Re: Mid-Ohio

Kenners · Kenners on Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:04 pm

To those of you who received a PM from me with a link to this track, I've put an update there. The download link is the same.

If you've lost my PM, just PM me and I'll PM you.

Cheers,

Kenners

Kenners · Kenners on Wed Jun 24, 2009 8:16 pm

To those who received a PM from me, use the same link & grab this version. I'm about done with it; If C wants to have a go at setting up the AI, I'd be thrilled.

I finally figured out how to get rid of those little gaps where the track sections meet. I sprinkled a few trees around. And I put some detail into the track textures. No skid marks, though.

Kenners

C14ru5 · C14ru5 on Thu Jun 25, 2009 4:00 am

Kenners wrote:If C wants to have a go at setting up the AI, I'd be thrilled.

I'm engulfed in two-and-a-half other track projects at the moment, but I'll still have a quick look. If it's a quick fix, I'll send you an update in a PM.

Whatever you did to the track, it now runs much smoother than before, I'm getting 40 FPS at worst - previously it was in the twenties a lot of the time.

Kenners · Kenners on Thu Jun 25, 2009 6:26 am

C14ru5 wrote:
Kenners wrote:If C wants to have a go at setting up the AI, I'd be thrilled.

I'm engulfed in two-and-a-half other track projects at the moment, but I'll still have a quick look. If it's a quick fix, I'll send you an update in a PM.

Whatever you did to the track, it now runs much smoother than before, I'm getting 40 FPS at worst - previously it was in the twenties a lot of the time.

No pressure.. I went around & kinda set some racing line points & the AI bounds, but I don't really have a good handle on adjusting AI speed.

-K

C14ru5 · C14ru5 on Thu Jun 25, 2009 6:51 am

The AI line mainly impacts AI behavior, and not so much AI lap times. For that, one needs to make adjustments to the speedModifier value.

This is basically the method that I followed for Laguna and Silverstone:
-Remove all racing line markers using the menu command in Track Editor
-Make sure that minTrack and maxTrack in the roadtypes are 1-2m inside of the drivable track
-Tedious step: Convert the .road to .plist, find the (key)speedModifier(/key)(integer)0.0(/integer) text snippet and paste it into (each and every?) road segment. I learned that from SlowDan during his work on Dantona.
-Add new racing line markers inside Track Editor, usually leaving more than 8 segments between each point in order for the AI to judge its speed properly. Also, I normally don't drag the racingLine sliders to the extreme values, but instead settle for the area 50% left to 50% right. That makes the cars look more alive.
-Again in the .plist format: Search and replace the speedModifier value, 0.3-0.4 seems to be a golden value, depending on the amount of banking on the track.

Kenners · Kenners on Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:16 am

C14ru5 wrote:The AI line mainly impacts AI behavior, and not so much AI lap times. For that, one needs to make adjustments to the speedModifier value.

This is basically the method that I followed for Laguna and Silverstone:
-Remove all racing line markers using the menu command in Track Editor
-Make sure that minTrack and maxTrack in the roadtypes are 1-2m inside of the drivable track
-Tedious step: Convert the .road to .plist, find the (key)speedModifier(/key)(integer)0.0(/integer) text snippet and paste it into (each and every?) road segment. I learned that from SlowDan during his work on Dantona.
-Add new racing line markers inside Track Editor, usually leaving more than 8 segments between each point in order for the AI to judge its speed properly. Also, I normally don't drag the racingLine sliders to the extreme values, but instead settle for the area 50% left to 50% right. That makes the cars look more alive.
-Again in the .plist format: Search and replace the speedModifier value, 0.3-0.4 seems to be a golden value, depending on the amount of banking on the track.

Wow.. How the heck did anybody ever figure THAT out?? At least with M-O, the drivable widths are all pretty similar, and there's not a lot of banking, and most importantly, there's no control line shifts (they're a pain in the neck when you're setting minTrack & maxTrack).

The speed modifier values can range from -1 to 1, with 0 being default/Redline calculates it, and pos/neg values adjusting the AI speed up/down?

Why don't I have a go with this process on my M-O WIP folder, see how it goes..

Kenners

Kenners · Kenners on Thu Jun 25, 2009 10:22 am

Wow, your instructions really worked great! I am not a great driver anyways, but I cannot keep up with AI now.. Driving the 968 GT3, the 968 Turbo RS AIs walk all over me.

geez; I just posted 1.02 last night, but this is worth another .01. I'll get it out tonight.

Kenners

Tomte · Tomte on Thu Jun 25, 2009 10:49 am

Kenners wrote: Driving the 968 GT3, the 968 Turbo RS AIs walk all over me.

Depending on the track, the turbo RS isn't that much slower than the GT3 Wink

Pax-raider · Pax-raider on Thu Jun 25, 2009 10:58 am

Kenners wrote:

AIs walk all over me.

Yeah, I'm wondering if the AI speeds generated with this method are actually too fast; I found the same thing on Silverstone. It seems like the AI's should be a challenge for experienced simmers to beat, but not impossible...? I almost never drive against them, so I don't really care, but for those that do, isn't it frustrating to be unable to stay with them even when driving near perfectly?

C14ru5 · C14ru5 on Thu Jun 25, 2009 11:32 am

Pax-raider wrote:Yeah, I'm wondering if the AI speeds generated with this method are actually too fast; I found the same thing on Silverstone. It seems like the AI's should be a challenge for experienced simmers to beat, but not impossible...? I almost never drive against them, so I don't really care, but for those that do, isn't it frustrating to be unable to stay with them even when driving near perfectly?

It all depends on the car. The AI doesn't take things like downforce, wheels.stickyness, and added grip through banked corners into account when it determines the speed that it has on the track. Thus, cars with lots of downforce and sticky tires will be driven as slowly as if they had 0 stickyness and 0 downforce.

Should the AI be impossible to beat? Here's my opinion: The AI is purely your own choice with your own car options inside Quick Race (and not something predetermined that you must race against in the challenges, in multiplayer, or in a career mode). Therefore, you may give the AI faster cars or slower cars, depending on how much challenge you want. One of my favorite exercises is to have a short and narrow track crowded with 11 AI cars that are slower than my car, and see how many I can lap during the length of the race. My goal when setting the speed of AI cars, is setting the speedModifier high enough to make it look like the cars are flooring it on the straights, but not so fast that they skid out in the corners.

djpimley · djpimley on Thu Jun 25, 2009 3:14 pm

Hi Kenners,

Now I'm getting very respectable frame rates all around the track. Thanks! Smile

Toad · Toad on Thu Jun 25, 2009 6:03 pm

Just the opposite for me, under 10fps. Very strange as the previous version was giving 40 or better all the way round.

Kenners · Kenners on Thu Jun 25, 2009 6:12 pm

Toad wrote:Just the opposite for me, under 10fps. Very strange as the previous version was giving 40 or better all the way round.

The last version had a ton of alpha transparency on the track, all the tar patches and skid marks. Plus, it had tens of thousands more polys.

The new version has trees in the infield..

Go figure. What are others getting?

Kenners

Pax-raider · Pax-raider on Thu Jun 25, 2009 6:23 pm

I'm getting some stretches at 75 steady, others in the 50's & 60's, couple of areas down in the mid 30's.

Superslow · Superslow on Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:19 am

Wow. This is a great looking track! Well done! Cool

FPS is good for me... 30 at the lowest and getting up to 70-ish on most of the latter half of the track. I have my video settings at about half, with shadows and lighting off.

Kenners · Kenners on Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:13 pm

A FINAL update, I promise..

v1.03's only change is AI behavior, based on C's method.

As before, if you've received a PM from me to try this track, the link in the PM is still correct.

If you've lost my PM, just PM me and I'll PM you again.

Kenners

alphonse · alphonse on Fri Jun 26, 2009 1:51 pm

Kenners wrote:A FINAL update, I promise..
v1.03's only change is AI behavior, based on C's method.

Works good and looks nice. FPS are reasonable, from about 20-75 (with 11 AI-cars, changing fast at times.

The AI-Drivers are pretty fast - cant keep up with them with the cars i tested so far.

One question remains:
The "ill pm you if you pm me"-method seems to be... new.
Is there any chance you get the permission to release it sometimes?

And: Is hosting it im MP allowed (as long all all participants got a "pm by you".

thanks for the track - its hard - but i like it...

alf

Kenners · Kenners on Fri Jun 26, 2009 2:16 pm

alphonse wrote:
Kenners wrote:A FINAL update, I promise..
v1.03's only change is AI behavior, based on C's method.

Works good and looks nice. FPS are reasonable, from about 20-75 (with 11 AI-cars, changing fast at times.

The AI-Drivers are pretty fast - cant keep up with them with the cars i tested so far.

One question remains:
The "ill pm you if you pm me"-method seems to be... new.
Is there any chance you get the permission to release it sometimes?

And: Is hosting it im MP allowed (as long all all participants got a "pm by you".

thanks for the track - its hard - but i like it...

alf

Yeah, MP for sure. There's no way I'll get the VLM folks to OK a public release; hence the private distribution model.. *sigh*

Kenners

Toad · Toad on Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:03 pm

Just installed 1.03 and all is well again. Running alone getting 75 fps in the open areas now, dropping to low 30's around the start finish.

Was hoping you would make some more changes because the version before 1.02 worked fine even though it had more stuff in it.

I suspect it's something to do with my Nvidia MBP vid card or some other esoteric computer misunderstanding that made the 1.02 version act up the way it did. Not going to be an issue when my new Imac shows up early next week. Got a great deal ($900) on a new 08' 20" with 256megs vid ram (ATI) and a 7200rpm drive with 4 gigs memory.

Now the MBP can resume more mundane duties working as my business machine and not have to run with the cpu at 105% and the fans warping out at the max.

I hope that's the case anyway.

Kenners · Kenners on Fri Jun 26, 2009 3:39 pm

Toad wrote:Just installed 1.03 and all is well again. Running alone getting 75 fps in the open areas now, dropping to low 30's around the start finish.

Was hoping you would make some more changes because the version before 1.02 worked fine even though it had more stuff in it.

I suspect it's something to do with my Nvidia MBP vid card or some other esoteric computer misunderstanding that made the 1.02 version act up the way it did. Not going to be an issue when my new Imac shows up early next week. Got a great deal ($900) on a new 08' 20" with 256megs vid ram (ATI) and a 7200rpm drive with 4 gigs memory.

Now the MBP can resume more mundane duties working as my business machine and not have to run with the cpu at 105% and the fans warping out at the max.

I hope that's the case anyway.

I always worry a bit about folks w/MBPs and those nVidia GPUs.. They are flaky.. You haven't had any funky colors or nothing, have you?

Kenners

Mid-Ohio

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