rec.autos.simulators

by **Byron Forbe** » Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:47:36

>> What might be good in future also is a website for the good and bad of
>> the modding community. Have a "Nay Sayers to be ignored" category and a
>> "I
>> put up my hand to do it but never did or took an eternity" category also.

> well stuff you mate. with your reasoning, why bother asking if you can
> convert it. arrogant (insert expletive of choice here)

> some track maker makes every texture map. every 3d object in the track.
> if the track maker has got written permission from the track owners to do
> the track. has written permission from the photographer of the intro
> screen, to use that copywrited photo, he literally owns every part of that
> track. if he has put in a read me that it is not to be altered or
> converted without his permission, you have to abide by his decisions.
> if he doesn't give you a
> reason why you can't convert it , you're saying you'll go and convert it
> anyway. If you are going to bother asking some one, expect one of two
> possible answers. yes or no. If the answer is in the negative, there
> doesn't need to be a reason, and none has to be given. and you have to
> respect that. important word there. Respect. do you know the meaning of
> that word. find an online dictionary if you don't own one.

> you expect track editors and mod editors to give you everything for
> nothing, and then don't respect their wishes in regards to conversions.
> grow up. stop acting like a spoilt kid that wants everything his way.

> its this attitude in the community that drives a lot of editors out of the
> community.

> when some one spends many many many hours doing a mod or a track.
> spending their own money in some cases to obtain the correct info,
> elevation maps, vehicle info. talking to race teams, etc. they get no
> finacial reward for it. it is given to the community to use. the one
> thing that the community can do in return is respect their wishes in what
> can and can't be done with track or mod.

> Steve

Steve, you rave on about respect but then imply that if someone asks to
take your work to a new level that you have the option to just flat out say
no - where is the respect in that from you? I assure you that in the
dictionary under respect it does not say "something that only Steve Whitty
gets the benefit of".

arrogant whitty!

by **Steve Whitt** » Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:28:05

>>> What might be good in future also is a website for the good and bad
>>> of
>>> the modding community. Have a "Nay Sayers to be ignored" category and a
>>> "I
>>> put up my hand to do it but never did or took an eternity" category
>>> also.

>> well stuff you mate. with your reasoning, why bother asking if you can
>> convert it. arrogant (insert expletive of choice here)

>> some track maker makes every texture map. every 3d object in the track.
>> if the track maker has got written permission from the track owners to do
>> the track. has written permission from the photographer of the intro
>> screen, to use that copywrited photo, he literally owns every part of
>> that
>> track. if he has put in a read me that it is not to be altered or
>> converted without his permission, you have to abide by his decisions.
>> if he doesn't give you a
>> reason why you can't convert it , you're saying you'll go and convert it
>> anyway. If you are going to bother asking some one, expect one of two
>> possible answers. yes or no. If the answer is in the negative, there
>> doesn't need to be a reason, and none has to be given. and you have to
>> respect that. important word there. Respect. do you know the meaning
>> of
>> that word. find an online dictionary if you don't own one.

>> you expect track editors and mod editors to give you everything for
>> nothing, and then don't respect their wishes in regards to conversions.
>> grow up. stop acting like a spoilt kid that wants everything his way.

>> its this attitude in the community that drives a lot of editors out of
>> the
>> community.

>> when some one spends many many many hours doing a mod or a track.
>> spending their own money in some cases to obtain the correct info,
>> elevation maps, vehicle info. talking to race teams, etc. they get no
>> finacial reward for it. it is given to the community to use. the one
>> thing that the community can do in return is respect their wishes in what
>> can and can't be done with track or mod.

>> Steve

> Steve, you rave on about respect but then imply that if someone asks to
> take your work to a new level that you have the option to just flat out
> say
> no - where is the respect in that from you? I assure you that in the
> dictionary under respect it does not say "something that only Steve Whitty
> gets the benefit of".

> arrogant whitty!

were is the disrespect of saying no to someone converting someones work.
the disrespect is in not abiding by the persons decision. do you know how
much work is involved in converting a track. Put it this way, to convert
one of my tracks from n2k3 to rFactor, even with noonans tools. To bring in
all three levels of dx shaders in to the track,(n2k3 only operates on 1
level of materials mostly) each material can have up to 6 individual
colour, spec, bump, and additive tga or dds files. optimising the polys.
editing and adding polys. making the track look like it was made for
rfactor, not simply converted. to make the track look good, it would be
quicker to start from scratch than to convert, and the converted track will
never look as good as an original built. now if someone does a conversion
of one of my tracks into rfactor, and does a shit job of it. it will
reflect back onto me, even though I didn't do the conversion, as people
would know the original as being made by me. then to complete the track you
still need the aiw files. the other ea/isi tracks are getting converted
quite easily. very similar file structure. going from papy to isi way is
much harder and takes a lot of modifying to do it. unless you know what
you're doing, a converted track will look like shit.

back onto the subject of respect:

put it this way, if you ask to drive my real car, and I say no. what are
you going to do. steal it and drive it anyway, because I didn't respect
your wishes of you wanting to drive it. same thing, man.

I'd really like to see you do some conversion work in the sim community.
converting people work with out permission. you would have very few friends
in the sim editing community. trying to get your converted tracks (without
permission) onto the mainstream sites would be hard. you see, the track
editors respect each others decisions. its some of the track convertors
who think they can do what they want. mind you, most are decent people.
but it only takes a few bad apples to give them all a bad name.

I really can't see why I'm arguing this with you. whats that saying, never
argue with an idiot..........

respectfully

steve

by **Byron Forbe** » Wed, 26 Oct 2005 06:05:12

Thank XXXX for that!

What a garbage analogy! Did you abandon the car? Did you plan to drive
it again. Same thing? - one's illegal theft, the other is not?

This is very simple.

Let's say I did a track but then decided I didn't want to do any more
modding. Someone emails me asking if they could convert/upgrade my work. I
have 2 options -

a) Not a problem - just give me my due credit as track creator - they're
still my pixels afterall. This way my work lives on rather than just dying
on the s***heap.

b) I can be a complete arsehole and just say "No" - no reason supplied.

For someone who is, by their own confessions, without "reason", that's
pretty funny. Though looking at the first paragraph there does seem to be
reasons????

Simple question Steve - is it respectful to say no without reason or
isn't it? Just to be clear on this, that's a simple, unqualified "No" - as
opposed to that 1st paragraph of yours. Looks like you've shot yourself in
the foot!

by **Steve Whitt** » Wed, 26 Oct 2005 08:16:54

Byron,
as I said, I'm not going to continue to debate this. we have differing
views on the situation. lets just agree to disagree. and no, I'm not
conceding your points. just useless to take it any further.

cheers

steve

by **ymenar** » Wed, 26 Oct 2005 11:50:56

> were is the disrespect of saying no to someone converting someones work.
> the disrespect is in not abiding by the persons decision. do you know how
> much work is involved in converting a track. Put it this way, to convert
> one of my tracks from n2k3 to rFactor, even with noonans tools. To bring
> in all three levels of dx shaders in to the track,(n2k3 only operates on 1
> level of materials mostly) each material can have up to 6 individual
> colour, spec, bump, and additive tga or dds files. optimising the polys.
> editing and adding polys. making the track look like it was made for
> rfactor, not simply converted.

But in the end a track is a track. The layout makes or kill 90% of all
tracks released. The rest 10% are "beautiful but useless" tracks that
happen here and there for various sims.

It'll be enjoyable whatever graphics there is. Shaders, colour palette,
textures, it's all icing on the cake. If the 3d modeling is advanced (and
rFactor/advances in computing gives us the possibilities to increase the
poly count), it's all that is necessary.

I mean people still racing original GPL tracks, even unmodified. They don't
seem crude to me at all, Watkins Glen is excellent per example and is well
enough for the needs of the people.

That's why I dislike the "its cruder therefore worse" whole thingy going on
with rFactor. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to add all these things, but
is all the meticulous effort trully necessary when the basis is already well
enough?

But hey rFactor WEEKS after its release, has a very few tracks and mods, and
very few people racing it online. The clock is ticking.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

by **jason moye** » Wed, 26 Oct 2005 12:06:56

> That's why I dislike the "its cruder therefore worse" whole thingy going on
> with rFactor. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to add all these things, but
> is all the meticulous effort trully necessary when the basis is already well
> enough?

When the interactions between the car and the road surface are based on
the same polygons rendered by the graphics engine, it does matter how
detailed the tracks are. We aren't dealing with GPL or N2003 where a
track can be graphically simple and still drive well because the
underlying surface being used by the physics engine has more detail.
In most sims (ISI, RBR, etc) the detail isn't merely superficial.

by **ymenar** » Wed, 26 Oct 2005 13:04:35

> When the interactions between the car and the road surface are based on
> the same polygons rendered by the graphics engine, it does matter how
> detailed the tracks are. We aren't dealing with GPL or N2003 where a
> track can be graphically simple and still drive well because the
> underlying surface being used by the physics engine has more detail.
> In most sims (ISI, RBR, etc) the detail isn't merely superficial.

Immersion factor is surely important, but in the end all that truly counts,
is how the track is raced. It's all about straights and corners, how the
track modeling is done. Isn't it the reason why we do this? Racing a
track, we don't race the buildings, the scenery or the grandstands (I surely
hope not!!!!).

Everything else is icing on the cake, beautiful icing though!

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

by **Steve Whitt** » Wed, 26 Oct 2005 13:37:23

>> That's why I dislike the "its cruder therefore worse" whole thingy going
>> on
>> with rFactor. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to add all these things,
>> but
>> is all the meticulous effort trully necessary when the basis is already
>> well
>> enough?

> When the interactions between the car and the road surface are based on
> the same polygons rendered by the graphics engine, it does matter how
> detailed the tracks are. We aren't dealing with GPL or N2003 where a
> track can be graphically simple and still drive well because the
> underlying surface being used by the physics engine has more detail.
> In most sims (ISI, RBR, etc) the detail isn't merely superficial.

exactly
in rF the underlying structure also dictates the look. the specular
lighting is govenerd by the length of the polys and how many there are in
track width. if you don't get the spacing correct, the light reflecting off
the track will tend to "flash" as you're driving. done bad enough, it gets
quite noticable and distracting.

earlier games, due to the power of pc's and graphics cards, had to mindful
of the number of polys in the track construction,so they tended to use less.
rF when compared to f1c, can use a lot more polys for a track, in that way,
getting bumps or more elevation changes along a track section then you could
previously.

so yes you can bring a conversion into the game, it'll look acceptable,
mainly from other isi/ea games. but when porting over from others like papy
based games, it gets harder to get them to look good. they may drive well,
but I like my tracks to look good as well.

I've seen JP's conversion of gpl Adelaide circuit into n2k3, by madcowie.
it doesn't look to bad. but to convert that over to rF, graphically, it
will look totally out of place, and it would take an extreme amount of time
for someone with the talent to make it look good.

cheers

steve

by **Byron Forbe** » Thu, 27 Oct 2005 01:33:33

I don't think we do have differing views at all - i think you simply
jumped the gun and took words to mean something they simply did not mean.

I am glad to have been the spark to help you get all that off your chest
however! LOL

by **jason moye** » Thu, 27 Oct 2005 07:21:58

> Immersion factor is surely important, but in the end all that truly counts,
> is how the track is raced.

I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with you. Immersion is why,
I'd imagine, most of us became interested in sims in the first place.

by **Pete** » Sun, 30 Oct 2005 01:07:10

On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:45:33 -0500, Dave Henrie

>We shouldn't even be able to have the
>shape of a track

I've seen this said before and it isn't true. The shape of a piece of
bitumen is not protected by any legal principle that I'm aware of, It
certainly isn't copyright. And if it were, would that extend to all
racetracks? What about those that are public road most of the time?
Would it extend to the whole layout or would it protect individual
parts? Could a track owner sue because someone builds a new track
with a corner that is the same radius as one on an existing track? Or
a straight that is the same length as an existing one?

As to the name of a circuit, if the name is unique to the track, it
could be a trademark but a lot of tracks are named for their location,
eg, Albert Park in Melbourne, Phillip Island, those are all
localities, you can't trademark a name like that,

It's possible for someone to CLAIM that they have some form of legal
right, it doesn't necessarily follow that they do.

If anyone remembers Ubisoft's Monaco Grand Prix 2, that was made
without any form of licencing at all and they used the track layouts
quite happily, some tracks had different names but the layouts were as
accurate as any sim.

by **Dave Henri** » Sun, 30 Oct 2005 10:14:13

> On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 21:45:33 -0500, Dave Henrie

>>We shouldn't even be able to have the
>>shape of a track

> I've seen this said before and it isn't true. The shape of a piece of
> bitumen is not protected by any legal principle that I'm aware of, It
> certainly isn't copyright. And if it were, would that extend to all
> racetracks? What about those that are public road most of the time?
> Would it extend to the whole layout or would it protect individual
> parts? Could a track owner sue because someone builds a new track
> with a corner that is the same radius as one on an existing track? Or
> a straight that is the same length as an existing one?

> As to the name of a circuit, if the name is unique to the track, it
> could be a trademark but a lot of tracks are named for their location,
> eg, Albert Park in Melbourne, Phillip Island, those are all
> localities, you can't trademark a name like that,

> It's possible for someone to CLAIM that they have some form of legal
> right, it doesn't necessarily follow that they do.

> If anyone remembers Ubisoft's Monaco Grand Prix 2, that was made
> without any form of licencing at all and they used the track layouts
> quite happily, some tracks had different names but the layouts were as
> accurate as any sim.

My knowledge of this area only comes from how Papyrus went after The
Uspits.com after they crafted Volusia raceway. it had zero licensed
graphics, but since it obviously was the Daytona layout, Papyrus went after
the Pits with *** Lawyers with Cease and Desist Court orders. There was
a fully built Daytona for ICR/N2/N99 but we didn't see it til AFTER the
SEGA copyright expired. Dats alls I knows.
dave henrie

by **ymenar** » Sun, 30 Oct 2005 13:01:18

> I've seen this said before and it isn't true. The shape of a piece of
> bitumen is not protected by any legal principle that I'm aware of, It
> certainly isn't copyright. And if it were, would that extend to all
> racetracks? What about those that are public road most of the time?
> Would it extend to the whole layout or would it protect individual
> parts? Could a track owner sue because someone builds a new track
> with a corner that is the same radius as one on an existing track? Or
> a straight that is the same length as an existing one?

There is a certain point where it becomes more than just similar and starts
being something that promotes exactitude or its purpose is to replicate the
layout to the point where you can evade licensing the original version.
That's where copyright laws applies, it's a VERY large grey band. I suggest
you start checking the internet for past cases, not about the simracing
community but related issues about copyrighting and licensing.

The law has made this case often the opposite of what you have said.

No, they used a license from this Monaco association which gave them access
legally to all the tracks.

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimago-Dominguez
Corporation - helping America into the New World...

by **Byron Forbe** » Sun, 30 Oct 2005 16:50:45

Probably one of the problems there is the relative location - U.S. Pits
too accessible to Papy. Maybe we need some deals between continents if
something like this happens - make the bastards work at least! :) Different
laws in different countries = huge headache for them.

rec.autos.simulators

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