Teasing the users with new lighting system where objects also have shadows...
Anyway - semaphore without wheel base is a welcome addition,was always a headache to hide the wheelbase. Now we will be able to build much better starting lights constructions.
The new bale looks better. Wider speedbumps will surely come handy too.
I understand that the red1-3 may be a limitations currently in the insim but if that is the case I feel it could be better to have the each 'segment' as a individual object. That way we can have red to green control on each via insim. That also means we can use them for pit entry and exit lights for example. Obviously that could increase object count but currently, I tend to use 5 'start lights' when creating them anyway so shouldn't impact too much (in my use anyway).
Also if they can be double sided so you can see the light on the rear too that would be great.
A question about the paint letters (see attachment).
As with the letter and number boards, there are 3 objects with 16 slots each.
For the polystyrene tiles we have:
A-M SPACE . : N-Z # @ / 0-9 ( ) < > ^ v [last 4 are small arrows]
But the road paint has slightly different use.
1) no need for SPACE (does nothing). Eric suggests & which is commonly used on roads.
2) small arrows aren't appropriate, in real life they are twice as long as the letters, so we'll probably add some painted long arrows on a separate object.
That leaves the last 4 mapping slots free and I thought it would be best to ask what characters or character-sized symbols you might want in there.
Well there has also been a request to use the back of such boards as an advert slot allowing people to change it through AX_ADS1 image file, which Eric and I have not discussed yet.
Of course, I don't really know if people find SPACE important. You can, of course, use an actual gap like in the screenshot.
My question was about road painted arrows, didn't really expect a discussion about the merits of AND vs SPACE on blocks. But your thoughts are very welcome which is why we are posting here.
BUT I did find an annoying thing when trying to "type" with these blocks. I tried adding several blocks then changing their letter. But then sometimes had to change the actual object to another board that had the right letters on (in this case for S and P).
In fact I could change the code so that all 49 characters (including SPACE and &) are on a single board, making the system more intuitive and easier to use but then that would remove the ability to select colours. Or to be precise, it could be possible to allow TWO colours only.
Possibilities:
1) All white (or MAYBE 2 colours) all characters on a single board (easiest to use)
2) 4 colours - all letters on one board / all numbers on another board
3) As now: max 8 colours, A-M on one board, N to Z on another, 0-9 on third board.
It looks very good, imao space looks better with object.
About boards, I am for option 3, as a frequent user of the leyot editor, I would rather have a wide variety of colors than a little inconvenience with board, I'm already used to some inconveniences with Layout editor but the second option is good for me too.
About some of inconveniences:
1. When you select several objects, dots then instead of arrows appear on the rotation slider (pic 1), dots cannot be pressed, and "<" ">" buttons not working, so only an inconvenient slider remains to be controlled with many objects, the slider is difficult to control precisely.
And it would be great if on rotation objects we could manage not to 1.4° but to 0.5° or even 0.1° (maybe with the hold ctrl or something like that) And it would be more convenient to be able to enter a specific number in degrees. As in the case of position.
2. It would be good to reduce the pitch for height for concrete objects so that it would be possible to make more gentle elevations with a turn now it is 0.25, but it would be more convenient to 0.05 or even 0.01, it would also be convenient to enter these values manually as with a position. Otherwise they turn out to be steps (pic 2). We have already found a way around this, but again it is not very convenient to make such a mosaic from a variety of concrete objects (pic 3, 4). Maybe you can make a new conctrete object with a turn and a lift. It would be convenient if you could also control the degree of lifting and turning same as the length width and height of other concrete objects..
3. We have the opportunity to put concrete objects, but why concrete? Why not asphalt? ground? grass? ice.. etc. I think you don't even need to add a lot of these objects, but to make just one that you can adjust the grip with the surface and set it texture (From some of the options) or just color. Perhaps this option is more for a Track editor, but it is not clear if there is a plan to implement it in the some near future. Maybe while it will be easier to do Layout editor.
4. Also, when you select and make an object active, the gost object on the cursor (which you set) will disappear, but the ability to set it on "O" does not disappear. I think for convenience it's better to Keep it visible all time.
5. And as always we want to increase limit of objects (now its 2400), and limit of selecteble objects (now its 60)
I realize this is already a long list, so maybe it's better to do tire physics and whatever is needed to complete the update, and come back to that later.
Not sure if this is the appropriate thread to request, but back in the day, S1 had a particle effect which would simulate a dust cloud being kicked up just before you went through the tunnel on blackwood. That was subsequently removed. Any chance we can get it back?
Example our SLADI Masters drifting series is building a lot real life racing track´s and we want to make them look and feel like the real thing. Like this TAMPERE, KAANAA CENTER circuit! Please Scawen, give us possibility make them feel and look nice as possible just making object´s in the layout editor and adding them in to the game.
I think I'd prefer extra colours over ease of use, just to unleash people's creativity for colour-coding things. I've got a project on the go where I'm encoding a number in concrete colours as we speak
Is it in your scope to add a way to swap out a selected object with something new? I was thinking maybe if you had an object selected and ctrl-click a new object type from the menu, it could change the selected object's index without changing anything else.
We've decided to go for the 48 characters in a single object because it's really the right way to do it. Not some dodgy workaround that we'll be stuck with forever. When in the future we change to 16-byte objects instead of 8-byte, then we can do all the requests like micro heading and pitch adjustments, more colours, bigger concrete objects and so on. But there's just no way I can devote a few weeks to that now. Unless we all want the whole update delayed (we don't).
I'm referring to previous posts, not just you, Racon!
While we all know layouts can go *further* it is really hard work and what we all really want is the new graphics and physics, right? After that we can do layout updates, other graphical things like improved skinnable drivers, maybe move to track editor (don't know what this may involve regarding licenses though, but that is another discussion I will NOT get involved in any time soon). And have no idea if that will ever happen, by the way. It's what I want to happen, but I don't make promises and specifically don't promise this.
Let's not change "layout week" into "layout month" OK!
Specifically on the character boards thing, I've suggested white and yellow as the most useful colours. It could be possible to add a straight copy of that entire object, with another two colours, if that would be particularly useful.
Banners looks great, i'm so excited to try this! Kerbs from blackwood is perfect, maybe can we choose color? The rest what i think is for a track editor (adding own objects, topology, gravel/dirt/Snow? etc...) Maybe a xmas gift???
To be clear, this is all for the development version and cannot be implemented into the current public version. There are still tracks and tyre physics to finish before it can be released.
But your thoughts are very welcome which is why we are posting here. 
Or to be precise, it could be possible to allow TWO colours only.
