Messages

Many comments to reply to...

Chulk: it seems Mark and Dstien covered all main points for a brief summary with their replies on Page 14, so that might be of help while a more formal document is to be made 

I'm thinking on a custom menu bar with a cool design and the Knight Rider dashboard... both projects will start as soon as I have some time.

Seeing the first custom dashboard is something I'm looking forward to - every time I consider doing one of those for my cars I always find myself at a loss about how to make modifications which are good looking yet consistent with the rest of the game.

Context menu and actions for changing order, sorting, renaming, removing,
duplicating and inserting new resources.

That will be really useful for managing modifications while editing. Another nice use would be to insert read-me texts within the file as text resources.

Can you change the shape of the steering wheel?

The steering wheel is just a bitmap image that you can replace with anything you want, but I think the blue indicator will still move along a fixed arc.

The arc is actually editable, as a set of coordinates inside the *.RES. While from a contest manager point of view modifying the *.RES of a widely used car does not look like a good idea, as long as performance/physical behaviour parameters are left untouched replays won't become incompatible, save for the different steering wheel dot movement of course.

A question for dstien: upgrading the number of polygons related at shapes car1 and car2 (used during the race) can affect the fluidness of the game?

I haven't done any heavy testing, but it should only depend on the amount of available CPU cycles. If the framerate is ok when racing against an opponent with two official vehicles on the screen, there shouldn't be any difference using one vehicle with twice the amount of details. Another factor in addition to the number of polygons is the culling parameters that we haven't figured out yet...

Glad you asked that question, Mark, as it affects directly my experiments on the GT3 - the regular Corvette car1 shape has 53 polygons, while the downscaled car0 I'm adjusting to replace it has 201 (with a couple additional ones to cover the underside of the car). Unfortunately, quadruplying the polygon count seems to be a bit too much: With two equal cars on screen, the frame rate starts to suffer at about 16000 cycles, a value far too high for many pipsqueaks. Even with a single car the limit seems to be as high as 11000-12000. Since I always race at 20k cycles, I would never notice the difference by myself. That's a major blow to my current design approach...  

I really like this idea. I'm more than willing to help out if there are any technical issues. Tuning is next on my list for resource type support in stressed. Can CarBlaster edit dashboard settings?

I do have some plans for making my own cars, maybe I have one ready for the 2012 season.

Cool! (to all of the three comments ) And yes, CarBlaster can be used to tune dashboard settings, as they are *.RES parameters as well - it only requires some patience to adjust all points on the course of the meters. The bytes and coordinates used to do so are described on the Wiki.

Not fully : I want to modify car shape and I was unable to get a powergear effect. Maybe I'll keep it this way, we'll see until november, but for sure the F1 2002 will be proposed.

Krys: out of curiosity, what are the mass and drag coefficients of your F1 car? (definitions here) Maybe something could be done about PG with a little more experimentation...

Anyway... I still don't know how it's possible modify the cockpit with stressed.... 

To edit a dashboard (or any other bitmap resource) you have to open the *.PVS/*.VSH with stressed, locate the relevant bitmap on the resource list and export it. Then, open the .PNG with an appropriate editor, preferably one good enough to handle indexed bitmaps properly, so you don't have to worry about using colours which don't exist in Stunts. GIMP or Photoshop should suffice. Once the editing is done, reopen the resource file in stressed and import the .PNG back to its place.

Now, if someone could post a simple "How to" to modify the external look of cars, I'd really appreciate it.

I could try to make a short summary later on...

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Here are shots from a preliminary study of GT3 future looks. I rescaled the showroom ZR1 model to adequate proportions so I could have more control over colour schemes and from there adjusted the paint jobs so it looks less like a regular model. Fancier stuff like wings and such might come later on eventually. Please tell me how you like this test - and particularly whether all the tiny details inherited from the larger car model look too bad on this resolution.

Audi because it's too good to be missing, GTO because I love it, and Countach because it's very unique - even if I (sort of) hate it. The 4th one could be anything else but Skoda...

Mark: you might wish to check whether that slightly modified dashboard I made a while ago works properly now; if you like the result, that is...

Chulk vs. me vs. Mark vs. CTG... oh my, this race will be such wicked fun...

Great initiative Zak! That will force me to finally retake work on my cars  As of now, I do not know if my entry in this will be the GT3 with updated looks or the to-be-finished Skyline, but anyway you can test the former already, as I won't change its performance data. Just a question, Zak:

- Dashboard may be unchanged from a stock car but must be completely functional. (unlike the rev meter in Melange)

I thought Melange's rev meter was functional... what is wrong about it? One of the issues I have to solve on the Skyline is the meter behaviour, so I need to be sure it will work according to the right specifications.

Yay, now many more people with more artistical proneness (and less artistical laziness... ) than me will be able to use dstien's wonderful toolbox. The rear wings look very nice indeed, Mark  As for GT3, I promise I'll try to dress it in racing trim eventually, and modify the colour set too. BTW, just in case anyone is wondering, graphical updates of cars (replacing *.PVS/*.VSH and *.P3S/*.3SH) won't harm saved replays in any way, since the CAR*.RES need not, in principle, be changed, and thus the car will act the same regardless of what it looks like.

Finally another driver on the track after AbuRaf70 and me...
Instead, extreme hiding for Duplode... 

Not hiding, rather taking a bit of a break In a way, it was very convenient to me that so many contests had deadline delays at the same time in late September, I'd have had trouble to keep up with all the hard racing otherwise. Anyway, I raced #08 for the first time yesterday, and it's a very good design - it illustrates very well how to make a hard track with seemingly simple combos. Opening time is uploaded... it's likely I won't race very intensively until the final week (by then my motivation will hopefully be back to usual levels and I won't have to worry about Montreal anymore).

Great insight from a master...

Strange thing, I feel RH efforts cruel and dry-as-dust - it's interesting to read about it from another aspect.

Interesting indeed - RH racing also has its very own beauty, even if it gets buried very deep pretty often.

I have a fixed IP. I tried online proxies but they suck with verification codes... I tried 4 or 5 and none of them send that code correctly. Duplode, you use proxy sometimes, right? Any ideas?

Indeed, most open proxy services do not support secure translations of passwords and such (all for the better of your safety, I guess...). If your problem was the other way around (getting a fixed address from dynamic IP) I could suggest you something like www.dyndns.com , but I know no better way of masking IP than by proxies...

Come on, don't hide so hard...

I'm not - I was about to send an unremarkable recognition lap yesterday, but I manage not to save the file... next run scheduled to Sunday.

I'm glad to tell everybody that my son Bálint has born yesterday (Oct 2), 13:55 CET. 

Just one day ahead of your birthday... Congratulations, man!

Well, let me give my two cents to this most important debate... although I like the original concept of car bonus system quite a lot (and both of its goals of giving pipsqueaks more freedom with car choices and making races more strategic), I agree with many of points raised by Mark (and by Akoss too, on the renormalization topic). The main issue is that, even though the concept is very good, with the current implementation it only comes to full fruition at very rare occasions. The strategical element, as Zak pointed out, has not much emphasis - making a good, or innovative, car choice early on is more often a question of instinct rather than strategy. Regardless of that, I do enjoy quite a lot the initial days of exploring the track with several different cars. However, the only race up to now where those multiple alternatives were a crucial element to the very end was Z82. In contrast, all other races were essentially one-car contests and/or powergear-dominated. And speaking of powergear, there is another serious issue the "free-for-all" model induces: restrictions on track design. I find it very sad, for instance, that Zak can't place a loop in the middle section of his tracks in order not to make the race an automatic Indy/Acura party (and even l/r corks are looking dangerous lately).

Looking from that perspective, allow me to comment your positions, and present mine while doing so:

1. In spite of the varying degrees of criticism and of the multiple argumentations, nobody seems to be completely satisfied with the current implementation.

2. Even if doing a multi-car system is so troublesome, I can't really agree with CTG on reverting to vanilla rules. Innovation is good, and even with the problems it has not really harmed the contest. And besides, we'll have USC for classic racing anyway...

3. Same goes to Akoss, even if I agree with many of the points he raised in that older post (and yes, it's too bad we can only perform real analysis on "boring" one-car races under the new system!  )

4. I do not believe Mark's proposal (the first one) alone would work fine either. Taking into account what we have seen on this season, controlling which cars are to be used by track design exclusively is an extremely difficult task, so using semi-fixed bonuses would most likely aggravate balance issues as pointed out by BJ. Even if perfect control by design could be achieved, the final result would be to restrict even further Zak's options for track creations and make races essentially one car - and so we would likely be better with vanilla rules. Standardized powergear adjustments are impossible as well, not only due to the dependence on PG section length but also because extracting speed information from a replay will require knowledge of source code, as what actually happens on a replay is only calculated at runtime, using nothing but the stored keystrokes in the .RPL file. Mark's second suggestion (fixed 0% bonuses for LM002) is a must, however.

5. BJ's comment is spot on: under the current model, the car bonus system won't get much better than what we already have. A large part of the balance problem arises from issues inherent to the game, and no matter what is tried to adjust the bonuses (slowing the percentage evolution, changing initial rates, etc.) they will eventually reach an equilibrium configuration and those problems will resurface.

6. Considering everything we discussed, and particularly BJ's observation, it would seem the only path to make a multi-car system much better than it is now is through large-scale changes on the system, changes that go beyond the tuning of percentages or update schemes. That is the main reason I support Zak's plans of restricting usage of a car to one race per driver per season. It will enforce car choice diversity, versatility, introduce extra strategy factors and, most likely, prevent overt powergear dominance. Additionally, as Chulk implied, Mark's suggestion on semi-fixed bonuses fits a lot better with such a system than with the current one. I see only one real risk with the proposal: towards the end of the season, the likelihood of some drivers getting completely powerless at certain races due to early choices with consequences they would have next to no control would be quite large. This issue, however, can be possibly addressed in a rather straightforward way by allowing drivers to have a repetition wildcard for one of the final three races (only for the final races, else balance would be seriously endangered). Besides that, allowing use of tuned cars would by itself help avoiding the issue, by giving drivers more options (trying not to include rocket-cars or overdo IMSA-style, Zak might raise the car count to 14 with Melange, Speedgate and GT3. If, for instance, I can finish the long-announced Nissan Skyline in time for next season and it gets approved by the community, there will be 12 + 3 cars already).

7. Finally, an additional suggestion which could be implemented with the proposed 2009 system. As I mentioned before, the restrictions on track design freedom bother me quite a bit - and I suppose that applies to Zak as well. Therefore, I think it would be excellent if Zak would be able to say, on a few select races, "well, this is a perfect track for slow-car handling, so that's how it should be raced". In other words, I support the creation of car blacklists for specific races - that is, the possibility to declare Z95 can only be raced with, for instance, Audi, LM002, Carrera, Lancia, and Countach, and implement that by making the submission system reject replays from any other car. Of course, that would be a rule to be used with care, so as not to distort the system (only in certain occasions, and trying to balance blacklists so cars get approximately equal chances through the season).

[JACStunts Season 4 is now officialy open officially started]

As announced in private to Krys and Mark a few hours ago, JACStunts Season 4 is now officialy open officially started  . On this post, I'll summarize basic info:

1. Season calendar

Número de pistas (number of tracks): 8
Duração estimada do campeonato (Estimated duration of the championship): Aproximadamente 4 meses (Approximately 4 months)

Ordem das pistas (tracks' order):
Pistas de primavera (Spring Tracks):
Pista 1: #5 - Sunrise (29/09 - 13/10) - Jaguar
Pista 2: #8 - Audi (13/10 - 27/10) - Audi
Pista 3: #6 - Rudah4 (27/10 - 10/11) - GTO
Pista 4: #2 - Curvilinea (10/11 - 24/11) - Lancia
Pista 5: #3 - Cobra Doida (24/11 - 08/12) - Indy
Pista 6: #1 - Andhra (08/12 - 22/12) - Corvette

Pistas de verão (Summer Tracks):
Pista 7: #7 - E4 (22/12 - 05/01) - Carrera
Pista 8: #4 - Road America (05/01 - 19/01) - P962

Just take into account races start at midnight Sunday to Monday and end at Monday noon (so consecutive races have a 12-hour overlap).

2. Track pack

The site is not fully updated yet, so the new tracks aren't there yet. Get all eight tracks from this link instead: http://www.4shared.com/file/64989824/32e50d41/Pistas_Stunts_-_Temporada_4.html
Notice, however, that Track 3 (the very long GTO one) will suffer modifications and be re-uploaded as soon as possible.

3. Rules

An overhauled ruleset in English is available at http://jacstunts.ueuo.com/faq.html . This time the Portuguese ruleset was translated directly from the English original, so there are (almost) no risks for misunderstandings.

4. Site and Forums

The site is still on http://jacstunts.ueuo.com, but it is not fully updated yet - I'll tell you when it gets finished. The Orkut community is still active on http://www.orkut.com.br/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=48945546 , but now we also have a much better and more convenient bilingual forum being set up at http://jacstunts.gooforum.com/index.htm . Visit us there, it's much easier now 

5. Updates

Results will be posted at both forums and on the site too. Additionally, I plan to publish them here too, to make this topic a bit busier 

That's it, any further developments will be reported here. Everyone is invited, show up and race!

PS.: Zak, could you please change the Portal data to report races are bi-weekly now? Thanks in advance.