Bulgarian GP not far now

For those of you who have been following my circuit design for some time, you may notice in the various readme files that I have listed the Bulgarian GP as one of my planned releases for Rfactor. For many reasons my original riddled with corrupted files and to no anvil I did attempt to fix it.

Thanks to being made redundant from my photographic work at a museum I have a wealth of time in which I have set aside a good chunk of it to finally realising my plan and starting again from scratch, the Bulgarian GP at the proposed Sofia circuit.

I had very little to go off. In fact, I had but only one known concept drawing of the proposed circuit that even featured in F1 Racing magazine some years ago now. I do not know how long the circuit is (as in Metres / Kilometres) so I had to guess to the best of my ability as to its length and even the various elevation changes - assuming there are any at all!

Above is the conceptual photograph of the Bulgarian GP circuit situated just out of Sofia.

Above is my rendition of the circuit.

As you can see, it is not 100% accurate. Arguably, it might not even be 50% accurate, however since the whole thing has not gone ahead in reality, I feel I can have some more 'creative' freedom with the circuit design.

I have tried to remove as much 'Tilke' from the equation by making the corners a little more open then perhaps the concept art had originally suggested. Turn 14 (I am yet to finalise names of the various corners), which is the second last sweeping right hander before the start finish straight, is much shorter and tighter in the concept for example. I also lengthened the straights of turn 7 & 9 as I found with the concept version I was barely maxing 4th gear in a 1991 F1 car. Now it is certainly a 4th flat or I found that I can get it fairly high in the revs in 5th.

Have a good look at both pictures and see what you think. As always, my circuits are never meant to be 100% accurate, as I lack the skills, time, software and all that sort of thing that some truly brilliant game level / map makers have. I am however very happy that I have finally got it and almost ready for public release.

Just to put you in the picture as to how my skills have perhaps progressed since starting circuit building way back in mid 2009, below is a picture of my original 'Sofia GP' design as based on the same concept art shot as my version I a about to release - and this was my third (originally) track editing effort back in the end of 2009.

I sure have come a fair way! Look out for the Bulgarian GP circuit to be release to NoGripRacing in the coming days.

Enjoy!

Chernobyl NPP v1.3 released

I have released my latest update to the Chernobyl NPP circuit. It is available here at nogripracing and as always you will need a member's account to access the download link.

Unfortunately the release was not the 1.5 or even 2.0 version I had been aiming towards for a release. I struck yet again the same problems with converting my models into files for BTB and rfactor to use. The .png files were being compressed so much that the alpha channels simply turned black, thus the detail on reactor no. 4 cooling tower are very low still. In fact, any scaffolding on the circuit that is my own has the 'negative space' filled with a black texture. This is truly frustrating as it does not reflect my efforts in circuit design, it seems to be a bug in the Xpacker program that ruins the .png files.

I naturally want this fixed some how and am absolutely open to advise and help from anyone in the Rfactor and BTB community who can help me fix this problem that has plagued many of my circuits. I am however happy enough with the current build of the track to classify it as a v1.3 and released it.

So what are the changes you might ask? Well they are mostly cosmetic, but valuable changes that improve the overall circuit design and aesthetics. The most notable are :

1. Sand traps. I have watched a few videos online of people setting blisteringly fast laps around NPP, however all the lightning laps use a little more than the circuit I had designed. Generally people are using the run-off areas as a means to generate more speed or not need to break as hard. The main offending area was turn's 1,3 6 and 7. Using the run-off areas in these places can quite literally take seconds off the lap times. Now the AI don't do this so I have changed all the run-off areas to be tighter with closer walls and populated the circuit with sand traps. While you can drive through the sand traps relatively fast, they do hinder blistering speed and thus from version 1.3, we should see more realistic lap times within the confines of the track itself.

2. Crisp, sharp and smooth track corners. I have set the 'panels per metre' much lower in all the corners, and the tight corners now have 1.0m panels. This means that the corners now look more as though they were drawn with protractors in stead of a ruler. While this is mostly cosmetic, the track surface is where the 'heat' and 'grip' are, so now utilising the whole track surface should mean that my record in a 1992 March F1 will be beaten soon. For what it is worth, I am only interested in lap times in the same machinery. Naturally a 2012 F1 will smash the 1992 record, so I don't care about them or even regard them as new records.

That is pretty much it. I have added some trees here and there and boosted the shadow quality of many areas around the track, but for the time being, these changes will do for now.

Okay off to my next project, enjoy folks!

New NPP on the way!

Hello! Is this thing on?! Well I am finally back in business and creating circuits for Rfactor once more!

It has been some time since I genuinly got stuck into circuit making but I am now pleased to announce that I have started working nice and hard away on some creations. The first to come out to the big wide world will be Chernobyl NPP 1.5 / 2.0. I have not yet decided if the major updates to Chernobyl NPP are worthy of a v1.5 or a fresh 2.0 status. It is the same circuit, but (should) have major improvements to everything other than the actual track itself.

These include the wall data, sand traps, new and better objects, better cameras and a bunch more tweeks. The most notable will certainly be the new and much higher resolution Reactor No. 4 which effectively takes up around 1/3 of the viewable space for objects. Originally I had created a model that (at the time) was not convertible to an Rfactor image reading format. Therefore the scaffolding surrounding the main reactor 4 looked dodgy and the iconic cooling tower had such a low resolution poligon output that it looked like one solid black structure. Hopefully with my hard work, the new model(s) will look vastly better without compromising frame rate in game.

As you can see in the screenshot, it looks much better than the current model in game in Chernobyl NPP v1.1.

Progress is going so quickly that I aim to have the new version of the track available from the end of next week (the first week of May). So look out for it at NoGripRacing as always.

Once I have completed my new version of Chernobyl NPP I will begin working on my 1970 Imola version as again this should be a quick turn around project before moving on to a fully new and fresh project that I am still um'n and ah'n over.

UPDATE 28/04/12:
It would appear that BTB is not playing ball and I still have to heavily compress the models including the one above in the screenshot. I will however still continue my work on NPP v1.5.

Cheers.

I'm not over!

Okay so this blog may look neglected and covered with dust. Let me tell you all now that it and I are far from over. Only on a break - why? You may ask...

I have like many of you out there devoted much of my spare time to Rfactor 2. However I have not forgotten nor lost my interest in creating circuits. In fact far from it. I have simply been playing other users wonderful creations lately rather than focusing on making my own. Yet this is changing. Already I have begun the preliminary work for Imola 1972. Yes that is right I will be making an all new Imola, and the last version without any chicanes. I have been researching to be sure that this could be ranked among my best releases. However it is at least two months off before I will release it and at least a full month before I will post up any screen shots.

Along with Imola 1972, I will release a much needed update to Imola 1960s to fill in some of the gaps that break the feeling of reality while flying around the circuit in top gear. Chernobyl NPP is also getting a much needed face lift and possibly a short course, possibly. Finally, Circuit d' Avignon will indeed get its much anticipated longer layout, however the modelling is difficult for the castle and rock faces so this is a while of yet folks.

There! Does that spell any doubt that I might be gone with the wind? I should hope so. In fact, I have only been more enthused to create new circuits and improve my older creations with the recent developments of Track Maker / Track Creator. If you have no idea what I am on about then click over to Youtube and look at this video about Track Maker / Track Creator. It looks stunning does it not?! I already am waiting with earnest for the program to come out. I have many circuit ideas in my head, but alas, many must be cropped down or culled completely due to their ambitious nature.

See the problem is not actually building the circuit, that part is relatively straightforward. Even the elevation changes, or track merging are issues for me. The actual hardest part of creating circuits is the ground. Or more to the point, the landscape or what I call the 'scene'. To create a vaguely believable scene is incredibly difficult. Certainly in my judgemental eyes. For example, if you are to drive around SPA, you expect to see the rolling tree filled hills as your car blasts up Eau Rouge. Hitting the 'look-back' key should give you the eye candy we seek from actually getting up the damn thing. Without the surrounding background of the trees, hills, and general scenery, it feels fake - for lack of a better word. Track Creator looks ambitious. In fact, ambitious enough to match my efficacious imagination.

So I am not over, just trying to contain my enthusiasm. I don't know if I will be a master track builder this year, but certainly 2012 is going to be a great year for sim track building!

Megaupload.com Closed

Yes they have sadly cracked down on excellent share site meggaupload.com. I had Rfactor content on there as had quite literally thousands of other sim racing users.

It looks like we now have far less channels to get out our perfectly legal content to the wonderful world. In my eyes, this may be the beginning of the end to the illusion of freedom that we have with the internet. This is truly a sad day for the USA and the rest of us across the globe. Fortunately, my tracks I have posted here are local content of NoGirpRacing and you can all still access my content for download and play. I found this out reading on Virtualr.net

That's it guys. I will keep making tracks, but perhaps in years to come we will be forced to share our own private content privately via emails - sad.

Rfactor 2 - First Impressions

Well it finally saw some light earlier this month. Rfactor 2 'Open' Beta was released for the world.

I say 'Open' as it was not quite that simple for me and as it turns out, many many people across the globe. Okay so we all knew that it was going to cost us about $40 to play the 'open beta'. But we all expected it to work more or less straight away. I certainly didn't have my up and running as soon as I paid for 12months to the game. In fact I didn't have it running for about a day and a half after downloading and installing the thing. I did expect the servers to be slow or have minor breaks for the first 48 hours after release as there was always going to be a mad rush to get the game. So I backed off and waited patiently for the third day after release before tearing open my wallet to locate my credit card to the punch in the numbers and details to get my hands on a game many of us have been drooling over for the past couple of years.

Sadly the game didn't just 'ping!' open up. In fact it felt like an eternity before my issues with online payment were resolved. So this is why I am being a bit harsh on the game. They made me wait for it and then charged us not exactly 'mates rates' for a 'beta' with little actual content in it. All the money issues aside, I might as well go on and get talking about the actual game.

I have only tested single-player thus far and therefore can really only comment on that aspect of the new game system. Okay so the menu feels much cleaner and neater than that of Rfactor 1 (yes we can call it that now). I do enjoy the flashing 'cards' that present the various racing cars, tracks and race systems to us. It is a nice touch to the format. The introduction of weather was very intriguing and I couldnt help but fiddle to be sure that my first racing weekend was boiling hot before bucketing down with a monsoon of a shower before drying out at the end of the weekend to some afternoon sun again. This system looks brilliant!

It takes me aback to that of Grand Prix 4, which in my eyes was the definitive sim until Rfacor found its feet in mid to late 2007. GP4 had a fabulous weather system for its time and still today makes Need-For-Speed and other shiny games look rather stupid. I feel as though Rfactor 2's weather system may be based on GP4's model. No matter, it does the job well. That is to say that there are obviously still some minor bugs in the system as it rains in the Monaco tunnel. I have no doubt that the full version of the game will fix small issues such as these. Yes I am well aware that it is still a beta.

Okay, actual racing time. I maxed out the settings with only AA and ASF set slightly below full (8x each). I did a very crude car setup to my F1-1968 car and clicked race. The first thing I am greeted with is a low polygon model of a man standing in front of a wall. Hmm, ok. Oh wait, he can walk and move his arms - cool! So he is not the best looking pit model, but already I can see that this is not Rfactor as we have all played before. The car blasts to life and I engage first gear and slightly squeeze the accelerator. Stall. Woops, I forgot to use the clutch. Esc, Esc and 'race' once more. Okay, this time I have my left foot flat on the clutch and I sheepishly select first gear and feather my foot onto the power to get her moving. Already I can see the sun bounces off the suspension of my car as I try to figure out where I am in Monaco yet continue to follow the man who points to the left. Ah! I see now. I never knew that cars were parks back there when not racing (interesting).

I drive out of the makeshift pits and already I can see the circuit ahead. I shift to second and then up to third all while admiring the high polygon trees, buildings, road, signs and OH WAIT! I need to turn! Crunch. Well I got to the first corner, I just didn't slow down that much. My car comes to a rest on the opposite side of the circuit slightly up on the footpath (yes footpath). I don't click esc and return to the pits this time. No I am still admiring the ambience of the circuit. Marshals who stand with next to no protection from a road barrier wave yellow flags to warn the AI that I have cocked it up at Sainte Devote.

The game looks fabulous. It already is streets above that of Rfactor 1. The ambience of the game environment while racing makes it feel more like a racing sim than Rfactor 1 ever was. I did indeed get going and drive a good thrash around Monaco all while trying to come to grips with the handling of the beast I was trying to tame. The tire models are spectacular to say the least as is the potential for modders and track builders alike. I think this game has a really bight future in front. Bring on the full game!

Format and News

Just a short update folks!

I have formatted my computer today as I installed many new hardware upgrades. Because of my work schedule, I won't be able to work on any circuits for at least the next week at this stage. I am however very close to releasing 1.1 of my Airport terminal circuit. I am mainly bringing in the walls for more hair raising racing as many out there used too much run-off which I did not originally foresee.

In other news. Over at nogripracing, my latest release Circuit d'Avignon has had steady downloads, but I am only about half way of my hope / aim / target of 1000 downloads through Nogripracing. I have already started to plan out how I will improve Circuit d'Avignon with the 'power' layout. Yet if I don't hit that 1000 mark, I will put it on the back burner for early 2012 release (hopefully).

That's about it for now. As always, check back one in a while and see where I am up to with my next creation!

Cheers!

Circuit de Avignon - Released

I know it is not yet the weekend, however I felt that Circuit de Avignon was ready for a 1.00 release.

You can find HERE at nogripracing. If you read through the Readme file, you will discover that I have set my own ultimatum. If I get 1000 downloads before 2012 starts I will make a 'Power' circuit of Avignon and possibly also two shorter courses. I will let you work out where those shorter courses will be. It is no real guess :D

So please check it out, and if you find any youtube videos of people racing my Avignon, please post them here so I can add in the link. That goes for any of my other circuits too! Ok - Enjoy!

Avignon - This Weekend

As per the title suggests, I will be releasing Circuit de Avignon this weekend. Look out for it here and at nogripracing!

I am just doing the final touches this week such as attempting to fix the cameras (buggers are not working right), packing the files into .MAS files. As well as making a loading screen and a bunch of other very minor changes. I have play tested it and aside from the cameras, it works pretty well. Check back over the weekend and you will be able to grab 1.00 Circuit de Avignon!

Avignon, even further progress

Just a few screenshots of my ongoing progress of Avignon. I would say it is in numbers about V0.15. I don't see it being ready for release this month, however I'll see how I go if I can get into a track making groove once more.

Enjoy!

The Modern Website Rant

As you may have seen already, I have begun to alter the look of Formula Rodrrico. It was about time really!

The layout I have used for such a long time has been both generic and dull. These changes are all aimed at livening up the blog. While most are fairly cosmetic, such as the new 'widescreen' width of the whole blog. Others enable me to share my content with the world in a simpler and more logical manner. For example, I used to re-post my 'Rodrrico - The Circuits Thread' over and over as I release new updates and entirely new circuits for public use. Now I have a widget on the left side of the blog that can be accessed from any page. These are direct links to my circuit downloads as available at Nogripracing.

I mainly use Nogripracing these days as my port-o-call one stop download location for my circuits. Once upon a time I used to upload my circuits through a free vendor such as Mediafire and Megaupload to Rfactorcentral. However once Rfactorcentral changed hands and began to take on a corporate facade asking us, the community, the creators / modders to 'pay' actual money to use their servers to race our own content, I like thousands of others began to lose heart for the website. While I do still have some circuits listed there, I no longer upload new creations or updates to Rfactorcentral. I doubt I ever will again, so if you see any of my new content there, please let me know so I can remove it.

Nogripracing is, for me, fantastic. It allows me to track how many downloads I have received, see who likes them (with the 'thanks' feature, a gimmick, but a good gimmick), and communicate feedback with the users and modders out there. While Rfactorcentral also has this sort of community talk, it is stark and stale. Most people are genuinely beginning to abandon the moribund site. Don't get me wrong, I am not a 'player hater' Rfactorcentral will still have a good community who upload and release mods there. They have a great Rating system for community content as well as the hall of fame feature. However, in my eyes, it has had its day and no longer reflects the true community that is Rfactor.

Nogripracing also has its flaws. For stupid reasons, any screenshots that feature content not released on Nogripracing cannot be uploaded. This means for people like me who enjoy making screenshots from content such as the F1-1967 Mod racing around my circuit Brands Hatch 1950, which I then batch together into a silly loading screen for the same circuit - cannot be used. Further more, if I do upload one of my 'loading screens' with content disapproved my Nogrip moderators, then my files are suspended and or deleted until I rectify the situation. The same goes for videos, which annoys me considering I only upload videos that others have made of my circuits as support material (along with screenshots) for those contemplating a download of my latest creations.

The problem is that neither website is ideal for what I (for one) want from a Rfactor website. Rfactorcentral is a dedicated Rfactor website, however if you submit any content, you are effectively giving it away. While Nogripracing is not a pure Rfactor website where many gamers from multiple games all complain on your circuit's link to "make a conversion" to their favourite racing sim so they can use it.

So for now, I shall continue my blog, as it seems to be the only bloody place I can see the stuff I want to see!
Thank you for reading, now have a look at all this new useless crap I have added!

Rodrrico.

Avignon Progress

I understand that I have been neglecting my circuit design for what has become months. This is hopefully beginning to change with these :

While the circuit has a long way to go, it is clear to see that progress has started up once more. I have not populated the circuit with some trees, the two pontoons the key medieval city wall. I have already play tested with the trees and found that cars hit invisible walls, so I want to be sure to fix this before continuing on the pit buildings and all other objects. Finally I will change / add roads to make it feel a little more real.


I will have updates by Friday this week (at this stage), so check back then for more information on Avignon's progress. Currently I rate the circuit as 0.10 complete - quite a way to go!

News!

Recently I learned that I will not have my contract at my current employment renewed for Nov2011-onward. They are downsizing the position and sadly I lost out on this one.


It seemed to be a pure 'first in gets it' scenario. I started one week after the fellow who will become the sole junior editor. At first this was a real pain and frustration. Though this is very different now. Being dropped from my work has enabled me to work on things I have wanted to for some time. The first is to resume working as a graphical artist for a magazine (already in the pipeline). Secondly to start looking seriously into motorsport and motoring photography as a side income (if possible). I will probably start a new blog dedicated to this, but it is still early days.


Finally, it means that I will now be resuming my circuit designs for Rfactor. I have neglected my passion in the last few months to focus harder on my actual work (perhaps I shouldn't have bothered haha!). Now I will resume my circuit designing. I have already started updating my Airport Terminal GP circuit after I found a few videos on youtube showing people not driving on the actual circuit but getting the best line from everything. I have brought in many of the walls, and plan to remake most of the ad boards around the circuit to bring down the file size.


Other than this all progress has stalled on my other projects. Though as of very early November they will resume. Look out for news and updates on Avignon which I will work on again very soon. But for the next week or two I won't be able to do much.


I have been compiling all of the circuits I have downloaded and installed to my rfactor directory into a Microsoft Access document. I have well over 1000 circuits and plan to release this document in the coming weeks. It includes data such as what I believe is the level of difficulty, speed of the circuit relative to the 'best' mod series for it. Also a grid size so then we don't flood the circuit with more cars than can actually be supported without them flying into the air or starting buried in the 'ground' -  you know what I mean!


Look out for this also early November. More news to follow this weekend!

News!

I know that I said I would be posting up some screenshots of my latest creation Avignon about a week ago. There has however been a lot going on in my world which has taken up my time. Not to mention my strange interest in playing other games lately, which has eaten good chunks of my free time. I will however continue the work this weekend and hope to have something to show off around that time.

I have also been working with some people at Virtual Classics forum on various 1970s Monza layouts. The  sharing of work is excellent even if the language barrier sometimes makes it a little complicated (most speak Spanish). I may be able to show off the 1974 layout soon, I am just waiting on some textures to be made and placed.

I have been inspired to update my NYC GP once more and will be working on a new layout again soon which will make it three different versions of the Lower Manhattan 'project'. That's about it for now, check back here this weekend for more news and updates!

Avignon

I found a great little gem of a website the other day. It had a number of circuits detailed up there including all of the Formula one world championship rounds and track maps of the non championship races also which was pretty cool. But the best part was that many of the circuits (F1 and not) had reference pictures with them.

I trawled through them looking at interesting circuits from all over the globe, until I found one that I thought I might be able to whip up over the weekend. It is simply called Avignon. I assume because the town/city is also called Avignon. There is a big castle wall which runs along the eastern part of the track (clearly from medieval days) and is lined (effectively) with trees and concrete blocks. Again, it is a proposal from 2005 for a round the the DTM, but it never went ahead for some reason. I figured I would give it a good go.

Firstly I mapped out the layout and set it to the length of the track (as was proposed) 1.731km. I drove around in an F1-1974 car, but found it a little tight and pokey. Since I always mesh reality with fiction. I have already tweaked the layout to 2.240km which makes for a better circuit. I think I will base this around either the 1990s F1 cars or 1970s F1 cars. I have made an Xpack recently for other 1970s F1 projects I am working on, but I am still umming and aarring over what this one will be. What I can tell you is that it won't be for 2000s F1s or other series (unless others use it that way of course). I know the 'purists' out there will have a go saying how it is not a 'real' this and that. But to be honest - I don't care. If it feels like where it is, then that is good enough. Chernobyl NPP anyone?

Anyway, I have already make the cambers, heightmaps and some basic bumps. I will release some screenshots some time this weekend and hope to have it out within 14 days. I need a simple yet long castle wall. Can't seem to find one that is right. But I do have some of the Ponte's that the cars will pass under and next to, as well as some 'french' inspired buildings. Check back here in the coming 48hrs for some early screenshots!