So I don´t have the right to wish for something better and easyer because you can do the classic hard way. Interesting..... Yes, it is still the same work(flow) as it was years before for rF1 or GTR2 or GPL. Besides gjed we still have to use the same tools as 1998. I don´t call this progress. Yeah, laugh at me because I don´t have the skills to do a track in 3dsmax! I´m wiling to learn it, but I´m too old to do this via video tutorials which I hate! And I´ve already asked in several forums of my language,- noone is there willing to teach me. People are changing with every generation. When techniques available doesn´t progress and take this into acount, modding (in this case) will be less. Simpel as that! It´s just humanly. Tuttle if you still have no idea what you can do for better modding (as you said it´s obvious that available tools and techniques are a problem, otherwise this much fails and errors wouldn´t exist!) after all is written and all the mistakes you observed then I wonder why you wondering/thinking about this topic at all?? Hopefully there is a stuff-member who´s job this could be, who has the fantasy and forward-thinking to create some ideas in this regard. Absolutely no offense man and don´t take this personal! You do a great job! With what you do! Not every job is for everyone. Just my opinion as a free thinker and forward looking man. Laugh at me and my ideas, but don´t you wonder if reality outpaces you.....
If video tutorials aren't enough, what do you think will help you personally learn how to create content? We all learn in different ways, me personally I'm a visual learner. The tools are there and there has been much progress since 1998, you are naive to say that it hasn't. Industry standards for software may not have changed much but methods are much better than they were back then. We have it way easier. These skills to create content are still difficult. The depth of what is required by today's standards to make things look real is still an art. The attention to detail to make things look "photorealistic" is not an easy task either. The tools are there... people just need to be willing to learn. It is not impossible, but there is an entry level to all this and you pretty much have to have a lot of passion to create this stuff. Nothing will EVER be "point, click... mod is done". You can sometimes spend a whole day trying to create the smallest detail of a track/car and not seem like you have made any progress. Other times you feel like you have done something. If you just want a basic convert of a car/track just so you can say that it now exists and want people to congratulate you for it... then fine, this is very easy to do. But there is still much more to make it even close to real. More than just slapping a picture off google image search onto an object and putting it in the sim.
If that is what you get from that entire reply, I'm not even going to explain myself, that's just looking for an argument. Yes, it is still the same work(flow) as it was years before for rF1 or GTR2 or GPL. It says something about you when you instantly referer to the 'classic hard way' while every 3d artist will tell you, it is the normal way to do things. See where things clash here? Get this, building 3d art still basically works the same as in 1998. We only have much more diversity in tools and techniques just as Woodee just mentioned. The jist of it? Same old stuff. Recall when I said there is no magic involved? It's all how about how you use the tools within the limitations you have. Yes, back in the old days. I had a book, Kelly Murdock was my hero. And to get shiny wood on an AK47 stock, I had to paint in the specular with the dodge tool in photoshop. That was shading for you back then.. I've been involved in 3d work for about 15 years now both as a student and profesisonally. Started working on Quake 2/3, Unreal, Unreal 3, own engines, side projects, UDK, rF2 for a tiny bit. Guess which tools were used throughout all of those engines, and as of today still are. Yes, some kind of 3d package such as 3DsMax or Maya and a 2d Package such as gimp or Photoshop. Nobody is laughing at you, it is just what is used in the industry, and to great effect. If you aren't up to the task or don't get the help you want, that certainly isn't very cool. But I do hope you understand the reason that your request falls on deaf ears time and time again, and probably will for a long time to come. Well said.
Well someone is a realist. As true are your words the unfortunate thing is you are dealing with people that are noods and the only reason they start something is to see if they can get it into their fav sim. Its a no brainer give more infò than less. The wiki is good it has a lot of holes that need filling in for the newb. Everything needs to be written for the newb and extra links to learn more. Otherwise people will choose the easier option.
I can see why no one is crazy enough to go through that mammoth task You are expecting everything to be done magically, you can't even watch a tutorial video. You say you're willing to learn. Now, if modding is too difficult for you on rF2, here's a deal : create a scratch made track for AC, or whatever game you feel it's so much easier to mod in, with your own objects (and not stolen / borrowed from an other track) and I'll convert it for you on rF2. I don't know if reality outpaces those guys, but reality is they (we) are among people who can make a track, and all you can do is moan on forums.
Okay guys, Time to sum it up and the list is pretty much like before: - Communication - Gather people of several disciplines - New forum “part” (closed) - better/more/better explained tools I have thought a lot about this and came up with the following (chip in) A separate forum section for modders. This should be closed in order to let modders share examples/work more freely. (Nice for others to see how project x was made and see if he can use a technique himself. For instance; fuel mixture was new; one that has it working posts it) Speaking for just cars in this case, but again this goes for tracks too; divided by discipline; physics, 3D, 2D and so on. This, to get the communication more direct. There should be a topic with links in them; all links towards all informative "things" for modding. Devblogs, Wiki, interesting sites, interesting/informative topics and so on. When you do a proper search, there IS a lot info out there; the "out there" should be "in this subsection". Maybe a chatbox for the "minor things" so there is no wild grow in futile topics. A section about the tools there are and a commitment from anyone to find out something about a tool. How I see this; for instance I am a physics guy so I should contribute to the .ods file. In this case; there should be a topic about the tool of course. When someone gets info from Studio 397 or other useful sources; share in the proper section. In this case; we can ask (maybe not needed and will happen automatically) someone from Studio397 to chip in there. A subsection; modders can state the project they are starting with. "I'm going to build the Zandvoort track, I can do xx, but need some help with yy". Others can hook up with that project. Other way around; "I'm a 3D guy, cars, and I have the next few months some time to spend on a project". Now, this is a first thought, needs to be worked out and already there are some difficulties: - which modders are allowed in? - who scrutineers that? - which modders can be trusted if "our stuff" is out in the open? - who scrutineers that? - is it possible, will Studio 397 do this?
Wgeuze: I get your point.... Don´t worry, I´m well aware that this is the normal way and that there´s no way around 3d-software for certain things. [QUOTE="jpalesi, post: 881154, member: 25187" You are expecting everything to be done magically, you can't even watch a tutorial video. You say you're willing to learn. Now, if modding is too difficult for you on rF2, here's a deal : create a scratch made track for AC, or whatever game you feel it's so much easier to mod in, with your own objects (and not stolen / borrowed from an other track) and I'll convert it for you on rF2. I don't know if reality outpaces those guys, but reality is they (we) are among people who can make a track, and all you can do is moan on forums.[/QUOTE] You´re interpreting silly things to my post now. I don´t want things to happen magically and I´m aware of the amount of work that sits in a mod! I know that from yearslong physics and sound modding,- thank you! And I never ever said that (graphical) modding is easyer elsewhere! Where did I said this? You confuse ideas for something new with moaning. When people always where like you, we where still in the stone age.
You should frame that, make an required agreement of terms of it and attach it to the modding forums link.
The reason I brought it up in the manner I did is for a lot of people the documentation or videos don't get all the info to them. It's like reading a guide on a video game, sometimes it tells you about something but it really doesn't pinpoint it all that well as it is hard to explain in text. Likewise while a video may accomplish that once again without a better reference even a video on a video game explaining techniques still can't translate to a person the actual experience, you see it but it doesn't mean you can replicate it because many fail to explain the "why". For this reason I feel like some people respond better to person to person communication when it comes to learning as they can get specific to their trouble spots. For me personally I originally learned through trial, then from docs and then a lot from knowing the right people. I of course learned the most from just experience, doing can be learning, but meeting certain people and learning from them often lead to the bigger boost in knowledge and would open my eyes to alternative ways to do things and make more efficient and improve my results. Also like everyone even all the professionals never stop learning, the things we do today we may wonder why we ever did 2 years from now. Docs get outdated, so do videos but informed people that are ever learning, they don't get outdated. I'm not sure what the actual correct solution is, RF2 is tricky, it has the most potential of any sim but it is also the hardest to expose that potential. I just know I have my own projects, I have projects I really want to work on that need help and I know that I can help people and those people may one day be the ones that help me make those big projects I can't on my own.
Seems like people lost interest.......... Cant really blame them; its hard to see whats going on in between the bitchin' and bickering that just goes on for two pages. There is a possible "solution" but its been overlooked; getting your right is more important. No response, just going on and on. How can we ever ask Studio397 for a "private" section if we can't even keep this topic normal? Even in the pre-release section there was moderation needed in only a few hours. No wonder Marcel doesn't respond anymore. Cant say I didn't try, but I'm out. Back to driving rF1 in rF2.
Nooo please don't let this thread die... I am sure devs are reading the thread, we can still talk in a polite and clean way... (I say "we" but I am not a modder lol)
Why should the community do that work for you? Can't you come up with your own list? I'd guess there it is. Modding is supposed to be difficult and no guides should exist so people have a chance to learn things the hard way. With this approach rf2 will never succeed as a modding platform. What a major disappointment to read. Modding has changed greatly over the years. It is no longer 1998 where people were happy if someone somewhere was able to reverse engineer a game so he could add his own models in a racing game. Or be happy to be able to download stuff he found from someone else's personal web site (if you are lucky to even find such site). Even if it was horrible it was still great that in theory someone could do it. That alone made it worthwhile for lots of people. But nowadays modding is not anymore just for hackers and professional 3d modellers. Modding is for everybody who has a desire to build something for a game which has opened up. 3d programs and texture tools are accessible to everyone who has time to learn and they provide vast amounts of information. These tools are well documented which is a strength. Also the modders are not only far less experienced but the road to finished product is FAR FAR longer. It takes hundred times the work to create something good today compared to 20 years ago. A car model 20 years ago was maybe hundreds of vertices. Now all that 200 vertices gets you is a gear lever. There are also more modders who started yesterday instead of 20 years ago. Very few of these people have experience about rf1. So rf2 modding is difficult and slow because new people need to spend ages figuring out stuff they don't even know about what they are looking for. This is a fault of rf2 because that other game doesn't have this problem. Rf2 is clearly aimed at rf1 professional modders which does hurt rf2. As such it is the job of the game to support these individuals with game specific information. It is not up to snuff anymore in 201x to just throw a product out there and hope someone somewhere figures it out. Sadly rf2 still relies way too much on the reverse engineering as the only way to make things work. Reverse engineering might have been something that works when a car in the game has maybe 3 materials and 5 meshes. When the whole physics file was not longer than 50 lines in notepad. Not when a car requires tens of individually contructed shaders and textures and the physics and game files are closer to 500 lines with hundreds of parameters. It is outdated thinking. Not because people are lazy morons who want everything instantly served on a silver plate. But because it is literally impossible to do stuff for rf2 for new people because the documentation just sucks. It is just bad. I think it is lazy for game dev to expect paying customers to write all the guides for a modding platform. If the finger pointing is the way to discuss about this then I'd guess this is the way to go... Indirectly call the other person lazy if he dares to have different opinion?
As a person learning how the physics work in sim, I'd simply like your physics spreadsheet done in excel format as you won't program libre office to do what stops me from using it. I can program it to fill in the blanks that I want to be automated by simple relevant import file type selection ( hdv, pm, tbc ) and jobs done. No delimited file import, no copy paste, no inaccuracy or especially time wasted. From former posts in your development series the devs see it as a waste of time. As you are on the payroll, time is not an issue it seems. I see it differently, as a massive time saver. So physics spreadsheet in excel format would be wonderful. Ohhhhh I see the oh its not that difficult brigade about to start. Learning is from repetition to learn what happens if I do this and if I do that. To speed up this process will alone accelerate learning to a huge degree and therefore promote more people taking an interest. We live in a time poor society. We have the advantage of superior tools that allow ease of use. If manual entry was the answer with already existing content...what happened to typing pools?
Hang on, it is not over yet. I have an idea but just need some time to get some things together for it. So keep the head up.
I would like to add a concept which i think you didn't talk about yet. Since making detailed tutorials and tools requires work time (50 hours? 200hours? 1000 hours?) perhaps you shouldn't think many people is going to do it just for free, like a present for the rest of the world, without any kind of compensation. What if you make some crowdfunding and pay some people for doing tutorials or tools? A small contribution from everybody interested would be nice for the tools developers to release their personal tools or make more of them in profitable work conditions. (...after that, Raintyre got back the title of 'most hated forum user' in the history of isi titles)
More simple...Why not a video tutorial done by devs while working on new content? (No need of tutorials about 3D software because everyone use a different one like blender, 3Dmax, Maya...) They just need to record what they are doing on screens during their work...and to explain steps while doing that... 1 car and 1 track I think will be enough... They need to work on something new or well known like they did for Kody and Montreal from rF1, so they will cover how to update rF1 mods to new standards too... (...after that, DaVeX got back to be the most ignored forum user in the history...lol)
Given their pace of releasing cars and tracks, you don't want a video that lasts 3 months More seriously, if they wanted to do it, it would have been done a long time ago. What's missing IMO is a little incentive. Generally called money.
If they shouldn't show 3d, I assume you also don't need 2d work. That might be 90 to 95% of building a track. What DO you want those guys to record though?
I haven't followed the thread in detail but here there are my thoughts. We are talking about modding in general but IMO track and car modding is very different. Track modding is more about scenery design: you need general 3d design skills as well as understanding the different shaders to create all kind of materials that can be present in a real track. The technical part of track modding is quite small I would say. Video tutorials and good examples where you can "borrow" materials and objects are the best to learn the rF2 related scenery part. For the technical part written documentation with included examples is needed. This is already quite well documented. For the 3d basics required to design a track, some hints and links could be provided but not being exclusive of rF2 the biggest effort shouldn't be put here. Car modding is much more technical since it involves implementing the car physics and characteristics. This part requires the biggest documentation. The amount of shaders should be more reduced compared to track modding. However car modding does have its artist side and you need to dominate complex surfaces and UV mapping for skins. Usually track objects are quite simplified in comparison, mainly because the detail requirement is less and performance issues. Car model gmts are several MB big while typically a track object is a few KB. The 3d knowledge required to design a car is quite high and common to any racing platform. Should be out of the scope of this initiative IMO.
