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STCC Sim Touring Car Cup 9 (Fern Bay Green)
(105 posts, started )
#26 - troy
just finished watching it, GREAT (yes this needs to be big) with your recording software the professionalism was going up at least 2 big steps the new button system is also nicely implemented, everything just fits very well together. of course the best of all the broadcasts so far, cant wait to see more of that.

a question about your broadcasting system (sry forgot the name X-something), you plan to make it public or share it with other broadcasters? i'm pretty sure mika (from game-tv) would kiss your feet for at least one month if he could use that ^^ he took the noobtv tool before patch X and is in desperate search for something like that since all the insim software went incompatible with X.

keep it up, your work is appreciated a lot (at least by me :shy
#28 - Vain
The camera software worked great. I knew it was coming up from the stcc-boards but I was surprised how well it actually worked. The visual quality and framerate was perfect. The car position overlay is awesome.
Some feedback I can think of at the moment:
- Perhaps you can improve the position overlay by putting two cars that are alongside in the same position while their position is undeterminable. That stops the position overlay from flicking around and announcing false position changes.
- Add an indicator to the position overlay to signify the car that is being looked at, if a specific car is in focus. That'll help the viewer to identify what end of the field he's looking at. I personally got mixed up a couple of times during the show.
- Onboard cameras are a good filler. Instead of watching two cars driving behind each other for laps and laps and laps show some bumper-cam or rear-view footage to make things more interesting. If interesting stuff is happening onboard cams don't work (unless you look at AussieV8 moving onboard cams).
- Try some static cameras that don't focus on a specific car. Just a static camera on the inside of a turn that shows the field as it streams past. Very much like the curb-cams they have on some circuits. Again, that works as a filler.
- Add more information to the button interface. What is the split between the viewed cars? For internet broadcasting it wouldn't be sensible to view laptimes or other more sophisticated data because it's too hard to read, but you can view it to the commentators so they can filter out the important bits and read them out for the viewers.
- You did a great job commentating. You always managed to stick with what happened on screen. In round 7 you and Tristan got lost in a conversation a couple of times while everybody else was busy watching the most awesome racing-action ever recorded. This was a lot better in round 9.
- That said, you definitely need a second commentator. You didn't miss out on anything and did as good as you possibly could, but a conversation of the commentators makes the viewing experience a lot better. Don't hesitate though to stop a conversation at the end of the syllable you were just saying if anything worth noting happens on screen. There's nothing worse than watching a race and have the commentators talk about something else.
- Pre-show and after-show were a bit lacking this round. Most noticably there was a lot of complete silence while you had to talk the viewers through everything. How about showing some replays from quali or something like that to have something happen?
- The name death-wall was over-dramatic. "He's in the wall" is specific enough, and it doesn't make me smirk.
- Last point: Get the whip from the drawer. Driver discipline was lacking. I thought my defending against Vierumäki was bad driving, but some of what we saw on the broadcast really just wasn't on.

We had better races before, but the broadcast was fantastic.

Vain

[Edit]
Oh, and the camera-tool can be tricked into viewing a certain car during the SC phase by excessive weaving. I was in focus a lot because my tyres were at optimum temperature when the SC was called and I was the one who weaved the most. I need to keep that in mind once I have sponsors to statisfy.
#29 - troy
Quote from Becky Rose :The will it be released question is probably best answered here: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=30321. Of course, release limitations can be worked around for the right deal... I'd be happy to talk to him.

thanks for the answer (and the longer one in the other post).
i already wrote a mail to mika and i'm pretty sure he will get in contact with you soon

(i just had the stcc admin email and told him to write there i hope it reaches the right person then )
As always Patrick a very thought provoking post and certainly some interesting points to pick up on. Let me assemble some answers to as many as I can.

Quote :Perhaps you can improve the position overlay by putting two cars that are alongside in the same position while their position is undeterminable.

I'm just relaying the LFS position report, I actually use this swapping of position to raise the weighting of what cars to follow. This would not be easily changed, but if it proves to be a problem over the coming races i'll look into it.

Quote :Add an indicator to the position overlay to signify the car that is being looked at

Hmmm. Part of the beauty of the way the STCC is broadcasted compared to other series is that the camera doesnt follow 1 car.

Quote :What is the split between the viewed cars?

I do want to do this, but i'm waiting on something i've requested from Scawen in addition to still puzzling over the problem of detecting sensible cars to show the information about.

Quote :a conversation of the commentators makes the viewing experience a lot better. Don't hesitate though to stop a conversation at the end of the syllable you were just saying if anything worth noting happens on screen.

I do take on board what you are saying, but we also have the problem that we're not in the same room - worse we have a delay of 100ms or more with internet communications which means we kind of have to follow through with anything we say as backing out only results in a series of stuttery interuptions. I'm not saying we cant do better, but I do think we cant be as good as a TV commentary team unless we can work from the same location.

Quote :The name death-wall was over-dramatic. "He's in the wall" is specific enough, and it doesn't make me smirk.

Wall of Death, in fairness . I thought it flowed off the tongue well, and was an apt name for it all things considered. Wall of Death is the name of an old fairground stunt where you had a banked oval and people used to drive / ride or do death defying stunts around it, often wiping out in to the wall... Of course if you're not familiar with that it probably sounds like something out of a cartoon I guess.

Quote :Driver discipline was lacking.

I try and I try, but the best drivers in the world are a bunch of tards... On the whole this race was not too bad, but we've all become such good friends over the year that I cant get you to report each other, and i'm not sitting there watching the full race from every drivers point of view any more! Suggestions welcome...
Great to watch as always Becky. I enjoyed how the new system tried to cover action from all over the track. I think this broadcast was a good way to show that midfield racing can be quite tense as well!

Can't wait for the next one
Top notch broadcast! I laughed hard about the "Battle of the Wrecks"...
Also, the final race is KY2R?!
#34 - Vain
Quote :I'm just relaying the LFS position report

I found that to be completely useless. I don't even use it when I drive. When I developed the LFSpitboard I just recorded all IS_LAP and IS_SPX packets, sorted them chronologically and had a nice list of all cars with positions, splits, development of split-times over the last laps, laptime-development and everything I needed. It may eat some kbytes of RAM in long races, but this isn't MoE.
Quote :[...] the camera doesnt follow 1 car.
[...]
I'm [...] still puzzling over the problem of detecting sensible cars to show the information about.

If you view more than one car those cars would be good candidates, wouldn't they?
I guess you can work something out both regarding splits and the camera focus indicator. I don't know how well it'd work out on the actual broadcast though.
Quote :we also have the problem that we're not in the same room

I understand that it's not sensible for one commentator to abort the other unless they are very experienced. The commentator that is talking needs to watch the screen and just switch the topic when necessary. In real broadcasts the two commentators usually have well defined roles. One has the role to always shout and scream when something happens and the other has a couple of nice stories to tell when nothing happens on screen. Try enforcing such role-behaviour with regards to lag and I'm sure you can come to a good result.
Quote :I cant get you to report each other

Well, call me stupid, but I think you already have the alpha-version of an incident-search-program.

Vain
Nice broadcast video... I can imagine all the work and hours to do it. Must be a lot! Respect.
Quote from Becky Rose :I try and I try, but the best drivers in the world are a bunch of tards... On the whole this race was not too bad, but we've all become such good friends over the year that I cant get you to report each other, and i'm not sitting there watching the full race from every drivers point of view any more! Suggestions welcome...

I think this is something that will solve itself, once Scawen can implement a better damage model. It seems like 90% of the "problems" are from drivers getting over-eager and taking risks that they would never take in real life. Once LFS gets to the point that hitting a wall ends your race, you can bet that such accidents will decline dramatically.
After reading comments here, and what you said in the race itself, I have no beads of wisdom to offer you (not that I had many anyway, although I did write some stuff down ). I really enjoyed the show, loved the new camera system (although it will need a smidgen of a tweaking to stop itself from cutting away from important battles) and your enthusiastic commentary! The best quote of the race was "battle of the wrecks", it just made me laugh

I also like the replay "ball" transition, that's definately a keeper!

Great stuff!
Wait, you mean after all this time, STCC wasn't a banger racing series!? No wonder everyone got mad at me when I smashed them.
Brilliant work. Agree with most everythings been said. Incredible camera work, and editing of replays was fabulous.

- How about showing drivers helmets similar to F1 in the grid, or at least more in-car. I loved the Ghost-Busters logo the driver had!

- How about casually throwing in the drivers' LFS nicknames, "Sam Hopkinson, SamH as his lfs mates call him," etc.


- Lap times. Show us just how phenomenal these guys' driving really is.

- What a bang-up race! Brutal, can't wait to see the carnage at South City.
Even still, Sam is still a mis-leading name for him However I don't think he wants to be called a sissy-girl chef

The helmet Idea might be neat, but some people overlook the helmet bit, even though I personally had a helmet done by a friend almost specifically for the last 2 or 3 rounds of STCC.
I really liked It, great video, It's more interesting than an F1 Coverage .

I've never took the time to download such a big video but hell I'm not gonna think It again before downloading one of Your videos STCC!.

You have a new Fan! .

I wish I drive like that.
This round gave me the fastest DL's yet, I think I had the whole thing DL'ed in 5 minutes.
Great as always, even though the X-cam did cut out at some great moments but thats only to be expected from an AI system.

I do have a small suggestion however.
Would it be possible to reflect somehow who the system is currently following. Maybe a little dot next the the name on the car panel to the left.
While you do a good job commenting whats going on in the shot, I think it would make it easier for us to see who the other people are right before and after the action.
As i said it's a small and not rather important suggestion, but it think it would make the whole race/view a bit more informative.

Keep up the good work.
Quote from Becky Rose :I do plan to produce a DVD still at the end of the season yes, I dont think it would have enough commercial appeal to warrant mass production though so it will probably be just for the drivers.

Yay just what i wanted to hear Ive been missing these broadcast cant wait to see the rest of the season. Good Job as usal Becky with this broadcast.
I dunno, Personally I feel that the ticker would work better along the top or bottom, in a horizontal manner, but that's just my opinion
Quote from dawesdust_12 :I dunno, Personally I feel that the ticker would work better along the top or bottom, in a horizontal manner, but that's just my opinion

While I tend to agree, let's not forget the restrictions that Becky has to work with. The LFS button system is versatile, but only to a certain extent. I'm no programmer, but I'm fairly sure that you can't do any sort of scrolling using that system. So, any horizontal, scrolling ticker would probably require a lot of from-scratch programming.
I just had an idea reading these last couple of posts. Would it be possible to use something similar to the Bump&Jump servers. Whatever driver you are following on screen, at the bottom you would be able to see who is behind and who is ahead. Maybe not using their full LFS ingame name like in B&J but just using the 3 letter abbreviations.
Congratulations on another spendid production Becky!
Quote from U4IK ST8 :I just had an idea reading these last couple of posts. Would it be possible to use something similar to the Bump&Jump servers. Whatever driver you are following on screen, at the bottom you would be able to see who is behind and who is ahead. Maybe not using their full LFS ingame name like in B&J but just using the 3 letter abbreviations.

Was what I was gonna post, but I think it'd look tacky.

But thinking about it, not too different from F1, how sometimes they do the same thing when comparing splits.
Quote from dawesdust_12 :Was what I was gonna post, but I think it'd look tacky.

But thinking about it, not too different from F1, how sometimes they do the same thing when comparing splits.

Yeah, it would be tacky lookin' if it was exactly like the B&J, but if it was not as big and it didn't use the LFS ingame names, I think it would look good. Using the same colours and system already used for the race positions on the left.

STCC Sim Touring Car Cup 9 (Fern Bay Green)
(105 posts, started )
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