Quote from zeugnimod :

No, "we" dont.

Could you come up with something better?

No, "you" don't... "We" do... "They" do... "Others" do...

"We" doesn't automagically mean "the whole world of LFS"... It just means "a group of more than one person". If said group is big enough, it should be considered, at least as a valid suggestion, by the community. Judging the amount of drifting related suggestions, I'd say this is a valid suggestion.

Devs retain their right to do whatever the heck they want. You, on the other hand, have absolutely no right to define what is and is not a valid suggestion for LFS. This includes NOS, neon, bizarre lock-to-lock rates, monster trucks, track types, car types, etc, etc.

If you have something to say about a suggestion, do so, but make sure you support your view with a valid point.

Personally, I want LFS to be the ultimate all-round racing sim. If that means including drifting/rallying/ovaling/gripping/monster trucking/indoor racing/raiding/dragging then by all means include them.

This is not meant to be a personal post towards you, zeugnimod, or anybody in particular. I'm just growing tired of these constant non-argument discussions. They all end in flamewars anywayz.


My $0.02

Quote from Hyperactive :

I could be happy with just few lines. But let's not start talking about progress reports. That stuff has been "discussed" many times and the outcome has always been the same.

Yup... But still it is what I would like
(which was kind of my point, we all like to see something or other, and the only thing we get is what the devs decide to give us. Whether it's what we like or not.)

Oh well... We're all patient enough aren't we? At least we know stuff is still progressing, and the pace is picking up again.

Quote from Jakg :

Currently, i use 3.5 mm audio cable to plug my mic and speakers into my sound card, however with my new sound card the leads i use (extension leads) are too thick to have both extensions plugged in at the same time. I am going to butcher the end of the extension (one at least), and use the end off an old lead i have (from a cable that got torn in half). I've removed the outer casing off the broken lead, and am left with then end (the jack) and about 2 inches of cable, i've then stripped this down to leave the white and red wires - before i butcher up the other cable and render it permanently broken, do i just tie the ends of the wire together (ie white wire, to the white wire) - or does each metal bit have to be for a different bit?

Hope this makes sense!

Audio wiring in its basic form is just 4 leads... Left + and -, and Right + and -... White is left, red is right... You can just tie them together, but you may want to make a more solid and isolated connection to keep it from interfering too much.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

All this Vista / DX10 BS is really starting to get to me. Microshaft is getting WAY out of hand (err, more so) IMHO. I think I'll be having an XP/DX9 machine for a seriously long time the way things appear to be shaping up.

There WILL be a DX10 for XP... Just not from MS...
The Wine dev team has already started porting it to XP (and are so far saying it's not too hard to do).

Quote from Hyperactive :

I would like the devs to spend their time to LFS instead of making videos etc.

And it has been made pretty clear that there won't be any progress reports.

I would like the devs to spend some time to make it possible to do non-real-time video captures... And show us the results in a video or 2...
But that's what I would like, and it shouldn't take too much time (but could be done while making the planned replay system changes).

the ~ means AC...

Funny kitties might not come across well in small avatars... Unless you want the BLUE FLAG message to take up the entire image.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I capture at 800x600 at a locked 30 frames per second, this is above DVD quality, infact I cut out the outside edges of the frame. I rarely get dropped frames.

Agreed, but post-processing messes up the quality of the movie.
I always capture at a whopping 50 or 60 fps (depending on where the movie will be shown). This has the advantage of creating excellent slow-mo footage, and it doesn't mess up the frametiming when creating a DVD (30fps needs to be downscaled to 25fps for PAL).
This unfortunately is hardly possible real-time without AV-drives and a stunning computer.

Quote :

The fact that it is 'missing' from LFS is hardly an issue, you just need to use the right tools for the job and it's unfair to expect LFS to work with something like Fraps or Hypercam when you're on a low end or low-middle system.

Any half decent gaming rig these days is dual core, put a half decent graphics card in and problem solved.

It's not 'missing' from LFS... It is possible. It would be nice to be able to capture at any resolution at any speed (120fps for all I care). The right tools simply aren't there yet. I'm not expecting LFS to work on any system and get the quality I want. I don't blame LFS for that. I understand why it's not in, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see it added nor see an insim app doing the capturing.

And no, to get really high quality videos (which I'm after), a half decent comp won't do. A high end comp won't quite do. There's always FPS fluctuations on any system, and those get recorded as well. But I think that's beyond the scope of what we are discussing (I'd be happy to discuss this further, though).

Quote from sil3ntwar :

at one of the recent races a backmacker held up the field badly as the lead car stormed away out of the last few corners and no one can pass until the S/F line. Its a good rule however the backmarkers should drop back through the field rather than drive around and join the tail.

That was team Pakistan at the Zandvoort A1GP race. Was funny as hell... You could see him think: "Ok, what should I do now? Accelerate, Move, or just stay where I'm at?!"

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

@TagForce: I'd imagine the rule only applies to lapped cars in front of the leader, in which case they'd not get the lap back just catch up with the other backmarkers.

That's what happens now. That wouldn't actually change anything.

[off-topic]
Carom3D... For some reason it feels incomplete... Like, where are the jumpshots?
[/off-topic]

Quote from Gimpster :

Gunn,

The G25 is a limited edition model, they are not planing to make a ton of them and not that many people have $300 lying around to by them. If they did ACT Labs setups would never have been cancled, only to slowly be reborn.

Limited just means they won't keep producing it. They'll make plenty of them, and when that's done they won't make more. It's not that they'll be gone if you don't get one first week.

Quote :

The point is that the majority of us will not ever have a clutch or an H-Shifter. The ablity to use auto clutch or a sequential shifter should not be limited because this is a physical limitation. The other aids I see no problems limiting there use, as they are all skill based aids.

I agree on the sequential/H shifter issue. This is pure hardware. Auto clutch less so, because you can map a single button to the clutch. Although I see where you're coming from, I've changed my mind on the autoclutch option, and now think it is a setting that should be forcable. If LFS would never miss a gear I would have no problems with auto-clutch enabled all the time, but since using auto-clutch automatically disables an in-game problem (mis shifts) I see it now as a driving aid (rather than a hardware aid) and as such should be forcable.

Quote :

I have seen how this way of thinking can run a sim, Simbin's GTR2k2 mod was a good example. The only server I could ever find with other people were hardcore, no aids, and you know what they were almost always empty and full of elitest asshats. Going this route before the majoprity of the comunity has the physical means to access servers that are locked down with no allowed aids will fracture this comunity and will do it a great disservice.

I don't think it will come to that. If Redline Racing servers notice all their people running away since they forced aids off, they'll turn them back on. And for every server that will have aids turned off, there'll be 4 that don't.

I stand by my opinion, driving aids should be forced, as long as it doesn't make it impossible to join a server based on what hardware you have.

Wait... Do lapped cars get their lap back?
If not, they could just have the lead lap cars pass the lapped cars, and *not* create a problem for the timing systems.

Quote from i30i3i3y :

I wanted 'Bobby' but some yank has it apparantly, so I needed to be a little 'creative' . It's surprising how many people fail to understand my username.

Luckily I'm |33+, so I can read it fine

l30l3l3y would've been easier, though, I suspect...

Edit: By the way, I have no regrets about my username... I was TagForce, I am TagForce, and I will always remain TagForce... Chances are, if you find anything to do with sims on the net and it has the name TagForce attached to it, it's me. I even have a game named after me (Yeah, so it's Yu-Gi-Oh!, maybe I'll sue).

Last edited by TagForce, Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:37.

Hmmmzzz. I think we're actually agreeing on the subject.

One of the main problems with current video productions, and especially live broadcasts, is the camera movement is too accurate. In real life (as demonstrated in my first video) a camera, even when focussing on a single car, isn't perfectly aimed at the car. It moves around the car, changes focus, etc, etc. If that can be helped by an automated system (using insim this should be possible) it would add a tremendous amount of realism to videos.

Second part is overlays. The second movie has overlays. Not the best I've seen (I've seen 768k streams at high-res that used life-like widescreen overlays like on TV), but they were live overlays. This is also possible to create for LFS, both live (automated) and as a post-production add-on. This would also add to the immersion.

Next ingredient would be the director's chair. This is going to be a problem. This will be virtually impossible to do live, unless you have 15 screens showing every part of the track. Some kind of 'action' trigger using insim might help somewhat, but that's going to be one heck of a job. LFSMM has a feature like that, but that only works for post-race capturing.

The final problem (which can only be helped on post-race capturing) is the way screenshots are processed. NR2003S, GPL, and RBR have the best way of doing this, LFS, for lack of a better word, suX0rz at it. Although it could be done using insim, I suspect. You need to be able to advance the replay frame by frame (at say 29.97fps), and capture each and every frame without loss of quality.

In summary, the best way to capture in-game footage live and direct, with a realistic look would need the following features (either in LFS, or insim utilities):
- Realistically moving cameras
- Pre-defined custom track cameras (also, less restricted camera positions would help creating realistically placed cameras)
- Instant focussed car switch
- In-game overlays (of course selectable)

All of these could be created using insim. But for the moment, these features are not available.

NR2003 has the advantage that these pieces of software have already been written. The camera shots in the first video could've been used in the 2nd. It would require a lot more work for the people creating the broadcast, though.

Everything else is human work. We'll see how things progress... I'll try to make a video sometime soon from one of our XP Open races.

Quote from K.David :

One from me

ROFL... That's the first one that actually shows a facial expression that fits

Last edited by TagForce, Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:46.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Not being funny Tagforce, but post production effects / screen wipes are the domain of artistic videos - which is what that one is, it's not for a broadcast series like the STCC.

Which is why I said 'intro'... But the camera angles used are for broadcast series.

Quote :

The second one, well it has onscreen position ticker graphics and i'm already on the case for that for the STCC - so that's good news, but it might not be complete for round 3. Otherwise that is much the same but they're using a game cam that follows 1 car. I notice with a certain amount of irony that they too have technical problems on the commentry !

Yes, but the difference between that video and the STCC videos is that theirs was broadcast live (including a racecast race progress application on their website).

I'm not dissing your movies.. I think they're fine for now. But for a post-race production, the quality is not nearly good enough to entertain a lot of people for a long period. That is not your fault, it's mostly because no good tools or options for videos exist in this community yet, making video production needlessly slow. And that was the point we originally made.
The LFSMM was a good initiative, but unfortunately it died prematurely.

EDIT: BTW, do a transition when you go to a replay in the movies. Looks better

Last edited by TagForce, Wed, 18 Oct 2006 19:40.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Yes please! Not because I want to prove the statement wrong. I just want to knick ideas.

You want ideas for camera angles? Or post-production intro effects?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kzkyBAMewds

Live broadcast...
(well, it was live at some point)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rSMo7IPjd-s

Last edited by TagForce, Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:16.

Quote from Cue-Ball :

Link to better video?

I looked, but it seems all the old VRW race recap videos and broadcasts have been removed (seeing as they're 4 years old now, understandably).
There must be some season reviews around somewhere that show what I mean... I'll look a bit deeper when I have time.

Quote :

Agreed. But the little things that STCC does add a lot to the production. Things like slow-mo replays, car position overlays, etc. The only racing vids I've seen that come anywhere close so far are either professionally made trailers (like the GTR2 trailer) or race coverage which uses the normal in-game cameras and a pair of announcers. The in-game camera control is, in my opinion, 90% of the problem. Not just in LFS, but in all racing games I've played. Very seldom in a real race do you see the camera focus on one car. The competition between two or more cars is where all the action is.

Oh, I agree with you, but if Nascar 2003 can broadcast live races with commentary and live position overlays, then why shouldn't that be made possible for LFS? If it's post-race production videos, then papyrus sims beat LFS in quality movies hands-down. That's largely due to the way you need to capture images from LFS, though.

It's not that the STCC vids are bad... They are highly enjoyable. They could be better though, but that was not the point. I still don't have the feeling I'm watching a race broadcast. Something that some older Nascar Racing 2k3 videos did manage to do.

Quote from Cue-Ball :

I wonder if you can tell me the name of the tire technician for the Ferrari F1 team?

Kees van der Grint

Quote from Cue-Ball :

I don't believe this is the case at all. Becky and Tristan want to expand the audience for sim racing, not constrict it to their series alone. The more viewers they have, the more racers are attracted to LFS. The more racers are attracted, the more series can be run. It's a snowball effect and I'm sure that the STCC folks know that (and want to encourage it). The reason that the STCC videos are the best is because they take a LONG time and a LOT of effort to put together. If it were easy, don't you think other long running series would have done it by now?

I think you, and Becky too, are mixing up two different entities... LFS and Simracing are not one and the same. The STCC videos are the best of LFS, but as far as simracing videos go, they are a long way from being at the top of simracing.

Creating these kind of videos is easy once you have an initial procedure figured out. It is just very time-consuming to do it manually.

What's being asked here is not making it easier... Just faster (real-time fast).

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Ever get the feeling someone is fed up of answering the same sort of question over and over again? If you're listening face-less GS drone, I apologise

lol... but you don't mean that... Ever think how they respond when they open the mailbox and see another mail from you?

"Oh... my... god... I swear if he sends us one more email I'm going to (Outlook makes the new-mail dih-duhm sound)...fuuucccccccaaaaaaAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Quote from Cue-Ball :

Try driving the G25 with all aids off for 50 laps or so. Trust me, you'll give a LOT of thought to mis-shifts.

I will, as soon as Logitech says it's ok for me to have one... Damnit... Another week or so. :scared::worried:

Quote from Woz :

Actually, news has changed and 9.0L is DX9 for Vista

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35140

BTW. For those that have not heard yet the latest on Vista. You can only upgrade your hardware ONCE with Vista then your licence is no longer valid.

So buy a new machine, have a Mobo fail and that is one licence gone and if that mobo turns out bad you have to purchase Vista again. Thats nice of MS.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35057

Well... Different sources say different things... I was told (by Microsoft) that this would apply to OEM licenses only (which would be 1 more install than what we have for XP). What does apply to regular licenses is that you can only (re)sell a Vista license once. So if you buy a Vista license from another user, you cannot sell it again.
My colleague, who's in actual sales, was told your story (also by Microsoft, on the same frikkin day)...
I'm guessing the licensing model for Vista is shrouded in mystery for now.

Quote from Cue-Ball :

I personally feel that the ability to disable auto-clutch is extremely important. Possibly not as important as automatic shift or auto-blip, but very important none the less. Auto-clutch is a driving aid, just like braking help or auto-lift. With auto-clutch enabled it's virtually impossible to have a mis-shift, slow shift, missed gear, etc. There's a reason that the very high-end racing series have now adopted sequential, clutchless transmissions (they have a clutch, of course. but the driver is not required to do the clutching).

Auto-clutch shouldn't matter for the GTR cars since they realistiacally would use sequential boxes, but for the slower cars like the TBO class, the ability to disable auto cluching is extremely important.

Good points... Hadn't thought of misshifts. Alright then... Autoclutch forced off

Scawen needs to get driving lines like that into LFS rallyX

(whenever you feel like it, as long as it's done before I die)