Platinum GP Indy Drivers Registration

[raybee1970]

Not that it matters (although it may...lol).... if you have a guy who runs a single number (like number 7) and a guy who runs a double-digit number (like number 07), they can both be easily used and co-exist.

One would simply be named "car7.tex" for the single number, and the other could be "car107.tex". Naturally this would have to be shown on the paint scheme (one "car7" using a number 7 on their paint and the other "car107" using a number 07 on theirs).

Unfortunately we can't have any paints starting with a zero (car07.tex)... so the next available is 107.

And in some leagues where "special" paint schemes are allowed for certain races, this way of numbering also allows for quite a few schemes for both folks running a number 7 and 07.

eg: car7.tex, car107.tex, car207.tex, car307.tex and so on....up to car907.tex

As long as their are visual differences (in terms of paints and the number(s) on the paints).... most leagues could do this.

Giving an example.... I like Robby Gordon and he drives a #7 Sprint Cup car. When he went to Infineon this year, he had a second car for P.J. Jones with a #07.

In Heat... Robby's paint would be "car7.tex" and P.J.'s would be "car107.tex".

If used in this way.... it opens up a lot more numbers to be used.

Naturally how the numbers are used would depend on how the mod maker numbered the paints... so as to not overwrite an original one.... but with numbers 1 through 999 available to use in Heat, there are plenty open still.

Just a little information to pass along. ;D

[DaveO]

Hey Ray,

What your saying is actually very easy and simple to do, totally agree with you.

But we had a slight problem before the season started to were guys were picking .car tex's and creating them with only 2 digits, which caused some havoc with the ingame cars. So Mauro and I implemented a procedure to were all the .car tex's would have 3 digits on the car.tex. So like I'm running the #83 but my car.tex# is 983. This way it kept everything nice and neat in a way. The original custom cars at the start of the season all started with the #9 then followed by the drivers car#.

i

[DaveO]

Aug 1, 2010 20:20:09 GMT 2 trucky said:

Hey Dave
Just give me one,i don't care about numbers. ;D
Will put the right number on the paint.

Man I've never picked out another guys car # before.

Since you like the #5 number, how about something like #55 or something like that?

[trucky]

OK 55 it is. ;D

[raybee1970]

Aug 1, 2010 22:47:24 GMT 2 DaveO said:

But we had a slight problem before the season started to were guys were picking .car tex's and creating them with only 2 digits, which caused some havoc with the ingame cars. So Mauro and I implemented a procedure to were all the .car tex's would have 3 digits on the car.tex. So like I'm running the #83 but my car.tex# is 983. This way it kept everything nice and neat in a way. The original custom cars at the start of the season all started with the #9 then followed by the drivers car#.

Hey Dave,

I would suggest to mod makers to go the "old school" way and make the paints that come with the mod at release to use the standard numbers they use in real life (eg: car7.tex instead of going with something odd like car307.tex or something). As I'm sure every sees in Heat, when you are looking at the leaderboard, it looks weird seeing a Robby Gordon with a number 907, as opposed to his real number.

Anything I do with paints for mods I have on here for personal use, I have them using their normal numbers, then any special schemes I add in starts getting the 3 digit numbers (unless a car has something like that #07 for a normal number, then I give it the 3 digits to make it car107.tex).

Then when you have online races, you could still do what you guys do with the "car983.tex" if someone wanted to use a number already in the original mod, but with a different number font, schemes or whatever....but if they wanted to use an "in game" car, they could use the "car7.tex" and stuff.

And as I'm sure you guys know, when you pack up these regular numbers (single or double digit) in the paint.res, you can still put loose .tex files in the actual mod folder and use those.

I can't remember, but I think if you put one in the mod folder that has the same name as one in the paint.res (eg: car7.tex), the one loosely in the mod folder is used first.

Don't get me wrong though.... I trust you guys and know if you guys have an issue, you'd get it worked out like you did.

It is just me being old school is all. I know some guys probably use ML2 to add their .tex files in there and do all that, and then some may even go so far as to use ML2 to pack them back into a paint.res... but I usually use WinResTools Wizard and do my drivers.txt editing manually.

But don't mind me.... I'm just babbling. ;D

[Cholerix]

Aug 1, 2010 23:41:21 GMT 2 raybee1970 said:

I would suggest to mod makers to go the "old school" way and make the paints that come with the mod at release to use the standard numbers they use in real life (eg: car7.tex instead of going with something odd like car307.tex or something). As I'm sure every sees in Heat, when you are looking at the leaderboard, it looks weird seeing a Robby Gordon with a number 907, as opposed to his real number.

Just doesn't work if you ship a mod with carpaints for more than one season. Lets say you put in 2007, 2008 and 2009 car paints, along with nice ui_images. If you stick to 2-digit carXX file names, you'll soon run into trouble and confusion.

[raybee1970]

Aug 2, 2010 9:26:35 GMT 2 Cholerix said:

Aug 1, 2010 23:41:21 GMT 2 raybee1970 said:

I would suggest to mod makers to go the "old school" way and make the paints that come with the mod at release to use the standard numbers they use in real life (eg: car7.tex instead of going with something odd like car307.tex or something). As I'm sure every sees in Heat, when you are looking at the leaderboard, it looks weird seeing a Robby Gordon with a number 907, as opposed to his real number.

Just doesn't work if you ship a mod with carpaints for more than one season. Lets say you put in 2007, 2008 and 2009 car paints, along with nice ui_images. If you stick to 2-digit carXX file names, you'll soon run into trouble and confusion.

That is what the carset swapper is for.

Heck...you could go even farther and use a feature in ML2 that I've seen no one use yet in a mod.... the Series Manager.

The Series Manager was a feature I suggested to Oleg when he was making ML2 and it will let you have your own custom made .res files and everything that it will swap out, kind of like how the Carset Swapper feature works... but the Series Manager will let you have each "series" come complete with its own Setups folder with setups specific for that series, its own ui.res if needed....basically it is like swapping out mod for mod within one main folder.... schedules, other carsets....you name it, it pretty much does it.

I have my own "NASCAR" series that I put together that does all this stuff out of one single mod folder named simply "nascar", and in it, I have Craftsman Trucks, Camping World Trucks, Nationwide Series, Sprint Cup Series, Whelen Southern Modifieds, Whelen Modifieds, and many Latemodel series.... all working out of the main "nascar" folder.

Here is the info about it from ML2's readme:

SERIES MANAGER:
===============
This feature lets you combine several MODs into one and will make it very easy to switch between them when you need it. If this feature is already available for some MOD and you're just curious what it is and how to use it, then here's a short guide:
The idea initially has been borrowed from "Dirt to Daytona" which is a NASCAR Heat 2002 available for X-Box, PS2, etc.. That game lets you play all NASCAR divisions in one game, .i.e. Winston/Nextel Cup, Busch, Trucks, Latemodels, etc.. We thought something similar can be done with NASCAR Heat which is how this feature was born. To use it, just select one of the "Series" on your left, read the info if you want, and just click "Switch Series". Next time you launch the MOD, it might have all different cars, paints, menus, schedules and more. The "Options" in "Series Manager" show all files and folders available for that specific series which you selected. Optionally, you can uncheck some of the files/folders which you don't want to be copied, but normally, everything has to be checked.
Now if you're a MOD maker, here's complete info on this feature:
Steps which are required to make the feature available:
1) Create a 'Series' folder in the main mod folder;
2) Now inside the 'Series' folder create as many folders as there are divisions for your MOD, e.g. NASCAR MOD could have the following series:
Nextel Cup
Craftsman Truck Series
Busch Series
then the directory structure would look like this :
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Craftsman Truck Series
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Busch Series
Spaces in the folder names are allowed and are more preferable than using underscores, also, use full series names, because each series will appear in the MOD launcher 2 by the name of those folders (Winston Cup, Busch Series, etc.), so the nicier the folder name is the better it will look;
From this point ML2 will let you access the "Series Manager" feature but you won't see your series until you do the next step;
3) So that ML2 could list your divisions, a 'series_info.txt' file should be present in each series folder, e.g.:
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\series_info.txt
Now, the text in this file will also be shown in the MOD launcher 2, and there should be information about the series.
Once you put these text files into your series folders, ML2 will list them, but they're still unusable, proceed to next steps;
4) Optionally, you can specify a thumbnail image for your series, i.e. along with the name of the series users will see a respective image for that series; image should be a 24-bit BMP named thumbnail.bmp, with the following dimensions: height 48, width basically any, but not more than 248, so 248x48 will look best in ML2. The file should be located in each series folder, e.g.:
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Busch Series\thumbnail.bmp
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\thumbnail.bmp
5) The main button named "Switch Series" can also have a glyph optionally assigned to it, also a 24-bit BitMap (.bmp) named series.bmp , height = 25, width = basically any, but if it's going to be too wide, you won't see "Switch Series" letters as they will be shifted by image. Unlike thumbnails for series, this one is only read from :
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\series.bmp , so it's one for all series.
So again, both series thumbnails and general pics are optional, i.e. not required, but are more than welcome, it will just look much better with pics.
6) Now comes important step. You can put into each series folder any file or folder you want to be copied into the main mod folder during the "Switching process". E.g., one series could have the following structure:
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\thumbnail.bmp
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\series_info.txt
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\ui.res
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\paint.res
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\common.res
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\options.cfg
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\drivers.txt
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\dodge.car
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\part.res
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\track.ini
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\Setups\..
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\Schedules\..
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\Carsets\..
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\CarData\..
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\Wheels\..
even the splash screen for specific series can be there too:
C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\spl_scr

etc. etc. etc., any files. Though I want to mention one detail right here: it will be much better if you pack all .tex files for each series into just one paint.res, e.g. all *.tex files for "Busch Series" division would be in one paint.res, all *.tex files for Trucks would be in another paint.res, etc., than have the tex files scattered in the series folders, sooner or later they will all appear in the main mod folder anyway when you will be switching the series, and if you pack them into paint.res all will be well and organized;
7) Next thing. You will also find the "options" button there. It will list all files and folders which ML2 found for selected series, so if for some reason you don't want ML2 to swap all those files, you can uncheck the ones you think you don't need (that's after you've done all series and just use this feature). You will notice that thumbnail.bmp and series_info.txt are not listed there, that's all normal, ML2 knows these files are not vital for the series to work so it does not list them, moreover, it does not copy them in the main mod folder;
8) Please be patient during the copying process, the series can take up to 100 MB in size, but even in this case, it'll be a matter of seconds to finish the process. You are also shown what's happening in the status window;
9) Here's how the switching process goes:
a) first of all, ML2 deletes ALL *.car files in the main MOD folder;
b) then it deletes THOSE *.res files which are NOT present in the selected series;
c) copies all files from the root folder of the selected SERIES into the main mod folder, e.g.
from : C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\ui.res
to : C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\ui.res
etc. with all files, OVERWRITING any files with the same names;
d) copies all FOLDERS from the root folder of the selected SERIES into the main mod folder, e.g.:
from : C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Series\Nextel Cup\Wheels
to : C:\Program Files\Hasbro Interactive\NASCAR Heat\NASCAR\Wheels
etc. with all folders, COMPLETELY REPLACING any folders with the same names.

Important: When you *Switch* series, ML2 COPIES files from the selected series by the scenario described above, but it does not make any backups of the files which were originally located in the main mod folder! So MOVE those files from the main mod folder into the ..\Series\ folder and give it a name as one of the series, this way you wont loose files.

Note that you can even have several schedules, carsets, car variations and more for each series, if you build the directory structure as respective features require for those series.

Now yes.... it will make for bigger files in the long run, but with the way computers are now and the way many more folks have faster connections, as opposed to when ML2 came out.... its not as big an issue as it would have been back years ago.

As far as the online aspects.... if folks could use the Carset Swapper, they could use the Series Manager too...and its a bit easier to find, since it is right on the main box of ML2 to start with.

[DaveO]

I've done a lot testing for mods online and offline. Even with faster computers, for online racing, it still takes into consideration everyone's connection. Even when there's two guys with halfway decent connections this happens. It's just a lot of work for "old heat engine" to compensate for. So the leaner and less "files" taking up space in the mod, the faster and better the heat engine will process everything..

Even if you load up a paint.res with more then the usual.car.tex's you will see the decrease in peformance of computers. Most of the time for online play it happens during the loading time of right before everyone hit's the track.

I've even seen stand alone mods when you add more then normal size paint.res see a slight change in the computers performance. This is even with a fast and updated systems.. My point is yes a lot people do have faster and more efficient computers, but when you have several people connecting at one time to a server, the performance does change, to compensate for everyone's connection.

[trucky]

DaveO is right.
Heat does take time t load on older PC's and does affect others in a online race but there is a trick.
Take a look at my PC(prehistoryc).
730mhz,256mb ram,nvidia TNT 2 graphicscard,... you see how old.
Well in the options file of your mod you need to change something.
Take a look at mine for paltinum gp.

[GX]
desaturate_textures no
detail_level 1
disable_novsync no
disable_triple_buffer no
draw_cars_ahead 5
draw_cars_behind 5
draw_distance 0
draw_player_wheel yes
effect_level 0
fix_s3_bug no
force_trilinear_off no
fov 130.000000
high_detail_car no
mipmap yes
mirror 0
mirror_fov 82.000000
no_perf_restrict no
no_speed_overlay no
shadow 1
skids 1
smoke 1
specular 0
try_texture_compression no
use_radeon_compression_method no
vertex_damage no
video_mode 2

you see that i changed the draw cars to 5,most others use 43.
This mean that my pc only need to show me 10 cars.

Also before entering a online race the best thing you can do is loading the track first in single player(need to be the same as the online race)and drive 2 or 3 test laps.
After that you go to the multiplayer menu and join the race.
It wil load much quicker.
I discovered it a couple of days ago ;D

This help me alot playing those newer mods with high detailed cars and high res tracks.

[Cholerix]

Aug 2, 2010 17:34:42 GMT 2 trucky said:

730mhz,256mb ram,nvidia TNT 2 graphicscard,... you see how old.
Well in the options file of your mod you need to change something.
Take a look at mine for paltinum gp.

wow - that's indeed rather ancient hardware. Pre-2000 at least
But maybe great for doing performance tests on new mods

but lets pls stop that here or continue in modding thread.

As it has become QUITE OT here

[spike]

I got a new paint same number though so just replace the other one I posted & let me know what you think since it's my first NHeat paint ;D .

Attachments:

[Mustangman]

signin friend up
name : elon (elonb13)
#1
team: 7Karat

[Mustangman]

elon's skin

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[DaveO]

Aug 6, 2010 22:41:53 GMT 2 Mustangman said:

signin friend up
name : elon (elonb13)
#1
team: 7Karat

Matt,

Could you ask your friend to register at the site please?

[Mustangman]

shure thing, he was logging out for the day though