New user interface (by FSR - preview)

That's looking pretty awesome Eduard

A request (again sorry) , I see you have admin functions placed on-top like ad ai, boot driver etc. Love it how you placed them in the front.
But could you perhaps add the 'restart warmup' button their as well? it kinda functions as a panick button in league races for when people disconnect, late arrivals or other issues. it can even be used when the race already started and remembers the grid positions so its a very useful tool and having it on-top would even be better.

If you're lost for space to add it might I suggest re-placing the boot-driver button, that one is much less used imo.

Getting more and more exited about this UI

 

done a request in the wish lists forum for UI to be more "open" for modders hoping for :

-.ini options can be linked to new UI buttons
( maybe in an "advanced simulator options" page ) wheels only, wheels&suspension, smoke flow over cars, sound reverb distance & so on etc

-track load screen in small UI view/replay window (with a cancel button)


we could have a perfect UI with a sweep of advanced options (for those that want to use them & without going into the .ini files etc )

 

If you watch more closely in the screenshoot there are two tabs (multiplayer and singleplayer). So the buttons you are asking are in the multiplayer tab, they are 12 including send setup, ban driver, restart warmup, go to next session...

 

mm... great news, thanks!

 

Dang, I was gonna ask about the MP/SP buttons but forgot. Thx

 

Pretty nice looking, cannot wait .
Does the garage setup screen show the top speed of the car and maybe downforce pressure given the setup configuration? Like in the one posted here http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=xUI and Showroom

 

looks sweet

 

yes, yes, yes. PLR and INI adjustments built into the in-game UI. As you said, under some sort of advanced settings tab so people who don't know what they are doing don't mess about. It should have a warning popup when you click to enter, or a lock/unlock button that won't let you enter it unless you click the unlock button. Also, a default button is a must so that you can return the settings back to the stock RF2 settings in case you just end up screwing everything up lol.

Instead of a default button, you could always just tell the user to create another profile and copy and paste that PLR/INI back into your regular profile, but then we would be back at messing with out of game folders & fles. We are trying to stop/limit all of that out of game folder/files stuff and head towards a polished "everything easily and neatly acceseable to the user in-game" type of experience.

Keeping everything neat, modern, interesting and tidy, while at the same time giving the user the advanced control options that a complex peice of software like RFactor/RFactor 2 uses (PLR, INI, etc) should be the ultimate goal

 

Don't most ini adjustments require rf2 to restart though?
Or even require rf2 to be not running?

 

I've been banging on about plr in game since first build!

Not really, many of the plr options don't require a restart as they are in game already, all it needs to do is reload the plr in game. rf1 you could switch between player files to do just that, obviously now we have just one so I see no reason why can't work.

 

It's not as easy as that. Each INI/PLR setting should have a number range [min,max] defined, size of adjustment steps, and preferably names for each adjustment option, for example what means SoftParticles=2 if you don't replace "2" by a name. This all means you need an extra UI layer which describes these settings, and we are back to square one. Of course you could have the raw PLR file in the UI and input a number for each setting, but then it's not really a "modern UI" at all. Anyway this is all off topic as Eduard can do none of these changes without ISI.

 

If you hover the mouse over the option a pop up should come up with an explanation (this should be a standard for every option/adjustable setting in every video game).

An explanation for every single adjustable option could be written out in a day or 2. A proper explanation that is, and not something useless like, for example, "Texture Quality - This setting allows you to adjust the quality of textures from low to high, the higher you go gives you more inage quality in tradeoff for performance" LOL I hate when I see those, I mean we all know that low looks worse and has higher fps and vice versa the higher you go. What people want to know exactly is what gets affected. For example on "opponent detail" does "low" still give you max quality when you are close up but the quality starts going down very quickly as the car gets further away? Or does it mean that the cars have blurrier graphics and skins? Or does it mean that the cars have less physical parts rendered like missing bumpers, external mirrors, etc? Or does it mean that the physical parts of the cars are all still rendered like on max, but just that they are rendered with much less polygons? What exactly does it mean? That's what the explanations would be for.

A proper mouse hovering explanation for every single adjustable option & setting would be amazing.

Hardcore non-mainstream sims used to have the most intrinsic and "deep" manuals, now it's just a guessing game between in game settings, some INI controller file settings, and about 800,000 PLR file settings.

 

FSR league will be releasing their own F1 track pack ?????

& they'll be a public release this month (April ) ??????

I know they've stated they'll be using the ISI f1's (good move)

don't know if anyone knows these answers?

EDIT:

just looking at the FSR site I think 2014 is a transitional time for their league
( from rf1 to rf2 ) I guess it had to happen sooner or later.
they are using the current Bahrain track + maybe other current F1 tracks whilst perhaps they work away at converting their existing tracks in the background,
looking forward to seeing any new releases from them

 

Yes, we (FSR) are going to "release" 12 high-quality tracks for season 2014, which will be run with rF2. These tracks will not be available in a package, but as single download components two weeks before each round. Reason being, it's a long process to convert a track from rF1 and improve it to rF2 standards, we need all the time available over the season. F1RFT 2013 also has a track pack, but the quality of their tracks varies a lot in my opinion. Currently we are running a modified version of McNolo's Bahrain for next weekend's opening round. Download links on our RaceDepartment forum section, or directly with getmod autodownload from FSR testserver.

 

great news, I'll keep my eyes open for your releases

( I've not downloaded rft tracks as I know the quality isn't very good right now)

thanks for the response

 

This sounds very interesting indeed. I look forward to these tracks.

I can`t find any download for the modified version of McNolo`s Bahrain at RD though...

 

Great news about the tracks. The F1RFT tracks are quick conversions and pretty poor in my opinion.

 

This newsitem should contain all links needed.

 

Thanks stonec...

I was looking in the wrong place at RD.

 

Fantastic work Eduard, really well done!