The "What Are You Working On?" Thread

[garyjpaterson]

Yep, its a bike engine - 1000cc inline 4. Supposedly almost 200bhp at the crank. Very little torque at lower revs, and at over twice the weight of the bike its not easy to get going - but once it does it goes very well indeed.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Having struggled to find many photos of the Thomson Road Grand Prix circuit in Singapore, I recently stumbled across the Singapore National Archive, and my photo search delivered 3666 results. Talk about spoilt for choice

I think I am 99% done with the layout now. AI races are awesome, and the bot drivers cope rather well with "The Hump" halfway down the main straight, which all the historical reports I have read say caused the cars to take off at high speed

 

[garyjpaterson]

Steering/Pedals assembly motorcycle inspired (placeholder wheel):

 

[norbs]

Steering/Pedals assembly motorcycle inspired (placeholder wheel):

What will be out first? Come on Transit!

 

[mantasisg]

Looks like somebody was inspired by some recent teasers from Kunos

That moment when it is super hard to solve several issues why driver position and animation doesn't work, then why it is misplaced, that moment when the moment instead of being a moment becomes 4 hours.

Well, but hands are finally on the wheel and driver is in place. Not perfect but not bad. Hands are in not perfect position sometimes, legs are hanging through the floor. Known fact - better driver placement and animations not only improves visuals, but also feel of the car, somehow.

And Deutschlandring is awesome !

 

[NightEye87]

Looks like a fun play car, @garyjpaterson ! Will it have a bike gearbox, too?

That Mercedes is coming along very nicely

 

[garyjpaterson]

Looks like a fun play car, @garyjpaterson ! Will it have a bike gearbox, too?

That Mercedes is coming along very nicely

Its a very fun plaything indeed - though needs some setup work...

First idea was the take the bike engine and gearbox together, but I ended up mounting the engine longitudinally instead of transverse like the bike, so the normal gearbox probably wouldn't work.

Right now I'm using the bike ratios, with a different final drive - works well with the engine characteristics - quite close ratios as you need to stay >10k rpm to stay in the powerband. It would have to be some sort of custom gearbox casing or transaxle to include a LSD.

Despite being completely fictional and 'made up' by me, I want it to be somewhat feasible IRL (though highly improbable). Its a 2 brand collaboration - Brand 1 supplies and assembles the engine and running gear, Brand 2 designed and builds the chassis/body (full carbon fibre tub).

The design is coming on nicely, though changes significantly from day to day. Once its a bit more nailed down I'll show some clearer pics

 

[NightEye87]

I see. Wouldn't be too fun aswell to shift twice to go from 1st to 2nd.. There would be no other way to simulate it, I guess.

I'm all for "fictional but feasable IRL". It makes for better desigms because stuff has a geniune purpose behind it.
Can't wait to see the non-vaseline shots

 

[Fat-Alfie]

So, whilst looking for Thomson Road reference photos I also found some 1960s topographical maps.

The DEM data for Singapore is really poor, being only 90m. This was fine for the distant terrain, but no real help in modelling the elevation changes of the roads. This old map, however, has contour lines every 10 feet, or 3m - plus, the road has spot height marked on in a few places, accurate to the nearest 12", or 0.3m. Go analogue old-school!

I thought it was worth trying to use it, so I spent the whole of yesterday digitising all the contour lines in Illustrator, found a free 3ds max plugin called Populate:Terrain that takes contour lines as a spline object and converts it to a 3D terrain. I was slightly sceptical but thought I'd give it a go.

The plugin creates a grid mesh to whatever size you specify, so I set it to a 5m grid, pressed 'process' and waited. The result was brilliant! I am so pleased! The terrain it generated was good enough for me to drape my road spline over it and meant I only had to make minor adjustments to the road elevation.

I will be able to Optimise this terrain mesh and reduce the poly count from 438,000 polys down to about 40k. The most important thing, though, is that I now have confidence in the accuracy of my track. I think you can afford to be 0.5m out side-to-side on a track layout, but that kind of error in the height is so noticeable. I am quite pleased that the spline layout I had settled on as being 'the best I can hope for' is very close to this new version Cool!

 

[LilSki]

So, whilst looking for Thomson Road reference photos I also found some 1960s topographical maps.

The DEM data for Singapore is really poor, being only 90m. This was fine for the distant terrain, but no real help in modelling the elevation changes of the roads. This old map, however, has contour lines every 10 feet, or 3m - plus, the road has spot height marked on in a few places, accurate to the nearest 12", or 0.3m. Go analogue old-school!

I thought it was worth trying to use it, so I spent the whole of yesterday digitising all the contour lines in Illustrator, found a free 3ds max plugin called Populate:Terrain that takes contour lines as a spline object and converts it to a 3D terrain. I was slightly sceptical but thought I'd give it a go.

The plugin creates a grid mesh to whatever size you specify, so I set it to a 5m grid, pressed 'process' and waited. The result was brilliant! I am so pleased! The terrain it generated was good enough for me to drape my road spline over it and meant I only had to make minor adjustments to the road elevation.

I will be able to Optimise this terrain mesh and reduce the poly count from 438,000 polys down to about 40k. The most important thing, though, is that I now have confidence in the accuracy of my track. I think you can afford to be 0.5m out side-to-side on a track layout, but that kind of error in the height is so noticeable. I am quite pleased that the spline layout I had settled on as being 'the best I can hope for' is very close to this new version Cool!

That right there is the eureka moment we were talking about. Feels so good to find good data. Can't wait to try it out!

 

[garyjpaterson]

...

Still some work to do especially on the rear, as its a bit plain just now, but overall it should keep its shape from now on. Setup is very understeery at the moment, so will have to look into that soon. Its using road-legal tyres, has a small amount of downforce (raked floor), though still nice and slidey. With the electric motor its very drift-able and had decent power out of slow corners, though I keep it switched off for now to so it lacks a lot of torque at low engine speeds.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Just awesome!! I love it! I even love the shiny yellow tires (please don't make them black). It looks so much fun to drive, with the back end kicking out of the corners. Brilliant!

It has left me with an irrational urge to play Wip3Out 2097 though

Very much looking forward to watching this project develop over time

 

[garyjpaterson]

Just awesome!! I love it! I even love the shiny yellow tires (please don't make them black). It looks so much fun to drive, with the back end kicking out of the corners. Brilliant!

It has left me with an irrational urge to play Wip3Out 2097 though

Very much looking forward to watching this project develop over time

There may be a reason the wheel covers are yellow... perhaps its the company colour?
The whole car was going to be yellow but I thought showing the carbon fibre tub might be more appealing. Expect some more yellow highlights on the finished product.

It is fun to drive, though the front end isn't responsive enough yet - once that's dialled out it'll be a hoot.

 

[AccAkut]

Hope you have climate control in that greenhouse Really interesting design, those covered wheels don't make much sense to me tho, and would be a maintenance and drivability nightmare. One pebble too big and both tire and cover are fücked

Suspension is fully animated?

 

[garyjpaterson]

Hope you have climate control in that greenhouse Really interesting design, those covered wheels don't make much sense to me tho, and would be a maintenance and drivability nightmare. One pebble too big and both tire and cover are fücked

Suspension is fully animated?

Appreciate your concerns!

Climate control? What do you need that for - there's no side doors!

And yeah, valid points on the wheel covers. The arguement for them is reduced drag (although with no doors that sort of negates it...), and also as this will also be used for a single make racing series, it it potentially safer in wheel-to-wheel contact (less cars being shot up in the air).

Ok yeah, you're right - their only real purpose is because I think they look cool.

And no not yet, suspensions are just static at the mo. Once I nail down the physics geometry, I'll have the models animated to match. Right now the physical suspension geometry when static is exactly like what you see on the model, but there is a fair amount of travel and roll, so should look better when its all animated.

 

[NightEye87]

While those wheel covers might not be the most functional indeed, they do look sweet and really make the car stand out. I love how it looks!

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Oh I hadn't realised that they were wheel covers - I thought they were funky yellow rubber . Well, it looks very cool, whatever

 

[mclarenf1papa]

Appreciate your concerns!

Climate control? What do you need that for - there's no side doors!

And yeah, valid points on the wheel covers. The arguement for them is reduced drag (although with no doors that sort of negates it...), and also as this will also be used for a single make racing series, it it potentially safer in wheel-to-wheel contact (less cars being shot up in the air).

Ok yeah, you're right - their only real purpose is because I think they look cool.

And no not yet, suspensions are just static at the mo. Once I nail down the physics geometry, I'll have the models animated to match. Right now the physical suspension geometry when static is exactly like what you see on the model, but there is a fair amount of travel and roll, so should look better when its all animated.

Also would create interesting heating characteristics (read overheating characteristics ) and probably induce some lift.

 

[garyjpaterson]

Also would create interesting heating characteristics (read overheating characteristics ) and probably induce some lift.

Yeah there will be brake ducts (entry on the inside rim, exit on the outer side). Will probably have some sort of cutout at the top to help reduce lift. That being said none of it would probably have the desired effect, but its fun nonetheless to make an attempt.

 

[BDA]

I love Porsche so I've really been looking forward to having a crack at these.