Quote from BrandonAGr :

How is John Carmack the epitome of what's wrong in the industry? Doesn't that statement first assume that you know exactly what is wrong with the computer games industry and secondly that you know John Carmack represents exactly that?

Why yes I do know whats wrong with the industry, but that's a seperate topic...

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And programming a fully functioning multiplayer racing sim is a skill an even SMALLER proportion of programmers are capable of doing. Trying to make a comparison of skill in separate fields just doesn't make sense.

OK, so your Scawen pedastal is higher than your Eric pedastal.

For me it's the other way around, but what do I know? It's not like I have any clue how few programmers you'll find at most games studios in comparison to artists... *pause*

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Besides you said yourself, a small group of people could replicate Eric's work in a short time, even if it wasn't exactly the same quality it would at least be comparable. You think it would easier for that small group to replicate Scawen's work? Hardly.

Yes, why not? I said it would be possible for my team to make a model like the BF1 in around a month and that there would be some quality shortfalls. The same comparison would exist for any module of Scawens code. In fact I am sure we'd do the code faster, again though, Scawen is a perfectionist and that's not a skill my team possess . He's a professional, my team isn't.

OK a more real comparison, my brother (who is the best 3D modeller in my team) produced this model of a Williams FW07 in somewhere in the region of a month ( I think a wee bit less ). He made it for himself rather than any given project, and was practicing low polygon modelling at the time - note that the car is just 2,700 polygons whereas LFS uses 20,000 or so per car. So you'd get about 10 times as many on screen.

It's good, but the BF1 is better.

Now for a code comparison take a similar module to a part of LFS and the nearest comparison I can think of and show you is the SRA software which bolts on to the other end of insim and runs the CTRA server (former STCC servers). This was originally produced in 1 day, although it has had tinkerings with ever since ... and it was in fairness a very long day , but the basic framework was done that quickly.

All I am saying is I have total respect for the work Eric does. I am not stating that he is categorically better than Scawen, i'm just saying he is doing a highly skilled job in which getting good results is slow. Yes we know he's been working on things for a while so sure he's got some work in store.

This conversation blew up out of me just saying, guys the quantity may not be as much as you are hoping. 3D artistry is a skilled and time consuming process. That's all.

Quote from Becky Rose :

For me it's the other way around, but what do I know? It's not like I have any clue how few programmers you'll find at most games studios in comparison to artists... *pause*

I don't understand your point, there would be fewer programmers than artist, seemingly saying that more people can do that level art than that level programming.

And your example with completing an insim program in a day is like saying that because you can write a Win32 program you would be able to write the OS itself, its just not a valid comparison.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Should every person who works at the company be an official spokesperson, or should the company have an appointed spokesperson who deals with press & community. In LFS' case, Scawen has made tonnes of posts. The fact that Eric is silent does not mean that he does not care what we think.

True, Scawen posts a lot (unlike some other devs, *cough* Kunos *cough*) but very rarely talks specifically about the future plans or what Eric has been doing. Ok Scawen told about future plans last time here but that's not much after 12 months of silence.

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I don't understand your point, there would be fewer programmers than artist, seemingly saying that more people can do that level art than that level programming.

Game development houses usually have more artists than programmers. It's not contrary to my point, it proves my point. Games studios need more artists to produce a game than they do programmers. The fact that a gazillion programmers are unemployed is their problem .

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your example with completing an insim program in a day is like saying that because you can write a Win32 program you would be able to write the OS itself

I was looking for an example of something i'd done that the reader may have seen that was comparable to a part of LFS in some way. As it happens I have written a driving simulator before but the project was canned. I was working with a different team to my usual crowd and it turned out that some of the media in use had been stolen so I left the project and it folded. It was more aimed at fun online gameplay mechanics than simulator realism, but if I used that as an example nobody would have seen it...

Look all i'm saying is that it takes a long time to make 3D media and that it is a highly skilled process. Am I wrong in saying this? I think not, and I think I have some basis for making this point. I do know what i'm talking about.

Quote from Becky Rose :

OK a more real comparison, my brother (who is the best 3D modeller in my team) produced this model of a Williams FW07 in somewhere in the region of a month ( I think a wee bit less ). He made it for himself rather than any given project, and was practicing low polygon modelling at the time - note that the car is just 2,700 polygons whereas LFS uses 20,000 or so per car. So you'd get about 10 times as many on screen.

I'm sorry to say but to use a month for such a model is pretty slow. I'm basing this on examples in various 3d art websites, for example here's one done in 8 days:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/sh ... ad.php?f=132&t=492678
One to two weeks (amateur):
http://forums.cgsociety.org/sh ... ad.php?f=132&t=492278

etc. Of course it's not always fair to compare a low poly with a lot of thought in optimization to a high poly model, but I'd say the low poly versions should not take signicantly more time to do. Should be less as you don't need to add so many details.

And generally regarding studios needing more artists than coders, there's a really good reason for it. While the coders create the base, it can be reproduces, do it once and it's ready. The artists are needed to create the content. And as content needs to varied you need a lot more resources to get the job done on time.

I agree with Becky on this, although I don't have any industry experience (yet) I do think that being an artist in the game industry is a tough job because there are a number of jobs artists have to do. Usually the big loaded with money studios with very strict time-scales will hire an artists for each specific role within the studio to do a specific job.

Researcher
Storyboard artist
Concept artists
3D modeller
Environment artist/ Level editor
Animator
Texturer/uvw unwrapping + texture creation
Character Rigger

and the list goes on with other roles... Now, ok so lfs is a racing sim so character rigging and animation isn't really a major part of lfs except the drivers arms animation with the wheel. LFS has only one person to do the rest, Eric designs the models, models them, unwraps them, creates textures for them ,designs the environments, textures the environment etc which is a huge undertaking for just one person. I graduated last year from a Computer Animation course on which we did everything above ourselves.

I had to first write a plan for the whole project, I then had to the the research, I then had to design the environments and characters on paper, I then had to model the characters and environments, once modelled I had to rig the characters and animate them within my scene, I then had to unwrap all of the models (which is the most tedious and boring task ever) then I had to go out and get photos for textures, some I would create manually in photoshop.. then I had to sort out the lighting in the scenes and then finally render out the animation and synch it wish sound and edit it before I could hand it in... and all of that was just for 30-40 seconds worth of animation. so I know how much work is involved. It takes months or hard work and patience so I fully respect Eric and the work he does as its a mamouth task to go it alone as a game artists.

I am sure that programmers work is just as tough but ultimately there is more need in the game industry for artists than for programmers.

I really believe Eric's pc is loaded with extra content, he just needs Scawen to get lfs ready for it.

mad

edit: @aaltomar Low poly modelling is difficult and is a specialized job, when a company comes to you and says "right i need a model of a formula one car and the maximum polygon count limit is 9000polys, now go and do it" its very difficult to start to model something from scratch and meet the limit. The model has to be planned out well so that halfway through you don't suddenly find that you are past the limit already. I am not sure whether it should be faster or slower than high poly modelling as both methods are very different.

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I'm basing this on examples in various 3d art websites, for example here's one done in 8 days:

Your example shows a talented artists, but that is in no way rigged for game use, it's a different discipline entirely - it's a bit like saying a 100 metre sprint runner who clocks times in 10 seconds could do a marathon at the same pace.

Obviously it is possible to make models quickly, but you sacrifice something by doing so, either your real life or the quality of the final model.

There's many factors involved in how long something takes. I know this Hawker Typhoon took my brother about 1-2 weeks. Again it's a low poly model aimed at throwing more onscreen than LFS but, I think despite a slightly different intended purpose on quality it's comparable to LFS. The reason it only took 2 weeks (working just in the evenings) is because at the end of those two weeks my brother had to go earning brownie points with his misses again...

After the earlier thread by the dev which stated that not much had happened last year due to babies and house moves I wouldn't get your hopes up that Eric has done anything except the GTR interiors and the South City refresh.

New content would be awesome but I doubt we will see any soon.

Graphicly making a WHOLE game is immense. Normaly you would have loads of graphics artists in one house of which would share the load.

(My knowledge from here is sketchy, but I think im on the right track)

If we were to take LFS as an example, each car in the game would of been made by one person. So, 24cars would be done by 24 people, 12 by 12 etc whatever the number. Each track would also most likly be done by one person, or even sections done by seperate people, but all working to a strict limit. So, one person would make BL straight, someone else the wee bridge, someone else the next corner and so on. It all depends where / what the company does.

I can make a model of a car in hours... BUT, thats sloppy work that has to be chamfered and turbosmoothed to look even slighly decent. Recently, I started to make low-ish poly cars for another game and they take me weeks or more. You gotta model, make textures and uvw unwraping, smoothing groups have to be perfect or it's look shite then tested ingame. From there touchups would be made and the process might have to be re-done...

But, a whole game, graphicly made by one man, is a big bloody job! And I dont think anyone can fault it... So give the man some slack.

Yes, making an entire game is a pretty daunting task, but not when its spread out over 5 years.

Modelling isn't as bad as you think Rock, and the more you do it, the faster and easier it becomes. Texturing on the other hand is still what takes the longest, and that most likely won't change to much in the future.

Oh absolutely, i've upset many a '3D modeller' who's wanted to work with my team by telling them until they could texture they where not modelers. Texturing, and how it effects the 3D data, is where the true art of making game models lies. One distinction to make in my arguments above is that I consider texturing as part of the model making process. Not all software houses work that way though.

I don't think anyone assumed that Eric's job was easy, but shouldn't any artist have something significant to show after working for over a year? If that something significant isn't shown someday people will probably start feeling that they have been misled by the Devs, and as people have mentioned already, start doubting the future of LFS. So my question is, why let that feeling develop and fester in the community when a simple few sentences or a screenshot would satisfy people?

Its true, and remember back in the days when the devs would put up screen shots that would show little snippets of new cars and tracks etc.?
Yes that was for S2, but we should still get some idea as to what Eric is up to, for all we know he could be making space ships, or not doing anything but instead ruling his country.. whatever that may be.

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Yes, making an entire game is a pretty daunting task, but not when its spread out over 5 years.

Modelling isn't as bad as you think Rock, and the more you do it, the faster and easier it becomes. Texturing on the other hand is still what takes the longest, and that most likely won't change to much in the future.

Hmm yeah, true. But then again, it varies per person I would of thought. Your perception and my perception into making a game over a time would be different as were on different levels to one another. (Knowledge and experience.)

Yeah i've sped through many a'model only to be held up with the texture. Beings its whats gonna make the model look the part, it has to be spot on and me being somewhat a perfectionist (to the pixel, lol) its drags the project on.

Quote from BrandonAGr :

I don't think anyone assumed that Eric's job was easy, but shouldn't any artist have something significant to show after working for over a year? If that something significant isn't shown someday people will probably start feeling that they have been misled by the Devs, and as people have mentioned already, start doubting the future of LFS. So my question is, why let that feeling develop and fester in the community when a simple few sentences or a screenshot would satisfy people?

I suppose it's a question of how often we have to tell you really. In my opinion, once is enough, but some people I suppose want to be reminded something like once a week that Eric is still working and has not deserted us, and that I am still here, amazingly enough I have not vanished since the last test patch released on the 14th of May and decided to abandon my career and take up life on the streets or something similar.

Quote from XCNuse :

Its true, and remember back in the days when the devs would put up screen shots that would show little snippets of new cars and tracks etc.?
Yes that was for S2, but we should still get some idea as to what Eric is up to, for all we know he could be making space ships, or not doing anything but instead ruling his country.. whatever that may be.

Same again, I've already told you this. Why on Earth would Eric be working on space ships - THINK - THINK - Eric is a racing sim developer! He's not a space ship modeller and he's not Tony Blair or some other high ranking Labour Party politician! He's the artist of LFS!

Eric has been working on car interiors, for GTR cars and other cars. The detail level is higher than the old cars. He's recently done a large update on South City and is also working on various other Track Updates.

Unlike some rumours on this thread suggest, he is not waiting for me to implement his work, he is actually waiting until most of the work is done, in a set. For example, he does not wish to release 2 GTR cars, without the third. That's his way of doing it. He doesn't release work bit by bit, it's not so easy to do that as it is for a program, I can release any new feature any time. If Eric released two out of three improved, there would be a large number of complaints. And there's not much point saying he should do this or that, he has his way of doing things and that's that really.

We've never claimed to be fast and development will always be slower than it was in the early days, as the standard is higher now.

Finally the man has spoken. It's quite frustrating to repeat the same thing over and over again every few months, isn't it?

Quote from Scawen :

amazingly enough I have not vanished since the last test patch released on the 14th of May and decided to abandon my career and take up life on the streets or something similar.

I hope this nonsense stops now.

EDIT: I spent ages writing this post and others intervened - my comments might not make sense therefor... (reading back now)

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we should still get some idea as to what Eric is up to, for all we know he could be making space ships, or not doing anything but instead ruling his country.. whatever that may be.

I understand your point but I dont fully agree with it. Eric has to justify himself to the LFS company, not us. Sure in turn LFS has to justify itself to its customers by delivering on any promises it makes. It could be argued though that screenshots of what is to come are a promise, and not substance.

I dont blame the devs for keeping a low profile in terms of committing themselves to future developments. We all know Scawen can change focus on a whim - although thankfully he only does this after finishing a feature - take the mini map for instance. Suddenly we had changes, then he went on to other things then he came back to it to change the colours of lapped/lapping cars. That's just the way Scawen is, Eric maybe the same (nobody really knows for sure, but some say his left nipple is shaped like the Nordschliffe) - so why make promises when:

A) He might fancy working on something else for a bit before returning to something he's promised;
B) It only ever results in a forum discussion, and nothing good ever came out of an internet forum discussion.

OT to the subject title but it would be nice to know what the devs have in plans regarding the 3d-engine? The S1 era interviews commented that (free quote) "we haven't yet even implemented all that DX8 has to offer, yet alone DX9" in 2003 or so. Is DX10 a remote possibility for S3?

Quote from aaltomar :

Is DX10 a remote possibility for S3?

To be honest, I don't think so. Scawen would basically have to support two graphics engines to keep compatibility with DX9 - it just wouldn't make any sense to double the workload or alienate more than half of your customers just so you support a framework which you don't even nearly use to its potential anyway.

Also, DX10 is not the magic graphics beautifier some companies want to make you believe. By the way, we already had that discussion here.

I don't know what interface we will use for the graphics. I guess we'll make a choice when the time comes and I start to work on a graphical test bed. I think the important thing is what you can implement, not what interface you use to achieve that, though of course the interface provides the means of creating various effects, so it's important to choose the right one, advanced enough to implement the features but not so advanced that it's not widespread enough.

Our hopes for S3 graphics include continually changing weather - and various effects to increase realism - that's always been the plan. But the changing weather is a hope, not a promise. It's not possible to promise anything, until it's done. But in the games industry it can be dangerous to mention any kind of plan at all, because it is later held against you as a promise that has been broken (even if it's not a broken promise but just came later than the reader expected). So we try to avoid promises. Occasionally we let slip what we want to do in the future though...

Still the teaser as usual

Quote from Scawen :

IWe've never claimed to be fast and development will always be slower than it was in the early days, as the standard is higher now.

Please forgive us for being impatient. We are all just simple sim racers, curious about what's cooking. We are fairly easy to please though. A picture here, a snippet of text there. Something to talk about to keep our heads from spinning while we are not racing.
Development can be as slow or as fast as you guys like, and we understand that (well, most of us do), but we still like that tiny teaser every now and then. It keeps us calm and it keeps us away from thoughts like "Is he modeling Space Ships" and "Is the entire LFS project going down the drain".

So... In all honesty, I suggest that for our peace of mind as well as yours, we get a glimpse of one of those new interiors. Or even half a new interior is fine, if you promise to post the otehr half in a week or so

Quote from Scawen :

I don't know what interface we will use for the graphics. I guess we'll make a choice when the time comes and I start to work on a graphical test bed. I think the important thing is what you can implement, not what interface you use to achieve that, though of course the interface provides the means of creating various effects, so it's important to choose the right one, advanced enough to implement the features but not so advanced that it's not widespread enough.

I dont like to qoute you Scawen but I couldnt help with that reading the above.
I think the choosing the right interface(I hope I understand well that you mean DX9,10...what ever) is crucial to be able to support as many customers as possible without big complaints.
Also the older the engine the less effective it is.Lets say in hypotetical way some vertex/pixel code can be executed for example with DX9 hardware faster then with DX8.1 hardware so its more effective and might give your more FPS as the result.

Thanks for a small "progress" report what have been Eric doing so far.I wouldnt mind 2 or 3 teasing pictures thought.

Wouldn't converting from DX8 to DX9 require a recoding of the entire system?

If not, the problem that stands is there is no real way to see if DX9 would improve FPS or anything. Look at games today, they are made to run in DX9, and when you choose DX8 the entire graphics change completely so you can't really test FPS hits between direct X controllers.

My guess would be that DX9 SM2 would increase FPS 25%+, and would open many more doors graphically wise, however I have no clue what I'm talking about so I'm ending this post.


One thing to add to the topic at hand though, I just realized that Eric is our "Stig," he never talks.