I present you... GENERALLY 2! GR Spirit has Re-Awaken!

This post should've been one of the most off-topic blessings ever had. The very reason why is that this is November, and you know what kind of month November is? Writing Month! YES, that's why there's National Novel Writing Month a.k.a NaNoWriMo that's still running until the end of November. The goal there is to write a 50,000 words-long (and above) novel, simple as that if you're into writing. Though "National" might have a narrow connotation of "United States", there are international buddies who are interested and challenge themselves to write 50,000, and that international buddy includes yours truly, though my target is 25,000 which is half of the expected number, and what I write would be a fan fiction.

Sadly, due to preparations for a college event that I had to work my city miniature for such event, I had to skip days even though I promised myself to be a part of it. The more saddening moment is that I'm writing a fan fiction (yes, FAN fiction) meaning I would take a fandom to write, and the worst of all is that it is a CROSSOVER fic. And in order to not turning this crossover as failure (e.g., OOC characters, no planning), I still have to plan which characters and which fandoms and what their intentions are. And of course, what's a crossover without original characters? My idea is to make a Super Robot Wars-esque fan fiction with TV series characters in place of mechas. So, Blair Waldorf with Beam Spam anyone?

Thank goodness the city miniature turned out to be a success, albeit didn't win an award and looked a bit horrible IMO. -_-

But while this is a writing month, one person dares to STILL create game stuffs, especially for GeneRally. Though, this is not without reason, as the game, if you're following the developer blog of GeneRally sequel, will evolve to a even more addicting game than before. Here's a wet dream-worthy trailer showing the game's new graphics and an announcement for its Kickstarter's open date. O_O

New graphics might mean new features, but we don't know any of them yet other than the new tiles exclusive for the sequel (did you see those pit stop garages?), improvements of the old tiles (a concrete wall with a catchfence? Modern-looking city building? New lamps?), and all those additions (10 cars max on the grid? *o*). Furthermore, one dev member also said that the poly count for the cars in the sequel will be ten times the current version and perhaps the game would allow custom-made graphics for cars (read: skin) instead coloring the polies one by one. Did anyone imagining a tribal sticker on Maximum Tune games being put on a General car? Ehm...

Return to Trackmaking and Carmaking

Talk about GR Trackmaking, I'm currently doing a remake and an evolution at the same time on my first track released on GRIF: Al Dasein. The course is a racing circuit that's set in the middle of a desert somewhere in Middle East. Previously the track is pretty much empty with just desert and nothing else (take a note that I WAS a beginner at that time), and this time the remake will evolve the track to be better. Taking inspiration of Areen's Dubai Autodrome (and Dubai Autodrome itself in real life), the track will be promised a Dubai-styled environment that should fit Al Dasein the best. Yet somehow does anyone see the outer layout's resemblance to Laguna Seca (Mazda Raceway)?

While the past Dasein has two layouts, (which doesn't make any difference in driving anyway albeit its shape...) this Dasein will have four: Outer layout, short layout, and two other layouts with both of them carry their own difficulty levels. The inner section of the evolved course is totally revamped to compensate a different level of difficulty from the outer layout one, and of course that change comes with another idea of making a variety of interconnecting layouts, which also comes with a shorter layout fit for racing slower cars. While this is far from finish, the track would have palm trees and elevations in the future, but let's hope there's no such thing as depression so my WIP will not end up like my Monaco track. (Although I would redo Monaco with WS 200 in the near future)

While I'm making a new track for GR, I did posted on my Twitter some of my finished car models via my Twitpic and GRIF too. Shown cars on your left side (clockwise from left) were Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX, Mazda RX-8 Type-S, and Mooncraft Shiden RT/16. While I made those models out of boredom, thus defined no physics of their own as I still am curious as to how would I portray them in game, there's one car I quickly made at the time of this post:

Remember me? Your friendly electric front wheel drive friend, Prospect.R!

Yup, that's Prospect.R, also known as Prototype Sports Car Project R if you read my previous blog posts. Yet, this is no special Prospect.R as the one whose picture you see is its road spec. The Prospect.R was actually going to be a purpose-built electric-powered FWD coupe only as it was used as one of the cars for Rally The Master project (which is actually Fandom March Madness meets Race of Champions), but seeing the good reception of the car even though it had only two votes in Car of the Month, a road-friendly spec of the car is made available to the public. The performance of this car matches the ones found in road variants of F2 kit cars, preferrably Citroen Xsara and Peugeot 306 Maxi, with an electric engine exclusively-tailored to the car, branding it as one of the powerful electric-powered cars out there.

It is also implied that the car excels on acceleration due to its ability to reach a maximum of 10,000 rpm in the aforementioned exclusive "eco-friendly" engine, reaches 0-100 kmh in 4,1 seconds, has a four-speed transmission, and 580 kg of curb weight. The competition spec has PROSPECT-XXXG01 (sounds familiar?) engine inside its hood, while the road spec would have a normal road-level engine of RG-EXL39 thanks to the coordination with [R]GARAGE who are also responsible for what they did to the SST Sports. The car also has one-speed transmission and has 2K rpm lesser, thus having a lower top speed.

Rumors of Rallycross specification of Prospect.R circulates as one tuning house (name supplied) showed an interest to make a Rallycross-spec model based on the Prospect.R . Also recently a leaked hand-drawn image is shown, showing how a Rallycross specification would look like:

The roadgoing Prospect.R is available both here and on GRIF (for registered members there).

Other Non-GR Stuffs To Know

Two Turbo Sliders tracks' WIPs have evolved. Nippon Highlands is set to be released the same time as Monsoon is finished (making this release a "Double Bill" release). While Nippon Highlands is finished, all that's left for Monsoon is the lighthouse and the configurations. However, I kinda sad about how short Nippon Highlands' full course layout is judging by the 33,xxx" laptime using F1 Premium, the official Turbo Sliders F1 car. I thought it would be longer considering the layout but whatever...

Recently I've created a Google Plus account to complete my collection of social media accounts. The current matter now is whether I should open deviantART and Instagram accounts in the near future or save it for later. If you'd like to add me to my G+ network, feel free to do it, just make sure you don't do anything suspicious to my account, okay?

You may notice that the blog has a new template here. Right, I'm experimenting with the new layout so this blog would look better than it was before this template is installed. The problem is that I'm editing some of the elements inside this template, and that includes deleting things that doesn't seem fit so it still looks like a supplement for [R]GARAGE site. Speaking of the site, I'll try to update the site as I have difficulties finding time to edit such HTML5 site. Am I the only one who has fears of some GR / TS players' computers too weak for HTML5? Oh... orz

Posts about skinning would come up next. And I'm considering to post a third Inside The Mall post. The mall that I will be writing for is still a guesswork, so do wait until it's posted :p

And as a consolation prize to what could be one of the "too long" posts:

Soap opera plots are scandalous, but what happens when you focus to the bottom right of the pic?

~[R]

[R]GARAGE Returns to Turbo Sliders! It's Project TSukuba! (no typo)

With Ramadan leaving a couple of days before 1st of Syawal in the Islamic calendar, which translates as Idl Fitr day (read: month of forgiveness), and also translates as the day where we are all back to our grandparents' hometown (in Indonesia, we call it "Mudik". It's like travelling, but with a meaning :) ), I have so little time to finish my project. All following projects must have to be finished before that day, and of course, it's about GeneRally. But that's not the focus for this post, rather a new Turbo Sliders track that's a remake from a track that's used in the SCARTS series.

Yup, if you're a SCARTS driver and are reading this, you know which track it is, otherwise, it's Tsukuba Circuit. This track is a racing track located in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, with a length of 2,045km, and hosted some of Japan's motorsport events like D1 Grand Prix, All-Japan GT Championship (formerly), and Tuner Battles where tuned cars set best times possible with their tuned cars. The course is featured in many video games, with Gran Turismo 4 is one of them, and also gained popularity thanks to Best Motoring. The chicane is put there only for motorcycle racing purposes.

A moment after Tsukuba is posted in TS's Track Database, which is exactly 19th of February 2011, it found its debut in one of SCARTS's series, the 2011 Rising Star series, in which the race is titled as "Livestrong 150", with #22 racer Burnout claiming the victory. The track would be used once again in the same year, this time in the fourth race of Turbocharged series, joining Mexico City, formerly the only overseas race in the calendar. This also marked the first time SCARTS traveled outside the Americas and the crowds there enjoyed the battles of the stock car races. It appears again and again in subsequent seasons...

Comparison of the old one and new one. There sure WILL BE lots of differences.

The idea of making Tsukuba came because I loved the course since the first time I played Gran Turismo 4. The track, while it has high-speed sections, has some of the tightest turns as well. You can see there are three hairpins on the track, and the last corner requires a good speed management to keep yourself in the racing line. One mistake will definitely ruin your best run here.

Yet, the real reason for making the track is because I was spending lots of time racing against the AIs whose names are named after characters from some of the popular TV series, and to add the fact that this was done in 2010, I haven't raced Khaleesi back then... However, I occasionally raced the fangirling-imminent characters, from Rick Castle, Chuck Bass, the Winchesters, and Dr. McDreamy to Blair Waldorf, Allison Harvard, and Spencer Hastings. And I was thinking about how a race in a Japanese race course sounded like. The construction commenced moments later...

Comparing the old and new Tsukuba versions, there are sure lots of differences:

- Starting lines; the old version's starting grids are too far and the first place's grid position wasn't on the direction of the first turn (in this case, right side). It was to emulate the starting grids TSE tracks applied to all of its tracks featured in the TSE F1 competition. Plus, the start line is too far away from the actual position it is in real life. The new one will emulate the real Tsukuba starting lines, with corrected sides for the positions.
- Tire bridge; it wasn't spot-on, but granted I know how to work out asymetrical angles for a Level2Tile tile. Do remember the real Tsukuba has "Dunlop" tire bridge though. The new one can be considered as an enhancement.
- Pit lane; there aren't lines before and after the pit lane in the real Tsukuba. Plus, the pit in the real Tsukuba is somehow "quirky" in that it's got a much different shape than other tracks have which I couldn't figure out how to work it back then. Thanks to my experiences, the pit lane like that can be worked in the new version.
- Kerbs; there are some kerbs that are too long compared to its real-life counterpart in the old version. If you have driven Tsukuba, virtually or in person, you can see how the kerbs there are positioned. This will be fixed in the new version.
- Environment; the old version is a miss in that it is all desert. This because I was basing this on a Google Map finding, without looking at how the actual track looked like in other video games, especially GT4. This is also fixed extensively in the new version. HOWEVER, the old one had its point; if you read this Speedhunters article about Tsukuba Circuit, then you might know why it's all desert. That means the only problem was the "lake", which was actually a faux grass with vegetations in the old version, due to the fact that I haven't took Tsukuba full-force seriously.

In conclusion, the old version was one of my advanced-level tracks in terms of trackmaking skill with a layout based off of the same Tsukuba made in MiniRacingOnline by a Japanese player named asimo007 (you can find it here) for a purpose to quench a need to race against fandom faces with "Genki Racing Project" logo pasted on a chicane (this track isn't just Genki's anyway... :|), while the new version embodies the real Tsukuba so you have a feeling you're driving the real Tsukuba in Turbo Sliders. In fact, now you can drive an RDP-Antislider around the track!

Speaking of Antisliders, this car is made with an initial purpose of racing in Tsukuba. It is Antislider CT230R, which is heavily inspired by HKS CT230R as its name implied. The car looks like a Global GT Lights car, and has a near-simulation handling in which the car is tough to steer, which means you need a good braking judgement for taking on harder corners. You can get it here!



And to heat things up...

The course will also has two flavors with same layout; the normal version and SCARTS version, which the latter is not a public release, but for SCARTS purposes only. The latter also has a different pattern file than the normal one and has almost the same placing as the SCARTS-used one in which this pattern alteration would allow the SCARTS cars to handle better, talk about stock cars being hard to steer...

As this is finished, it'll give a new breath to the Tsukuba Circuit. This will increase excitement and realness of the circuit by massive percentages. :D

As promised, GeneRally updates. Some of my creations have received Track of Month and Car of Month nominations, though finishing in somehow "bad" places. This is certainly my first Track / Car of Month nominations throughout the course of GeneRally creations.

To remind you which ones that are "those", here they are:

Track of Month May 2013 nomination
Frappe Snowland - 13th place out of 13 with 2 votes

Track of Month July 2013 nomination
Cilandak Town Square - not yet running but it's nominated!

Car of Month May/June 2013 nominations
[R]GARAGE SST Sports Type R - 13th place out of 14 with no votes

Prospect.R ~Prototype Sportscar Project R~ - 9th place out of 14 with 2 votes

Track WIP: Monaco, part of New World Tour Tracks project

This is to be finished before Idl Fitr comes

This Monaco would be inspired by Sega Rally 2's Riviera stage. Since the project allows tracks no more than WS 180, the buildings will be limited to the outside parts only, allowing the track to have no objects that could block the view. However, this layout would change from this very WIP. At least, there's progress...

That means that building must be destroyed and worked once again...

GT Updates: GTs. SARD MC8-R, Honda NSX LM, and Panoz Esperante GTR-1 made, all cars refined

The refinements include the decrease of the "supposed ride height" of the models, in which with their old ride height on their models would make it less GT. You can compare previous screens of the cars with these screens. Granted, I put one of my made cars here so you can really see the difference :D

Compare this Skyline GTR LM with another one from this post :)

Hopefully everything is done within the deadline, both Tsukuba and Monaco... And don't forget, drive safely :)

~[R]

Cilandak Town Square GP, RIP Cory Monteith, and a new WIP

It's time to going three topics again like I did a long time ago in my old blog!
Many things happened during the fasting month of Ramadan, most of them are the loss of great figures. First, we lost Allan Simonsen, a Danish endurance racing driver whose life ended after a Le Mans crash, then following days we lost a Timezone Center at Citos and is to made into a boutique in light of its closing. Today, we lost another one: Cory Monteith, best known as Finn Hudson in Glee. If you happen to watch this series, I know what you feel and what you are going to feel: grief. Yup, this character has faced many things, including dates with that cheerio Quinn, the golden girl Rachel, and friends with Kurt Hummel.

Here's an article from New York Times about this...

Cory Monteith, who played an upbeat and outgoing young student and singing coach on the hit Fox musical comedy series “Glee,” but who battled substance abuse, was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday. He was 31.

The police said that Mr. Monteith was found dead in his 21st-floor room at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in Vancouver around noon after he missed his scheduled checkout time. They said that there was no indication of foul play and that people Mr. Monteith had been with earlier were being interviewed, but that they believe he was alone when he died. 

The coroner will try to establish the cause of death, a police statement said. 

Mr. Monteith, a 6-foot-3 performer with a youthful countenance and a soft-spoken demeanor who described himself on his personal Twitter page as a “tall, awkward, Canadian, actor, drummer, person,” gained worldwide attention when “Glee” made its debut on the Fox network in 2009. 

On that series, Mr. Monteith played Finn Hudson, an Ohio high school student and football star who initially had no interest in joining his school’s struggling glee club for fear it would cost him his popularity and social standing. 

But once drawn into the singing squad, Finn became a crucial member, sharing vocal duties on its signature cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and also sharing romantic tensions with his fellow students Rachel (Lea Michele) and Quinn (Dianna Agron). In recent episodes, Finn graduated from high school but returned to coach the glee squad of which he had once been a member. 

“Glee,” which recently finished its fourth season, is one of Fox’s biggest hits of recent years, especially with younger audiences, although its ratings have been dropping for the last two seasons. 

A press representative for Fox said on Sunday that production on the new season of “Glee” was not scheduled to begin until later this month or early August, and that no decision had yet been made about how the show might deal with Mr. Monteith’s death. 

In March, Mr. Monteith announced that he had checked himself into a treatment center for an unspecified substance addiction. He had acknowledged in an interview in 2011 that he also sought rehabilitation when he was 19. 

Cory Allan Michael Monteith was born on May 11, 1982, in Calgary, Alberta, and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, after his parents divorced. He dropped out of school at 16, having attended 16 different schools by that time, and worked at many jobs before winning his first professional acting roles in his early 20s. 

Mr. Monteith appeared on television shows like “Stargate Atlantis,” “Supernatural” and “Smallville,” then landed his role on “Glee” with the help of an audition tape on which he sang REO Speedwagon’s 1985 No. 1 hit, the love ballad “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” 

The news of Mr. Monteith’s death elicited an outpouring of grief and remembrances from friends and colleagues. 

Dot-Marie Jones, a “Glee” co-star, wrote on her Twitter account that Mr. Monteith “was not only a hell of a friend” but an “amazing” man “that I will hold close to my heart forever.” 

Mr. Monteith’s press representatives at Viewpoint Public Relations said in a brief statement: “We are so saddened to confirm that the reports on the death of Cory Monteith are accurate. We are in shock and mourning this tragic loss.” 

The Fox Broadcasting Company, 20th Century Fox Television and the executive producers of “Glee” said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened by this tragic news. Cory was an exceptional talent and an even more exceptional person. He was a true joy to work with and we will all miss him tremendously. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones.” 

According to some news reports, Mr. Monteith is survived by his parents and a brother. In an interview in 2011, Mr. Monteith had said that he hoped his struggles with addiction would offer an example to others. “I don’t want kids to think it’s O.K.

Thankfully, out of this grief, I managed to post my thoughts on my LiveJournal post (aka my fandom blog) about what would happen after his loss. Will his character find a new portrayer or change the plot line. As I browsed on one of my joined forums, one user said that the show should stop in respect of him. The only thing I said was if Allan Simonsen's family willed to continue the race after he passed away, why not? There are actually more chances and choices coming, and we don't know what Glee producers and staffs would do...

Moving on to GeneRally because I can't post too much Glee in this blog and this blog is meant for updates for my game stuffs (the former purpose is better suited to my LiveJournal and Tumblr tbh...). After some refinements, new tracks are released. There are three of them: Citos GP, and two mini track project tracks Naitodori and Karbanks.

Just as I promised....

Cilandak Town Square GP is a track I made whose WIP and article I wrote and showed in the last post. The course is described as Norisring with flooring arts, semi-technical, has long straights but focus-demanding due to its hairpins, and exciting because the course runs through the Timezone center via a right hander, leading to another turn outside where diners can be seen before heading back to the Start/Finish straight that are filled with pricey restaurants and the like.

The course has two configurations: GP and short, with the short course having less technical parts, allowing for a high-speed race like AVUS does.

Course details follow:

Complete technical data of GP and Short courses

What you will see and what you will drive...

Get your mall racing fix in GR NOW!

Then there are two new Mini Track Remix Project tracks: Naitodori and Karbanks, both are #9 and #8 respectively. First up is Naitodori.

Described as a "Night Drifting Track" located in a parking space in Japan, Naitodori is an embodiment of what it exactly says on the tin; Two Katakana words Night (ナイト - Naito) and Drift (ドリフト) formed the track's name, complete with the fact that it TAKES PLACE in Japan. Wanna Drift at Night? DL.

Last but not least is Karbanks. Again, its name is a portmanteau, this time it's "Kart" and "Banks", implying that this is might be a kart track and it has a banked turn. However, the real purpose why it's named that is because its banked turn is heavily inspired by Mario Kart 64's Mario Circuit where the banked turn lies beneath the giant mushroom as you drive there.

DL Karbanks for an exhilarating drive through the banked right hander now!

Finally, I can show you what I'm working on: Classic GTs, as in GT cars in 90s era. 90s era GTs are considered as the best and most memorable era of GT racing. At that time, McLaren F1s, Porsche 911s, and Ferrari F40s colored almost every GT races available back then, from Le Mans to BPR Global Series, and so popular that Sega fit the three mentioned games into Scud Race with Dodge Viper and later Le Mans 24 with Porsche having 911 GT1 instead of its Scud Race-featured 911.

It's still a very long way since there are tad so many cars I'd like to make. To be honest I've never done a big project involving many cars like this before, but since this is 90s GT and I loved some McLarens and F40s thanks to Scud Race and BPR Global Series and Le Mans, I had to do it, and I have to tell you I have joy working these cars.

Currently made cars are...

Porsche 911 (Elf Haberthur Racing), Nismo GTR LM (Two Le Mans 1996 entrants), and Ferrari F40 (Works team in red and Pilot Pen Racing in blue)

Porsche 911 (Advan Racing) and Ferrari F40 (IGOL Racing)

Callaway C12 R (Team Agusta Racing), Marcos Mantaray GT2 (works team), and Venturi 600LM (works team)

Those are the ones that are made out of the following list:
- Porsche 911 GT2 x2
- Callaway C12 R
- Marcos Mantaray
- Venturi 660 LM
- Nismo Skyline LM x2
- Honda NSX
- Toyota Supra LM
- Aston Martin DB9 x3
- Porsche 911 GT1
- Chrysler Viper GTS x4
- Jaguar XJ220
- Chevrolet Corvette C5 R
- Lotus Esprit LM x2
- Ferrari F40 LM x3 +1
- McLaren F1 x5
- Panoz Esperante x2
- Lister Storm x2
- Alpine A310 GT x3

(bolded names signifies that they are already made)

Well, hopefully with this loss, we can assure that Glee continues as it is with a tribute episode to Finn if the producers are to write such plot, and hopefully I can manage to have new tracks and cars. [R]GARAGE is a Garage of Creations after all...

~[R]

It's GeneRally Time! - My New Stuffs! ~edited 10/5~

Dear readers, I know the last post pertained about a Japanese Festival show I attended, with special appearances of Kamen Riders ZX, Den-O Liner, and Shadowmoon, and lots of Otaku mascots like Vocaloid siblings Miku and Kaito.

However, I will remind you that THIS blog is also dedicated to PC games like GeneRally, Turbo Sliders, and etc, and you ARE about to read my new GeneRally stuffs I've released in the past weeks.

TRACKS AND CARS

This year, I've made two stuffs for GR; a car and a track. So where will we start?

(SFX: clock ticking)


.
..
...
....
.....
......

Snow course...

Rally course...?

Wooden bridge!?

DAT TRACK!!!!???

Yup, you guessed it! It's Frappe Snowland from the Mario Kart 64 fame! I know I've made the TS version and made it look like a half-tarmac half-snow course. But this time, since my trackmaking skill in any racing game mentioned here matured, this is what I came up: a really good track that replicates the original as seen on the video game. Furthermore, this track looks better with a twist of Rally Sweden environment! Think Frappe Snowland a real-life racecourse in Sweden.

Antartica would be a wild guess, too. But to be honest, Sweden fits better, because you know one does not simply drive in Antartica. Heck, there's no Rally Antartica for that matter... :v

It's available now at GRIF! (too bad I haven't update the site, but I will!) AND IT IS NOW UNIVERSALLY AVAILABLE!

Meanwhile, there's a new car in town...

Enter Prospect.R!

 
Prospect.R, abbreviation of Prototype Sportscar Project R, is a prototype racing car with a distinctive high power electric engine that can rev up to 10,000rpm. Based on the Ford Puma model, the car is extensively developed by yours truly (or by a mysterious group I reckon?). The car speeds up to 200kmh++ and goes from 0-100 in 4 secs, thanks to its reliable PROSPECT-XXXG01 electric engine under its hood. Furthermore, you can choose between Sequential or H-Shifter 4-Speed Manual Gearing. Either way, they bear same performance values. The car also bears resemblances to Formule France, which you can google it because there aren't any English results that will pop up.

FYI: Formule France cars are cute and somewhat streamlined. They look like F2 Kit Cars for some reason, only with GT wings. They weigh less than 600kgs

It's also available at GRIF, but like the Snowland, it isn't up yet on the site. I will let you know if it's available in the next post ASAP. YOU CAN GET IT HERE NOW!

Well, that's it for now. Hope I could update my site the same way I updated my blog!

And for those who commented on my ANH4 post, thank you very much! I know this would generate a big traffic, even bigger than ever! I will keep updating some Otaku-related stuffs where possible!

~[R]