hello!

just wondering. certainly not the first one to want or talk about this.
but
so many good mods out there.... when is "the one" mod coming out? the mod that could make lfs leagues take off as a true racing show.


the day lfs broadcasts its league races just like those LFS stcc movies (race video made as real life broadcast <- see here) to any person with lfs installed who wishes to see, its the day sponsors become viable, and it may take sims to another level. seen as a sport. Right now this its only fun to the racers who are racing, not sponsors or audience, because they cant even see the race. So its a game to the gamer and not to the fan.

So, a simple program made to catch all packets from the race server and broadcasting them, with another simple program made to catch those broadcasted packets and sending them to our LFS game, perhaps as a server on our Lan we can pick to see. Like a replay, a live replay.

who's the man to come up with such a beauty?

aready thinking ahead...
...there could be a director mode built in LFS as a server option, with access to many TV-like cameras set around a track, cameras set to give the proper TV feel (f1, btcc etc) and a league member seeing thumbnails of those cameras and directing the tv broadcast, with perhaps some helpers to keep some cameras dynamic. Then the little program could broadcast the live-edited race to our little receiver program.

well, this last part cant be just a mod. So this makes it an official request for scavier future consideration

pardon my english
bye

Often requested, heavily discussed, and there is a proof of concept and a few "buggy" versions some guys have hacked together available here:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=12319

Obviously it doesn't contain all of the features you want, but it's a start.

From my point of view this would actually devalue the STCC quite considerably. If every league broadcasted a show using a quick and easy to put together broadcast software feature it would undermine the effort that is put in to make the STCC what it is.

Having lots of sim leagues broadcasted in this manner would saturate a market before it is ready to become saturated. Viewers havn't got behind sim racing because there hasn't been an STCC before, and currently there still isn't much of a market for it.

Our first broadcast had something in the region of 5000 viewers, although I dont have precise figures. That is a TINY marketplace for an international race series. Your dream of sponsors in sim racing cant come alive with figures like that, it needs a few hundred thousand at least.

If it is "easy" to put together a broadcast, then the quality will not be high. It would then be much harder for viewers to find something like the STCC which is created the hard way.

We at OLFSL will be having two live streams every race weekend next season. However we will be using tv capture cards rather than a mod that enables output ingame, but it works quite well without any of the programming bother!

www.lfs-league.com

Quote from Becky Rose :

If it is "easy" to put together a broadcast, then the quality will not be high. It would then be much harder for viewers to find something like the STCC which is created the hard way.

While I agree that a much larger audience is required, I don't think this last part is true. While I know that you, Tristan, and everyone else involved in production spend a LOT of time making the STCC movies, it doesn't necessarily have to be this way. Right now you have to go through many, many steps to get the videos we've seen so far:

Have the actual race
Setup multiple different cameras for each event.
Record video for the whole race from each camera.
Splice and edit these different angles into a cohesive, real-time feed, plus any replays that are necessary (which have to be recorded themselves)
Put in all the overlays showing standings, credits, etc.
Play back the replay and record commentary.
Put the original footage and the commentary together into a single video.

I'm sure I even left out several significant steps. However; If one were to do videos using the same techniques as a real television crew this would be much less time consuming and could even be done in real time, just as real races are. Obviously, this would require purpose made broadcast and video editing hardware and software. It would also require the personnel to run the equipment, provide the commentary, etc (but you already basically have many of those people - yourselves as volunteers). The thing that would be needed the most is a way to connect multiple clients to a live race, have those clients act as "camera men", and have their footage sent to the system just as a live video feed from a real race would be.

I'm not saying this is trivial at all. I'm just saying that the way videos are done right now is what makes doing them so "hard". Given the appropriate resources hardware and software, videos and live broadcasts are definitely possible. And, even more so, time delayed broadcasts could be amazing. Just look at a live broadcast race today and imagine what they could do if they had complete 20/20 hindsight of the entire race and ANY camera angle they desire. Think of the coverage you'd have then! I believe that is what's achieveable in sim racing videos, even though the main object (viewers) would remain the biggest hurdle.

Quote from Becky Rose :

From my point of view this would actually devalue the STCC quite considerably. If every league broadcasted a show using a quick and easy to put together broadcast software feature it would undermine the effort that is put in to make the STCC what it is.

Having lots of sim leagues broadcasted in this manner would saturate a market before it is ready to become saturated. Viewers havn't got behind sim racing because there hasn't been an STCC before, and currently there still isn't much of a market for it.

Our first broadcast had something in the region of 5000 viewers, although I dont have precise figures. That is a TINY marketplace for an international race series. Your dream of sponsors in sim racing cant come alive with figures like that, it needs a few hundred thousand at least.

If it is "easy" to put together a broadcast, then the quality will not be high. It would then be much harder for viewers to find something like the STCC which is created the hard way.

i agree with your (the maker of that kind of video) prespective.
Its also a monopolistic side of view you have there. If "whatever" is a foward step for the fans and spectators results in "damaging" your current position as the leader in what you do and whats possible to do as of now, then you, as the "greater force" would never allow for really good things to appear. (thinks oil)

not much to talk about, really. Lets keep this ideia under the prespective of the racing fan and league quality and massification and not the prespective of work being put in what the league is doing now due to the "lack of" better.
Of course is hard work being put in there, but its only due to the lack of a proper mean of broadcasting. Either way, awsome vids you guys have made. just no the issue here.
F1 is nothing without viewers. Thats what stcc wants too for sure, the best for the viewers (and that is the realtime viewing of the action, not delayed, yuck, viewing f1 after knowing who won the championship... nuh uh!)

Quote from russraine :

We at OLFSL will be having two live streams every race weekend next season. However we will be using tv capture cards rather than a mod that enables output ingame, but it works quite well without any of the programming bother!

www.lfs-league.com

thats what im talking about baby!

Quote from spyshagg :

i agree with your (the maker of that kind of video) prespective.
Its also a monopolistic side of view you have there. If "whatever" is a foward step for the fans and spectators results in "damaging" your current position as the leader in what you do and whats possible to do as of now, then you, as the "greater force" would never allow for really good things to appear. (thinks oil)

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?

the live TV show is done since 2004

http://www.automovilismovirtual.com/modules.php?name=videos

Quote from russraine :

We at OLFSL will be having two live streams every race weekend next season. However we will be using tv capture cards rather than a mod that enables output ingame, but it works quite well without any of the programming bother!

When you have a significant number of viewers, and an interesting bandwidth problem when you're streaming your video, you might understand why some of the community have been banging on about "LFSTV" for years.

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).

Before too much of what I said is built upon i'd just like to say i'm not interested in keeping a monopoly. My point was that there is a very tiny audience for this sort of thing at this time, and I think producing lots of generic league videos would only serve to keep the audience small rather than expand it.

From a personal perspective I dont much like the idea of all the leagues broadcasting and saturating a non-existent marketplace before the audience has had a chance to be nurtured, but i'm not actively seeking to stop it from happening.

naturaly some league would stand out. The one with better racing, most competitive, with better broadcast directing. Those are the areas leagues should compete with each other.
But right now this is thinking way ahead of our selfs

First we need a basic real-time broadcasting concept that should be a given right to any league. i think.

perhaps by S3 final, if ever... who knows!

That TV-pc card is a good ideia, but we are limited both in quality and the default lfs tv cameras, and they suck a bit lol... but very good to have it considering the alternative (*.mpr and compiled movies)
Perhaps in the future there could be a way to split broadcasts, one video stream for winamp to those who dont own lfs, and packet broadcast to run in-engine to those who own the game, all with the same real-time directing

thanks for the replies

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Often requested, heavily discussed, and there is a proof of concept and a few "buggy" versions some guys have hacked together available here:
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=12319

Obviously it doesn't contain all of the features you want, but it's a start.

wow, dont mind what i said... those guys are already begining with it!

Quote from TagForce :

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.

Link to better video?

Quote :

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

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.

Quote :

Link to better video?

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

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.

In my view the results board and the whole hud should be skinnable (which would make building broadcasts a matter of dubbing on the commentary and titles), an option to put a small watermark on the top left.

Also, Bobyte Aviscreen is an alternative to game cam and Fraps and it's free with no watermark

IMO STCC hasn't got the right racing format for broadcasting. I have an idea myself which I am being schtum on incase someone pikes the idea

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

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.

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 !

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

Quote :

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).

Apart from the position ticker you could do that with LFS now, did you notice as they 'tabbed' between cars after a camera cut it snapped to the other car, just like LFS does. That wasn't a polished broadcast really, only the default camera focal length was slightly better than LFS' default camera for the purpose it was being used for.

You are right in that this is wrong, in both sims, I actually dont think the camera tracking one car is much use as a view in LFS or any other sim tbh, which is one of the reasons the STCC isn't live. This at least could be fixed by software and a second license/PC, and I may do that in time, but I dont see the difficulty in doing it by hand with the human touch and, with practice, getting a better result?

I dont really see what else can be taken from it, the production itself was ok, but littered with as many technical faults as the STCC movies. How has better software helped them? Position ticker aside (which as I say, is something i've nearly finished making). The fact they did it live just meant they had the same problems the STCC *would* have if it was live, and the same problems I imagine that the OLFSL has in that as you tab up the field, you notice it tabbing (and your stuck with default cameras I guess - although LFSTV might be fixing that for them?)

Quote from TagForce :

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

Good examples. The first one had some nice effects, but the "sim" camera angles really took me out of it. It just doesn't seem real when there's a camera floating 3 feet off the side of the car. I think that even though this is one area where sims have an advantage over real life, videos covering racing series like STCC should stick to in-car and track side cameras like real life. It's just more immersive that way. But, like I said, that first video is top notch for production.

The second video I think is achievable in LFS today (well, almost). Once Becky is able to get a real time ticker going the STCC will be at this quality, IMO. My main gripes with the second video is the same as they are with current LFS cameras - they only follow a single car instead of the battles between them. Admittedly, this is not as much of a problem for NASCAR since all the cars are right behind one another in a train. I really wonder what the guys in the second vid do when there's an accident, questionable contact, etc? If they're just using the in-game cameras then there would be no opportunity for replays from other angles which is a huge part of real life motorsport. That second vid definitely has top notch commentary though. It almost made me want to put in a dip of chew and fire up the still!

Quote from Becky Rose :

I dont really see what else can be taken from it, the production itself was ok, but littered with as many technical faults as the STCC movies. How has better software helped them? Position ticker aside (which as I say, is something i've nearly finished making). The fact they did it live just meant they had the same problems the STCC *would* have if it was live, and the same problems I imagine that the OLFSL has in that as you tab up the field, you notice it tabbing (and your stuck with default cameras I guess - although LFSTV might be fixing that for them?)

Scawen has already said he plans to support multiple custom cameras per car, so hopefully that will help a bit towards more camera angles and better realism. Your ticker should make a huge difference.

Is it possible to change the camera locations, FOV, etc in LFS currently? I know you can do this in GTR/GTR2/etc but am unaware of any such thing in LFS. Even if that's not possible, perhaps the new scripting system would make live broadcasts easier. It's possible to bind keys to scripts and to have scripts jump to a particular car and view. Given enough bindings I'm guessing that it would be trivial to jump from car to car, view to view, instantaneously. Keeping the cameras straight would be difficult, given the number of them, but it could still be possible.

LFSMM had so much potential in this area, especially with its ability to scan replays for "hot moments". Is there any chance of the original author restarting work on a new version or opening up the source code to the community?

Quote :

Scawen has already said he plans to support multiple custom cameras per car

It doesn't take me long to set these up, it takes far longer to record the actual footage than to setup a camera. It'll be handy, but not a major time saver at all.

Quote :

Is it possible to change the camera locations, FOV, etc in LFS currently?

Insim has a lot of camera stuff in it, I believe it is fully possible to control the camera from an insim application. I believe this is what LFSTV is about? I've not really looked at that project

It did occur to me that setting up a number of cameras and then using a simple heuristic for which camera to show would be a good step forward in reducing my workload to two or three different video streams which I could record automatically by setting it up and leaving it. This would work better with a replay than with live footage because then it could pre-empt action.

If it was set to prioritise 30+ cameras, I could record the top 3 priorities and just edit those, rather than hand-recording 12 cameras in realtime, with the mouse, as I do now.

Again though the issue becomes that of hand versus machine. Do programmers really know best? I sit on both sides of the fence here and I chose to do it by hand, I think that says a lot...