Dear LFS community.

I wasn't sure whether to post this in General Discussion or Off Topic but finally decided to post here as I guess it's quite relevant knowledge to the LFS community.

I just wanted to let you know about our new baby, Nicole, who was born on Sunday (30th March) weighing 7 lb 4 oz (3.3 kg).

Geraldine and Nicole are very well. At first the baby seemed to sleep all day and was awake all night but that's already improving, she did some good stints of a few hours last night!

A paragraph regarding LFS development which is of course affected in some ways by this - we spent quite some time in January and February rearranging our house. I had to move my office out of the upstairs room so Leo could have a new bedroom in time for his 2nd birthday and to make way for the baby in his old baby room. The new office (which was previously acting as a store room... we really need a garage...) and Leo's new bedroom needed major refurbishment so this may give you some idea of why the LFS updates you have seen, although useful to a lot of people and important towards finishing S2, have not been the major developments many people are hoping for so far this year. Eric has been continuing work on the GTR interiors using new reference material, we visited some racing car garages and got a lot of interior photographs of some cars to help make the LFS ones a lot more realistic.

I hope you like the pictures. We are very happy with the new arrival!

Quote from Bob Smith :

Scawen said he sold off his triple monitor display to save room, so that would imply he's back down to a single monitor.

Well, I didn't really sell it off, the Matrox Parhelia died so I installed a Radeon 9800 Pro that ATI had sent me some time before. To give me a good view I then bought a very nice Dell 27" 1920x1200 widescreen LCD which works well with the card. Then after failing to sell for a fiver or even give away my 3 matching 21" CRT monitors and 2 old 17" monitors all in perfect condition, I had to load them in the car and drive down to the dump! It was a bit sad I must say, unloading good clean stuff at the dump, but that's how it is, no-one wants heavy old monitors that take up space - and I didn't have the space either.

Quote from Bob Smith :

At one point he had a Matrox graphics card (for the three outputs), no idea if he's upgraded since then or not.

Still using the Radeon on my 2GHz Intel PC. It chugs a bit when there are too many cars on screen but runs smoothly most of the time. Just gradually I'm starting to want a better computer. I like the way Moore's law has stopped being true, it used to be silly that your computer was obsolete almost immediately after you bought it. Eventually I'll upgrade of course but it seems sensible to wait while what I've got does the job and the best time to upgrade would be when I start on a new 3D engine... if I can wait that long. Decisions to be made about whether to get Vista as well so I'm sort of waiting to see what happens with that. Anyway regarding LFS there's one more important optimisation that needs doing and will make things faster for everyone, namely that the subobjects like steering wheels need to be drawn as hardware meshes. Right now the subobjects are slowing things down because they are being sent vertex by vertex, triangle by triangle every frame. This method should only really needed for flexible objects like humans and tyres.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Also it's not true that Eric never visits the forum... he just never posts.

True. Eric does read the forums and appreciates the feedback. He just doesn't want to get drawn into conversations which could contain a lot of "when will this be done" and "what are the plans for this and that". His situation is not the same as mine where I really need very thorough and interactive testing done for any of my updates.

Last edited by Scawen, Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:20.

Quote from Jonesy_ :

sigh...

All this and still nothing have been done. It's really starting to feel like a green light for wallriding from the devs

You must try to understand that sometimes there are more important things in life than one particular issue on one track in one racing mode in LFS.

This bug has been reported, noted and discussed. There's no need to sigh. We get round to things in the end. We can't provide a running commentary on the progress of every bug on our list. The problem here is you forget there are other things going on, other issues to fix, other developments going on. When someone reports a issue, we don't just stop everything that is going on in life or LFS, and instantly make a new full version to fix one bug. If there was a frequent server crash, sure, we'd stop everything and fix it immediately. The importance of this hotlap issue is no way in that league.

Anyway in the discussion I had with Eric, it turns out that the walls that are hit in these hotlaps are marked as "dirt wall" so they make the right sound effect on impact. This means they bypass the HLVC protection. I plan (in the next test patch whenever that is) to switch on "dirt wall" as an HLVC wall riding violation.

Quote from bbman :

How was FE updated? I didn't notice any change except the ads are now .jpg, adding tyres to one corner isn't exactly updating imo...

There were serious issues with some of the AI paths there (the raw paths from which they generate their own lines). Such as walls being marked as driveable areas.

So Fern Bay had to be edited and resaved, While I was at it, I added pit lane cameras and fixed some reported bugs such as floating walls, improved the visibility of pit stop markings, also removed the large advert banners over the bridge which wre never meant to be there but were used to avoid drawing too much scenery. Eric also repaired the missing start lights and FE Green and fixed some yellow pit lane exit line Z buffer issues. Finally the tyres were added at FE Rallycross Green.

So this was actually several hours work. The fact that there is just a small note on the note sheet, does not mean that was the only thing that was done. Did you actually drive around at Fern Bay before making that comment? I would have thought the removed signs on the bridge were quite noticeable.

But this was not an "Eric update" where a couple of months go into improving things, this was some quick fixes by me. So now do you really think I was wrong so say the "updated tracks" got new jpg textures? Look in the patch folder, you'll see BL, SO and FE - the updated tracks.

Hmm, I feel writing this was a waste of time, anyway I'll post it just for the record.

Hello Testers!

This post is not about LFS but is relevant to game testing. Some of you I am sure are interested in games as well as simulators. Well here is an opportunity to test games before they are released.

Andy Robson, who Eric and I used to work with at Lionhead (he was Head of Testing) has set up a company Testology in the UK. They are contracted to test games for game developers.

Testology website : www.testology.co.uk

Testing is a fluctuating business, the number and scale of projects on the go varies constantly. So they need people on call so they can expand on demand, also sometimes there is large scale testing on the internet.

So, if you are interested in some testing, please send Andy an email, tell him a bit about yourself, how much time you have free usually and of course where you live.

UK applicants are likely to get more testing, for volunteer work and sometimes permanent or temporary positions may come up. International volunteer testing could be quite fun I am sure.

Contact Andy Robson : [email protected]

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I still don't understand what the quote means TBH. It sounded like some interiors would be released in Y, but not all.. I don't know. I guess it's none at all for now. In retrospect I think he just left out FXR & UFR in his sentence and he mean't all the interiors (GTR & ROAD).

The XF, XR and FZ road and race car interiors are mainly done and look very nice, but Eric isn't happy to release them yet because of certain details which are wrong or incomplete.

None will be released in Patch Y but they will be released as soon as possible. They are a high priority, along with certain other parts of my work that need to be updated so finally we'll be able to remove the ALPHA tag. These things just take a lot of time as the standard is higher now.

Hello Racers.

I feel Patch X is quite a landmark in LFS development. Although physics changes were minimal, there were so many other updates to old code, multiplayer improvements and general all round updates of so many parts of LFS that were getting a bit old, it has brought us a lot closer to S2 Beta and S2 Final. Of course there's still a way to go, plenty of nice updates to come, including AI, physics and Eric's graphical updates and we'll be continuing with that as you would expect.

We have received a lot of appreciation on the Patch X thread and I would just like to thank all those who helped get it to this stage - there are really a lot of people involved in getting a Patch ready for the release - not just the developers! So I just want to give the other contributors a little recognition for that.

So... thanks and praise to :

Official beta testers - for helping get the initial changes up to public test patch standard

Translators - for the many updates to the translations, helping LFS around the world

Franky500 - for providing the powerful test servers for this last week of intensive stress testing

Don - for entertaining us with videos and providing screen shots for the website on release day

Florian - for updating the lessons and reporting the "final bug" and reproducing it at the last moment!

Programmers - for thoroughly testing and suggesting improvements for the new InSim interface

Forum moderators - for keeping the forum clean and stopping the fights while I ignored all the reported posts

All the people who participated in testing the test patches - for all your bug reports and suggestions!

The test patch would never have been so good and stable without the help of all these people... THANK YOU ALL!

Quote from DanneDA :

Is there anything that can be done with the positions list at race start? On WE1R the first 3 cars on grid are at the bottom of the list.

Seen this in W41 and W42, others also reported this in W42.

See earlier post: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=443260#post443260


A replay of W42 is attached

No, nothing can be done, the finish line at WE1R is a few cars back - it's not a program bug.

This was reported yesterday and Eric has now fixed it in his copy of Westhill.

This thread won't really go anywhere. It's a bit boring to see the same old discussion again.

A massive update - Patch X - is coming out on Friday.

So... it's not a sensible time to complain that the features on top of YOUR list are not done. Everything is done in the order we want to do them. There is a lot of Eric's work not yet in the game but sorry to disappoint anyone, there's no code of mine that isn't yet there (except development tools)... patch W34 is really it.

Obviously (because I've said it before so many times, so it must be obvious now) I'll be working on AI and physics for Patch Y. But first patch X is out with its many very imoprtant updates.

OK, so now it's time to close this thread. Thank you for understanding!

Quote from BrandonAGr :

So is that a no to a teaser screenshot of what Eric has been working on?

Well that would be up to him. And I'm not contacting him to find out. But if I know Eric, he certainly wouldn't encourage this kind of thread by giving anyone a screen shot of anything. He told me it's actually the weird comments he sees around here that put him off writing anything. I think if he thought he could safely have a sensible conversation, he would do so.

Only thing is, although the vast majority of the community are nice sensible people - of course this is a sim, not a FPS so that does attract more mature people on average, still there are quite a few nutters around who type more than they think, or they think a lot but just "crazy" and make rumours out of nothing.

So, although I'm quite different from Eric in that way, and I come here all the time to talk to the sensible people, I can see his point.

...

And now I'm going to unsubscribe from this thead, as I've wasted enough time here already. So don't ask me anything else, I won't see your question.

Quote from Hyperactive :

You kinda misunderstood...

I see... you were being sarcastic, suggesting that it was a waste of time doing this small requested feature while I was working on that area :

Quote :

Ability to make insim apps that know whether you are entering or leving pits - priceless

But I took your comment at face value - my mistake. But it's silly to suggest (even as a joke) that I shouldn't do something that takes 5 minutes, because you're still waiting for something "more important" that would only take a month or two to do. And it's also a mistake to underestimate the value of InSim, the number of host programs that use it and run now and give so many people a better time online.

It's not a big deal what you've said but it's one of those continual irritations, people criticising me for making some small improvement here or there that I happened to be able to just squeeze in to a test patch, while there are some other things they are waiting for that will take hundreds of hours of work to do. It's so irritating, like a dripping tap. The problem is that I want to take the forum seriously - and I do - which is why the stupid repetitive comments have some effect on me, it's a hard thing to do, to take the sensible comments seriously but be totally unaffected by the misinformed stupid comments.

Actually I think one reason Eric doesn't write anything on the forums is because of the crazy conversations you can get drawn into. It's a mad thing that sometimes you can write 5 lines of text and people start analysing what you say, as if there's "something between the lines" and it's like some kind of cryptic crossword. Then you're back to the forum trying to correct all the mad rumours that have come out of all the misreadings of your original few sentences! That can be HARD!

And what I say always, I have to say again, if our time prioritising is SO BAD, how come LFS exists at all? And those who know so much more than us about how to manage our time, really, try doing it yourself. Don't tell us how to do it. It's just irritating. And let us do the little things as well as the big things, there's only one reason I do this job, because I like to program, including the big things and the small things. Eric does it because he likes to make nice graphics. We don't do it to be analysed and criticised by people who don't know what they are talking about. We don't do it as some kind of speed competition. We take our time and get it right, thanks to the help of the community as well. And I know there are a lot of people out there who like the way we do it. Though probably most of them didn't read this crazy thread!

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.

Jamexing, I think you and some others are overrating our perception of the importance and detail of the balancing required at the moment. We are not looking for extremely detailed and thorough work on finding the ideal balance, which, as you say, would be a waste of time. And you are underestimating the length of time to the physically incompatible version, it's not just around the corner, work has not started on my side of it yet (though of course Eric has done quite a lot for it). I won't answer any questions about that, it includes track updates and car interiors.

The situation is the physically incompatible version is several weeks away (much too far away to give an estimate) so between now and then we just want roughly balanced classes. It seems to be very good in the TBO class now, FXO is just not storming ahead leaving all other cars miles behind in the dust. The GTR class balancing is, so far, a little less refined and if we happen to hear back from several good drivers that the balancing is not working and we have just made another car the best instead of the FZR, then we can change it. I can change balancing for one car with one line of text. I won't rush into it though and that was my point earlier in the thread, we are waiting to hear back from some people, after some time.

Talk about other means of balancing and other elements of physical modelling that need improving is quite irrelevant, as that can't be done until the physically incompatible patch.

Quote from Mister2zx3 :

This pop-up/LOD switching has gone on a for a while. Would an option to disable all LOD switching/ stay at max geometry/meshes/textures be helpful in speeding up testing of patches?

This is not a question or needing any reply or discussion, just a comment.
Discussion can be had outside the patch forum if of any interest.
http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=16726

Well... no, the new idea is that at full LOD you shouldn't get any visible lod popping. And if you turn off the multiplayer speedup option, you shouldn't get visible lod reduction even if there are other nearby cars all over your screen. I'm trying to make this work for everyone.

Remember, I have now removed totally, all lod on tracks and trees because it's not needed. The only lod is on objects where lod has been specified (e.g. tyres and cones) cars and humans. As a developer I can't allow the total removal of LOD, it would be just crazy to draw a distant car which takes 5 pixels on the screen, with several thousand polygons. The aim is to set the lod correctly so that at Max User LOD, you don't see lod popping.

These last couple of test patches are all about lod and that's why it's gone on a bit, the lod system needed a big overhaul because it was all out of control and not giving control to the user. Now it's supposed to be simple, let the user control it and not let fov and screen resolution control it automatically in confusing and unpredictable ways.

Another reason why it may seem to have gone on a bit is there are so many different configurations.

But actually to me it doesn't seem to have gone on long at all... it's just like anything else, it takes a while to get right. LFS graphics have come along a bit these last few days, even without any of Eric's actual updates which are in development.

No, I think it's just because Eric lives in South East London which is near Kent.

Quote from Cue-Ball :

If that's true then can I assume that every surface carries the same weight? If so, this would account for the fact that the hot hatches seem very top heavy. Sometimes after going over an inside curb I swear that the engine must be mounted on the roof!

The meshes aren't used in the mass calculation any more. However, they are used to create a physics collision box and also to determine a radius. So they can affect physics in small ways.

Any tiny change to the car could put replays out of sync. For example, if a driver's position was moved by one millimeter, because of an updated steering wheel or whatever, the replay would be out of sync.

Not all the car interiors are done and Eric wants to release them at once, not having half a car class updated while another car is not. And one thing leads to another, so if the XRR is updated, the XRT is updated, so then the XFG should be updated as well. I expect all the interiors will be released at once, in an incompatible patch.

Quote from MaximUK :

Since making my ealrier post I have seen a thread where Scawen did say that Eric doesn't work full time on LFS. I guess depending on his other commitments at the moment this might suggest there isn't so much unseen work as I thought there might be. As AJP71 stated, Scawen also said Eric would be concentrating on S3 graphics, cars and tracks so I am not so sure we will see much for S2 anymore.

Well that's not true. Please - if you want to say that I've said things, and you are interpreting them very loosely, could you post a link to the post? Otherwise you are just spreading false information and attaching my name to it. That's how rumours start.

Eric is working on S2 things. He obviously will not work on S3 specific things until S2 is finished. The only thing I could have said about Eric not working full time is that for some time this year he was moving house.

Quote from Vykos69 :

I know, you dont like it, if people tell you, on what you should priorise, but I had to put my thoughts done. Get that damn V-Patch out and then finish S2, it's about time...

No Vykos.

Here is where we differ. You think I should do everything now, get S2 finished as quickly as possible. Also I should not even eat, sleep, have a bath, watch TV or go shopping I suppose?

LFS is about Eric and me leaving Lionhead to make the product we wanted to. LFS is the result. And it WORKS! If you like it, use it. If you don't like it, try something else. if you want it to get better, then WAIT. It always gets better.

If there's ONE thing we have proved, it's that our development system works very well and LFS gets better every year. And we do that by working the way we want to work, and being happy (being thankful for the thanks and appreciation that we get, and not letting the frequent attacks get us down). It's not about giving up all that is fun, and putting our nose to the grindstone and acting as Vykos and Kidcodea's slaves that they bought for £24. It's about following our inspiration including ideas from the community and REAL LIFE, and getting it done. There is no time limit. There's no reason to think we are about to fall over and die, and neither are you.

Every year it taken is another year too many. But guess what, things take time. And a lot of people enjoy the journey.

If you and Kid know so much better (as you claim) how to make a racing simulator, then why the **** don't you get off your arse and make your own one?

[reply written on Test Patch thread before moving]

I'll move the OT posts away in a while, perhaps to the progress thread. But for now I'll just reply.

Simply, the criticisms of LFS development stated a few posts back are just wrong and displaying a lack of understanding, and failure to see the big picture. Or if you wish, you may interpret that as my failure to explain to you what I'm doing every step of the way. But seriously, my job is not to explain to you every step of LFS development and every plan I have for it, while they run through my head. My job is to get LFS done.

It was actually the two Vista compatibility issues (unlocking and sound) and the arrival of the G25 wheel that got me onto this series of test patches. It's very important, with more and more people getting Vista, and us receiving several technical support emails "I can't unlock on Vista" and so on, for LFS to work on Vista. Also we need that improved controller support to be readily available to new users. Also I've had enough of "How do I install a patch, I've downloaded it and LFS doesn't work any more" so I've been working on and nearly finished the auto updater. And that means, Patch V needs to go on the main site. And guess what - it should not go up there completely bug ridden and full of hundreds of small issues that have been waiting a long time to be fixed. But it should be compatible, I need to do some months of incompatible work, which I have outlined elsewhere and won't go into here. And there's no point delaying the compatible fixes, leaving the much poorer version U up there when we are so close to V.

The compatible fixes and improvements are totally necessary. The irritated commentators on this thread have no idea how much reworking and improving goes on inside the program while I'm on a roll. Also they don't understand how much simply MUST be done, outside the core physics, to keep the program on track. It does actually take more time than the core itself. If a great majority of the time was spent on the core alone, we would have a physically accurate, but totally unusable simulator that attracted no more than the absolute hardcore simmer. And we'd be poor and have to give up LFS and go and get a job!

This work NEEDS to be done. It's nothing different from any time in the past. A lot of compatible fixes, tested thoroughly by the community, followed by an apparently quiet period while we work on incompatible things which cannot be tested by the community because every day's test patch is incompatible, which would causing hotlap and online madness. And in that apparently quiet periiod there will be a new post each week "Where are the devs gone" and "They've taken our money and run" and "The devs owe it to us to write a detailed progress report each week" etc, etc... you know how it goes by now.

Anyway, I'm very happy with these improvements, I'm sort of embarassed now by version U and it's flaws and imcompatibilities, the visible things and the internal messes it contains that I have sorted out. I'm itching to get that version V up there but it needs the auto-updater finished (a couple more days work) and the new (minor) sound updates (a few more days work - still awaiting some longer work in the future). Nearly every one of these test patches has had some VITAL fixes, along with a few irritations fixed and some minor or major features. It really is not a bad thing for LFS, these compatible things that have been done, bringing us so much closer to a final S2 that can be released, when the other craved updates are completed.

It's a little sad the lack of trust displayed in those preceding posts. The belief that something has gone wrong inside our heads, that the developers who once knew how to develop, have changed mentally in some way, are hiding away in a hole, scared to develop anything but just scratching at the surface. It's quite a pathetic belief in fact, when the truth is Eric's there working on things that will improve LFS a lot amd I am working 10 hour days getting so much done, as fast as possible to get a stable version up there ready for the approaching silent period of core development.

It's going so well, and as described elsewhere our lives have been sorted out a lot this year helped by the S2 success, after neglecting ourselves for years, due to LFS development. It would be nice if the off topic commentators could just be happy about it and have some faith in the simple understanding that we developers who got it this far, and have devoted so much of our lives to this, probably want to take it to the next stage as well!

Quote from SpaceMarineITA :

Good work guys!


P.S: If Eric has been able to buy a new house with his part of lfs sales you should have earned much. An house here costs not less then 3 hundred thousant euros...

Well just to be clear : houses in London cost a LOT and the tax man likes to take a big share of our earnings.

So... no, although S2 sales have been good, Eric did not buy a house outright, that would be impossible around here. He did what nearly everyone must do and he put down his deposit and got a mortgage to buy the house. So what does that mean for you? We need to get some good releases out there to keep paying for the rest of it.

Hello to all.

This is just a really quick note as I am starting to see more questions and frustration, from people who want an update. I hope this post will help to explain how things are going.

I first want to remind you how we work here. We don't work to a specified schedule or an exact feature list. We have our lists of things to do and we get on with them. We do allow ourselves to get sidetracked onto related tasks as we go, or even do completely unrelated things which we feel like doing, along the way. It's a good way to work, because we can follow our inspiration and interest, and so get a lot done. This is one reason why Eric and I left the company we used to work for, and set about working on our own. The only disadvantage is that sometimes, a planned thing takes longer to complete, while we finish something that wasn't planned. But that doesn't worry us at all - it just makes some people get impatient, sometimes.

Although progress is good, this year has been the slowest one yet. There are a lot of reasons for that, but none of them are really permanent.

On my side... as you know my first child was born this year, so there have been a lot of home improvements being done, and a lot of old rubbish to clear away, after years of letting things pile up when I only had a motorbike. Another issue has been the neighbours building. We are attached to a house which has had a loft conversion and a large rear extension. I won't describe what a building site is like, if you don't already know, you won't believe my description of the amount of dust and noise! Anyway, that has been on the go for 7 months now and they are really in the final stages, so most days are peaceful now. Of course Leo himself is quite a distraction and something to get used to. But you don't want to miss out on the first months of your first baby's life. He won't be small for long!

On Eric's side... he was finally able to buy his own house, something that was impossible in the earlier years of LFS and he was forced to waste a lot of money renting a house. Now with S2 sales, he got the chance to get his own house again, so of course he took that opportunity. That kept him off his work for a little while. As anyone knows, who buys a second hand house, there is a certain amount of work to be done before you move in.

So, I hope you can now understand the reasons for our slower progress in 2006. This is by no means an apology! We never give estimates of when things will be done - we are very careful about that because we don't want to be in the position of failing to deliver on our promises. We are very happy with the improvements to our homes and our lives, and I am happy to report that our improved environments are helping us to continue working on this project we love so much! You can look forward to many improvements to LFS - graphical, physical and audible. We won't give any estimates though, of when any particular patch or version will be out. But we are progressing towards it day by day.

Last edited by Scawen, Mon, 16 Oct 2006 10:13.

Yes, Geraldine is doing most of the technical support (help desk) now. She isn't going back to an office job since leaving her old job to have our baby. She wants to be able to look after him full time, and we are lucky enough with my job, that she can do that.

And of course Leo sleeps a few times in the day, so Geraldine gets some chances to do the technical support - which takes less than an hour most days. I only have to help her with one or two mails at the moment (she's already been doing it for a week). It's quite a reasonable job for her to add to her LFS duties - as she always did our accounts anyway ever since we became a business.

So LFS development won't suffer in any way. There is just a lot more for me and Eric to do, to finish S2, and not enough to fill Victor's time. So it's natural that he wants to be able to do something else with his time.

I just want to say thanks to Victor for all that he has set up here. LFS couldn't run as an actual business if it wasn't for what he has done with the websites. And it's great that he is still around and ready to do server administration and maintenance whenever necessary. We aren't losing all that knowledge he has that we can't do without. He is really not leaving us, he's just stopping the help desk and active website development.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Even if Eric gives any form of acknowledgement would be ok, Hi or a massive post explaining his unknown status here. Either would be fine.

Or maybe him not posting would be fine as well? I don't think he signed a contract with you that says he has to be active writing on the forums.

Obviously I'm not saying he shouldn't post, I'm just saying, it's up to Eric how often he posts. I'm certain that if he felt there was something important to say then he'd make a post.

I don't think he would appreciate people saying how bizarre it is that he doesn't post. But then again he won't respond to that kind of comment because he doesn't think it warrants a reply. My point is, threads like this really don't make Eric more likely to become active on the forums.

The sub-objects don't yet have the shine in game. Although Eric has set them to be shiny and that's why you can see it in the CMX Viewer.

But I haven't yet coded the thing which can use the hardware meshes for subobjects. So they are using a different (very old) draw system. Simply put, they haven't yet been updated to the "new" method of drawing cars (although new is really not the right word for something that was added several years ago). It only became viable in the S2 stage in fact, now that we have transparent windows.

It's just a little complicated because I need to store special instances of these hardware meshes, for each of the subobjects, and I haven't thought it through fully yet, because there are some different things I can do with the subojects that don't move (bonnet clips), and those that do (steering wheel). So I need to make a few decisions and some programming. It will probably be a couple of days work at some point.

XCNuse - that's because Eric made the Formula XR long before the FXO GTR and we came up with the three letter prefixes even later. He didn't forget, that's like saying "I've forgotten what I did tomorrow".

EDIT : OOPS, looks like I'm wrong, it seems to be only on the recent texture update, so yes you are right, it does seem that Eric didn't think about the FXO GTR's skin prefix / abbreviated name when he was working on that new interior texture for the Formula XR.

P.S. There was a time when some things on LFSW did say "f xr" for "formula xr" and that was confusing but apparently that has gone now.

Last edited by Scawen, Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:40.