Future Prospects for 2016

Here's to yet another exciting year! (Image: Digital Trends)

So, this is the first post of 2016 in RENDY'S BLOG. Opening up a new chapter, I am continuing some of my existing WIPs and making new ones. However, there will be changes of how I will do them as in real life I will be focusing on my Internship phase in my college before finally going to the final phase of making a Final Paper and finally getting some job. The playing field is vast, but once you have a certain focus or two you can narrow down and find your best field.

As always, I'm focusing on Turbo Sliders WIPs, but I've got some space for my skinning projects considering that the array of models since the last post about skinning has grown a lot and the roster has become more and more interesting as time progresses.

EMBRACING MORE ENDURANCE IN TS

Raining Prototypes; three Prototypes of different generations are all my WIPs. L-R: Lola B12/80, Audi R10 TDI, and Ferrari 333SP.

As soon as I have created McLaren F1 GTR and Aston Martin DBR9 which I have introduced a long time ago, I keep saying to myself that I want to expand the Endurance Universe in TS more. There are several notable WIPs that I keep working on including Ferrari 333SP and Lola B12/80, which should be worked faster but not due to time constraints in releasing my new site and I don't have an idea how I should set their respective performance figures. This ends me up with me having to arrange a list of "tiers" so that I can figure out how these cars are stacked up against each other based on their real-life performance, but the best part is that I'm not all by myself: Haruna Tsuchigami Meiko Taniguchi clearly helped me sorting out everything I need to organize the performance index of every type of Endurance racing cars, from the classic Group C (in case I were to make one) to the more modern LMP1 cars. If you are reading this, I am tipping my hat to you.

With this in mind, I also am pumped up creating a more modern LMP1 car after some drives with the DBR9: Audi R10 TDI. Yup, this is the most successful Diesel race car which has debuted in the 2006 season and quickly making waves in both European and American grounds with numerous victories including 24 Hours of Le Mans I am making. I would collect several photo references and a blueprint to aid me in making the said car, and looking at the specifications which would define its performance index in the game. The shading work is about 30% done, and I'm pursuing for realistic looks before I could slap in some notable liveries.

With the fact that I am making an Audi R10 TDI after the DBR9 GT1, you can say that I'm focusing on the mid-to-late 2000s Le Mans racing roster where open top LMPs (especially LMP1s) were still a common sight and the closed top ones were newly emerged, and when GT classes were still filled by GT1 and GT2. As a reference which cars I would make next, consider Race Driver GRID's roster of LMP1, LMP2, GT1 and GT2 cars (plus DLCs), with an added all-star guest casts from the likes of Pescarolo C60 Hybrid and Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. I could add Acura LMPs if I may to make the fray a sensational one.

With the categorization of performance index, expect an update on McLaren F1 GTR and Aston Martin DBR9 where their physics will be refined a bit. This will ensure that each category has a distinct difference or two, meaning that, of course, the early GT1s will perform differently from the modern GT1s. Physics aside, I could put somekind of surprise on a random whim.

Dubai Again; The Dubai Autodrome WIP I have made a year ago has been continued, all thanks to Tijny's IziEditor. The development is now at a rapid pace thankfully, and the references I have are somewhat adequate. Notice the new kerbs and their underlying grass lines that currently encompasses the main layout, the barrier which will be used for other configurations, and the anti-track-limit-abuse cones. To-do: grandstands and off-track access roads on the left side.

For the tracks, I decided to continue Dubai Autodrome which I had made last year but never faithfully continued until now, now that this year's 24 Hours of Dubai is about to start. All the walls for the track are done and the anti-cutting barriers (I make that up :p) are also constructed,  all thanks to Tijny's IziEditor which really helped me in making the process even more fun than in the original editor. Not only that, I have started in shaping the kerbs for the GP layout as well as the kerb grasses and finally "shaped" the green "carpets" to follow the real life counterpart. Progress aside, I'll be writing a post about IziEditor when the condition allows me to.

The focus now is the addition of the environment of the tracks, including the access roads and some stuff for added authenticity, especially as far as making the track's Marketing & Management building. I aim to make my track as authentic as possible to stand out from others, even though that this will come at the price of bigger file size in the end. This track, like in real life, will consist of Grand Prix, International, National, and Club configurations. Additional configurations such as Hill Circuit and Oval Circuit will require me to work on the unorthodox start directions. This will be the main WIP focus, with others standing in line once Dubai is finished which should be covered in the next post.

RETURN OF SKINNING ACTIVITY

'La Vida es Chula' Goes Racing; The new Team Desigual FTO STC sets its pace as my first TMUF skin, albeit several troubles. For now I don't intend to show this on Carpark but I'd rather focus on completing several parts first before posting the progress there. Meanwhile, it's starting to look like a pure race car :).

Overtime, the roster of new cars in Trackmania Carpark gets even more interesting, from a newly-updated Aston Martin DBR9 with new templates (YAY!!!) to Yatsu's numerous creations of Le Mans cars such as Sauber Mercedes C9 and Lamborghini Huracan GT3 to name a few. Not to forget, GKRacer's Mitsubishi FTO which has spawned me a main idea for my first skin: Team Desigual Castrol Edge FTO, initially made to be the "revival" of FTO's LM Edition livery in Gran Turismo by a fictitious racing team called Team La Sarthe (pun intended), as well as so many 3D versions of the car. Well, I requested a different 3D for the car and ended up having about two or three versions.

It would require a couple of custom 3Ds for each version of the said car, and my skin would see a GT wing and visual styling a la Mitsubishi FTO LM Edition seen in Gran Turismo. Fitting enough, the main idea of the LM Edition livery is taken away as soon as Shaburase created the Super Touring Car livery which I took to myself as a slap, but did spawn a Plan B which I have conceived in parallel to my WIP process: A version with color-paraded paint splatters in order to match the main sponsorship used, to which I described as "loosely based on Taeivon Trampio FTO". It's quite a challenge considering: a) Desigual uses somekind of a different paint splatter brushes; b) It has to be in certain colors (pastel, I presume?) to elevate the authenticity; c) Junctions are something that has to be worked on; and d) An "art car" approach with this texture can take hefty amount of time and I had to continue my previous WIP's legacy which was in the form of Silvia S15. Lots of considerations were being made by yours truly, but it doesn't stop me from continuing.

But when all is failed, there's Plan C: creating a skin loosely based on the one in the Thunderbolt movie where Jackie Chan drove a Mitsubishi GTO in the final race against Cougar (played by Thorsten Nickel) who drove a Nissan Skyline R32. The Plan C can be run parallel to the original plan, but then again I get to make the Skyline R32 of the said scene in order to bring some Thunderbolt flair to Trackmania Carpark after the "faux GTO" is done. Will there be a possibility of reliving THAT scene using cars that are production touring cars? That should do good!

By the time any of the said skin is finished, the TMUF section will open its doors to 2D skins, and there'll be a cool new front page background to commemorate the new addition, the same fashion as in the index section of the other games.

THE [R]GARAGE PROSPECT

The Social Media pages of [R]GARAGE hasn't progressed much from its introduction, with only a few likes and followers already. This brings me up to the next phase: advertising. The problem is that I am finding a way to advertise these pages WITHOUT having to do the "spamming act". What I am trying to say here is that I want to advertise without ending up looking like a random spam you'd see at one point on the internet. It's a creations page, not a viagra store.

The advertising plan will involve me to advertise my site to the forums with "Ad Rack" sections for starters, which means that I am eyeing the TS forums from the get-go. For other forums, such as GRIF and TM Carpark, I might ask the admins about the possibility of advertising my site in a topic somewhere. But whenever this isn't possible, there's always a chance to advertise it via my forum signature, and another alternative way in addition to the signature advertising is the low-key advertising in the new contents I post to the forums. Other than the mentioned ways above, hashtagged Facebook and Twitter posts should be effective, especially looking at the fact that 24 Hours of Dubai and 24 Hours of Daytona will be coming, meaning that commentaries for both events will be possible provided that the commentary posts / tweets are prioritized for [R]GARAGE accounts.

Plans aside, I intentionally halt some engaging posts due to the lack of followers. Once I get enough followers, I can start introducing several contents to both pages. The golden rule for this would be that the posts cannot be posted in a very short gap as it would be considered as cluttering the followers' timeline. A challenge it is, but I believe I can make it work.

WHAT TO EXPECT THIS YEAR

So there you have it, the 2016 prospects in Turbo Sliders, Trackmania, and social media pages. The following will enlist what would come for the next couple of posts here in RENDY'S BLOG.

Man on a Mission; Indonesia's Rio Haryanto is on pursuit of the coveted Formula 1 drive in the Manor team. Also taking Sean Gelael's Asian Le Mans debut into account among others, Indonesian talents have started to color the motorsport universe, and it is just a matter of time to see Indonesian drivers driving in top-level series, whatever the discipline is. (Image: Speed Creed)

The Indonesian motorsport is emerging, with a rebirth of Sentul Circuit in pursue of international recognition, Rio Haryanto on his way to Formula 1, and an Indonesian aspiring racer almost winning the coveted GT Academy Asia, and even Sean Gelael is setting his pace with his team in Asian Le Mans, meaning that he could have a potential as the first Indonesian to drive 24 Hours of Le Mans, aside from being the second Indonesian name in the top-level endurance racing (the first being Michael Soeryadjaya with his 2015 24 Hours of Dubai drive as I stated in my last year's 24 Hours of Dubai post). However, one thing that's left unchanged in the motorsport scene is the people's reluctancy of the sport, which easily explains why motorsport, even with Indonesian racers scoring good results, has never been popular against soccer. The ballad of motorsports recognizition in Indonesia will become a set for the upcoming blog post.

Along the way, there will be more TS stuffs to come which should be posted at a random whim. However, you can expect new GR WIPs as well, and something MRO-related which should be about Rendy's Carpack Vol. 2, or an update of one of my old packs. I'm also considering posting something different, like a thought of one of the other racing games for example, or even something motorsport-related. There are several things to post, but there's no telling which. The real life can influence which topic will be posted, alongside my mood.

Behold! Taylor Swift Racing is reborn!

As an added extra bonus, expect a continuation of my Skinning post series. Passionate work of the Desigual FTO allows me to also "preview" my other WIPs such as this: the new Taylor Swift Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RS(R). Still pursuing some GT3 racing models of Porsche 911 in order to convince you more that this is a GT3 race car in TMUF, this car relives the RED era scheme which I made earlier in GTR 2. I chose the TMUF model to because it's visually superb, plus with a more freedom in camera angles department in the game. However, once this looks good in TMUF, I can consider porting this to GTR 2, with Blancpain Endurance Series 2012 mod as the platform. More skins to follow now whenever possible, including the Thunderbolt ones and several other WIPs.

The 2016 assault has just begun from this point on...

T-T-T-TWENTY SIXTEEN! (Video: Ninja Movies Productions)

~[R]