Quote from TehPaws3D :

I'm not a computer expert, But firstly, I play with everything on high, Dymanic shadows, the whole nine yards, I think a fullscale battle with tank ballistics, Bullet ballistics, Wind, Hundreds of AI, Dymanicish grass, Huge view distance and a thriving battle with shadows from jets, cats, planes and whatever else is in the battle, Is alittle bit more than tire physics calculated by the CPU (As so i've heard.) And some dymanic shadows.

Perhaps I over simplified my previous comment. Yes there is lots going on in Arma, but completely different things to LFS, and proper physics isn't one of them. Much of what the player perceives is illusory if you set aside the fact it's a simulator for a moment. Vehicle dynamics and many other "dynamic" objects are simply pre-made animations that are played back to the player according to certain cues. Ballistics are very simplified - better than most others - but simplified all the same. A Lapua Magnum round has the same ballistic properties as a BMP in the Armaverse. Drag coefficient and windage are omitted for expediency. An approximation is made by applying a damage value to objects that intersect in collision geometry, not a true physical impact value. Many objects just cease to exist when out of sight of the player. Arma does what it does - simulate a battlefield experience - very well, but at the cost of having to make compromises. The professional version -VBS2- as used by the military, runs on a network of PC's in a form of distributed computing, simply because one machine can't handle it all.

It might appear that I'm criticising Arma here. I'm not, I love the game, and have spent many hours/days/months on modding it. To do so, will uncover the limitations that it has, and gives an understanding into some of the dilemmas the devs must have when bringing in new features. Understand the limitations and get creative to make something plausible is probably the best phrase to use. Comparing Arma and LFS really is pointless because they do different things.

Quote :

Don't get my wrong, I'm on the LFS tugboat here, But there is alot more going on in other games Just because the fact it's made by three people, if it was a company producing to the "masses" Then it wouldn't be as good. Physic wise, But would be good graphics wise, And other games are starting to become more simulator-ish, When was the last time you saw any need for speed contain load on tires? My jaw hit the floor.

I think there are different philosophies going on here. Big games companies are in the business for money. They are purely sales driven, and as such will make games that appeal to the masses via the lowest common denominator. Yes there are exceptions, but generally they aim for pick up and play titles. I feel for some of the devs that have their artistic talents compromised in the name of the "greater good" Some brave souls strike out on their own and become independent to be able to express themselves without compromise. Arma/Bohemia Interactive, and LFS/Scavier are two such outfits, and in this sense, the only real comparison can be made between them.

Quote :

Why are you against a graphic update as well? Any update is a good update.

I didn't say I was against any graphics updates. I said that there must be a good reason for one. Eye candy alone is not good reason. I have nothing against the approach that the GT series use for a photo render mode, but for gameplay, things like this are just fluff. About the only example of a graphics enhancement aside from wet reflections and other effects already mentioned, would be heat haze mirage effects for distant stretches of track. This can cause drivers problems in picking lines, but I can live without it, and unless an easy method of achieving this is discovered, I'd say don't bother trying.

Quote :

I personally wish for just a tiny bit of motion blur, To get a feel for speed, Currently i have to look at my speedometer to make sure i'm going.

Quote from MadCatX :

I don't think that real life has anything like a motion blur, to actually see things blurred in a car I have to look through a side window while driving on a highway at 130+ km/h. I guess that the sense of speed comes from the peripheral vision which is sensitive to motion. If there's nothing moving at the edges of your field of view, the sense of speed is gone. To get that same feeling in a game you'd need a 50" inch screen and sit quite close to it.
NFS etc. intentionally overdo the blur effect to sorta recreate the sense of speed by blurring everything at the edges of the screen. Some people might like it, I don't 'cause it's not how it looks like in real life, it's the same crap like blooming. Kegetys made this nice mod to add motion blur to LFS; it gave me a hell of a headache after a while but you might want to try it out...

Motion blur is an artists impression of speed. It is a post processing effect only, and has no place in a simulator. Our perceived blur in real life is exactly as MadCatX describes. I'd go further than the 50" screen in fact, and say get a projector or two, and use a wrap around screen. A motion blur effect would make that implementation completely wrong when looking to the side.

Quote from azasmith14 :

It happens to me no matter what the speed. It really does depend on where you hit the barrier though.

Yes, looking carefully. it seems like it only happens when the centreline of the car hits the end of the barrier.

I checked the other end of that barrier and it seems fine. The car gets mashed, but I'd expect that.

A couple of clean stages in both of your cars.

PcmciaKai, I found your setup quite hard to drive

Quote from Sueycide_FD :

...

You're funny, and right it seems

Quote from boothy :

... So basically, it depends on how many people turn up, but I wouldn't think it'd take more than a hour or so.

Sounds good.

Quote :

2. Entries close when the rally starts, as I need to get you the password and after that I won't really check the forum.

Ok cheers, I should know well before then.

Quote :

3. Whatever, only the username is required to track you in the rally

Heheh! I had to ask

Quote :

4. If you wish

Cool too.

I'd like to enter but, might not have the whole evening free.
A couple of questions if I may:

1. Any predictions as to how late it will go on?
   
2. When do entries close?
   
3. I don't have a team, so will "Independent" be ok?
   
4. Number? As above so "00"?
   

Sounds like it will be great, and even if I can't make it this weekend, I'll at least try for another.

Quote from boothy :

You could always do the test rally in the LFS World Rally Challenge on Sunday evening Ok, you need to be on a server and it can't be done at your leisure, but we should be having a Fern Bay round in the actual season, and I'm sure we'll use some of the interesting places as shown in this layout

I might just do that. I need to make sure I can be there though. F1 will take up quite a bit of the day, and I'd need to clear it the boss - hehe. I just grabbed the stages for some practise however.

When do entries close?

Jimmy, you are good and should enter too

Nice.

Have you edited? I'm sure there was a tyre stack at the foot of the bridge after the second jump.

Still practising.

I just drove it and liked it.

I'm just under 4 mins, and need to get my eye in. That first narrow gap keeps catching me out.

How about a micro hotlap comp, post your replays here?

Quote from Rappa Z :

Pictures on Formula1.com showed it pretty in the way. It is just prior to the corner itself, but anyone who is on the inside line into t1 will probably be running over it. For the most part I think they will be going around it, however. For most of the race they'll probably just barely clip the end.

That Tarmac will still be pretty green, and there are quite a few support races going on this weekend too. GP2 cars tend to swarm all over T1, so it's not just F1 to worry about. FP1 in the morning will reveal just how much it will affect them.

It might get interesting if the surface they had to replace at T1 starts to break up.

Full story

It's off the race line from what I can see, but might come into play.

I'm quite looking forward to this weekend. Last weeks was the best Spanish GP I've seen, and the new rules/tyres certainly seem to have shaken things up this year. I just hope that teams don't refrain from doing proper qualies in favour of preserving tyres for the race.

I can't predict a winner, but somehow feel whomever wins, the result might involve Schumacher (directly or indirectly)

Quote from UnknownMaster21 :

btw, where I did say it is a bug???

Maybe because you posted in the Bugs - Websites forum?

Quote from Arsenic_Fox :

People are going to have to realize that to be a simulator, you have to simulate things that occur in real life.

ARMA 2 does a pretty decent job of this, although, that would be an example of how a game can destroy you with graphics.

Then again, there's a lot more going on in ARMA 2 than there would be in LFS.

I beg to differ. Comparing Arma 2 and LFS is like comparing apples and oranges. There is much more going on in LFS than Arma, it's just not immediately visible. Much of LFS is physics rendering, and Arma just doesn't do that.

LFS graphics are adequate for seeing differences in road surface, picking lines, braking points and the like, but when we drive, we don't look at all of the scenery, see the leaf textures etc. Yes, wet road glare, reflections and other such niceties would be great, but only when we have the appropriate physics to match. Too many other titles have been lured into thinking it is all about the look, and even then, I would not like to live in the worlds the devs for those games seem to inhabit, or believe we should.

I'm against a graphics upgrade for the sake of eye candy alone. There must be a tangible benefit to the overall simulation before it should even be considered.

Will bump mapping really help us drive faster for example?

Don't get me wrong, I am very much in favour of as realistic a simulator as possible, but we must cut our cloth to fit, and super graphics rendering is not the whole emphasis as some might think. It's not just the hardware, but programming required to achieve those effects. Every line of code, takes a finite time to run, and every line of code introduces a potential bug. Add to that the monetary cost of licensing particular API's, or the cost (including time) of writing your own from scratch. Some of the other mentioned titles simply compromise on handling in favour of looking good.

Going back to Arma, Try turning up the detail and shadows then fly low in a fast jet over a city with a full battle going on. The frame rate drops through the floor, so timing a strafing run is nigh on impossible. We need split second timing in LFS, and waiting for geometry and textures to load and render while turning a corner just won't win any friends or races.

Quote from Lucas McFly :

Testet again on "clean" version on LFS Z28 and Z34 on Car FXR and same bug occurs.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Got it!

It seems there is an optimum speed for it to happen.

I was able to reproduce in an FZ50 too, but as the replay shows, it only seems to happen at certain speeds.

At first I thought it might have been the fact that the car was damaged first.

Last edited by Squelch, Wed, 25 May 2011 12:34. Reason : cleaned up a bit

Yep. It's standard for vBulletin for exactly that reason although it can be annoying if you have several replies ready in different tabs/threads.

How about making longer replies that take more than 60 seconds to type?

Quote from Lucas McFly :

Hello

I found a bug in the configuration SO5 (LFS S2 Z34)

Quote from THE WIZARD DK :

thats weird. because i had a crash in z34 in that same spot. i didnt go through that wall. but maybe its because i used XRT. havent tried it in FXR.(and i might add. it was ROCK solid) my xrt wasnt pretty after ;-)

I tried to replicate, but couldn't either. Is it possible that you have an incomplete patch update? I had something similar a couple of pages back where the version looked correct, but I could still see a problem in replays. A reinstall fixed it, but I still don't know how it went wrong.

[OT]

Quote from didomusicuk :

In case you utterly failed to notice, this thread is about 40 miles long - consider it TL;DR. I merely wanted to say how I'm glad this game isn't dead. If you want to flame someone, sod off somewhere else and do it, ya wankshaft.

The Topic of this thread is "Test Patch Z30 (NOW Z34 - old ... d physics / many updates)" and is all about the recent changes, and for bug reports relating to these changes. I don't want to be accused of flaming, so want to politely point out that while your sentiments are probably welcomed, they are off topic as well as the request/suggestion over the views.

TL;DR?

Sorry but I must call you on that

Quote from didomusicuk :

...
Then I discovered the test patches. I now run Z34, and check that thread religiously every day.
...

[/Forum Police][/OT]

I think most people have been guilty of one handed driving at some point, but at the end of the day, you are not fully in control of the vehicle despite how confident you might feel. Just look at some of the footage of any professional driver, be that racing or emergency services, a hand is only ever removed from the wheel for the minimum of time.

Part of the problem is that cars have too many driver aids that can lure a driver into false sense of security. It was installed in me that when taking the wheel of a vehicle, I was taking control of a deadly weapon and it should be treated accordingly. It seems to me, that the current philosophy behind the current driving test, is often about just passing the test (much like the education system in general) and not so much about continued learning or being aware of the limitations of both the vehicle and driver.

Personally, I think the advanced driving test should be mandatory, and everyone should be made to retest on a regular basis. There are far too many complacent, greedy, incompetent and otherwise bad drivers on the roads today, and if this was any other area of life, there would be public outcry about the levels of death and injury caused. Somehow this seems to be tolerated.

Make getting a license harder I say - much harder - and make someone demonstrate they are competent for the whole time they wish to drive. That includes skid pan driving - just look at the poor decisions that are made whenever we have an inch of snow - the whole country comes to a standstill.

Quote from Bob Smith :

C) What does an accompanying driver need to be registered for? Exactly what would make someone unsuitable? And that still doesn't stop the observer from being under the influence, which makes anyone unsuitable.

The observer is deemed to be in charge of the vehicle, so therefore liable to the same ... g under the influence law.

I pretty much agree with the rest of your points too.

I must admit that in retrospect when I passed first time at 21, I was not fully prepared for the road either. I had only taken a couple of lessons from a family friend who was a professional driver (fireman), but there is no substitute for proper experience, and hazard awareness.

Why was I nodding while reading Tristan's post?

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

In that case, the car should be returned to the pits, rather than being "retired" endlessly.

Quote from imthebestracerthereis :

if reset is on, it should return you to the pits.
if reset is off, it should spectate you.

Both logical points.

I'm not sure if this is correct, but the looping was a fix that could be made while staying compatible. Now the loop is fixed, I hope that a proper retirement can be made when the incompatible patch[es] come. Just guessing

Last edited by Squelch, Wed, 18 May 2011 00:15. Reason : stuff

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Scawen, I'm kinda disappointed with this fix, now it just says "RETIRED". What am I supposed to do when that happens? If i hit reset again, it says retired again...Why can't you make it reset the car to the nearest solid point on the track? That retired message is really not a fix, it's just a pointless workaround I'm afraid.

I find it hard to agree with you here. If you have driven your car, or been involved in such a serious accident that you go so far "out of bounds", that really is a retirement however you look at it.

You can always return to the pit.

Quote from Scawen :

To make sure I'm clear : the incompatible changes to come are still in this run of test patches.
...
After that lot is tested we can release an official patch then I'll be back on the tyre physics, and several loud voices will think I've given up on Live for Speed, must be on a beach in the Bahamas, etc.

I was deliberately ambiguous in that comment, and it didn't really deserve a reply. Thank you anyway, and thanks for the tireless efforts over the last couple of weeks. It must be quite distracting for you in regards to the tyre physics, but I believe a burst of activity was probably required to renew interest for quite a few.

BTW I hope the loudest voice comment wasn't directed at me. [/paranoia]

Quote from Furiously-Fast :

Oxymoron detected.

ROFL

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, Z34 is supposed to be the last compatible patch before the incompatible fixes and updates.

The finish line at Westhill is just too level - a flat spot in the track where the track is on a slope, so it seems like a dip when you are going uphill or a bump if you are coming the other way.

Ah ha! that explains it. The line painters used a spirit level then

Looking forward to the next round of test patches.

Quote from jrs_4500 :

Thanks for clearing that up Squelch, I was really confused about it. Downloading Z33 next time I run LFS!

No problem.

You might want to read up before grabbing Z33, as there will possibly be another patch this evening.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks again! This is now fixed and I plan to release it today before 6 pm (also with blue flags working on open configs).

From your replay I was able to extract the exact values for the collision test that produced the false collision, then I could go through step by step in the debugger.

That is good news indeed. Thanks for the technical explanation too.

Does this mean that some of the other phantom "bumps" will be ironed out too? I'm referring in particular to the start finish line at Westhill where there is a definite bump registered by the car at high speed, but there does not appear to be anything there at all when inspected closely.

Quote from PMD9409 :

Oh sorry, those are EQ Worry's pictures that were in the thread. I just collected them so you guys could get a general ideal of what he was doing.

Thanks for the clarification.

Quote :

Most of the paths he did was just merging of path files. However he has created many new turns, and how he has created those nodes and ideal lines is beyond me. I've wanted to know this stuff as well, as I have driven on his "updated Airio" that used the pth files, and they worked fantastic. However, I don't have the slightest idea of what to do really, I'm just a patience and curious spectator hoping to add any help that is possible.

I must admit that I only skimmed through your thread, and very interesting it is too. My worry is that those new pth files appear to only work with Airio, and PROS at that. For the lowly single users like me, using your "official" open tracks will be out of bounds unless he decides to open up the new app to work with the the free version, or better still a standalone.

Quote :

Fantastic discussion btw, with the idea bouncing you guys are doing you are sure to hit the jackpot soon.
Bedtime now.

An open source pth generator/editor is my aim here, and having not really participated on the forums for a while, I'm deliberately learning from scratch so I don't miss anything.

And yes, I completely missed my bedtime too

Quote from avetere :

Yes, that is basically, how I did them.

I guessed right then, and started brushing up on my python fu to parse the files and get something similar.

Quote :

For the track-width-issue dygear mentioned:
It should be quite easy to get the information out of existing pth where nodes exist but I don't think that would be the right way of doing it, as we are talking about manually generated layouts where - at different points/junctions/etc. there will defeinitely be new "handplaced" barriers (or worse: chicanes) that will effectively limit the track in relation to the real one.
So, I'm afraid, we would have to come up with a two-step aproach:

1: Generate a path (ideal line) consisting of coordinates (x,y and don't forget z!!!) and direction
2: manually and visually shorten those node-lines corresponding to a) trackimage b) set layout

The main problem I see for auto-generation is a lack of intelligence in layout files to decide where the track actually is ...

Where a junction is concerned, I think it might be possible to use a moving window - say 16 nodes maybe more - to firstly detect where a junction exists between two track configurations, and secondly to create an aggregate or mean road width value taken from the node data within the window. From your generated svg, does the ideal line pass through the node centres? If so, this makes life a little easier.

As for hand placement of barriers affecting the road width, would parsing the lyt file for objects placed around the track co-ordinates at the nodes help? If we know the object type and orientation, the limits of the intended track can be found. This should work even for places where the intended path deviates from the physical track. Of course this makes it much more complex, but would allow pth files for any layout. I envisage some kind of post processing after the layout has been created, and then maybe refined by driving the track to update places where the autogen might have failed. Having just said that, driving the layout at "reasonable speed" as Scawen has said how he does the originals may be all that is required. I do have the same concerns as you over the number of possible variations though.

This still leaves the question. How to make LFS read the new pth file. Does Airio inject the data via Insim, or is the file a compatible lookup table for use during detection and subsequent Insim commands?

[Edit]
Regarding the parsing of lyt files. Scawen has mentioned several times in the Z3x patch thread about unifying AutoX objects. There is also this entry in the lyt format information.

Quote :

NOTE3 :
-------
Object index varies by track, so it's not easy to
list them in a reliable way. In future we may
provide an autocross object file that is shared
between all tracks.

To successfully parse a layout file for objects affecting the intended path, this unification needs to happen.
[/edit]

Last edited by Squelch, Mon, 16 May 2011 09:32. Reason : Grammar + added layout info

Quote from Silverracer :

This is not test patch related. The AI don't recognize autocross objects at all.

Flame made it clear in the thread you created;

This is test patch related.

We are now able to place AutoX objects on all tracks as a result of the recent changes. There is a bug (or oversight), but not the original one eddy678 is reporting. See my update for an explanation.