of off which simply turns off the mirrors.

I was looking at my car in the AutoX AU1 after I finished and I think I found what I don't like with the cars and could make them look much better.
Goes like this:
- using higher res textures for the headlights and taillights
- using cube environement mapping instead of sphere env. mapping
- (and of course) using a higher resolution environement map

With currently 25mb of textures loaded in the memory of the gfx card that has 256mb available total, it leaves plenty of room to add such things. I believe even adding high res textures for those parts of the car and for the env map could stay under 32mb for those who have old gfx cards.

I will also agree with the above suggestions ^

Ok I'll remove that comment. I prefer the discussion to continue in a civilized manner.

I'll just say that I fully agree with what is said in the review, including the score.

The post I made just after the one you quoted might be more interesting to quote for the discussion tho.

Ok let's wait then. But I'll save that post of yours and quote you on it when you say "I'm waiting for S3" when your high expectations for S2 are not met in S2 final.

That said, I'll stand corrected if the devs prove me wrong and do actually improve both physics, sounds AND graphics before S2 final, which I doubt they will somehow, unless S2 final is in another year's time.

Quote from RichardTowler :

we are talking about a 7 which is where at this stage I feel LFS should be.

And considering LFS in its S2 final stage would be in version 0.6, I would like to point out that giving it a 7/10 score (being 70%, 0.7) would be like saying LFS is outdoing itself.
However, for that LFS would need some graphics updates, namely the cockpits of the racecars, textured tire sidewalls and wheels, bolts and misc stuff like that, then sounds and fixes in the physics where applies (in no particular order, as long as they all are before S2 final).

Quote from axus :

I'm not sure, but I think it means that we are really cool and we are more right than Richard Towler.

Actually I believe it means you are the 3 slowest people to understand that by "feel of the sim" Richard doesn't mean "feel of the ffb through the wheel" but rater "feel of immersion the whole game that is lacking because it doesn't feature good enough sounds and has computerized starts and doesn't allow for a full race package with practice-qual-race"

You see that kind of thing. "Maybe your controller settings are wrong" will not change anything in the fact there is a lack of immersion feel. When you're in the racecars in LFS, you don't feel like you're in a racecar. That's the "feel" in question. Richard is not talking about the feel through his steering wheel.

Last edited by Nick_ll, Mon 5 Dec 2005, 22:51.

Actually I'm not really surprised you get an increase in fps. Let's just ask this question: Your process goes as follows, right?
- open dds in photoshop
- resize image
- save dds in photoshop

If so I bet you checked the box "generate mipmaps". IIRC there are no mipmaps in the original dds files of LFS. So if that creates an fps increase and looks better when near, it's all good.

Regarding Eric's silence: does he have any internet connection at all on the computer he's using to develope? I know doing 3D as a hobby that myself if I did it on a professional basis I wouldn't have any connection to the world on the working machine to help efficiency. If I can't connect I'll keep working. That would also explain his number of 0 posts.....

Quote from deggis :

I use these wheel textures.. adds at least a tiny little bit for the immersion. :| Found these from Masters Skinnerz forum.

Errr....I think he was talking of the wheels the cars use to move on. Those that have the tires around them.

Wait a couple mins, just the time for that render to finish......

Edit: here. That's a model for ingame use of course with a budget of something like 9000 polys for the car so there are some rough edges that could be fixed with some smoothing if the thing was just for render purposes, but anyways. Gives a pretty good idea of what the bumper looks like.

Last edited by Nick_ll, Fri 2 Dec 2005, 08:03. Reason : render done

Quote from XCNuse :

lol sorry B11TME, eventually i will continue work

(hehe roadhog is mad at me for starting yet another model :razz

please find mistakes! i know they are there, the shape of the M3 GTR is so unusual i cant figure out whats wrong with the front skirt, i know something IS wrong.. just dont know what it is

Basically I'd say your model is too flat. The front looks too flat, the sides look too flat also. Your bulge on the hood steps out too much.
Also note that the front lip is a splitter and in the center goes towards the underside of the car (it's not straight in the middle).
I'll have to agree tho: that bumper isn't really easy to model.

Yeah locking slots sounds like a good idea to me. That way admins can join whenever they want/need without having to kick anyone else.

Don't get too drunk Scawen, you need to be able to code tomorrow :birthday:

WTCC generally are 4 doors cars and they use some aero. So the slick mod by my standards of accuracy doesn't come close.

Glad we agree there
That's exactly what I think. Once it's done it'll be the best of both worlds, but in the meantime I'll complain

Back to topic (sorry for changing subject), I'll agree that it would be nice to have variable speed dampers. I guess that would make quite a difference in how LFS feels.

I MEAN HOW GOOD THE SOUNDS SOUND OVERALL WITHOUT CARING ABOUT FEEDBACK.
If you want to showcase your product, you will need good sounds. Supporting more languages is good, but now those new potential customers might not like what they see at first and I believe first impression is very important. To get a good idea of physics, you will need to play LFS for more than an hour, but that time is well enough to realise the sounds sound bad. Yes the ENGINE SOUND tells you what the ENGINE is doing, but how about having feedback on what OTHER things do too? Oh and better sounds will give a more immersive feel.

This is more one of the few things (like sounds) where LFS lacks on everyone else.

Quote from Rotary :

I reckon the passengers should makes sounds too...

Roll it, you hear them scream.. LOL..

Tweak, I have 20 pounds of cotton buds for sale... that will only cost you $300.00 US. Might help your ear problem

Oh I like the sound of that idea. We have room for 4 passengers right? Have the front passenger be really into it, look at apex and even maybe immitate the engine. Then let's have the center rear passenger be always very scared and either scream or do like girlish sounds (depending on the g-force). Then we could have the left and right rear passengers being fearless and bored and argue on your technique while telling the center passenger to shut up when he screams too loud and they can't hear each other anymore.
Dammit that would make some interesting races. I'll volunteer to make some voices of one of the annoying rear passengers.
- brrrmmmm
- esshh that was close
- ya maybe a bit too close, try hitting the curb less next time
- use as much of the track as possible too
- AAAHHHHHHRRRGGGGG
- shut up
- brrmm
- that one was nice
- hahaha missed a shift
- need to clutch later
- eek
- wow nice slide
- catched it back well too

Edit: on topic now: As I've comented many many many times, the actual engine sound at the moment doesn't sound so bad. In fact it's pretty good, maybe just needs a little more raspiness in some cases. Some cars like the lx4 and lx6 sound very good IMO tho. The problem ATM is the LACK OF SOUNDS. See there's like only the engine and wind whereas there should be many others. I certainly hope sounds improvements are very far up on Scawen's to-do list.

Last edited by Nick_ll, Fri 25 Nov 2005, 10:05.

In F1 it's AFAIK only because of heat that they back off.
They can't drive very very very close to a car in front because the FRONT washes out because of dirty air. What they loose it FRONT downforce and therefore aero balance. Not all sorts of downforce front and rear whatsoever.
Also it might be good to note that the air density is lower when air is at higher temperature and therefore if I'm not mistaken, if you follow a hot car with a car powered with an internal combustion engine, you will most definitely loose power, which is why clean air is better.

The LX6 definitely is my favorite car. It's such a blast to drive a good lap with it! I really like the feel of it and the precision of how you can point its nose where you want. Plus it's got no turbo shit. It's just a matter of understanding how to push those cars, but once you do, they're really awesome.

Quote from Tweaker :

Fuzzy Dice
[...]Blah

I'll have to disagree with that one Tweak. It can be a form of g-force gauge
Somehow when I picture a fuzzy dice in my mind it's always pink I'd want mine white.

For my own suggestion I'll add:
- Overly resource consuming physics engine
- Boats
- Fanboys

Last edited by Nick_ll, Fri 18 Nov 2005, 10:11.

Like that?

Yeah ok but if we consider that statement from the devs from before S1 (which I did remember, yes (but apparently am the only one appart from you)), it makes us consider both S1 and S2 as separately complete products. In this case, both products are cheaper than other games available on the market today, so if I take into account that statement from Scawen (he was the one who originally posted it), I have indeed to agree that S2 does cost less than other games.
However, if we take that into account, we must also state that S2, in many respects is not up to par with current industry quality standards. The sounds are one thing, but also the wheels of many cars don't look ok. It's mostly details, nothing that makes it unplayable as Victor said it's not like "omg this sucks" but it could easily be better.
Heck I'd model new wheels for all cars, with bolts and all, taking into account a max polycount budget they give me, texture them and GIVE THEM FOR FREE because I like LFS and I like modeling, BUT THE DEVS DON'T WANT MY HELP!! I'd also give them racecar seats models or stuff like that if they wanted, just like Kid made the skies, and I believe I've already told them I'm willing to help, but they don't want it, so I'm just left with complaining about such things until they get updated in a couple years.

Edit: oh and no I won't form any union with him. He's got valid points in terms that LFS can be improved and I indeed don't like fanboys, but I don't like them because they always say everything is marvelous and therefore are not constructive. Delerue isn't constructive either in his criticism, just the other way around. Fanboys say LFS is marvelous and everything is perfect, Delerue says LFS sucks and everything is crap; neither are constructive and will make LFS better by any means.
As I said I'm here for a while, I just want LFS to be best and I don't believe telling the devs what they do is perfect will make that happen.

Last edited by Nick_ll, Wed 9 Nov 2005, 23:00.