Thursday, May 31, 2012

A difficult subject...

Hello folks,


I have been making circuits primarily for Rfactor since mid 2009. I enjoy building circuits and learning new techniques as well as overcoming challenges. 


I however find myself in a difficult position as I am currently unemployed and I am struggling greatly to find any sort of work in my media field that I can survive off. Sadly this is rapidly becoming such an issue that I may have to stop making circuits all together as I won't be able to afford the upgrades to software packages amongst other things. While I am confident that I will find work sooner or later, I am beginning to think seriously about selling some of my computer bits and bobs.


I hope that I will not become that desperate, however the horizon is not looking as rosy as I would like right now given the global economic climate. I am sure that others are in a far worse off position than I, but this is just my two cents.


I ask anyone who enjoys my tracks to please make any sort of donation they can to my PayPal so I can continue to make circuits for you all. I need around $80AU if I am to renew licences for software packages.


I will understand if there are those of you who are unable to donate and I am glad to continue sharing what circuits I have already made, though I may not be able to upgrade any more or build new ones without some money to buy these software licences.


Thank you for reading this post and indeed my blog. If you are in a position to donate anything then please make any donation you can on op left sidebar of this blog.


It is a difficult subject and I am not one to opt out as a charity case. I however cannot continue making circuits without a new licence to software packages.


Thank you guys.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Darlington Park (working title) progress

I have already moved to my next project, Darlington Park and as you can see, I am a busy bee lately.

I am not yet sold on the name 'Darlington Park. It is named after the basic circuit I found HERE at Gdecarli however I am an Australian and not a fan of circuits set around our landscape as a whole. Why, you might ask. Well I grew up in a very lush and beautiful area out of Sydney known as the Southern Highlands. Sadly not very much of Australia looks as this does. It is dry and the grass looks as cornflakes does if you were to put some in the oven. I prefer the greenery of Europe, which is why I have placed rolling farming hills around the circuit. It is much more appealing visually than the dry stuff Australia is known for.

Anyway, I am known for making circuits that while are based on actual real world locations, they do not resemble them down to a fine tooth and nail level. Darlington Park, will be just that. It will be a late 1980s early 1990s circuit with a 1960s and early 1970s feel. I do these sort of circuit predominately as I love the 1990s and 1980s Formula One eras more than any other and the Rfactor mods of this time are mostly outstanding and a joy every time you press 'race'.

Darlington Park is still a little while off. I am aiming to release it some time in the coming fortnight, however with my worldly commitments, time shall tell if I am able to stick to this plan.

Have a good look at the pictures, as even though it is likely to change a fair amount, the basic layout will not alter.

Thanks.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Bulgarian GP Course - Released


The Bulgarian GP was planned to first take place this year in 2012, however it has been shelved and will probably never see the light of day.

I took the initial design from the only know concept art and made this circuit. The Bulgarian GP Course is 5.993km in length as I estimated and found that it works quite well and doesn't have a 'tilke' feel in its current configuration.

None of this is intended to be accurate of the proposed circuit, but more of a 'ideal world' design.
Track design from start to finish 5 days, I had origianlly made a version of the track but due to various corruptions it was unusable and I started 100% from scratch just a few days ago and have now released it to NoGripRacing here.

Please download it and rate it for me.

Enjoy folks!

Bulgarian GP, this time tomorrow!

Yes, I have completed my Bulgarian GP Course and will be releasing it tomorrow at NoGripRacing.

I am just recording some flying laps for youtube and NGR. Then I need to pack the whole circuit into an online format and it should be up and ready for download tomorrow afternoon. If you can't wait that long then I have some screenshots for you all to look over.







Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Bulgarian GP not far now

For those of you who have been following my circuit design for some time, you may notice in the various readme files that I have listed the Bulgarian GP as one of my planned releases for Rfactor. For many reasons my original riddled with corrupted files and to no anvil I did attempt to fix it.

Thanks to being made redundant from my photographic work at a museum I have a wealth of time in which I have set aside a good chunk of it to finally realising my plan and starting again from scratch, the Bulgarian GP at the proposed Sofia circuit.

I had very little to go off. In fact, I had but only one known concept drawing of the proposed circuit that even featured in F1 Racing magazine some years ago now. I do not know how long the circuit is (as in Metres / Kilometres) so I had to guess to the best of my ability as to its length and even the various elevation changes - assuming there are any at all!

Above is the conceptual photograph of the Bulgarian GP circuit situated just out of Sofia.

Above is my rendition of the circuit.

As you can see, it is not 100% accurate. Arguably, it might not even be 50% accurate, however since the whole thing has not gone ahead in reality, I feel I can have some more 'creative' freedom with the circuit design.

I have tried to remove as much 'Tilke' from the equation by making the corners a little more open then perhaps the concept art had originally suggested. Turn 14 (I am yet to finalise names of the various corners), which is the second last sweeping right hander before the start finish straight, is much shorter and tighter in the concept for example. I also lengthened the straights of turn 7 & 9 as I found with the concept version I was barely maxing 4th gear in a 1991 F1 car. Now it is certainly a 4th flat or I found that I can get it fairly high in the revs in 5th.

Have a good look at both pictures and see what you think. As always, my circuits are never meant to be 100% accurate, as I lack the skills, time, software and all that sort of thing that some truly brilliant game level / map makers have. I am however very happy that I have finally got it and almost ready for public release.

Just to put you in the picture as to how my skills have perhaps progressed since starting circuit building way back in mid 2009, below is a picture of my original 'Sofia GP' design as based on the same concept art shot as my version I a about to release - and this was my third (originally) track editing effort back in the end of 2009.

I sure have come a fair way! Look out for the Bulgarian GP circuit to be release to NoGripRacing in the coming days.

Enjoy!