Modder work on ISI download page

[Adrianstealth]

yes, total respect to people that try & have ago, not all achieve the acceptable standard that feel3 did on his first attempts,

but anyhow -credit to them and I make a point of thanking and making a donation (when there's an option to do so) for tracks I like or I think have a promising future ( a committed sounding modder with good first screenshots or release )
some of the tracks I've not even used yet (but the modder seems to be still developing)

and also for them sharing their efforts with others to enjoy, I know I sound spoilt and I think I am track wise.

seriously considering having a go myself to appreciate more the work that goes into an attempted quality offering -see my donington park post

 

[Adrianstealth]

Both would require scratch builds for us.

wasn't this the original case?
if the quality is raised of the current ones available then great
- go with the existing ones
but it's very risky back tracking on the good quality level that ISI is now risen too track wise
( based on the last few releases ),
a new user really will not see the difference or care about who made the track if it's being offered as ISI license content if there disappointed ..........word of mouth is very very powerful thing & a good reputation is valuable

.....I know I could be missing the point again here but I think you can see how I understood (or misunderstood) your post

ISI shouldn't associate themselves with anything that's back tracking on the very current track quality (ISI) is offering ...things would seem to be going in the wrong direction

 

[88mphTim]

wasn't this the original case?
if the quality is raised of the current ones available then great
- go with the existing ones
but it's very risky back tracking on the good quality level that ISI is now risen too track wise
( based on the last few releases ),
a new user really will not see the difference or care about who made the track if it's being offered as ISI license content if there disappointed ..........word of mouth is very very powerful thing & a good reputation is valuable

.....I know I could be missing the point again here but I think you can see how I understood (or misunderstood) your post

ISI shouldn't associate themselves with anything that's back tracking on the very current track quality (ISI) is offering ...things would seem to be going in the wrong direction

I'm afraid I don't really follow. You were asking about two particular tracks, not everything. I answered based on two particular tracks, now you're taking that as being about everything?

 

[cosimo]

(listing of non-isi mods)

So, although we pretty much know we're going to do this. Thoughts? Advice? Etc?

I think this idea is valuable if it's the step stone for an automated mod browser + installer.

Could be integrated in the current mod manager too ("get new mods" functionality) but it would need a substantial amount of work to be of real value (track info, screenshots, car profile, ...).

 

[Golanv]

There is some serious ninjas in the modding community, if they get a license for a track that they are working on/have made, I'm sure that they would be happy as a pig in s*** and that would show in their work.

 

[hexagramme]

Check out Symmons Plains. IMO, one of the best tracks for rF2 right now outside of ISI, though it is a track that doesn't "fit" a lot of cars here right now.

It is an amazing work of art, that track. Quality wise it's right up there among the very best.
Doesn't quite get the attention it deserves though.

 

[David Wright]

Does anyone have thoughts regarding what it would take to get 60s tracks? Licenses don't appear to be a barrier so is there some way to motivate development of a 60s track pack?

Check out the back of the Grand Prix Legends Manual (ah the days of real game manuals!!). All the tracks are licensed (names and likeness), even the one which doesn't exist now - Rouen.

 

[Adrianstealth]

I'm afraid I don't really follow. You were asking about two particular tracks, not everything. I answered based on two particular tracks, now you're taking that as being about everything?

Hiya Tim

Must be me causing confusion as I keep getting the wrong end of the stick on this thread lol
I though you ment :
"both would require scratch builds for us" you were referring to two tracks that you hold licenses for
and also exist as 3rd party mod tracks, if ISI didn't use these (existing) mod tracks then ISI would have to scratch build them.

I think someone else was asking which specific tracks they were.

 

[SPASKIS]

Marc Collins- "the process to do it in rF2 is not well documented/standardized." What is missing?

Spaskis, so you want ISI to hire a bunch of people to make a tool that would probably cost a good chunk of change to make but offer it cheap? Im fairly sure that is not a very good business model with such a limited market. Problem is that tool already exist. I know there are plenty of other programs out there other than 3ds Max but the thing is, ISI only offers plugins for Max. I would expect it to be less hassle with only one set of plugins to update each build. rF1 still has content being released today with the current tools available. I don't understand why people can't do the same for rF2.

You are a great modder and have made great tutorials. Your knowledge about modding is so high and you are so much used to using existing tools, that you simply do not miss anything and find everything perfect. IMO you are so much inside the forest that you cannot see the trees. Please do not take it personally. It is just how I see it.
A dedicated tool as i understand it would be focused on:

- structured working: The UI, menus, would be built in accordance to the generally accepted procedure for track building. An intuitive-practical inteface is one of the most value adding features of any software.
- efficient working: typical and repetitive operations should have their own commands. Time consuming jobs should be addressed and automarized amap.
- material library: a proper tool for creating/editing materials where a good rendering on typical 3d shapes would be included.
- properly integrated scene rendering tool.
- aiw building module. 2d editing is very useful for non fast path items. Fast path should be better assesed and a proper smoothing adjustment based on an initial guess should be enough. Ingame AI learning features being developed should do the rest to adapt a general fast path to different mods. Blocking manouvers should not be necessary to be defined. if they know that to pass is good to use the inside saince rf1, they should knkw how to block as well.

Edit: I didn't have time before to properly conclude this post. Saying that there is no market for this type of tool is like saying that there is no market for rf2. Or that, or some people want that modding keeps on being a mysterious science where they can stay in the elite. Modding should and could be easier. Saying everything is perfect is not compatible with the average quality of non ISI content we have right now. The reason is because modding is very difficult to learn and time consuming. The main reason for this is ISI's historical lack of commitment with modders.

BTW, I would appreciate that you could post the links to the official documentation ISI has released where a newbie can learn all the basics first and all the advanced features later. If the answer is going to be that there are lots of tutorials please ignore this last sentence and let's move on... I already knew that but it is not useful. When I comment this with other modders they usually think pretty much the same. How come that only ISI and expert modders think opposite?

enviado mediante tapatalk

 

[tomolart]

Big fan of this idea. Go for it!

 

[Domi]

Check out Symmons Plains. IMO, one of the best tracks for rF2 right now outside of ISI, though it is a track that doesn't "fit" a lot of cars here right now.

True, I forgot him. But ... that's all. My point is that there isn't an excess of quality track builders compared to quality car builders as someone suggested.

 

[ethone]

So no love for Le Mans? Crap, I thought it was at least somewhat decent.

 

[rhamm]

So no love for Le Mans? Crap, I thought it was at least somewhat decent.

I thought it was humorous that Virtua_LM was left out. In my opinion you guys have always made awesome tracks. Then again I also enjoy all of PlickBadger's tracks as well. Mario Morales also has quite a lot of talent. There are probably tracks from other builders that I'm not remembering at the moment. Hope they don't get upset I left them out.

 

[Marc Collins]

Both would require scratch builds for us.

Then that's a reason you (ISI) should do them yourselves and not strand the rest of us with rF1 conversions.

 

[Golanv]

I thought it was humorous that Virtua_LM was left out. In my opinion you guys have always made awesome tracks. Then again I also enjoy all of PlickBadger's tracks as well. Mario Morales also has quite a lot of talent. There are probably tracks from other builders that I'm not remembering at the moment. Hope they don't get upset I left them out.

I miss feels3.
Damn game devs snatching all the good ones away from us (Tuttle!! *wink*wink*poke*poke*)... maybe thats the new "stab the competition" tactic now.

 

[Domi]

So no love for Le Mans? Crap, I thought it was at least somewhat decent.

VLM tracks are good (really good for the rF1 era), but not magic, imo. Especially regarding texture quality and variation, they are clearly behind the top rF2 tracks.

 

[Marc Collins]

VLM tracks are good (really good for the rF1 era), but not magic, imo. Especially regarding texture quality and variation, they are clearly behind the top rF2 tracks.

They were to rF1 what the feels3 tracks are to rF2. A step above everything else in all important ways. They could be further improved, as could any rF2 track, but only with a rare combination of artistry and technical prowess. Technical skills alone leave us with very functional, but sterile looking, tracks and track environments.

You can already see that AC will be no farther ahead. It's a general issue, not specific to rF2. All I know is there are only a couple of handsful of people who possess this rare combination of talent in the racing sim world, and most, not surprisingly, will be hired by developers.

Specialization is one hope. So the Tosch's of the community can work their magic on one element, someone else can do another. The chances of someone being excellent at track geometry, graphics, artistic flair for textures and so forth, AI, etc., etc., is close to zero. People who can master one of these need to work with a group of others who are expert at some other component and pool their talent. Even then, it will be difficult to match a feels3 level of overall track quality. He is genius in this little space and congratulations to the developer who was smart enough to snap him up. Everyone else will need to partner-up to produce memorable results.

 

[Guimengo]

Check out Symmons Plains. IMO, one of the best tracks for rF2 right now outside of ISI, though it is a track that doesn't "fit" a lot of cars here right now.

Whoochoo or Woochoo who made Longford is also a name not to be forgotten. The attention to details and care oozes everywhere.

 

[woochoo]

Whoochoo or Woochoo who made Longford is also a name not to be forgotten. The attention to details and care oozes everywhere.

Heyhey, that's me
Firstly, I like that it's a name not to be forgotten, but apparently you can't quite remember it

Anyway, thanks for the compliment. I was a rookie when I started Longford for rF1... in 2009. I've been working on it ever since. My skillz and tastes have improved since then, but the trouble is, since it's 7km long, it takes me a while to update it a notch (depending on what's being updated). And by the time it's updated, either system/software capability improves, or my skillz improve, and it's back on the treadmill! Next update will include new road textures, and it makes a very positive difference. The road and grass in the current release are still from the rF1 days and they're clearly holding the track back a bit. A lot of the development in the last two years or so hasn't always been obvious to the user. Hopefully that means I'm nearly at the point where I can just throw some new textures/models at a few things and get some non-linear effort:improvement gains

Anyway, back on topic. As much as I'd like to have earned a whole bunch of money for my five years work on the track, having it hosted by ISI would be pretty great too (but it needs more work!!). Hopefully a few more people take up track making with that as a intermediate goal. It's pretty common to hear industry people say things like "well, I started out with modding [insert game name]", so it can lead to job opportunities if you throw yourself into it, as we've seen around here in the last few years. Myself now included (and a couple of others...), since I've been taken on as a freelancer by rF-PRO since January.

 

[Guimengo]

That's nice, hopefully more will come from it woochoo! I was unsure of your spelling but definitely you're not to be forgotten . I spent many hours on this since Thursday until earlier today on Photoshop dissecting the mapping issues from translating my work on the layers to the game. I don't even know if I'll get a single download (probably will since it has Senna stuff) but it's one of those perfectionist things. I really appreciate quality content pumped out by picky people, the workings of a track and fine tuning of a car's ride are more complex than just going crazy on templates but the thought is the same. Looking forward to future things from you and a couple of others - individual and group work.

ps: shame CTDP and Virtua-LM drifted from main view