Any updates on the weather?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Racer-X, Oct 7, 2010.

  1. Racer-X

    Racer-X Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2010
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    It seems having rainy weather in racing games is the thing to have these days :p

    Any idea when we may see more developmental shots of the rain? Obviously not a big factor though :cool:
     
  2. numetalbizkit

    numetalbizkit Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    You know, I've thought about something. Microsoft Flight Simulator has an option where you can use real-world weather settings. I think that would be something really cool to see in rF2, if the game connects to the server ever 15 minutes to update the weather.
     
  3. The Stig

    The Stig Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    26
    Likes Received:
    0
    I think that would be awesome, it would of course have to be optional though.

    If you tell the general public that a game will connect to any remote server for anything and many of them become afraid that secret government terrorist organizations are coming to kidnap their dog. That, and that the game is an elaborate front to gain access to their bank account (with an average balance of $36).
     
  4. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2010
    Messages:
    1,585
    Likes Received:
    101
    There's no need to connect to only one, dedicated weather service. rF 2 could have external weather plugin support. If you don't mind, I'll quote myself as already mentioned that in my wishlist

     
  5. Jeffrey Rietveld

    Jeffrey Rietveld Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    34
    Likes Received:
    1
    That's not going to work and it will cost a lot of money. And with '' not going to work '' I mean that there will be a lot of new tracks from modders etc which wont be able to do such a thing.
     
  6. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    1,774
    Likes Received:
    29
    And you think it is a reason to not implement the feature into rF2? Why the hell ISI implements whether at all? ;)
     
  7. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2010
    Messages:
    1,585
    Likes Received:
    101
    Tracks has nothing to do with that, because it's the rF, which provides weather conditions on the track, not the track itself (tracks will have to be made with new weather system, no matter how you will provide weather data to the game). It's just a matter, what is the source of weather data. Right now there are known 2 sources - from game options and from external scrypt files and the proposed third solution will be similar to the second one in many terms. Compared to completly new RealRoad system, I think providing plugin for real-time forecast system is not that big deal ;-)
     
  8. Racer-X

    Racer-X Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2010
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Yea that would be a good point since rFactor is heavily centered on modding, unlike Flight Sim which centers around the reality of the environment location. U'd end up having to select the weather yourself and somehow I think people will ditch rainy weather for simplicity sakes. :(
     
  9. rhamm

    rhamm Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2010
    Messages:
    290
    Likes Received:
    22
    You'll see them in the Development forum when they're ready.
     
  10. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2010
    Messages:
    1,585
    Likes Received:
    101
    Racer-X, so you say that you don't want changable weather conditions at all, that all of us are awaiting, because none of available tracks will be compatibile with rF 2 weather (apart from a few we will get from ISI in rF 2 package)? Then what's the point of having rF 2 at all? New tyre model will require existing mods to be modified, so let's just stick with rF1 ;-)
     
  11. 88mphTim

    88mphTim racesimcentral.net

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2010
    Messages:
    10,840
    Likes Received:
    314
    Probably will be another video coming next of those.

    The weather is really easy to setup. Really easy. Although real-world weather it's a cool feature to have in the flight sim world (where the 'track' is actually our planet) I'm not sure assigning a zip or postal code to a track and using the current weather is of any great benefit - especially if you happen to be home from work at 6pm and decide to go racing on a track that only ever actually sees action on a Sunday at noon. I'm not sure if there's a way to do that which wouldn't cost an arm and a leg to license for our commercial usage and obviously passing that cost onto the customer, when I suspect most of them won't use it anyway, is another problem.
     
  12. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    1,774
    Likes Received:
    29
    I think it is enough to provide provide plugin build-in api to change weather conditions live, during session.
    We'll do the rest.
     
  13. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2010
    Messages:
    1,585
    Likes Received:
    101
    Exactly! No one here wants to have only real-time weather system! We're asking for it as an additional (that would be third?) option of how to configure dynamic conditions, because of the point you provided Tim. Sometimes (OK, probably most of the time) we would have races at different conditions and server time than real-world conditions. In those situations scripted files and in-game basic weather settings come to play. But...we will definately make use of real-world weather forecasts too! That probably would be mostly endurance races. Other example: when here in Poland it's 8pm, on the US East Coast is 2pm (6h difference) - good time to have a race at Watkins Glen, in a real world conditions from that area :)
    What I wouldn't want to use is postal code/zip... that won't work like we would like. For me the best solution are GPS coordinates. In rF 1 we are already using Lattitude and Northdirection in GDB file to determine some lighting conditions. Add to that just 2 more parameters: N/S and W/E coordinates (in degrees/minutes/seconds - simple GPS coordinates). You don't need nothing more. Then, we (the community) take those track coordinates (even google maps can provide such so it's not a big deal to update track's GDB file) and use it to get weather conditions from external forecast service. Which one? Doesn't matter! We will handle that for ourselfs :) Just provide us a plugin to rF 2 which will read streaming data with real-time weather conditions (from our onw prepared streams).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 8, 2010
  14. numetalbizkit

    numetalbizkit Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    As long as you had a way to put GPS coordinates in a GDB file or a SCN file I would imagine real-world weather could work.

    Edit: I would, as a league admin, certainly use it for my league races.
     
  15. Pandamasque

    Pandamasque Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    160
    Likes Received:
    2
    +1 Me too. As long as there would be a possibility to have intentionally wrong coordinates to avoid having snow all the time (our league season usually lasts from September to May) :) So instead of Silverstone you could dial in Sydney for example and race in Silverstone in January having random summer weather.
     
  16. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2010
    Messages:
    1,585
    Likes Received:
    101
    I guess providing fake coordinates wouldn't be necessary - just use predefined weather templates provided with rF 2 or make your own scripts with weather that you want :)
     
  17. migf1

    migf1 Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    12
    Likes Received:
    0
    Live weather (along with live day/night transistions) is in my wish-list too, as an optional feature of course. Tbh I never thought it would require a license, although I did think that programming-wise it could make things a bit more complex (for example continuously mapping the super-set of live weather states onto the subset of the states supported by rf2).

    It would be pretty cool though, especially in leagues. It would also be the first time we'd see something like that in any sim (if my memory servers me well).
     
  18. Pandamasque

    Pandamasque Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    160
    Likes Received:
    2
    No way! We could do that in F1C, but the whole fun is not to know what kind of weather changes would happen.
     
  19. Racer-X

    Racer-X Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2010
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    I meant from the point of view of having real world weather assigned to a track. Let's assume someone made a fictional track, what weather would we put there? XD. However changeable weather (e.g. sunny then rain then sun, etc.) sounds nice!

    Microsoft Flight Sim still uses it and their development company is bankrupt...pretty sure you could license it from Jeppesen or something for a cheap figure.
     
  20. numetalbizkit

    numetalbizkit Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Is there going to be snow in rF2?
     

Share This Page