Quote from El_TaxMaN :

Scawen, Can you add feature to change driver position in setup screen?

Eek! I think that would heavily deduct from the realism factor Personally I think cars should be hardcoded to either RHD or LHD, not switchable.



Regards,

Ian

hi Scawen..

Quote from Scawen :

There doesn't seem to be any space for a user name without making it incompatible.

But if you are talking about hotlaps, in that case I think the player name field is already filled with user name anyway. Does that do what you need?

I found two references to names in the SPR headers, 'local player name' and 'username'... however, the 'username' value doesn't appear to correspond with the LFSW username, infact, I don't know where this value comes from.

In the replay mgr I'm working on, I had an option to display the 'username' column in the grid as either LFS username or in-game player name, both of these values seem variable for at least my own account. For example, I set up a profile for my littlen before I got him his own account.. swapping the list between username and player name would display 'Ash' for both (yet the username should have been 'Ian.H'), yet others would change.. my own one has varied between 'Ian.H' and '[dSRC] Ian.H' where the former is my username and latter in-game player name.. no idea why the [dSRC] variant would ever appear as a username (hmm, you mentioning hotlaps.. I'll do a test later to see which ones seem to work and which don't.. maybe the username in the non-hotlap replays isn't actually the username? would explain the variations I get if this is the case).

I've checked the code and the correct bytes are being read as for some replays the values are correct.

I've disabled this feature temporarily in the replay mgr, but if the above would be clearer with a couple of screen snippets posted, let me know and I'll sort them out.

Anyways.. I'm interested in reading the username from SPR replays in general, not just hotlaps currently for filtering purposes.. things like start position for the player would be nice, but can wait on those for an incompatible patch in the future if you'd consider adding them at a later date



Regards,

Ian

Scawen, would it be possible to get the additional info added to MPR headers in X2 into SPR headers too? (or at least the LFS username.) This'd be really useful right now



Regards,

Ian

Last edited by Ian.H, Sat 30 Jun 2007, 16:10.

Hi Bob..

Quote from Bob Smith :

I understand what you are getting at with the coding habits, the very loose structure in VB allows you to get away with stuff other languages never would. That doesn't mean you cant' write good code in VB of course, it just requires a bit more self discipline

I don't know what you mean about VB being a "practise language". Does that make all my programs "practise programs"? I know C/C++ as well (though admittedly not as well as VB) and don't really see the big difference, or why it is treated as a kiddie language.

Ahh sorry, I didn't mean any "offence" by that.. more that it's an easy language to get to grips with (reference to 'kids' wasn't meant literally in regards to VB, more of a (bad?) analogy), but has some sloppy handling of things.. but as you mention, a lot can depend on your own discipline.. but that will only really come with a fair amount of experience you need better understanding of the language (whatever it is, not VB only).

FWIW.. I coded in VB for a fair few years back in the day.. in various formats (VB4-6, VBS, VBA) and only moved over to start learning C++ after a friend who I consider somewhat of a C wizard persuaded me to learn it.

What it really boils down to though is "the right tool for the right job" IMO.. whatever the OP is more comfortable with working in (once he learns a bit about some of the options available).. I guess I'm just slightly biased towards C / C++ as I've now managed to achieve a lot more in that than I ever did with VB.. but that said, I'm still a C++ n00b really and would struggle to code some of the apps in C++ that you have in VB



Regards,

Ian

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Ian's just jealous, becuase all the women laughed at him in his pink tutu


We all know how Ian's last drifting attempt went

(Don't hurt me Ian, it's the 3:00 AM + Coffee talking)

LOL damn! I knew that tutu would come back to haunt me!

<sarcasm>d0r1ftz0rz r0xxxxx!!!! kthxby</sarcasm>



Regards,

Ian

Quote from CNSZU :

Thanks guys, I'm relieved to hear this.

I had exactly the same thoughts back in 2004 when I was considering my S1 license (although back then, the problem was mainly wrecking, not people sliding around willy-nilly) and IIRC, asked a similar question.

As said already, licensed servers are definitely better with the ability to permanently ban by username rather than IP address, so any well maintained server (and there's a fair few of them) won't have idiots present for very long and for the most part, people wanting to be ballet dancers in cars tend to keep away from race servers (thankfully!).



Regards,

Ian

Quote from CSU1 :

maybe those shit flash plugins need putting inside firefox directory

LFSW doesn't require flash to be installed AFAIK... just that Javascript is enabled. I have all flash crap blocked for all sites and it functions just fine


Dan.. have you tried flushing your browser cache? May not solve anything, but would be something I'd try personally as a start.



Regards,

Ian

I'd start reading up on C / C++.. ASM is all but dead these days, VB is a "practice language" (like having stabilisers on a kid's bike until you can ride a real bike) and will teach you very bad coding habits, IMO.

Interpreted languages such as Perl / Python can be useful too and well worth learning one or more scripting languages like these if you have the time.

Where to start? the same as everyone...




Personally I've never read any books per-se on "how to code".. reference manuals / code snippets etc have worked well for me.. but everyone's learning techniques are different.

One thing I do love about coding, is there's always something new to learn

How to code specifically for the sort of app you're considering, I don't know as yet, I haven't delved into the world of InSim.. but there's plenty of smart and friendly people here that I'm sure would offer some advice if you posed some specific questions to them.

Just my take on it all anyway.



Regards,

Ian

Working fine here at 10:30.



Regards,

Ian

Hi all

0.3.2.77 has been released

Changelog and download info in [POST=407199]post #1[/POST].



Regards,

Ian

Last edited by Ian.H, Fri 29 Jun 2007, 08:13. Reason : Fixed incorrect version number

Quote from gp4racer :

my car for a local championship

I dunno how to save with max resolution, maybe as bmp??

Ian, any advice to get a little fast render? I mean, Pentium 1.8 ghz duo core, 1 G ram and it spend around 6 minutes..regards

Cool! Glad you got it sorted

Just for future reference, no need to put any reference to where the scenes came from in the renders

As for faster renders, I normally render a smaller image as a test. If you hit F10 and go into the 'Render' tab, you should be able to set the render size there, but unfortunately rendering is just one of those things that can take a long time.. a few recent ones I did took over 4 hours to complete.



Regards,

Ian

Just watched the replay and it was clearly your doing Senna. I'm all for a bit of rubbing in racing, but you all but took Krani out previously too.. you can't just dive into a corner and expect the person to give way. You were diving from way too far back on most corners to grab the "2/3 rule".



Regards,

Ian

Quote from jjones :

WELL THATS THE STANDERD OF LFS RACING WHICH PUTS ME OF RACING ONLINE.

AND YOU WAS BANG IN THE WRONG WITH UR CARLESS DRIVING!

I haven't seen the replay yet, but do know that I had 2 stonking races tonight. 2 and 3 abreast in some places and hardly any rubbing



Regards,

Ian

Grudd wrote the rendering tute a long time ago, before LFS used DDS textures IIRC, hence the reference to TGA files instead.

If you open up say, XFInterior1.dds, you'll find a small white square area in there. You'll need to paint that white part either a dark grey or black, which will then make things like the wheel arches / window rubbers the colour you choose.

To edit material IDs for polys, you'll need to go into poly sub-edit mode, select the polys you want and change the ID number near the bottom of the right roll-out. See the part about fixing the wheel materials in the Wiki tutorial for more info on doing this... the same method is used for changing any material ideas on any part of the car if you wish to do this later on



Regards,

Ian


EDIT: gp4... Checking out Davo's video tutorial might be useful too. He made it to accompany the Wiki tute to give a better visual representation of what to do for each step

Last edited by Ian.H, Thu 28 Jun 2007, 14:14.

I see that the LFS Username has recently been added to the MPR header, this is good news Would it be possible to add the same info to the SPR header too? It'd be very useful for my Replay Mgr as neither the PlayerName or Username currently available in the headers appears to be the actual LFS Username and I could really make use of it about now



Regards,

Ian

Quote from DarkTimes :

Hehe, you'll need to educate me, what is UBB? I did a quick Google, somehow I don't think you're referring to the United Bulgarian Bank.

UBB == Ultimate Bulletin Board (IIRC.. was an old forum written in Perl).. now pretty much the standard forum codes used for markup, [ QUOTE ], [ CODE ] etc



Regards,

Ian

Unfortunately frank's right.. he didn't say torrents are illegal (which of course they're not), but rTracker would happily distribute content ripped from anywhere, no questions asked.. such as the GTR2 rips, Macau from RACE, various mods from normal modders that had been hacked by wannabees without permission etc.

None of the pages work for me anyway in Firefox.. only the index and FAQ.. everything else results in a plain white page



Regards,

Ian

While the revs are funky.. I was able to scream a 1.1 Ford Fiesta (Mk1) to about 7,800rpm and push it all the way to about 98mph! heh... although the peak output was way below that (probably closer to 5,200)... that's how engines work.



Regards,

Ian

Sitting stationary revving the engine would increase the car's temp a lot.. yet my box temp would remain about the same.. I don't see how this is either an improvement for gameplay or realistic



Regards,

Ian

Hi all

0.3.1.75 has been released

Patch X MPR replays now handled properly and some basic SPR usage charts added.. plus other stuff

Changelog and download info in [POST=407199]post #1[/POST].



Regards,

Ian

You can choose which side you look over your shoulder.. either turn your wheel slightly in one direction before hitting 'look back' or use the look left / right buttons together.. whichever is pressed first will be the side you look over your shoulder.

Only thing I wish would happen is that we could define the degrees we look to the left / right.. 90 degrees is stupid as the view completely bypasses the mirror, which is why I'd be wanting to look to the side



Regards,

Ian

Quote from dungbeetle :

What is it that makes GTR2 the best of the bunch for you at the moment?

As things currently stand, they're the only AI that have anything that resembles Intelligence and you can have a pretty good race with them I've found (granted I'm no alien ).

LFS's AI has an issue of following a fixed path (or there abouts) and therefore has absolutely no idea of your presence on the track, the only plus is that after a few laps, you can work out where you don't want to be at a specific time as the AI is going to share the same piece of tarmac regardless.. so at least they're avoidable, just not much fun to actually race yet and have some real issues at BL1 and knowing where the track goes

rF's is just poor. They either don't race at all and just seem to cruise round, or they'll become kamikaze and even go as far as leave the tarmac and head onto the grass to make sure they rear-end you.. this is what makes them worse for me than LFS' current AI.. at least you can learn where to avoid the AI in LFS, in rF you don't have that choice as they're more like a heat-seeking missile.



Regards,

Ian

Quote from dungbeetle :

So, for those of you who've tried other sims, which one has (or ones have) the best AI so far, in your opinion?

Right now, in order of the 3 games I have (and IMO of course):


GTR2
LFS
rFactor


GTR2s isn't too bad IMO.

LFS used to have great AI back in the S1 era.. if the new updates match that, I'll be very happy and LFS will jump back to the top slot.

rF's Artificial Ignorance is just a bad joke gone incredibly wrong! and was what eventually made me quit being involved with the game as testing tracks during development wasn't much fun with kamikaze AI.

_Really_ looking forward to the LFS AI updates



Regards,

Ian

Setup organisation would be welcomed.. but as for "live track effects".. I'll pass for now.. instead I'll stick my vote on fixing the tracks and effects we have already, such as track marking lines that clip and pop all over the place, random horrible (shouldn't be there) shadows, pits that are assigned to a driver, and not allow anyone to just pit-in in any old pit box, yada yada. Best to fix current things before adding more things



Regards,

Ian

Quote from mutlu :

im unable to assign my brake and throttle pedals seperatley.One will work and the other wont(if that makes sence)seems that both pedals work on the one axis and im unable to get both workingat the same time.I know my wheel is old but im still short 300$ to buy a G25.

Download the Logitech profiler from their site if you haven't got it installed already. There's a checkbox in there for 'report combined pedals' (or words to that effect). Untick the checkbox and both pedals should work on their own axis.. works for my DFP and my old non-pro back in the day



Regards,

Ian