The Off-Topic Thread

KS95

RACER Moderator
Just to avoid spamming threads, how about an off-topic thread.. basically to ask stuff and talk about stuff that doesn't need it's own thread or isn't very relative.

I'll start lol. Is anyone else having problems downloading from tracciontrasera? I just get redirected to the homepage every time :(
 
Hi all.

Just checking if the Racer community is all dead. Do people have private projects going on, or why are WIP forums so quiet?

I just started modelling cars again, and would like to convert some for Racer. It's just not all that motivating with just a handful of tracks to play with, and even the ones available are rather... dated. In terms of graphics at least.
The current shader system is also a bit of a mystery to me, as are the latest physics trickery and stuff.

So if someone is renovating old tracks or cars, I could assist with small things like updating textures. I also think I might have some of my old cars saved somewhere, if somebody wants to tinker with them. (not sure tho)

Oh, and finally, is it possible to rig pop-up lights these days? (picture related)

7JbpmgF.jpg
 
Hi all.

Just checking if the Racer community is all dead. Do people have private projects going on, or why are WIP forums so quiet?

I just started modelling cars again, and would like to convert some for Racer. It's just not all that motivating with just a handful of tracks to play with, and even the ones available are rather... dated. In terms of graphics at least.
The current shader system is also a bit of a mystery to me, as are the latest physics trickery and stuff.

So if someone is renovating old tracks or cars, I could assist with small things like updating textures. I also think I might have some of my old cars saved somewhere, if somebody wants to tinker with them. (not sure tho)

Oh, and finally, is it possible to rig pop-up lights these days? (picture related)
It does seem like the forum is kinda quiet right now, not sure why. I have plenty of personal cars, some I want to release but may never get permissions. One of which is a F600 that the more I look at the more I redo on the truck.

Would love to have some of your old cars to bring up to date though.

And yes you can rig pop-up lights with scripts, I did it for Silver's Cord 812.
 
Nice looking Cord there, and nice pop-up lights too!
Speaking of pre-war cars, I modelled a semi-accurate, fairly low-poly "Model T" for Mafia a while back. It's not really a Ford, but more of a "HD" version of the original Mafia car. If anyone wants to convert it for Racer, I can send the files. (Tudor, Coupe and Fordor done at the mo)

4a9vyLD.jpg


@Silver Ranger - Just PM me if you have a certain car in mind and I can try to look it up.
 
Nice looking Cord there, and nice pop-up lights too!
Speaking of pre-war cars, I modelled a semi-accurate, fairly low-poly "Model T" for Mafia a while back. It's not really a Ford, but more of a "HD" version of the original Mafia car. If anyone wants to convert it for Racer, I can send the files. (Tudor, Coupe and Fordor done at the mo)
I'll gladly take that Model T (looking at pictures it most closely resembles a 1926 Ford Model T), maybe I could make a script to emulate its funky driver control layout lol.
 
So I've been working on Bumper's Model T, and the other night I was trying to wrap my head around scripting the unique driving controls. So after failing to get to do one thing i wanted it to do I'm now curious if its even possible.

Can I with just scripting disable the gas, brake, and clutch, and assignment unique functions. Like the brake pedal putting the vehicle in reverse, which brings me to my next question, is it possible to make the vehicle shift without touching the shifter (I.e. going from neutral, pushing in what we know as the clutch then being in 1st, then press a button and release the clutch to get to 2nd)
 
The workaround I used on the Cord was to script the gear ratios, don't think you can force a gear change at a time other than when the player shifts. But you can change gear ratios any time you want (on the Cord, this meant 'set all ratios equal, switch that ratio to the one for the selected gear when you push the clutch)

I'm not sure if you can affect clutch with scripts, gas & brake you can completely override.
 
The workaround I used on the Cord was to script the gear ratios, don't think you can force a gear change at a time other than when the player shifts. But you can change gear ratios any time you want (on the Cord, this meant 'set all ratios equal, switch that ratio to the one for the selected gear when you push the clutch)

I'm not sure if you can affect clutch with scripts, gas & brake you can completely override.
Yeah I was looking at your script from the Cord trying to figure it out. I was able to make the car shift without using my H-shifter, well aside from it already being in 2nd, but the gear was stuck in 2nd no matter what. Which really confused me, that I could get the displayed gear to change, but the physical gear was stuck, could of been a coding issue on my side though, so I'll have to look into it.

The clutch is what was most curious about because I saw get and set variables for both gas and brake, I figure I could override those fairly easy with an if (get $car throttle) <= 1 { set $car throttle 0 } . But the clutch I only saw a get for. Guess I'll have to try some things out.
 
Yeah, looks like there is a script function to change gear, maybe I just wanted to simplify the gear display. I haven't tested that scripting shifts works though.
Hm I'll look into that, but I was able to do something, kinda crazy things to this Model T now. I made the brake pedal a reverse pedal, the gas pedal is now a brake pedal, pressing A throttles the vehicle up, pressing Z throttles it down. Still have to change gears the normal way though. But right now it has an issue with going from 2nd to 1st, where it won't change, my display will, but it won't change unless I tap (what is now) the reverse pedal.

You can PM me if you want Stereo and I can have you check out the script, it started with your preselector box script, and I deleted pretty much all of that, since I didn't need it.
 
The up/down gear script command just does an insta-shift, not actually triggering the same effect as pressing a button does, unfortunately.

Also the up/down gear buttons can't be snooped either, so no way to check which way you've requested to change gear and so do other things instead.

You can fudge quite a bit though.

The only other spanner in the works is no control over clutching. There *should* be a way to alter clutch torque load value but I've had no luck in actually setting the value. Maybe I'm accessing it wrong or something but it's in the "system export" variable list, and other neighbouring variables can be adjusted, so maybe Ruud just missed it out or something?!



As per tracks Bumper, I agree, not many really nice ones around. Stereo helped me with those PBR shaders and I've been working with them for a while, along with some other stuff... so all in all I'm ready to fire a track out using them and lots of other goodies, that will make stuff just look great!

Just it takes time... and I've had very very little for a while. Fingers crossed for something in the coming month or so!


Cheers

Dave
 
As per tracks Bumper, I agree, not many really nice ones around. Stereo helped me with those PBR shaders and I've been working with them for a while, along with some other stuff... so all in all I'm ready to fire a track out using them and lots of other goodies, that will make stuff just look great!

Just it takes time... and I've had very very little for a while. Fingers crossed for something in the coming month or so!
That does sound good!
I'm not exactly sure what PBR shaders are, but I suppose I'll just wait and see.

This got me into thinking.. Does Racer have any support for track lighting these days? Meaning that light poles actually lit the road etc.?
 
The only other spanner in the works is no control over clutching. There *should* be a way to alter clutch torque load value but I've had no luck in actually setting the value. Maybe I'm accessing it wrong or something but it's in the "system export" variable list, and other neighbouring variables can be adjusted, so maybe Ruud just missed it out or something?!
Yeah my impression is it just got missed - both in qscript which can't set the clutch control's position, and in the system variable, which has only signals from the clutch. Too bad, with access to a real clutch you could simulate the model T's clutch pedals (left for low/high forward gears, middle for reverse) perfectly.


The scripted gear changes seem to work ok on my Racer 0.9.0RC5d but not Harey's, or maybe they're actually not working for me but I just don't have any gear shift sounds to tell me. I did end up in the weird situation where shifting using the actual buttons would get the car stuck in 3rd gear and then be unable to change back, didn't follow the logic on that.


No engine support for track lighting, I think it'd be possible using custom shaders but they'd need to be used on every material in the track & car, and all import the same lighting resource (some sort of texture map showing what the light sources are)

You can sorta fake it for the car itself using the environment map to produce ambient light, but it doesn't blur out wide enough to look great.
 
Yeah my impression is it just got missed - both in qscript which can't set the clutch control's position, and in the system variable, which has only signals from the clutch. Too bad, with access to a real clutch you could simulate the model T's clutch pedals (left for low/high forward gears, middle for reverse) perfectly.


The scripted gear changes seem to work ok on my Racer 0.9.0RC5d but not Harey's, or maybe they're actually not working for me but I just don't have any gear shift sounds to tell me. I did end up in the weird situation where shifting using the actual buttons would get the car stuck in 3rd gear and then be unable to change back, didn't follow the logic on that.


No engine support for track lighting, I think it'd be possible using custom shaders but they'd need to be used on every material in the track & car, and all import the same lighting resource (some sort of texture map showing what the light sources are)

You can sorta fake it for the car itself using the environment map to produce ambient light, but it doesn't blur out wide enough to look great.
I'd imagine the set clutch was just missed, which was a huge missed opportunity, could script the clutch to work how you want on different cars, not just the Model T.

I think the reason you thought it worked for you is because, you weren't watching your RPM's, which was my indication to it not shifting, I even downloaded RC5d and tried it there, with the same results.

My thought was you could fake track lighting using emission shaders, or does that not work on tracks?
 
Well it was definitely changing gears (1st tops at ~40km/h and 2nd at 70 in the car I was testing on), but I have a different car.ini so I guess something else affects how shifts work. The transmission was behaving a bit weird (no stalling) but that might be the throttle script.

Since sending it to you I added a check so it won't shift repeatedly, didn't know it was doing that badly.
 
Even though clutch control is missed, the actual ability to alter the torque loading too is apparently exposed to be modified, but modifying it doesn't work.

This could for instance be used to improve the 'instant' gear change character of the 'set gear' command by slipping the clutch a bit... most especially for an automatic type slurring shift.


It'd be nice for a fully mature script language to appear in a recent version of Racer, with full scope for multiplayer and other stuff too, that way all these kinda things can just be done in script and ignore the older legacy stuff where we want a bit more control.

That said we also need some fundamentals fixed/matured in these more recent versions which have gone and broken some working and solid legacy stuff too it would seem.


RC5c is still the version I use here and generally it's robust and gives ok results. Only really the script exposures that are missing (clutch etc), and reliable scope for scripts in multiplayer, are what stop it being a really excellent V1.0 imo!

Dave
 
Even though clutch control is missed, the actual ability to alter the torque loading too is apparently exposed to be modified, but modifying it doesn't work.

This could for instance be used to improve the 'instant' gear change character of the 'set gear' command by slipping the clutch a bit... most especially for an automatic type slurring shift.


It'd be nice for a fully mature script language to appear in a recent version of Racer, with full scope for multiplayer and other stuff too, that way all these kinda things can just be done in script and ignore the older legacy stuff where we want a bit more control.

That said we also need some fundamentals fixed/matured in these more recent versions which have gone and broken some working and solid legacy stuff too it would seem.


RC5c is still the version I use here and generally it's robust and gives ok results. Only really the script exposures that are missing (clutch etc), and reliable scope for scripts in multiplayer, are what stop it being a really excellent V1.0 imo!

Dave
Interesting, iI wonder why it doesn't work though.

I would like to see a more mature script language as well, though understanding most scripting for cars right now isn't overly hard. I would love it if we could have multiplayer support, it would only really have to grab the local car. Maybe something like get $car local, at least with the current scripting language. (if only it would work lol).

I still use Rc4 for the most part myself, mostly for the mutliplayer support.
 

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