The online racing simulator
Nice tracks you linked ACCAkut, downloaded & thanks!
Quote from FreeScirocco :But book writers have this way of working too.

So true maybe they just stuck sometimes Smile

Never the less new sims like project cars 2, assetto and project cars 2 don't have the online game play like lfs.

And I need online gameplay (Just wish new content and better graphics and hopefully better tyre physics for supers and r2 r3 etc I think)

But one update at a time Thumbs up

Still glad they still work on this game
Yeah! I hope it is a hobby for them. How great to not need to work and make a living from your hobby!
Quote from lucaf :Nice tracks you linked ACCAkut, downloaded & thanks!

no problem, always like to promote what the modders create. The track selection there on Race Departement is in general really great, sort by downloads or ranking to get the best (and filter out the badly made Rf1 conversions or RTB abominations).
Quote from RC-Maus :Never the less new sims like project cars 2, assetto and project cars 2 don't have the online game play like lfs.

The ability to start up the game and be on track in a race no more than three minutes later was absolutely unique, to do this in AC you must not be picky in car and track and lucky too. Just yesterday I stumbled upon such a server, a Highlands variant with mixed street cars, had a great 5 lap race (~3 minutes per lap). But this is rare, most popular servers are Nords Tourist or GT3 only.
sorry for interrupt people,you can ban me or him,but look at him works of lfs :o I know that he love lfs and making some stuff just for him own use.He never sharing his stuff that he making.Idk how's it for you, but for me its looks good https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcqu33n/
Quote from driftfix :sorry for interrupt people,you can ban me or him,but look at him works of lfs :o I know that he love lfs and making some stuff just for him own use.He never sharing his stuff that he making.Idk how's it for you, but for me its looks good https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcqu33n/

+1 Nahh...
Many others do this as well.. (looking at you, Vanos).

What would really impress me, and probably others as well, is if someone actually made race-ready LFS tracks (in mod packs of course, or just surface edit DLC), just like those hobbiysts in AC. If they did that then I'd really tip my hat off, and it would really question the slow update progress of LFS.

Yea.. in short, those bodykit mods (VOB mods) don't say much... doesn't do a lot to change what LFS is, so it's not really anything interesting to me.




//
side note :
Wouldn't it be ironic and controversial if someone literally ripped off the entire LFS game, coding, scenery and cars, went home, added his own ready-to-go handmade AA+ tracks, cars, physics, ectra to the game, then published it, and update it regularly like AC?
And then LFS would die in its shadows lol
People have made fully-fledged track mods, although since LFS doesn't have official mod support like AC and and a much more complicated file system it's a lot more difficult and rarer for LFS.

P.S. I don't understand how people think converting a stolen model from game into another is anything special, it's not impressive and anyone can learn how to do it in a matter of hours. Making a completely new model, physics, etc. for a car is on a whole different level (what the devs do in comparison to VOB-modders).
Quote from BeNoM :People have made fully-fledged track mods, although since LFS doesn't have official mod support like AC and and a much more complicated file system it's a lot more difficult and rarer for LFS.

P.S. I don't understand how people think converting a stolen model from game into another is anything special, it's not impressive and anyone can learn how to do it in a matter of hours. Making a completely new model, physics, etc. for a car is on a whole different level (what the devs do in comparison to VOB-modders).

Yea.. I don't see anything special or "oooh" with any vob mod..
A fully fledged racable track or a new car with physics would be what I'll be impressed about.

Then again, if that happens, Eric would probably be pulling at straws...
That doesnt win the beauty contest I would say.
Quote from MicroSpecV :+1 Nahh...
Many others do this as well.. (looking at you, Vanos).

What would really impress me, and probably others as well, is if someone actually made race-ready LFS tracks (in mod packs of course, or just surface edit DLC), just like those hobbiysts in AC. If they did that then I'd really tip my hat off, and it would really question the slow update progress of LFS.

As long as LFS offers no modding SDK this won't happen, as there are other sims around that do, and LFS just offers not enough "pull" for people to try to crack it. People like Kegetys (the older of you may remember that name) did with LFS what they wanted, Kegetys made a full ghost car mode years ago. Richard Burns Rally is another sim that offered no SDK or modding capability at all, but because it was unique enough as a rally sim it was still cracked and modded to god knows where.

If LFS had gotten mod support maybe 5 years ago, it could have taken off I guess, but today I doubt modders would invest too much time into it. Pardon this judgement, but looking at where in the world LFS is still the most popular, which appears to be the middle east and eastern europe, mods would probably centre around drifting. But mods of the calibre of the RSS GT1 class, or the DRM mod pack? Doubt it a lot. I know I would probably not bother converting my mods for LFS.

And that LFS track mod up there is maximum 5 minutes of texture and model work. Also believe this is no real track mod but rather a hack that added this "track" as a placeable object for the Autocross mode

and I'm not armchair debating, I know a bit about this.

This car's model, textures, physics where 100% done by me, from scratch, this is no hack of an existing model from another game (you won't find this car anywhere else)
Hi, thanks for the support in this thread and your patience.

I confirm this is a full time job for Eric and me. There were some quiet years due to life changes but I can tell you we are really on the case now.

In the past year I have made a lot of updates to the graphical systems and there is much better support for different types of specular reflection including the shine on the road. The shaders are completely rewritten and structured better now as over the past few years I have got to grips with shaders (that was first stimulated by the VR support).

The lighting system is now done in a "gamma correct" way, i.e. processed linearly within the graphics system and only converted to sRGB at the output. Gamma correct rendering is an interesting subject if you are interested in that kind of thing and want to read up about it.

The specular reflections don't just appear automatically. Eric must visit each track and do an update to take full advantage of the new shaders. He is working hard updating the existing tracks and the results are very nice.

I've also recently been working on a new shadow system based on cascaded shadow maps.

So you should see a much better looking Live for Speed within a reasonable time frame. I won't speculate on how long it will be but Eric and I still have quite a few things to do, so don't hold your breath!
Quote from Scawen :The specular reflections don't just appear automatically. Eric must visit each track and do an update to take full advantage of the new shaders. He is working hard updating the existing tracks and the results are very nice.

Maybe a teaser screenshot? Damm can't wait Wink
Sounds promising, can't wait! Smile Take your time!
Thumbs up good luck guys ! Hope it will be nice Big grin
Thank you Scawen for the small update on what is going on behind the curtain.

And while I understand that every update on the graphics system will allow Eric to provide us more eye candy, I can't help but notice that tire physics aren't mentioned.

Given the long time (I think it is somewhere around ten years now) and probably head scratching that you already invested in the simulation of those black round things, can you give us any word of encouragement on that end? I can't help it, but it seems to me, that you prefer working on other stuff these days.

I know that LFS is your baby (as well as Eric's and Victor's) and that in the end we (the customers) all have to accept that or move on. And yes, I realize that you can only do so much as a single person at a time and that every statement you make here will be written in stone to be thrown back at you at some point.

But can you give us any realistic estimation / description on the current situation on that front?
Well, since you ask about the physics, I might as well say, although I am very well aware and should point out that plans may change.

I'm really working as hard as I can on the graphics but taking care not to go into mental fatigue. The reason is that Eric should have the best version to work with, so his work looks the same as it will end up.

To explain what I mean... for example, right now he doesn't have the new shadow code because really it needs to look right in the track editor, and the old shadows have disappeared at this point. But currently the shadows only work in game because it uses a special draw mode. So I need to make that draw mode work in the track editor. So there's the work for the week, as each time he moves an object it needs to update the object on the GPU so the shadows can appear.

What point am I making... well every graphical change has lead to repercussions, other things that should be updated to make the most of the new stuff. It's quite exciting and that's why I've been very motivated to do a lot of work recently.

Anyway, as some of you know, due to a separation in the code when the new tyre physics was to be released may years ago, there are two separate versions of LFS, the development version with the new tyre physics and the public version with the old tyre physics. The trouble is that updates (to graphics, interface, etc.) in each version need to be merged into the other version. It has been like a chain around my neck attached to an iron ball and one that I want to get rid of. At the moment there are just so many changes for the new graphics, it would be a bit of a nightmare to try and merge that into the public version. The only way to avoid that tedious merge now is to get the physics complete to a point where it is good enough to release. So the development version can be finally released to you and LFS will be back to a single version again.

So my intention is to keep on this graphics stuff as much as Eric needs right now, then get that physics suitable for release while he is finishing the remaining tracks.

That's how I see it right now, it's an exciting thought that LFS development could be kind of back on track again and that's why I am hoping to be able to do. But in reality as we have seen, there are sometimes unforeseen things that come up and change the plans. I hope it will all go as planned! Smile
Business speaking : it will be more rewarding to help the artist to provide more contents than tuning something already quite correct (take this with care, it is not perfect Tongue ) that can take ages and will not be seen/felt by all the users (compare to new content).
People speaking : Eric is willing to work hard on the tracks and so it is wise to not stop him Big grin . Scawen's help is requested on this topic and so priority number one has changed ^^
edit : the guy above may explain better Cool
Quote from Scawen :

By reading that text, I only say, I knew it! Thanks to this, my inspiration got increased towards to LFS right away! Not hard to guess what it would be though... heh.
Quote from Scawen :That's how I see it right now, it's an exciting thought that LFS development could be kind of back on track again and that's why I am hoping to be able to do.

I may have to lie down for a minute Schwitz

I'm happy that no one has given up hope yet and that some point we can get back to the original intention of this forum: Do it yourself tips for kitchen remodelling! Omg omg omg
Great to have a report from Scawen, sounds really good, and I don't mind even it would take years from now... ...I am not paying 10eur per month for playing this Omg omg omg
Thanks for the news Scawen Smile, attracting more people by improving the sim graphics and presentation is the right thing to do now, that will provide you the necessary motivation to make more change in the future.

Maybe a steam release after that ?
@Scawen

Really interesting! Seems like good stuff. Cheers for the update.

Although I can't help but think :
Why hasn't tracks been put as the top priority? A simulator needs to have a good amount of tracks in order to do well. Add to the fact that LFS has pretty good physics already, leagues don't have much tracks to go to once the current 8 have done cycle - one of the major turnaways of hosting anything in lfs that has a calendar schedule.

Physics has been pushed back for such a long time I can say that, at least for me, it's not top priority any more. We waited 10 years, surely more won't hurt.

Point being, there isn't enough actual content to go around. Improved graphical elements are a huge plus, but making something pretty wouldn't do much justice if there isn't much to make pretty in the first place, sort to speak. People looking to join LFS would be turned away by the sheer lack of environments (track worlds), and those who do join would say the same thing as me about 2 years down the road.

I'm fine with the cars, I'm fine with the graphics the way it is, but there needs to be more tracks. At this point its really quantity over quality, no matter how you would choose to argue.

Apolgies if it is a bit blunt, but its (at least) 2 men's living and business and I wouldn't like to see it driven to oblivion..

If you've read all of this, cheers scawen.
Quote from MicroSpecV :

I'm fine with the cars, I'm fine with the graphics the way it is, but there needs to be more tracks. At this point its really quantity over quality, no matter how you would choose to argue.

Have to say I feel much similar. Where is the guy who wanted to co operate with Devs by creating Nordschleife for LFS? I would really hear the opinion of Devs about that

Is LFS just a hobby project for its creators?
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