Quote from SamH :

Perhaps it's worth noting that I'm less interested in an adversarial debate and more interested in constructive discussions. Rather than a win/lose conclusion, I lean more towards common understanding - not necessarily with agreement, but hopefully with increased knowledge of both the subject and others' perspectives. So it might be fair to say that I'm the wrong person to enter the debate in opposition Wink

I agree, but I might even say that "losing" in an argumentative debate can be more valuable than winning, because it means that the loser has encountered stronger arguments and gained new information to adjust his position. And the winner has gained nothing.

Quote from SamH :

I could formulate an argument that, if it can't sustain itself, it isn't a human. But that argument is no more compelling, no more rational than your argument. Ultimately, I believe it comes down to a matter of opinion on where in the sand you choose to draw your line. That's determined subjectively, and is impossible to resolve objectively. My presumption is that the aim of a discussion is to find agreement/concession based on objective standards, and I don't think this is possible on this subject.

So I'm trying to find out your line. So now we're looking at a human criteria for being able to sustain itself? Okay, then we're not talking about three months. it's again some years after birth. So we can postnatally abort babies. But again it looks like an arbitrary criterion to me. What does it mean to be self-sustaining, where are the clear definitions with necessary and sufficient criteria. Why do we need a vague criterion to define a human every time. Where does self-sustaining begin? Obviously, while the baby is being breastfed, he is still not self-sustaining. For many people this continues until they are 18 and beyond if we talking about those who live off their parents? And again there are many others people who can no longer sustain itself. They are mostly in hospitals, very sick people and people who have been badly injured and many old people can't sustain itself. So they're not human beings anymore by this criteria and for that reason, it's okay to kill them. I can't agree with that.

Intelligence, consciousness, individual, feeling pain, self-sustenance. It all looks to me like vague and arbitrary criteria that people look for to kill people. And if we apply these criteria to define a human being, it turns out that many people in society are not human beings.

Besides, if we really think about this question. And what are the real reasons why we find ourselves caring about certain criteria for defining a human. We will find that these criteria are conveniently suited to abortion rather than to a fair definition of a human. If we needed certain criteria for a certain action that some might consider immoral and that’s why we need exactly this criterion isn't that highly subjective or even hypocritical? We are simply redefining concepts for our convenience. We don't talk about it truthfully.

For some reason we need outside agency to define a human. It doesn't matter religion, tradition, culture or politics. Why don't we define ourselves away from all these external agendas that dictate how we think.

While I'm not arguing that abortion is bad if you have a moral position that it's okay to frivolously murder humans. That would just be more consistent and more honest than coming up with the human criteria necessary for abortion.

Quote from SamH :

There are a plethora of different medical considerations. Is the zygote so distinct from any other cell in the human body? Why is any other cell in the human body not regarded individually as human? The zygote begins its existence as part of, and not independent of, the body that surrounds it, just as any other cell in the body.

1. A zygote is a separate organism of the same species. (So what species is this organism?) Unlike other human cells.
2. Zygote diploid cell resulting from fertilization and is a totipotent cell, that is, capable of giving birth to others cells. Unlike other human cells.
3. Only the zygote is formed as a result of the fusion of the mother's ovum and the father's sperm that forms a complete genetic code for the formation of a human being. So a sperm or ovum separately will not be able to form a human being. That's the moment when two objects form one. That's the moment when a human being is created.

If we want a non-vague and non-arbitrary line of the beginning of human, we must take the very beginning - the zygote.

Quote from SamH :

Attaining that independence is the zygote's journey, through growth and development, but it clearly - in medical terms - is not an individual at the moment of its first existence. Some religious groups regard sperm and egg to be sacrosanct (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVHjg3AqIQ), even though the overwhelming majority of them will never combine to become a zygote that proceeds to individualism.

I am not a religious person, I don't care what believers think. I don't have any arguments that refer to religion or god. As I said before neither sperm nor ovum contains a complete set of genes and chromosomes to form a human being. And they individually cannot be a human being.

Quote from SamH :

Just to be clear, I'm talking post-birth, <3 month-old infants, not <3 month-old fetus. I'm not sure if you remember the case of "Alfie", a child who suffered brain damage at birth. To all intents and purposes, Alfie appeared as a typical newborn despite suffering GABA-transaminase deficiency - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfie_Evans_case. Objectively this was a desperately sad circumstance, but through learning about this case I came to realise that a baby is not sentient even by the time of its birth.

Sorry I misunderstood you, usually when we are talking about three months we are talking about abortions in the mother's body. So you are literally in favour of postnatal abortions up to three months? Oookay. That's an interesting pro-life stance. But what exactly is pro-life about it?

It's self-evident to me personally that postnatal abortion is murder. Then the question still remains, why three months? Now it looks even more arbitrary. And why did you cite the Alfie case? If it was diagnosed straight away, it could obviously have been resolved sooner than three months. But to me, it's a human being. But it's more debatable whether it's frivolous murder. It still is to me. And you're in favour of taking Alfie off life support?

First of all, I appreciate that you decided to try to discuss my argument from a rational standpoint, unlike almost all the other people who were making emotional nonsense. Too bad it took two months and no one but you could do it. But later is better than never and thank you for that.

Quote from SamH :

I personally hold an ethics-driven pro-life principled stance, pragmatically tempered by pro-choice considerations. That is to say that, in an ideal world, everybody lives happily and nobody dies. But this is far from being an ideal world.

Not really sure why you choose to argue with my argument then, or do you have better pro-life argument?

Quote from SamH :

Obviously, the true/false premise is that a embryo/fetus is a human being. There are medical, moral and religious justifications both for and against this premise. If instead you argue for the preservation of sentient (over human) life, this argument must contend strong medical arguments that an infant does not truly achieve sentience for several months after birth. Nobody (as far as I know) makes the argument that infants <3 months old/sentience could be terminated. So it's a complex question. And so it should be.

My thesis is that human beings begin in the zygote. I make my argument for this in my first post. You don't argue with it. You're making your own.

And you're appealing to the medicine. And why is that important? You say there's a strong argument there. But you don't give it. What am I supposed to argue? Am I supposed to come up with an argument for you? Why is it important to have an abortion before three months?

So what is "sentience"? I might well say that many adults I've met are not sentient. So they're not humans? Or what? We put this forward as a criterion for a human, you understand that these are just names of the species and doctors do not consider embryos over 3 months sentient? The same as several years after birth.
But ok if we take "sentience" as a human criterion, then we can postnally abort all newborn babies, mentally handicapped people, people in comas and maybe even sleeping people?

I would like to know your position, not the position of the medical, especially since the position of the medical profession in abortion centres is primarily concerned with the safety of the woman in labour. And especially as different countries have different abortion times. In most European countries you can have an abortion up to 12 weeks. And in England, where you are a citizen (as I understand it) you can abort up to 24 weeks. Are there already 2 different rules up to 12 weeks and up to 24. Which one is correct and why? And why isn't this arbitrary crap based on nothing to do with the embryo?

Quote from SamH :

Nobody (as far as I know) makes the argument that infants <3 months old/sentience could be terminated. So it's a complex question. And so it should be.

Yeah, well, at least I'm arguing that a zygote is a human being. And that you can't kill humans frivolously. Why is it important that no one has told you about this before?

Quote from SamH :

I also find it ironic that the most strongly pro-life also tend to be the most supportive of capital punishment - a logical inconsistency that seems to pass largely unnoticed.

For example, if I support executions by the state in a reasonably civilised society and support the pro-life position on abortion, so what? There's no contradiction there. Execution is not frivolous murder. It is a tool to punish, warn, and reduce crime for a sufficiently severe crime. Whereas abortion is done on a whim. And "we don't want a child yet", or "we're not ready", or whatever its a just frivolous murder of a innocent human.
I gave in the same first post an exception that allows abortion, like when a baby threatens the life of a woman in labour. This is no longer a frivolous murder. And that could be self-defence. People as adults can also kill people in self-defence and be justified.

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Sat, 27 Jan 2024 22:06.

yes/53/Aleksandr_124rus

Quote from Scawen :

Some CPU results here. Note: this is an old (but still good) computer. I locked frame rate at 30 fps with a full AI grid, paused, at South City. The reason for locking frame rate is so the CPU usage results are comparable between the two versions.

I post relevant results for CPU usage. The 1st number is version 19, 2nd number is version 20 of the mod.

Solid pass:

Render car (total): 56.41 -> 47.59
Includes:
- Draw driver: 5.90 -> 2.57
- Draw meshes: 18.00 -> 14.64
- Wheel objects: 14.29 -> 12.29

Alpha sorted: 11.56 -> 8.31 (of which ~1% is fences etc)

So in total (solid + alpha, TV camera, 32 cars at 30 fps on my PC) approx: 67.0% -> 54.9%

A 12% of CPU reduction from 67% of CPU is ~18% CPU saving per car.

NOTE: This is the CPU usage. It does not consider GPU usage but we are unlikely to be GPU bound.

Wow, that's great, I hope I can optimize the mod even better. Thanks for this information, it is quite useful to know.

Mod updated:
Enabled concealed driver for optimization.
Wheel visibility - inside covered.
Some material\texture optimization.
Some mapping fixing.
Some mesh fixing.
Muffler is back to static attachment for optimization.
Change size rear lights to more realistic.

LFS username: 53 Aleksandr_124rus

Quote from Scawen :

whole post

Thank you for your time and explanation of how to better optimize the mod, I will definitely do it as soon as I have free time. But I wonder if the problem here is really in the textures or the number of subobjects. Lags during the broadcast occur during the crash of several cars. Is it possible that this is somehow related to the damage model of the high-polygonal mesh or something like that?

Quote from Scawen :

So this combines 13 textures into a single texture page. Only the two repeating textures need to be left on their own page. 15 textures on the steering wheel now, can be reduced to only 3

You are right about combining textures in one subobject.
But from this another question arises, what is the best way to optimize the mod? I should not use the same large texture in several subobjects, or make separate small textures for them. So if you use one big texture in two subobjects it double the graphics workload (or something like that) or not cuz it the same texture?

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Mon, 22 Jan 2024 10:54.

#53

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Sun, 21 Jan 2024 13:29.

yes/53/Aleksandr_124rus

Quote from Racon :

I think that distance is what you're changing with the setting: Graphics > User LOD

Oh, i have LFS on russian, and it's just called detalization level for me. I wasn't sure what it was. So its there, got it.

Quote from Flame CZE :

This is how it works already, LOD2 mesh is used from a certain distance.

yes, but I mean that you could choose on what it distance you can see lod2.

Quote from Scawen :

It would be simple in code to enforce a new LOD2 limit but it might not be very welcome, so I'm not sure how to approach it. I think I would first have to do more research, to find out the actual CPU usage as this is really just theory if not tested.

It is possible to create an option in the game to load lod2 from a certain distance? Or, for example, the option that only 15 cars (can choose how many) closest to the camera can have lod1? For mods that have good quality lod2 and not too many triangles, this should help.

Quote from RE Amemiya :

I hope to see a few things, mainly a super sport tire that reacts better to heavier loading and more slip angle with less sidewall flex. Should be good and closer to modern sports tires!

I think race slicks and even sport tires overheat a little too quickly I can’t seem to get a nascar to last more than 20 laps no matter how loose I set up the car and drive with the rear. And Less than 2 drift laps on the kart track have my super tires popped, in real life even at full tilt with 1000hp I’d think 4 laps or so would be more realistic.

That's maybe true, but to me it's more important to get a grip right here than the rate of temperature rise..
In real racing before operating range (OR) and after OR there is a decline in the grip. And the grip gradually drops to not very good and not very bad until the wear runs out tire to the cord and here already the grip falls dramatically until tire pop. In LFS, the temperature before OR is similar to the real one, and after OR disappears quite strongly and with smoke is smoothly lost grip until the moment the tire is pop. And on sport tires the grip before pop falls so hard that you feel like you're on snow or ice..(pic) This also applies to other tires in LFS, but maybe on other tires this effect is less intense. But it seems that in LFS the cord grip is sort of simulated by a low grip after the operating range of the tire and this simplification greatly affects the handling of the car after the operating range. If in LFS tire adds a cord grip like the one in the upper graph, this would correct the situation.

For racers it is not so important because driving above the OR is not accepted in races because it is not efficient. But in drifting it is very noticeable.

I often watch drift competitions (which is a good stress test for tires) There are various semi-slicks used there all the time. (In LFS it is similar to sport tires) So in real drifting there is no such a decline in the grip after the tire gerva, moreover, putting a new pair of tires on the wheels pilots constantly warm up the tire before the run, (but not only to achieve the OR, but also to remove an external slick layer of rubber). And for them there is almost no sensation of grip loss after the OR and all the way down to the cord.

Also I know real drifters who have said that at high temps the grip doesn't work right in LFS.

Quote from RE Amemiya :

Do tires pop due to over temp or tread being at 0?

And indeed, in real life, temperature and wear are interconnected, the higher the temperature, the faster the wear, but pop can calmly be achieved without raising the temperature, just by wear and tire, but it will take much longer. In real life, after 200-250 degree (depending on the compound), the rubber of the tire melts. But I'm not sure if it's possible to achieve that in a normal race without drifting, probably not.. Btw, I saw that tires literally caught fire in drift competitions, just from drifting.

Most experts consider 195 degrees Fahrenheit as the “line in the sand” when it comes to tire temperature: Beyond that point, the temperature will start impacting tire life. At 250 degrees, a tire will start to lose structural strength, could begin experiencing tread reversion and the tire will begin to lose strength.

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Wed, 17 Jan 2024 22:39.

Quote from marijamopleenjoyer :

Yes, the freezes occur when someone is leaving pits, usually when it's downloading a skin.

By the way yes, I remember that even before the mod system there was a common problem that people have lag when others leaving the pit. So mods were obviously not involved because they did not exist yet.

This does not concern me at the moment as I have a relatively new computer and I have no lags.

Quote from rog_nilsson :

Awesome car! really good model and chassis.

Thanks, I updated the mod a couple more times to finally fix the rims and dashboard.

Quote from Scawen :

I'm wondering what could help, if the tyre and the rim could have a "wireframe" image option for 2D views, in the rim editor and the spoke editor? That wireframe view would appear simply as circles, for the LFS tyre and the user defined rim points.

Not sure I would use that, I use the reference mostly in blender to accurately model it, and then I need it in the rim editor, but I don't know how to use it because it's a side view in a cut. And not so much the reference itself as the visibility of the spoke mesh, as I've shown in a pic, it would help more. But maybe not worth spending time on it if it's complex to develop, and I've kind of learned in rim editor to compare result to the rim in vihicle editor view and it works out pretty well, it's a matter of getting used to it.

The trick is to get the right size spokes, and if you have found the dimensions from the reference it will help a lot, I did not find them, so I had to sweat a little bit.

P.S. The same picture shows my progress on getting closer to a more correct rim shape. I reduced the diameter of the spokes and now it's better. And it's still pretty close to the reference.

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Tue, 16 Jan 2024 18:46.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks, that's good that you did the cleanup and reduced polygons.

As far as I can tell you have plenty of detail in the spoke object. But I would like to talk about the rim profile, for you and anyone else reading.

I really need to do a video about this but I had a cold during the holidays. Now I can talk normally again so maybe I should get on with it. I think the new rim editor is not well understood yet, and as it now has so much flexibility there is also potential for errors.

The rim editor contains a "STEEL RIM" profile shown in yellow which is the least amount of metal to make a rim. Alloys really have the same shape inside but have a different outside (thicker metal for strength, also potential for styling).

So taking your mod, the way you have done the new rim is really not correct for this wheel size. I've done a quick edit to show an example that is realistic in the rim area for this wheel diameter. Although there is a lot of variety in alloy styles, it should not be *above* the steel rim profile. Just *outside* it. I hope my attached screenshots explain (also in the first post of this thread but I think I need to explain this more).

By the way, if sharp edges are wanted you can use smoothing groups on the surfaces.

I understand that the rim should be done according to the yellow guideline. But I need to make a beautiful replica of a real rim based on the reference and because of this, following the reference I got such a flange. But my mistake is rather that I chose the wrong spoke size. Ill try to fix it, but it's quite a complicated task to make a rim following a reference without seeing the spoke on the diagram.

Mod published.
Changes:

Changed dashboard to more bright colors and new icons.
Removed all errors in mesh.
Fixed some mappings.
Changed rims to fit in limits.
Changed some mappings, added more dark points (on steering wheel and dashboard)
Changed engine sound.
Added muffler animation.
Fixed lod2 skin mapping.

Quote from Evolution_R :

Did you receive an email from lfstech?
Something like this: "LFS Vehicle Mod - name_of_the_mod - status update: REQUIRES CHANGES"

Yeah, I was just been dumb and forgot to check the second config where the polygon limit was exceeded This was the first time for me so I didn't understand what happened.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks for updating it to make use of the new system. I look forward to seeing the updates.

You should have received an email listing what is wrong with the updated mod.

I see this in our logs:
LOD1 of Config 2 - Too many triangles

I think you should see that if you go in the modeller and click the different configurations, if one of them goes red then the limit is exceeded.

Oh sorry, completely forgot about that

Quote from Scawen :

By the way, if it was my mod (although I don't have these skills) I would be looking at those bad normals, too thin triangles etc. Many of them are easy to fix and would save frame rate, can make it tidier, you could reduce the polygons count by hundreds.

Just fixed all of that

i mean i fixed it, and updated it almost 2 hours ago, but somereason LFS dont have it...and new version not published

Quote from Scawen :

Regarding the N.400S GT4

The spoke object does exceed limits. It has 6095 triangles but the limit is 1600 so this has been inserted into the veh using a hack.

The main model is only 20 triangles below the limit at 65515 triangles. This limit was only intended for extreme cases, it's not a target or a guide. Really models should be a lot lower than this and still be good quality for a game. Lower polygon count is better for game models.

Given the very high resolution main model, I don't know how much of the generation time is caused by the spoke object. But the spoke object is excessive and also wasteful - there is a lot of detail also in a rim object that mostly can't be seen as it is hidden by the so-called spoke object.

This is my mod and I have already explained my position on this matter. As for the spokes, it's a bit surprising to me to see messages about "hacks", when the LFS official discord channel was calmly discussing instructions from draggo on how to do it and there were mod reviewers there as well. And I thought it was common practice to do, just dont need to be an moron and make spokes over 10k and veh file over 2mb. And because it turns out to be such a big deal seeing this thread yesterday I started changing the spokes and rim to hit the limits. Its your game and your rules.

And I uploaded it to the site today with other fixes over an hour ago, but for some reason the LFS still has the old version. And new version is not published

Quote from Scawen :

Given the new rim editor allows good detail to be produced by the rim cross-section, I can see no reason why the rim editor could not be used as intended in this case and use the spoke model for... spokes.

Because the rims in this mod were made before the rim editor was updated, which allowed making details like flanges and bead and what I was talking about earlier. And because of this, I had to use the spoke editor in those days..

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:53.

Quote from johneysvk :

Hi, while watching the NDR race i noticed that LOD2 doesn't have the skin mapped for the bonnet, you can see it pretty clearly here when cars get closer to the camera and switch from LOD2 to LOD1

https://www.youtube.com/live/BSBupTJpiIk?si=YECKCJgrJrxKYF1K&t=622

Fixed

I have been working as an industrial designer for over 10 years, (primarily modeling) I model all my mods myself. I hope this makes you aware that I know what I'm talking about.

Quote from Scawen :

A little bit? Yesterday the system detected an individual spoke object with over 11,500 triangles, which is more than enough for a whole vehicle.

Even in the mobile gaming industry, racing games the limits are higher than 11k tris for car. Unless the graphics are stylized to low poly. In modern PC simracing games LFS has the smallest amount of polys right now.

Quote from Scawen :

Have you learned to use the rim editor properly? This is not clear from your reply.

1600 triangles for some spokes is way more than enough.

I wouldn't say that, my slogan is beauty in the details. The more details, the more realistic the mod looks. I can working with a 65.5k limit on a car (But sometimes I wish there was more). But 1600 for spokes, that's too low for many cases. Yes, if your spokes are 5-6 relatively straight sticks, there's nothing complicated here. (and even then we won't see modeled nuts and air valve there...and the constant use of hard edges with is not good for realism) but if the spokes are more complicated, that's where it gets tricky and there's a loss of details to get to the limits. And I have no idea what to do if you have to make rims with complex designs like BBS. You'll have to make a lot of sacrifices in the form of giving up some details like pattern in middle and nuts.

In my mod, I had to remove the nuts and add them as hub obj and use a hard edges. Hard Edges are bad because they literally don't exist in reality, which is why it often looks weird. There is no object in real world that converges towards the edge with a 90 degree surface, everything has a chamfer. For example, on the picture with the real rim on which I used as a reference clearly visible chamfer on the spoke, which has a specific shine that makes this rim even more beautiful, this shine is impossible in LFS with hard edges (with different color groups). But it is possible with a chamfer (bevel). Also in blender hard edges should be "looped" that it would be correctly transferred to the LFS editor as it is converted to color groups and that makes it even harder to use. (in blender shading it is not necessary to loop the hard edge to see the result) Instead, I prefer to use the bevel with additional edges wherever possible..But the limitation on spokes makes this almost impossible. And that's not even taking into account other rims with complex designs.

EDIT: I made a version my spokes with nuts and bevels in necessary places and I got 3.7k..

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Mon, 15 Jan 2024 07:24.

no/53/Aleksandr_124rus

Last edited by Aleksandr_124rus, Sun, 14 Jan 2024 14:00.