Messages

[i do wonder if some of the in-sim handling issues are down to the models rather than the engine.]

Very professional looking app. you have created, very slick looking interface and a much needed mod tool.

Be nice to have something similar for bike geometry and physics as this seems as mysterious as the sounds and i do wonder if some of the in-sim handling issues are down to the models rather than the engine. I have seen a few of the on-bike shots that seem to suggest very strange front end arrangements.

+1
Totally agree with you on your conclusion. 

Hawk.
PS: I presume you mean "Model" as in geometry model? And "Engine" as in the core programme physics engine? 

Yes, those were what i meant to describe. It would be nice at the simplest level if the bike could be read in as the sim-engine does and display the geometry, centers of mass, thrust lines, suspension travels etc so that you could be sure they all at least make sense  to the modeller. If we compare to real life, for a race bike these are all items that are finely adjusted to ensure the bike works as intended. I was really wondering what small errors in rake/trail angles or suspension mounting point angles might cause for the bike in the sim - i was just guessing the outcome gets worse 'in-sim' as the GPB physics model becomes more highly honed and sensitive to these values..

Very professional looking app. you have created, very slick looking interface and a much needed mod tool.

Be nice to have something similar for bike geometry and physics as this seems as mysterious as the sounds and i do wonder if some of the in-sim handling issues are down to the models rather than the engine. I have seen a few of the on-bike shots that seem to suggest very strange front end arrangements.

Got the steer motor and box onto the steer shaft, i think it looks quite  .




After a rather 'uncontrolled'  experiment (just could not resist) i am now quite happy that this is more than powerful enough for initial tests, but it does need the steer axis to motor base plate sorting before i try anymore powered tests. This thing can 'whip' the bars across just as fast as suspected - looks like it could be lot of fun when its done
Balance feels good so far and the load (inertia) on the roll axis shaft is very low  .

Save a bit more and get a GTX750Ti easily the best value card for gaming, newer maxwell core means you have no PSU worries and it will run quite happily on a 400 Watt PSU and need PCIe bus power only (same as i use, check the power and cable  requirements of any card you buy, some are ridiculous and will either throttle performance or stress your PSU out, may also need multiple 6 pin connections ). Also Nvidias driver support is better and has less issues with OpenGL compared to AMD. These cards are around the £100/

Ah, that clears it up, what is .eps?

Nice thing about using nuovaic's photos as a base is we should both be working to the same scale  That monument looks sharp 


Just tried with the sides part of bridge 1, my picture crop indicates the bridge is about twice as long as the current UV.

Current is controllable in hardware so i can limit the force but we will probable need to operate with high torque (current) for a convincing steering rig model in torque steer mode as discussed previously. For simple FF mode the torques could be set lower.

I will add software controls, but it is dependent on totally bug free software which will not happen until it been debugged, so i need a solution for this phase at least.

I think the lanyard will work, i can safely limit rig travels, its just that transition from hands on to hitting the e-stop that might cause problems. Its not such an issue with a wheel, it just spins but with bars and levers on 2 axis it could become a bit of a 'flail' and thats why i am being cautious. I am confident that once its built and the software sorted it will be fine and safe - its mainly during testing/development that i have concerns.

Hi DD,
Both axis (will) have large physical travel stops and limit switches, what i am after is a way of making it stop if it has a software 'fit'. The scenario i can see is that something happens in the sim software (where i have no control) to generate an extreme cyclic range of movement - the moving rig contained safely within the physical stops and travelling between servo limits- and i really want to stop the motors as soon as you let go of the bars as with no restraining force the movement could suddenly become more excessive. The lanyard idea seems ideal for this as it physically connects the user action with the kill function.

As for the framework that idea is still evolving  its a bit 'make it up as you go along' and waiting until i have sourced all the big bits to decide. I could not really draw it up as i am just using whatever materials come to hand at the moment to keep the costs down Sort of getting there now though and a proper frame may be the best way to sort out the horizontal drive motor mount (it still look huge  ) as i suspect this might need to be strong but lightweight.

Got the steer axis motor and box joined together and i am quite pleased with the result. Seems powerful but fairly compact. Hopefully get it 'in-situ' soon and finally get a feel for the bar forces  Just hope it works as i am expecting after all this effort.

Thanks, but i think i answered my own question while i was writing it the UV will need to be re-done for this particular bridge (1) The 'tube' of the bridge sides and top will have to be 'un-rolled' for painting. Thing is i need the vertical (around the circumference) locations of the top long horizontal rails on the UV so that i know how tall to make this image. It only affects this first bridge, the rest can be normal projections

Still playing with the best way to do bridge 1 and 3, quite tricky to do but i think i'm developing a method that works I,m going to cut away all the mesh, trees etc from the structural steel, touch up the girder and then layer in new mesh from a stock image.

Probably a lots of painting in due to the original images having a lot of long shadows but this cannot really be avoided with their locations. Not sure what to do about the colour, in long shots the steelwork logs a darkish green, the photos close in seem to be a bluish green due to the amount of moss and lichen - hard to tell what would look best in the model

Love it, we want a bumpy track and wheelies

@Grooveski
When you make a skin for a 'see through' structure how do you deal with the internal visible bits? Should the skin just be the external face or should it be as if you can see inside it?

i.e. i was trying this bit (bridge1span);


Along the top the internal detail of the back face is visible in perspective, should i just paint the front face external detail? Can you project out and unwrap the top cage so that we end up with a skin that 'drapes' over the structure like flattening a box or toilet roll tube out into a flat sheet? the current UV's seem to be projections as far as i can tell at the moment.

Thanks

Thanks for that info, measuring up the actual span of the bars at around 500mm i'm probably the equivalent to another 25% better in torque than i first estimated  so with your impressions of the T500 i feel a bit more confident with going direct drive from the box which will simplify things

I had not considered a lanyard, that may be a very good quick acting solution, thanks.

Nice idea, but probably a bit complex for a safety device.

Just thinking out loud, but trying to get a handle on motor gearing/power/ and torque for a controller.

Referencing consumer items..

From an owners practical tests.....
G27 wheel 3Nm
T500 Wheel 6Nm, 30 cm wheel, 65 watt motor - i guess its quite a high gear ratio 60:1 or so for this torque from a small motor

My smaller steering axis motor is 150 watt and should be 12 to 14Nm  at about the equivalent to a 600mm 'wheel' using just the 25:1 gearbox with no extra pulley belt gearing... It is feasible to add another 2:1 on the gearbox output to raise it to about 25Nm but i would rather the response does not get too lethargic.

Be nice to get it all mocked up and see how it feels for real but i need to manufacture an adapter between motor and box first  then i can get a real feel for the response profile of the bars steer axis

So.. it should feel similar to the T500 wheel for force/torque with just the gbox, does anyone have a t500 wheel, and if so, how does it feel for torque? sufficient for gameplay?

Thanks

I have chopped out quite a few textures now including;

Control tower sides
Podium rear, 2 sides and front
Control tower area wood and metal fence - tileable
Scoreboard
Sheene memorial - front and sides
Bridge 2 - sides
Bridge 3 - started but a lot of work its a fiddly thing to do

Still going.. but i have started 

Stand out bugs (ie rider falling through road) should not really make it to release even in a beta. These should be picked up in testing -  maybe a few registered players (play testers should not be the code developers as they tend not to be objective enough) could test the new betas and report back before they are generally released to avoid the possibility of disappointing the greater community, would maybe give the whole thing a more polished feel.

The more I watch the more I see it has potential. I am looking forward to the street courses and hopefully making some mods/bikes for this game.

Until this game (GPbikes) gets sorted out which will likely take 10 years at the rate things are going at now. Games like "Ride" will be few and far between and we should
keep an open mind about how it will actually be like and the modding potential.

Almost certainly will not happen, add-ons/premium content are now the cash flow basis for a lot of new games and the publisher will want to control this business. The only real way it might work is some sort of 'store' model where third party mod revenues might be divided between author and publisher.

@MaX, wonder how many would appreciate DOS now, it did have many virtues, low overhead, full low level system access etc, but needed time spent with config.sys (that 640k barrier  ) and autoexec.bat trying to configure your entire OS just to run one game - boot disk anyone 

P.S.
I started on vic-20 (3KB ram), after my uncle amazed me with a home made chess player with 7 segments display.
When I look at what an half-decent amateur developper can do today in 2 hours, I'm just amazed.

After the schools beeb micros and RML my first machine at home was Spectrum 48k , spent hours prodding the squidgy rubber keys with ZX basic and my fingers were never the same after trying to run the 4000m in Daleys decathalon . First 'real' computer was a donated newbrain (about the size of an oven ) and i learned Pascal on that. Totally spoiled these days - maybe thats the problem for modern game programming, you can get away with being 'lazy'