The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Here you can present your WIP or new cars and/or stuff you made for GP2
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rremedio
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The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

Important: Instructions and files here

I'm splitting the post in two as the second part may be a little boring. But it has some info on why we are here reading this =)

And sorry for the bad english.

This is not a new thing. I always had this project of creating full season patches for GP2, so you could easily configure your game with correct magic data, physics, performances, etc.

Well, I've been working on this for a while, but it's been not very consistent. I make some files, some tests, then months pass until I work on it again (mostly becouse of free time being short, but also becouse it's hard to me to keep motivated with long projects). The idea has always been on my mind and becouse of it I've created the Physics Editor and the Slot Editor, the Texture Mapping topic, the ccline updates for 70ies/80ies tracks, the (still) unfinished 2009 F2 carset, and a lot of things I've never mentioned here, like my saved games tools, my track performance tables and other unfinished work.

The Slot Editor and the Physics editor are great tools, but they have never become very popular becouse creating the data requires time and understanding (my fault to never write tutorials). And even if we had full season packs with all data ready, it would be very boring to install everything.

So I'm creating a tool to insert all data to GP2 at once and when we have a full season package, we won't need neither the Slot Editor nor the Physics Editor. And I'm working on such data.

But it would be nice if I had help, so I'm asking it here.

If you would like to help the project, you wouldn't need to have any knowledge on physics or magic data. It would be nice if you could edit some values in the track editor (but you can still help without it) and you would need to able to use the Slot Editor (it must work on your system) or one alternative tool I will provide.

The work is to drive on tracks with the season carsets and with data provided by me and then tweek some consumption values on the magic data. And also watch some things on cc races. It's not a hard work and you won't even need to be a fast driver.

Of course, if you have interest and/or knowledge on the particular season you are working with or with physics, you could use it to help too.

I'm currently working on the physics for the 80ies F1 (specially season '88) and modern F3, but any motorsports season should be usable on some way (for some series we won't have tracks, for others we won't have carsets, which is more problematic, but we have enough on grandprix2.de to create countless season packages).

In the end, I should provide a single file which would automatically configure GP2 with data for that season. You should still have to install track by track unless AAS says it's ok to create track packs with stuff from grandprix2.de. You wouldn't have problems anymore with being too fast on some tracks and too slow on others, ccs crashing on pit entrance/exit, finishing races with 15 laps of fuel or having to pit becouse the fuel is over long before the end of the race, unrealistic tyre wear, etc...

So, please let me know if you can help.

Regards
Last edited by rremedio on 06.10.2012, 08:04, edited 2 times in total.
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rremedio
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

A little bit oh history: as I've said, the idea was always on my mind. It begun to take shape when I was trying to hack GP2 with hex editors and discovered how to tweek some physics factors, texture factors and with the help of a post from AAS which had some information on GP2 Magic Data, started to understand how it works.

Then I've started to create the 1978 season set, but I've become frustated by not getting realistics physics which would also be fun and "cc-friendly". So before I could resume the 78 pack, I've started a F1 2009 pack, as modern cars fit GP2 better in terms of graphics and physics. But there were a big problem. While we have nice new tracks made by AAS, TK and TDK (mostly the new asian Bernie tracks), F1 tracks made before which were not using original GP2 track data and cclines (Sepang, Barcelona, Melbourne) suffered from ccline problemas which I didn't want to work out myself and some tracks didn't have the correct layout yet. Along the year I've had to stop working with GP2 and the project was forgotten (never worked on it again. The '78 pack, on the other hand, still have chances to become true as a friend of mine said he would finish the carset if he manage to have time for working on it, and he is very good on carsets/carshapes, and I'm slowly revisiting the performance and physics).

Still wanting to have this kind of stuff, I've got into something smaller: the F2 set. I'm a Williams fan, the cars look very suitable for GP2 graphics and there was a short tracks number. Well, I'm good with numbers, but not with graphics =) and I didn't manage to finish the initial 14 cars yet (not even started the helmets). And there still tweeking to be made on tracks (Brno and Barcelona cclines, which have small issues. I would use Spa without the new chicane).

One project which never started was the Indy package, to honour the great work of Antonio Pessoa and the other trackmakers who created great Indy tracks for GP2.

There were no more developments on such projects, but on the past few months I've become more familiar with good ways to use the Physics Editor. One big problem is solved, which is GP2 distortion between players and ccs on slow speeds, when you have low powered carsets. The sound problems can be also fixed by editing the sounds (I've tested it).

So I've started another project which I've named The Classic Seasons Project. It would start with a generic package, then it would span through all seasons from 78 to 88, and then more.

But I've changed my mind. The generic set would not be very atractive and if someone is willing to help, we can easily have the seasons which most people like and it woldn't have to be F1 only season.
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RacerBG
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by RacerBG »

Do you mean that when this is ready our cars will be finally competive to the AI, because always even with great setups the AI beats me.....on my NFSF series? :lol: I can try to help If this is true. :) Finally I have got time. 8)
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rremedio
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

The difficulty level will be standard between all tracks and carsets. If a driver is too fast or too slow in a track, he will be in all of them. But the package will allow the player to change difficulty level, so you are too fast or too slow, you change the difficulty settings on the patcher and it will change it for all tracks. It will work like some other games, default difficulty level will be 100% and the player can change it to higher or lower values.
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AAS
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by AAS »

1 Great project, sounds good =D>
2 For my part, every file from grandprix2.de is free for the pack.
3 Count me in! What can I do?
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rremedio
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

AAS wrote:1 Great project, sounds good =D>
2 For my part, every file from grandprix2.de is free for the pack.
3 Count me in! What can I do?
Great :D

What you need to do is just to check and change some values for fuel consumption on the slot editor, and test them ingame. I'll prepare some files and an explanation on how to do it. It will help me a lot as I waste a lot of time trying to get the correct performances and physics and with the correct consumptions it will be a lot easier and faster to get everything right.
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RacerBG
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by RacerBG »

Count me too :!:

This will be a superb addition to GP2, I cant stay away from that. :)
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rremedio
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

RacerBG wrote:Count me too :!:

This will be a superb addition to GP2, I cant stay away from that. :)
Thank you!

I'll send the files with instructions to both you and AAS on the next days. :D
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Michael82
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by Michael82 »

:o It's a very good surprise! Your project is awesome! For sure I want to help you for this! With your works we have been able to update so in different ways of gp2.
Sorry for the 1978.. I have not lot of time this year but i would like to do that in June or July! Actually I am finishing the 1982 mod. Slowly but surely ;)
I await your instructions for your mega project!
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Peze
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by Peze »

I can help too, definitely!
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rremedio
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

Thank you guys!! Now we are five. It will speed up things a lot and none of you will have to do hard or long tasks. :)

Files are almost ready.

We will start with F1 Season '85, becouse of Michael's wonderful carset and becouse I have a large research base about that season.
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by ooleeeo »

rremedio:

I have my semester exams coming up from day after tmrw,once it is over on 14th may,I will have plenty of tym,so i would like to help as well after my exams are over.
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RacerBG
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by RacerBG »

I hope you will explain us what we are going exactly to do because blind persons cant drive cars you know. :wink:
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by eky78 »

Ok! I didn't understand well what we have to do but i hope i can help you! so i wait for your instruction...
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rremedio
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Re: The GP2 Full Seasons Project

Post by rremedio »

Oh I didn't expect so much interest. This is fantastic :D

I didn't write the intructions yet and I'm still finishing the file editing (hopefully it will be done today), but as there are many people asking, I'll give a basic explanation now.

We will start we season '85 and when it's ready we can move to another F1 season or something else different. Season '85 had 16 races and we have 15 of those 16 tracks with good ccline in GP2. We are still missing Estoril but the ccline problem on that track is easy to be fixed and I'll do it when the time comes. So, for now, we will work with the other 15 tracks. Jacarepagua and Imola are already ready to the pack, so we need to setup the other 13 tracks.

What anyone involved will need to do for now is pick a track and fix the fuel consumption. You will recieve the files to install the physics and the magic data and a car setup. You will drive on the track with everything installed, using that car setup. After you are used to the track and car you will start to make some stints and notice how the fuel is being consumpted. Then you will edit the magic data and do it again until the consumption reachs the point I want (you won't change fuel load on the TE, as it was calculated by me according to 1985 rules).

Then you will make 100% races without player cars involved (ccs only), accelerate time and stop acceleration before the race ends (press ESC when the accelerated time reachs the last lap). Take a look on how much fuel the ccs has left, then edit the magic data and do it again until we have the right consumption. Notice that the number of laps will be changed on the tracks, so 100% races will have 1/3 or 1/2 of real life races, this is just for fuel consumption purposes, when the pack is ready, all number of laps will be switched back to their '85 values).

Notice that the "cc races" step may be done before the "driving step" if you want.


That's all for now. Of course by driving the car you may have some input to give me about the car handling. Don't worry with laptimes and don't worry racing against the ccs. The files you will recieve are not meant to be used on races against the ccs, as the the performance editing will be done later.

After it is done I will set the laptimes and difficulty levels to all the tracks (I think it must be done by a single person, so we will have a more uniform difficulty level over all tracks, but if someone wants to help on that too, I know a possible way) and configure and app which will install all magic data and physics at once, and then release it packed with an edited version (performance data) of the carset and the edited .dat files for the tracks (and maybe all the tracks together, as AAS said there would be no problem).

The package will have a standard difficulty level which may not be suitable for everyone, so the user will be able to change it. Also, there will be the option to patch the game with individual performance for the team chosen by the player (even cars with the same bhp won't drive the same, according with their 85 performance).

As said earlier, I hope to finish the files needed today, but it depends on available time and no problems happening. But you may expect me to make the files available on the next few days (work is being a liitle slower becouse of paying too much rFactor on my free hours).

And again, thank you very much for the interest guys. =D> Soon we will have a complete season package like no one GP2 ever had before.
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