If were going to be pedantic at least make sure your being pedantic about the right word 
"today i saw two people who are using our team skins... i spent several hours to create them.... and then there are thefts.... is there a possibility to prevent thefts from stealing team skins? or to tell an admin?"
Hence the word 'Thieves' which was being corrected.
'Theft' is the act
'Thieves' are the people doing it.
'Theaves' is what bad spellers accuse Thieves of being
'Theives' is how i my fingers keep wanting to type 'Thieves'
"today i saw two people who are using our team skins... i spent several hours to create them.... and then there are thefts.... is there a possibility to prevent thefts from stealing team skins? or to tell an admin?"
Hence the word 'Thieves' which was being corrected.
'Theft' is the act
'Thieves' are the people doing it.
'Theaves' is what bad spellers accuse Thieves of being
'Theives' is how i my fingers keep wanting to type 'Thieves'
hehe, pedantic sods the pair of you
(and if thats spelt wrong i dont care for the correct spelling either )Dragon/Zoomy
Its one way of doing it i guess, a little messy and could be slow or problematic trying to check that the skins havent been updated or arent in your archive.
Still, whatever protection is given its always going to be complicated and more hassle than the issue really warrants.
I dont want the skins i've created being used by anyone i havent given expressed permission to, just like many other people, however the whole issue is rather isolated and minor that its quite tricky trying to justify someone taking the time to do all that just because a handful or muppets voilate people's requests. Take a look at LFS and the stage its at, the size of the workforce and then look at the other alternatives out there in comparison, and then say time needs to be spent stopping this from happening. It would be nice to see this implemented, but i wouldnt hold my breath on anything materialising (as with 99% of suggestions in general) for any resonable period of time if ever.
Still, as a solution to a problem it seems viable and more managable compared to alternatives (esp as its a mix of web and game coding required).
When uploading to LFSW it states quite clearly
Rules and regulations:
DO NOT upload skins which contain offensive images!
If a skin that contains nudity, pornographic, racist or any other extremely offensive content is uploaded, the skin(s) will be removed without notice and you will no longer be allowed to upload skins here.
So 'illegal' no, it doesnt exactly break laws as such, but as it says, it'd be removed and before long you'd be shown the door.
If you dont upload it to LFSW then nobody can see it but yourself, if you upload it onto the forum to show it off, then thats simply all your doing. You can look at photos all over the net, but you try using some of them without the expressed right to and see how that goes. Its the property of the owner, and its their call.
But regardless of that if something is NOT for other people, then thats how it is, if i do something and say nobody else can have what i've made then thats my right as the creator, just because someone choses to show something off doesnt make it acceptable to ignore the request of the maker.
No ifs, buts, or maybe's.
Rules and regulations:
DO NOT upload skins which contain offensive images!
If a skin that contains nudity, pornographic, racist or any other extremely offensive content is uploaded, the skin(s) will be removed without notice and you will no longer be allowed to upload skins here.
So 'illegal' no, it doesnt exactly break laws as such, but as it says, it'd be removed and before long you'd be shown the door.
If you dont upload it to LFSW then nobody can see it but yourself, if you upload it onto the forum to show it off, then thats simply all your doing. You can look at photos all over the net, but you try using some of them without the expressed right to and see how that goes. Its the property of the owner, and its their call.
But regardless of that if something is NOT for other people, then thats how it is, if i do something and say nobody else can have what i've made then thats my right as the creator, just because someone choses to show something off doesnt make it acceptable to ignore the request of the maker.
No ifs, buts, or maybe's.
Its pretty hard to lay claim on some sort of copyright to the skin file when your using logos without permission... sure, but claiming it for private use shouldnt be an issue.
Theres not much that can be done to stop someone else using your skins, they only need to download it into skins_x and rename it and/or edit it and its completely out of your hands. Theres already an fairly established team still using team skins they know to be alternate coloured versions of someone elses skin (pretty much pixel for pixel) but what do you do. They didnt do it on purpose but when notified that what they were using was a rip-off of someone elses work it hasnt stopped them carrying on using it.
Anyway, mr Vykos, im assuming then your fully behind the whole community driving around in your newly re-branded race colours? Thats the coolest thing they could ever do, right?
Tell you what, they can be part of your 'cool' group, im quite happy with just the people i want to use them doing so. I dont need any approval from random people.
Thats all good and well if its just some random skin you created, but as the thread was talking about stolen TEAM skins then exactly how can 'compliment' that away?
Its identity theift to a (pathetic) degree, Its a skin/file intended for the use of 1 individual or all users of a SET group, not an open 'feel free' group of people. So im going to assume your not for a second suggesting its quite alright for anyone to just randomly drive round in any teams colours - tag or no tag, because thats just not how things go.
Team skins are off-limits unless your in that team, and IMO so are personal skins that you want to be the unique wearer of that skin. Posting it and then saying 'hands off' is asking for trouble, but doesnt make it any more acceptable to go against someones request.
Ultimately, if someone says hands off, thats how it should be and the same should go for Team skins without even having to say their private.
As i say, going to assume your just talking about individual random designs, though i dont entirely agree with your thinking.
Its a sick insensitive prick thing is what it is!
Ummm, not getting upset, nor different directions, just telling it like it is.
This forum has the same stupid topics repeated day in day out, LFS progress is done at the pace of 3 people - their pace and their methods. if 3 people say they'll do things faster for more money then its probably only fair to actually do things faster when taking that money. the dev team 'listen' to the 'when is it coming out' and similar day in day out and are still hear 5+ years on, i think a thread where people are offering to donate to help isnt likely to be the straw that broke the camels back.... and i think that covers everything, oh and plenty of people have paid for more than they've received, some like myself back in 2002 and while i'd love to have a completed S3 with everything the dev team have planned for it, i'd want it how they'd want it - done correctly, but the majority of people know the score and accept it (part reluctantly, part in agreement) but theres always going to be people wanting the world tomorrow and those people havent put the Dev team off getting this far.
To be honest/accurate nobody has actually paid for S3, whether they think/claim they have or not (yeah, even though i just claimed i did in the last post) as S3 upgrade has no price on its head yet, what you can do is send them money and that is put into your account, its a non refundable amount which you can use it for whatever you chose thats LFS related, whether its licences, uber LFS SMS messages
or to access premium pubstats, i have £11.99 thanks to damn Pubstats taking something like 0.000001 from my £12 (damn you pubstats!! ) so i'll have to send another quid (or more) in order to get S3 someday.If LFS ended tomorrow, maybe you could argue about not getting S2, but nobody would have a leg to stand on regarding S3, it doesnt exist and they have never taken a penny for it. The only great loss would be on the potential of LFS, not a financial one to the community.
Plenty of people have paid for S3, you dont hear them demanding S3 be released do you? I paid up my £36 before S1 was released, and i'd bet maybe a thousand others did around then.
If you'd been around longer than a month you'd have realised this is nothing more than the usual goings on here, people are always asking when the next feature is coming out, someones always making the suggestion that we should have spinners, NOS and fatboy exhaust pipes, and basically 75% of the posts on here are repeated nonsense. If the Developement team took any of this to heart they'd have ditched LFS before it even hit S1 stages let alone now.
This specific thread that you've chose to post in, saying 'Perhaps they dont want any extra money because then we would expect faster updates' is about the suggestion that if they paid more would it speed up progress, so yes i guess if the dev team did take people up on that offer then a few people would kinda expect faster updates, thats what the idea would be not to pay to speed things up while they take just as long.
Its people throwing ideas around, not making demands, just tossing ideas back n forth as to ways they could help, in this case it wasnt really going to work as it goes against what the Dev team have always stood for, progress at their pace, not at the whim of customers or publishers.
I hope thats not suggesting that if the unthinkable happened and progress was stretched further than they could manage that you'd rather see them fail than try to help them out?
I can understand to a point that they're in complete control and they could just effectively hash-job it to get it finished within 'budget' rather than run out of funds and be left with an incomplete product, but the way you put it almost sounds like you'd have no sympathy and wouldnt want to offer help of keeping things going, you'd done your bit and that was your role complete.
Each to their own i guess, and i'd agree the community shouldnt be almost held to ransom to finish their project if they've just took their time and its their fault its incomplete, but i would hope that people would understand both sides of the arguement whether some chose not to pay while others feel people should help.
Hopefully that scenario will never arrise though, though i have to wonder just how they are coping on the budget side of things. When you consider that progress is far slower than originally anticipated (possibly assumption, not sure thats been said officially, but i'd bet they never expected 2+ years between stages) so thats one heck of a strain on the original plans for developement. I dont know how involved Victor is these days, so maybe thats one aspect its had where it was felt Vic's part needed to go to lift some strain on the purse strings to help subsidise the project.
Im just quite suprised we havent seen or heard anything on the proposed Rally Pack from about 2 years back, it was commented on yonks ago and seems to have vanished quicker than a fart in a bathtub. I would have thought such projects might have been released as addon packs for minimal fees (maybe rally as a freebie as it was originally intended to be distributed openly).
I dont know what Eric is up to these days (not many people do since S1 and frequent progress reports are no more) to know just how much work he has on his plate when compared to Scawen who (i think) is left to do everything non-model/gfx based.
Still, its all 2nd guessing assumptions based on the little tid-bits we pick up isnt it.
Just checked now and it says my licence is expired, however im pretty sure that for a few of the events early last year (maybe late 05) i was able to join the event without any hassle. I guess theres the possibility it was taking track purchased credits i had from my account rather than using an extended/expired 1yr licence.
I dont know if theres a specific way to check short of clicking on 'Register Now' and seeing what happens (which could be it takes a credit without asking for confirmation, meh sod it!... okay i'll try with a track ive bought!! i thought Amstetten was Heemsteade or however its spelt, looks similar from the pic)
YEY, Paulie wins!
and a quick check of my balance, still says 28 credits
My credit purchase shows added credits from tracks, but none removed (but then it does say 'purchase history' so maybe it doesnt all activity).
If you need me to run any test then drop me a PM and i can check things for you whenever you need confirmation of any changes etc.
Paul
The thread was suggesting donating additional funds to speed up progress, i think we all know that additional funds wouldnt speed it up, and i think that point was made within the first 5 posts. I think most people would be willing to entertain other options they'd pay for additional content or something, but on the context of paying for it to speed up progress we all know it wouldnt make an ounce of a difference because it will be done at whatever pace it takes the 3-man team. If it would speed things up and bring additional content i'd be more than happy to do so, partly because its kinda got to a point where it feels like a significant patch is a year appart, and as i said in my original post i geniunely dont see S3 Final before 2010 and i'd say thats optimistic. But they're not so much interested in speeding up developement more a case of getting it done their way, which has its + & - points, some which could mean half the people here from the beginning will have lost interest in sim-racing by the time its finished which to me is a great shame, but then so would be rushing it.
And if your too stupid to have recognised the same thing then your just as stupid to actually recognise someone spouting rubbish because they'd rather turn am in-jest comment into a case of national hatred.
That is the sort of crap people have to get used to.
Or maybe it just hinges on the fact that you cant interpret something thats said as hatred for something thats just a passing comment where you never give a single thought for anyone else in the exact same circumstances when its on the other foot?
Its just made to be this huge statement as to how unjust it all is that Americans are being ripped off, the fact that you pay about 60% of the price for every other game on the market doesnt seem to concern you, what DOES concern you is paying more than average for ONE game. Where is the outrage that we're (Europeans) paying more for every other game on the market?
Maybe its just arrogance that you think you should get it cheaper, or maybe its just far easier to MAKE ASSUMPTIONS (like my last comment ) about someone which fit your pathetic little adjenda? We can all take comments completely out of context and turn you into a 'f*ck everyone else USA rules we have a devine right to have everything cheaper than everyone else like we do for all other games' type character, its fairly easy isnt it, just make assumptions and twist things to be convenient.
So how about in future instead of making rash assumptions about someone you actually read a little more into what the person is saying instead of assuming every comment about americans HAS to be negative so start bashing before actually reading. You ignored the fact that there were 2 winking emoticons and a tongue pulling one and just interpretted everything as some Yankie-bashing excersise and figured rather f*ck what it really was, lets bring out the US Patented Friendly-Fire™!
You pay no more than anyone else for this game, You paid £12 per licence, just as everyone else who has paid for their licence, the fact that every other game you've bought has been cheaper than the European price makes you LUCKY, but apparently what it actually makes you is down right UNGRATEFUL of the fact.
I did modify a couple of textures to the DDS version and realised there was no way in hell i was going to do that for every single texture, it'd take waaaaay too long, and as i'd already put a scene together and didnt want to have to do it to a model only scene and import it in again, i just converted the dds files to tga's
There wasnt that many, 43 for all 18 original S2 cars, dont have the BF1 model as the only link ive seen for someones version was dead.
Currently paused during render, 6hrs in and about 40% through :'(
Definately need a couple of those crazy quad-core Xeon's in my box, i have another CPU killer render for it in the morning if its finished doing this one by then anyway.
Davo - No included textures, just the scenes themselves, guess it keeps the filesize down low.
If anyone wants the converted dds files drop me a PM and i'll rar em up and stick them online, they're 28.7mb unpacked and..... 6.62mb packed, sweet
There wasnt that many, 43 for all 18 original S2 cars, dont have the BF1 model as the only link ive seen for someones version was dead.
Currently paused during render, 6hrs in and about 40% through :'(
Definately need a couple of those crazy quad-core Xeon's in my box, i have another CPU killer render for it in the morning if its finished doing this one by then anyway.
Davo - No included textures, just the scenes themselves, guess it keeps the filesize down low.
If anyone wants the converted dds files drop me a PM and i'll rar em up and stick them online, they're 28.7mb unpacked and..... 6.62mb packed, sweet
RE: Yanks and their US Dollar making LFS rather expensive...
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD!!!
We (Europeans) frequently get screwed over compared to the American market, key reason being astronomical Tax to be fair, and the 1 time you have to pay slightly over the odds and its like its 'OMG can you believe this!!!'
This is a game/sim produced in europe, bend over and take it like a man
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD!!!
We (Europeans) frequently get screwed over compared to the American market, key reason being astronomical Tax to be fair, and the 1 time you have to pay slightly over the odds and its like its 'OMG can you believe this!!!'
This is a game/sim produced in europe, bend over and take it like a man
okay, i'll see if i can figure that much out.
I knew the causes for the errors but not a fix short of manually converting the dds files to tga, which is what ive done for the other few ive rendered.
I knew the causes for the errors but not a fix short of manually converting the dds files to tga, which is what ive done for the other few ive rendered.
well, it has about 10 different paths available to it, and one of those is the data/dds folder for my LFS Installation. I did this after installing the nvidia dds plugin and restarted the software and checked. I havent rebooted but i wouldnt have thought that was required.
I would say most are still rolling around laughing!
Established? How is a 1 month old team established? hehe
I had to check that, but 18th Feb for the post stating DR (breifly Apex Racing) had formed, personally i'd say at least 6 months needs to be on the clock to consider yourself established, with the number of teams forming then dying months later i think thats pretty reasonable IMO.
Although it would be borderline spamming it might be worthwhile putting this in the n00b area of this forum, because i'd bet 90% of the visitors to this forum are regulars (and i'd bet 99% of the site hits are from about 4 people!!
) and it could be that the people playing the demo just dont have the same interest level to keep checking back on the forum for that site. Take most games that you've tried a demo of, you wouldnt always go digging round their official forums (the few that dare have them!) to read stuff, most people play for a few hours and go back to what they're doing, and its the more fanatical people which frequently visit these places digging for information, not the people who are occasional players.How you fix that, dunno, but that could be part of your problem
shutting the damn thing up whenever i load up scenes and go to render them
those pesky tga files
Does anyone have these tga files converted from the existing dds files that could possibly make them available to download?
483 objects, i'd be f****d if im converting every single one in photoshop
(edit, ok it seems most of those are scenery related rather than all car, but still a bloomin lot of them are car model textures)
I've got the photoshop plugin but if all 483 of those dds files need to be made into tga files i think i'll be giving up on it all sooner than i will be loading up PS.
I also have the DDS plugin for 3dsm but it would seem to be the scenes themselves that want those textures, and as i dont know how to manually replace each texture with a dds version it does seem thats pointless to me also, so im hoping that as most people would obviously have these files available to them to do the renders that maybe they could be made available to everyone? I think ive done 3-4 cars already, but just moving onto others after not touching them for a while has just made me remember these damn files, and ive just spent ages locating ancient versions of LFS for the original tga's only to realise halfway through downloading that of course its not going to help me with the S1/S2 cars anyway
So, anyone know of a painfree solution, preferably before i pull all my hair out
483 objects, i'd be f****d if im converting every single one in photoshop
(edit, ok it seems most of those are scenery related rather than all car, but still a bloomin lot of them are car model textures)
I've got the photoshop plugin but if all 483 of those dds files need to be made into tga files i think i'll be giving up on it all sooner than i will be loading up PS.
I also have the DDS plugin for 3dsm but it would seem to be the scenes themselves that want those textures, and as i dont know how to manually replace each texture with a dds version it does seem thats pointless to me also, so im hoping that as most people would obviously have these files available to them to do the renders that maybe they could be made available to everyone? I think ive done 3-4 cars already, but just moving onto others after not touching them for a while has just made me remember these damn files, and ive just spent ages locating ancient versions of LFS for the original tga's only to realise halfway through downloading that of course its not going to help me with the S1/S2 cars anyway
So, anyone know of a painfree solution, preferably before i pull all my hair out
And its still worth every penny Todd.
Out of interest, are you guys aware that your early-ish testers still have the 1yr unlimited licence? im pretty sure i did the last time i looked although seeing as i spent 6mth with a dodgy USB lead and only got it fixed when spotting Peter in Turin back in June... and how come its always him im seeing and never you?
Thats probably why i think its worth every penny though Still got 1yr old tracks ive not used though (3 of the 4 that came out with Halifax got a few laps, Heemstade, Messina and [insert other] around same time) as although i wasnt bad with kb it lost its main appeal.
As for the line about RC folk being used to that for a weekends racing, thats true, but can you imagine how much it'd cost to get to do what LFS Simulates in real life, makes £36 (which is pretty much what every game is released around in the UK, £30-40) a bargin, and i'd bet 90% of the people playing LFS have played this more than pretty much every other game they've bought, probably only comparable to the likes of maybe quake/wow/css/gpl level of game where you've gone back time after time without it losing the appeal most games do after a month or so.
Personally i wouldnt have a problem paying for additional content, provided it wasnt done at the expense of normal progress. If it ment hiring an additional person to either share the building of car/track models or the new guy handled the lot, couldnt give a hoot (within reason). I've never had a problem with paying for additional content, provided its value for money, and anyone that says LFS isnt worth what they've paid or twice that is pretty tightfisted (whether thats what some have been getting at or not) but it does seem fairly obvious that they're going to do this as a 3 man team and it'll be finished when they feel like it.
So, i'd pay for additional content provided progress wasnt harmed by this, but dont see paying any sum of money would speed things up because they clearly dont care about any time-line, they want to do it their way under their control.
It wouldnt suprise me if theres very few of the pre-S1 folk still playing by the time LFS developement stops, i'd put money on S3 final for 2010 at the earliest.
Out of interest, are you guys aware that your early-ish testers still have the 1yr unlimited licence? im pretty sure i did the last time i looked although seeing as i spent 6mth with a dodgy USB lead and only got it fixed when spotting Peter in Turin back in June... and how come its always him im seeing and never you?
Thats probably why i think its worth every penny though
Still got 1yr old tracks ive not used though (3 of the 4 that came out with Halifax got a few laps, Heemstade, Messina and [insert other] around same time) as although i wasnt bad with kb it lost its main appeal.As for the line about RC folk being used to that for a weekends racing, thats true, but can you imagine how much it'd cost to get to do what LFS Simulates in real life, makes £36 (which is pretty much what every game is released around in the UK, £30-40) a bargin, and i'd bet 90% of the people playing LFS have played this more than pretty much every other game they've bought, probably only comparable to the likes of maybe quake/wow/css/gpl level of game where you've gone back time after time without it losing the appeal most games do after a month or so.
Personally i wouldnt have a problem paying for additional content, provided it wasnt done at the expense of normal progress. If it ment hiring an additional person to either share the building of car/track models or the new guy handled the lot, couldnt give a hoot (within reason). I've never had a problem with paying for additional content, provided its value for money, and anyone that says LFS isnt worth what they've paid or twice that is pretty tightfisted (whether thats what some have been getting at or not) but it does seem fairly obvious that they're going to do this as a 3 man team and it'll be finished when they feel like it.
So, i'd pay for additional content provided progress wasnt harmed by this, but dont see paying any sum of money would speed things up because they clearly dont care about any time-line, they want to do it their way under their control.
It wouldnt suprise me if theres very few of the pre-S1 folk still playing by the time LFS developement stops, i'd put money on S3 final for 2010 at the earliest.
But then he'd have asked for just a Schumi helmet wouldnt he?
im not that keen on using photos/screenies for wallpapers but i've done the odd render for 2560x1024 which goes on and then proptly goes back to the wallpaper i'll probably be sticking with for quite some time.
http://www.mercuryracingteam.c ... ers/fzr_moe_2560_1024.png (yes, well aware of the floating FZR, bottom right is always last area to come through, 2x 2hr renders screwed up and havent re-rendered since correcting it)
I even did a quad screen 2560x2048 one which took about 3hrs which was just our 3 GTR cars.
Using Fraps i've done quite a few screenshots but 75% are in portrait setup, can get some really nice shots like that i found, only have a few pics in landscape from taken race series events, none online in original size though, but i have resized versions online:
http://www.mercuryracingteam.c ... s/events/SimFIA_DTM/Rnd1/
http://www.mercuryracingteam.c ... s/events/SimFIA_DTM/Rnd2/
My current wallpaper is attached, been using it for about 6 months now and love it, i've just cleaned my desktop of icons as i'd just started my 2nd column on the 2nd monitor! and unlike most wallpapers it still looked great with a ton of icons over it.
Just got round to fitting my dual monitor stand too, wall mounted and adjustable which now allows me to move the monitors to one side for racing (so one monitor is central to me) and into the middle when working, looks much tidier too
http://www.mercuryracingteam.c ... ers/fzr_moe_2560_1024.png (yes, well aware of the floating FZR, bottom right is always last area to come through, 2x 2hr renders screwed up and havent re-rendered since correcting it)
I even did a quad screen 2560x2048 one which took about 3hrs which was just our 3 GTR cars.
Using Fraps i've done quite a few screenshots but 75% are in portrait setup, can get some really nice shots like that i found, only have a few pics in landscape from taken race series events, none online in original size though, but i have resized versions online:
http://www.mercuryracingteam.c ... s/events/SimFIA_DTM/Rnd1/
http://www.mercuryracingteam.c ... s/events/SimFIA_DTM/Rnd2/
My current wallpaper is attached, been using it for about 6 months now and love it, i've just cleaned my desktop of icons as i'd just started my 2nd column on the 2nd monitor! and unlike most wallpapers it still looked great with a ton of icons over it.
Just got round to fitting my dual monitor stand too, wall mounted and adjustable which now allows me to move the monitors to one side for racing (so one monitor is central to me) and into the middle when working, looks much tidier too
Josh,
Good to see you went ahead and did this project
The first thing that strikes me is the multiple references to the same event, because its a seperate session, its kinda cluttered IMO.
Im guessing the reason you've opted for this is because of rounds having sessions spread over multiple dates (ie qualifying on sat, race on sun) would it not be better to only show these sessions if qualDate <> raceDate just so that events like BOTT dont have 3 listings for the same round.
Possibly even link to more detailed information for that event to show the full event schedule for that round.
Meh, ok smartarse, scrap the above :P
Then may i suggest the default appearance is 'events' as thats much easier on the eye IMO
Adding information looks a little complicated, could just be me though. I would feel much more comfortable trying things if i could see a simple way of editting and deleting information which was added that happened to be wrong, especially when trying to figure out what needs to go where.
I do like the 'interactive' aspect of it giving you existing data from the db but as i say it feels a little confusing but it wouldnt bother me so much if i knew what i was doing could be fixed if it was wrong.
I'd say the only issue im having is with confidence, i'd play/mess till i got it right if i knew i could do that, right now i dont want to try something i dont fully understand, so if this was considered final i'd be looking for better instructions so i got it right every time or somewhere i could see i can fix any mistakes (as well as make any alterations if need be later down the line).
Very impressive though, and i'd be interested in knowing if either the db and/or code would be going public, as i mentioned a few posts back its a pain in the rear having to manually enter all the dates in yourself, if there was somewhere central where these dates could be put (much like the calendar here) and everyone could use that site as a source for their own website it'd be real nice.
Good to see you went ahead and did this project
The first thing that strikes me is the multiple references to the same event, because its a seperate session, its kinda cluttered IMO.
Im guessing the reason you've opted for this is because of rounds having sessions spread over multiple dates (ie qualifying on sat, race on sun) would it not be better to only show these sessions if qualDate <> raceDate just so that events like BOTT dont have 3 listings for the same round.
Possibly even link to more detailed information for that event to show the full event schedule for that round.
Meh, ok smartarse, scrap the above :P
Then may i suggest the default appearance is 'events' as thats much easier on the eye IMO
Adding information looks a little complicated, could just be me though. I would feel much more comfortable trying things if i could see a simple way of editting and deleting information which was added that happened to be wrong, especially when trying to figure out what needs to go where.
I do like the 'interactive' aspect of it giving you existing data from the db but as i say it feels a little confusing but it wouldnt bother me so much if i knew what i was doing could be fixed if it was wrong.
I'd say the only issue im having is with confidence, i'd play/mess till i got it right if i knew i could do that, right now i dont want to try something i dont fully understand, so if this was considered final i'd be looking for better instructions so i got it right every time or somewhere i could see i can fix any mistakes (as well as make any alterations if need be later down the line).
Very impressive though, and i'd be interested in knowing if either the db and/or code would be going public, as i mentioned a few posts back its a pain in the rear having to manually enter all the dates in yourself, if there was somewhere central where these dates could be put (much like the calendar here) and everyone could use that site as a source for their own website it'd be real nice.
RE: Dirt layers, Tweak made a kickass Fern Bay style dust/dirt skin for racing round there, i modified it a little after that to create a mud based version for Blackwood too, they really look spot on when theres a few cars racing round with muck all over them, it kinda makes the clean cars look stupid racing next to them.
As with quite a few things i really think this sort of partially-transparent layering needs to be added into LFS, some which as suggested would gradually become more and more visable as time goes by (ie general dirt related to the track, mud, dirt, oil and similar grime typically picked up) and some which should be fully visable and are applied over skins like driver number plates, which just like driver names on windows could allow people to add their car number meaning teams and race organisers dont require additional skins to be made to display a race number, you'd have your car skins and a selection of plate skins for the series your in (ie 1 for team, 4 for different race series) which a number would be overlayed onto in-game in the same manner messages are place onto the race cars.
I'd love to see the implementation of transparent pngs (or some other equally suitable format) at some point to give a time-based effect over the car and also with the number plate skins possibly reduce downloading time when joining servers, most team would just need 1 non-specific skin where the individual aspect would be covered by 1+ drivers numbers & nationality on a plate, its got to be easier downloading 1 car skin & 5x plates than 5x 99% identical car skins.
As with quite a few things i really think this sort of partially-transparent layering needs to be added into LFS, some which as suggested would gradually become more and more visable as time goes by (ie general dirt related to the track, mud, dirt, oil and similar grime typically picked up) and some which should be fully visable and are applied over skins like driver number plates, which just like driver names on windows could allow people to add their car number meaning teams and race organisers dont require additional skins to be made to display a race number, you'd have your car skins and a selection of plate skins for the series your in (ie 1 for team, 4 for different race series) which a number would be overlayed onto in-game in the same manner messages are place onto the race cars.
I'd love to see the implementation of transparent pngs (or some other equally suitable format) at some point to give a time-based effect over the car and also with the number plate skins possibly reduce downloading time when joining servers, most team would just need 1 non-specific skin where the individual aspect would be covered by 1+ drivers numbers & nationality on a plate, its got to be easier downloading 1 car skin & 5x plates than 5x 99% identical car skins.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG