rec.autos.simulators

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

The PDF file is 61 KB (10 pages)

Pag.1 to 9 are the important thing of my work,
but I think that if Papyrus add a bit of technical
documentation in their products, they can change their logo
from "Papyrus Racing Games" to "Papyrus Racing Sims".

GianLuca

Looks interesting, I'll give it a read. May help port some F1 cars to
my sim. :)

Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25
Pencil art    : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/
Free car sim  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/

a very interesting study. I haven't thoroughly read it yet, but it does
seem like a very consistent peice of work.

I did read your closing statement. Indeed, it would be interesting if
developers put the specifications of their physics engine into the
documentation. On the other hand, let's not loose focus of the fact that
these are indeed games, and as such more an art form than science; the
science is here only to create the illusion. And there's no better way
to shatter that illusion and immersion than to tell people in advance
where the simulation may not be quite adequate.

-Gregor

| Hi,
|
| a very interesting study. I haven't thoroughly read it yet, but it does
| seem like a very consistent peice of work.
|
| I did read your closing statement. Indeed, it would be interesting if
| developers put the specifications of their physics engine into the
| documentation. On the other hand, let's not loose focus of the fact that
| these are indeed games, and as such more an art form than science; the
| science is here only to create the illusion. And there's no better way
| to shatter that illusion and immersion than to tell people in advance
| where the simulation may not be quite adequate.
|
| -Gregor

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I've always been in favour of sim writers giving us a bit more info on
how everything interelates and I think it's a shame that they don't feel
inclined to offer more in this area.

I'm a ***setup expert and generally rely heavily on setups from others
with a little bit of tweaking from myself, but wouldn't it be nice to
know which area of the overall physics engine certain changes are likely
to make.

As a for instance, stiffening suspension I would imagine in real life
affects various other parts of the car with respect to handling and tyre
wear.  However, let's say that a particular new sim. on the market
hasn't bothered to incorporate tyre wear as being affected by suspension
stiffness.  All those with any kind of real-world knowledge won't be
aware of this fact, but will probably try to take it into consideration
when setting up the car for longer races in the 'hope' that it is, and
will have to go out and then test/retest until they can try and figure
out for themselves or wait for someone else to do the figuring out in
order to prove whether it is one way or the other.  All it's doing is
just wasting a hell of a lot of time for people because no-one is
actually allowed to know.

Wouldn't it be better if we were a little more informed from the outset
so that this time wasn't wasted on irrelevances and so those areas of
real importance could be focused upon.  I personally don't thing this is
taking the mystique away from the driving model and making setting up
the car etc that much easier - despite everything I've read about the
GPL physics model I still struggle to come up with anything vaguely
better than the defaults - it's just giving us a more informed starting
position.

| I've always been in favour of sim writers giving us a bit more info on
| how everything interelates and I think it's a shame that they don't feel
| inclined to offer more in this area.
|
| I'm a ***setup expert and generally rely heavily on setups from others
| with a little bit of tweaking from myself, but wouldn't it be nice to
| know which area of the overall physics engine certain changes are likely
| to make.
|
| As a for instance, stiffening suspension I would imagine in real life
| affects various other parts of the car with respect to handling and tyre
| wear.  However, let's say that a particular new sim. on the market
| hasn't bothered to incorporate tyre wear as being affected by suspension
| stiffness.  All those with any kind of real-world knowledge won't be
| aware of this fact, but will probably try to take it into consideration
| when setting up the car for longer races in the 'hope' that it is, and
| will have to go out and then test/retest until they can try and figure
| out for themselves or wait for someone else to do the figuring out in
| order to prove whether it is one way or the other.  All it's doing is
| just wasting a hell of a lot of time for people because no-one is
| actually allowed to know.
|
| Wouldn't it be better if we were a little more informed from the outset
| so that this time wasn't wasted on irrelevances and so those areas of
| real importance could be focused upon.  I personally don't thing this is
| taking the mystique away from the driving model and making setting up
| the car etc that much easier - despite everything I've read about the
| GPL physics model I still struggle to come up with anything vaguely
| better than the defaults - it's just giving us a more informed starting
| position.
|
| --
| Peter Ives
| Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email
| If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me
| GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -21.77

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That's a major thing, and the other thing would be that you don't want
to confess having all these little details not in your sim. Generally
people will want THOSE, while often (esp. for GPL) the effects are
secondary and most people won't feel them anyway. So why tell people,
it's only psychologically bad.
I'm talking mainstream here ofcourse. Most *** simmers buy a
faster CPU just because that allows them more constraint forces per
car. ;-)

Fortunately there are some good explanations on GPL setting up now.

Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25
Pencil art    : http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Free car sim  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Shame really.  Mind you when it comes to what you do/don't need to make
things feel right, I would have thought that every extra tweak or added
physics feature, no matter how apparently insignificant, should at some
point have some bearing on the way the car behaves, otherwise why put it
in.  It may only manifest itself under certain 'extreme' circumstance in
the model, who knows?  But, even then, I'm all for it, as long as it's
done well.

These days I would have expected most, so called, real simulations do
have quite sophisticated driving models now, to such an extent that
there is less need to hide the details because they are just so complex
as to be extremely, if not impossible to replicate just from setup help
in the *** manual, and even some general guidelines as to how it all
fits together would really help save a lot of faffing about and
experimentation, when all we really want to do is drive as fast as
possible with what they've given us without wasting hour upon hour on
setup blind avenues.

I know it's unlikely to change but I need help, man!!!  :)  Perhaps
Ruud, as your own 'little' project starts to blossom even more, which
undoubtedly it will, and it allows setup changes,  err, if it doesn't
already (haven't had a chance to d/l later version, but I will,
promise), that you'll include a guide to how it all fits together.
--
Peter Ives
Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email
If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me
GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -21.77

Well, I'm not too sure about that. If GPL had given some ins and outs
on how it combined the setup parameters, I might have loaned a few
methods. ;-) It's the idea that counts, any good programmer can fit it
in reasonably well given the design.

Setting up is still done manually modifying the car.ini files. Problem
is what should be allowed to set up. Perhaps a basic set of tweaks to
start with. Haven't really given it too much thought yet.

Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25
Pencil art    : http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Free car sim  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Have a skim through

http://go.to/rccarhandling for a really thorough explanation, and

http://www.geocities.com/jp_hodgson/setupguide.html for a quick
summary.

HTH,
Jonny

Cheers for the info JH.  I've added them to my favorites for future
reference.  However, my request was more for Ruud and how his own sim
will all fit together as opposed to real world physics which, although
very useful, may actually not have any 'real' affect in his own sim...
so far.  :)
--
Peter Ives
Remove ALL_STRESS before replying via email
If you know what's good for you, don't listen to me
GPLRank Joystick -50.63 Wheel -21.77

Ruud van Gaal, GPL Rank +53.25
Pencil art    : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/
Free car sim  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/