High res mirrors are very nice, finally graphics are at an equal level. One issue though...
Is that supposed to be an improvement? Because now I can't stop DaveWS's sound pack from distorting all over the place, it sounds much better with V. I appreciate these aren't original sounds, and the sound editor is unsupported, but how are we supposed to eliminate clipping if reducing the volume still clips the sound? What was the benefit of this change?
Yeah, and it also makes the volume slider in LFS pretty useless... You may as well have it set to max all the time.
I guess i'll have to make a new soundpack with more adequate car volumes..
BTW, the "PACK" button, that works by (e.g. for my pack) by extracting the .eng files into the engine folder, clicking the "Pack" button and typing DaveWS? I know that works, but is that how its meant to work?
You could have a chat with Scawen or smth, maybe make a .pack file similar to .m3u file. I didn't type DaveWS, [CTRL]+C from before opening a single car file and then to PACK and [CTRL]+V, deleted the car prefix and done; can't remember anything these days .
Well I must say, the test patch is very good. Even though tweak and slickmod wont work with it, ohwell its worth it. However I found that if I take a screen shot in 3rd person view (IE Behind my car), the shots taken display my interior, this a bug?
Thanks scawen for the test patch. But i have to say that i had a very big problem:
I updated the game, then went online on our own dedicated host (Version V). The only available car was the XFR. One teammate was already on that host with Version V. My LFS connected properly and spectated my teammate, but all i saw, was him driving in an GTI and the driver STANDING with all above the ass beeing out of the car. But thats not all. The game extremly stuttered, so i closed LFS to start it again.
When i restarted it, alle these "first-lfs-start"-dialogues popped up. But LFS was still unlocked. The problem was, my main player profile could not been opened any more. When i tried to load it, LFS said: Can't open ****. I had to delete it in the explorer... Of course i had to set all the profile specific options again...
But since i configured it all again i had no problems anymore...!
Greets,
Warper
PS: You should also know, that i have the HQ skies installed and also smokemod was running while i started LFS V2 the first time...
The distortion was an important element of the sound, and in V we had a bit of a problem that the sound was completely different depending on the volume set by the user. But I think a volume control slider bar isn't really supposed to change the sound, it's supposed to leave the sound the same but make it louder.
The distortion was originally introduced as a soft clipping measure, to avoid the worst kind of clipping, but later I realised that it was an important part of the sound, so it turned out to be wrong the way I did it before. Now, the distortion is the same as it was for anyone who had LFS set to full volume in V.
I tested your nice sound pack and I liked it a lot, that was the inspiration for the PACK load button. But I did notice that the race cars were too clipped on full volume. At least with your sound pack now, you will know that it sounds the same on everyone's computer.
Exactly, when I tested your sound pack, I did not want to load each car's sound individually, I just wanted to type DaveWS once.
1. There's a weird problem with the "Home" key. This was in version V too. I noticed this a few days ago, actually.
When you press "1" and watch the replay the "Home" key functions as it should but when you load a saved replay from the menu the key does not work. I have not tried if this is the case with MP replays.
2. Shift+U settings, like the move speed, are not saved. The settings reset when you quit LFS.
* * *
- Thank you for the screen shot button. Finally
- That's one hot and sexy mirror resolution
That does make sense, although I'm not convinced this is the ideal solution. Wouldn't a better way be to prevent excess clipping, rather than forcing it?
With V2, everyone's sound is like full volume (20). IIRC, using 20 distorts even with the original sounds (although I last tested that pre-V, so I could be talking bull here). Why not make it so that everyones sound is like half volume (10)?
I may have misread, but I thought the point of leaving the soft clipping in was that he discovered that it's an important element of the final product.... "it sounds better" So why would he remove it; and regress the sound system?
It's not possible to prevent hard clipping, when several cars are around and there's an echo, for example, or the sound designer just sets too high a volume. And before the soft clipping was introduced, some testers were already beginning to use HARD clipping as part of the sound, but it's very harsh. Windows / DirectSound only gives us a little range to play with, and it kind of only goes to 1, there's no 1.1 or 1.5. So soft clipping is needed.
It turns out that soft clipping (i.e. stopping the sound wave being cut off abruptly at it reaches its peak) is similar to something that happens in your ear or in the air when there are loud noises around, the waves get distorted. Please don't ask me about that effect as I'm not an expert on the physics of sound, I haven't looked very deeply into it, I'm just accepting what I am told, on the basis that distorted (soft clipped) car sounds can sound better, and that my ears don't do any "hard clipping" in real life, and that I don't really have any choice in the matter anyway. It's also used in music apparently. You just cannot allow hard clipping in a sound wave. Soft clipping allows you to play a louder sound, without reaching the limit and getting the very harsh sound of hard clipping.
It doesn't make any difference, I've now given the choice to the sound pack designers. V2 allows car sound designers to have the choice of how their engines sound. DaveWS's set should sound exactly the same as it did before, for those people who put their volume up to max. He can make it sound the same as it did for people on half volume, if he reduces all the volume sliders in his pack. You are right that I could have set the level wherever, but my assumption was that all sounds would have been designed for full volume settings. And LFS's default setting was very near maximum.
I hope that helps to explain the decisions behind this. The original sounds were designed at full volume, but a wrong design decision by me meant that there was less soft clipping / desirable distortion when any user used lower volumes. That meant the user who wanted to change the volume, also changed the sound itself. I don't think that is the intended function of a volume control. DaveWS now has the choice, and when he gets feedback from any user about his sounds, he doesn't need to know what volume they are listening at.
This is one reason why the sound system wasn't released - it was not finished. Remember I warned that things could change. It's funny now that you are already concerned about me making this tiny change, that affects existing sound packs, and getting me into a long discussion about it! Exactly what I warned about! The good thing is I've not changed anything about the generation of the sounds, and all I have done is given control back to the whoever edits the sounds.
It is to specify whether you want a space before the colon or not.
In your case you should leave it as that, because you have left your translation in the default style, leaving a space before the colon in translated strings. But some translators have removed that space, so it appeared inconsistent in some cases where LFS built the string with the colon.
Ok now that you explain it like that, it is a very good addition for how the sound engine now works.
So yes, thank you for that. I'll have a play with the sounds again tonight. Actually the mild distortion / clipping might allow some sounds to sound extra grunty (GTR's / BF1).
One issue though...
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Thanks very much Scawen.
