rec.autos.simulators

Before I put my nomex on... please let me express the thought I had when I
first looked thru the converted tracks...

As much as I was looking forward to the release of the converter, I'm now
left with a mixed feeling about the whole deal.. quite frankly - I'm a bit
disappointed.

Why? - you say? ... please let me explain.

But before I do, I'd like to give Dave credit for spending alot of time
developing the converter and for being kind enough and make the availible
for us.. Thanks Dave!

Having said that though... I strap on my nomex and hereby state that this
could have been done alot better!

I've just looked thru the 12 tracks I chose to convert into GPL, and just by
looking at the AI's and tracks for a few laps - I've found a bunch of bug's
that *should* have been fixed before the release.

I've found AI's crashing into wall's, big mismatches between the "trk" and
"3do", clipping errors, AI's that drive like if they were drunk etc.

All the tracks I converted lack both program covers and tracks maps..  not
even a map for the "race-screen" is included. I think atleast this should
have been mentioned before I submitted my CC-details and *bougth* the
program. Now.. it look's like I either gotta make them myself or wait for
someone else to do so.

At Cleveland for instance... the pit-lane is left unused. It's blocked
off... and instead the cars are lined on the right side of the track.

At Laguna Seca there are (at some places) huge mis-matches between the
trk-file and the 3do. View a lap of the track from the "nose-cam" and you'll
see what I mean.  This occurs at other some tracks aswell.. Mid-Ohio for
instance.

If I *were* going to use these tracks for offline racing only.. then I
actually think I demaned a refund...  some of these AI's drive slow and
completely wrong lines.

From what I saw... only 1 or maybe 2 of the 12 trakcs I converter *looked*
"finished" - Riverside and maybe Elkhart Lake.

To me this looks more like a beta-version - than a product worth buying. And
don't forget that- we're paying money for this.
15 - thats nothing you say?
Well... lets look at the bigger picture for a second...  say 500 people buy
the converter - thats 7500! There might not be that many who chose to buy
it... (Just to give you an idea... we've had almost 5000 hits on the
Snetterton download page so far... and that only 1 track!) but if "only" 300
ppl. buy it... it still an awful lot of money.

I for one gladly forked out the moeny asked - 'cause i thought it would be
worth it.. and I *still* think a converter is worth it.  What I received
today however, I'm not sure is...

--
All the best,
Ed Solheim
(Remove SPAM-GUARD in address to reply)

I would agree that if this was a Papyrus-project things shouldn't had been
that way, but David, even with all his understanding of the Papyrus code,
isn't God or somebody who can fix everything.  There is incredible
difficulties with the Icr2 convertion, be sure that some people who worked
on other projects decided to let go after some work, as it was simply too
hard and frustrating.  The obvious clipping errors are more the fault of
GPL's problems with graphics, while the AI is something that simply can't be
done to the Papyrus-level yet in the new game engine I say.  As for the 3do
and TRK issues, it's one big problem but it's in every non-Papy track I've
seen.

Consider it a "track-only" converter where you have the choice of updating
whatever you want.  Im almost sure within a month people will have done
track maps and programs.  I really sure do hope :)

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.WeRace.net
-- People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

Stefan

Dave states on his site that "Many hundreds of laps have been driven at
these tracks in testing and although I would not pretend the AI are 100%
perfect, you should be able to race and battle the AI at all the
tracks."

As one of the people who drove a lot of those many hundreds of laps, I
can attest to how much effort went into these AI lines and also that for
the most part, it is quite possible to race with them.

Developing the AI lines is one of the most time-consuming tasks there is
for Papyrus sims.  It was one of the major time sinks for Papyrus on GPL
itself, and I believe it was the single biggest part of the Converter
project.  

It is very, very difficult to make the AI behave the way you want.  We
went through endless iterations at many of the tracks.  At some it
simply proved impossible because of the way the CART tracks were
constructed and due to limitations in GPL's AI behavior model.  

For example, at Cleveland, at many points the track centerline is very
far from the proper line around the track.  When that happens, the AI
just do bizarre things.  Dave and I worked for a long time to try to get
them better than they are, but we just couldn't do it.

Sears Point is another example.  We tried all sorts of things but never
found a way to keep the AI from sometimes going wide in Turn 1 and
getting hung up on the wall.

Still, I have raced against the AI at every track in the converter and
it is quite possible to have good races with them.  At some places you
have to learn what they do, because it's not what you might expect, but
that's also true of the AI in the original GPL tracks.  

I don't think the AI is as good on average in the converter as it is in
GPL, but I feel it's as good as we could make it.  Remember, Papyrus had
some advantages over us; they wrote GPL, and they created GPL's tracks.
Having access to both, they could tweak both to work best.

We were working with old technology tracks (the original ICR1 versions
were drawn almost ten years ago), without the tools Papyrus had, and
with no way of "tuning" the AI physics to work better with this diverse
array of tracks (assuming that might have been possible).

Think about the effort you are putting into the AI for Snetterton (I'm
sure you are working *** that!)  Now multiply this by 21.  Perhaps
then you can understand why it took David over a year to complete the
converter project.

I would have liked to have fancy-looking program covers and track maps
too.  But I preferred that David put his time into the functional
aspects of the converter and get it out the door sooner.  I wouldn't
have wanted him to delay the release further just to have pretty program
covers.

I did include maps for all the street and road courses in the Circuits
Quick Reference in GRE Help, by the way.

Hopefully someone will have an urge to create some nice-looking program
covers.  Meanwhile, we can all race now, instead of later.

The pit lane was blocked off because the GPL AI didn't work there.  They
refused to operate properly so far from the track centerline.  This is a
GPL limitation; Dave adapted the converter to it by moving the pits to
the right side of the main straight, which the AI found acceptable
because it's closer to the pit lane.

These mis-matches are in the original CART/ICR2 tracks.  Dave's
converter simply translates the existing trk and 3do files to GPL
format.  

[snip]

Ed, why don't you spend some time actually driving the tracks instead of
watching the AI?  Then, after you've driven 50 laps or so at each of the
21 tracks, evaluate whether your 15 was well spent.

Alison

Remove the spam blocker NOSPAM to email me.
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

It was worth the money to have twenty-one new tracks with working AI, even
if it is not "perfect". Due to schedule and connections, I don't race
online, so having AI drivers is a necessity. So far I find them worthy
opponents.

Andre

Thanks again for the work!

Regards,
Hans-Otto
http://home.c2i.net/simracer

Next I took a testdrive on Laguna Seca. Beautiful track.
And then... Riverside... I'm sure this will become one of the most
driven tracks at VROC! Beautiful track, a nice twisty road with a nice
banking near the end.

I'm sure there are problems here and there with the AI, and maybe
messed up graphics, but the converter is absolutely worth it's money!

Only problem is, where the hell do I find the time to learn all those
tracks....

Andre

Hey Andre,

Where did you get NL?

Remco

I found Nascar Legends a little bit dissappointing, but now with the
converter it's finally worth it's money :)

Andre

(lots of excellent explanatory text snipped)

Alison, thanks for the explainations, but you don't have to defend yours &
David's
work, I know Ed just likes to complain now and then...  ;]

This is a problem with the NASCAR versions as well, so nothing new here.

Again, there are inherent problems with the ALL the ICR2 tracks, hence
the reason I completed a set of AI for N2/TPTCC to fix alot of the problems.
However, there are some problems that I've never been able to work out, and
they deal with bugs in the original tracks.  Every single one of the
original ICR2
tracks had some bugs that made it to the final version, many of them in the
.3do and .trk file.

Cheers!

--
??Jan Kohl??        **The Pits Performance Team**
Computer Systems Programmer
USAF Air-Ground Operations School
Hurlburt Field, FL

Castle Graphics - http://www.castlegraphics.com/
The Pits - http://www.theuspits.com/

Develop an installer for us non-geeks to use Snetterton and I'd be
happy to buy that one too. <G>

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

"Team Mirage" http://www.teammirage.com/
"The Pits"    http://www.theuspits.com/

* Spam is for losers who can't get business any other way *
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I lowered the limit on my card and only use it for online purchases now.
When I lowered the limit my CC company told me I was being too cautious,
and I'd be covered for any fraudulent use of the card number. I chose to
lower the limit anyway, limiting any potential liability even further!

Andrew McP