So apparently last month saw me suffering from what I may call as the Ramadan Blues, sort of like Monday Blues but in the fasting month, in which in this case I ended up spending more time on bed than on the computer, apart from break fasting with friends at some point, plus some near-Eid works like house cleaning and new clothes. Even despite promising myself doing a lot of stuffs like continuing my 3D works or stuff like that, the only finished product I managed to produce in the last fasting month is none other than the E!Online TV ship competition recap, analysis, and spreadsheet, and not even race car-related stuffs like, for instance, the Formula car I just did prior to the fasting month, or any of my Turbo Sliders projects.
No later than one week past Eid, I started to have an urge to return to the creator's desk, and I just did, simply by opening one of my existing references and tried a new approach at carmaking. It turns out doing a new approach on the carmaking, which I will explain later here, is actually fun and more hassle-free than the last time I did. Apparently, I restarted with a bang as I jot down three main cars as a new WIP of mine and actually completed one for my long-term project. Earlier before the fasting month, I did work on one new track which I was inspired after watching the first World Tour event of the FIA-certified Gran Turismo Sport Championship, of which one of the tracks used was the latest addition at that time, being the Autopolis Circuit in Oita Prefecture, Japan, and I did another car as well...
A stable progress on my final paper project means I can steal my time working on stuffs I'd like to do on the fly. 3 out of 6 chapters are finished, while three shall be waiting, plus the development of the project itself. To spoil a little bit about what my final paper would be, it's an AI controller programmed in C++ for use with The Open Racing Car Simulator (TORCS), a racing simulator slash AI development platform, used by AI researchers through papers that details the process of AI developments using different algorithms, and also works as a competitive medium in AI research and the game's community circle.
While I might not going to dive into TORCS anytime soon, I have now returned to my roots. If you remember, I "retired" from Turbo Sliders after my Indianapolis release in order to focus on my final paper project which wasn't of the said topic back then. After a change of topic, things get clearer in perspective, and the progress went on until now. It wasn't until today that I started working with Turbo Sliders once again after watching the F1 World Championship highlights video made by Silva, teased by a spotter's guide posted on the game's Facebook page beforehand. The highlights video gave me an idea to randomly start working on my WIPs again, consisting of one track and one car (with a big restructuring) for now.
Welcome to 2017! Well, it's my first post of the year, usually I'd post something about not believing in New Year Resolutions like last, last year, but with that in mind, it means that it's all about jumping into the action, and this is the said action.
Out of countless 4K WIPs I have, one apparently has finally finished. NO! Not any of the existing WIPs that I've shown here on my blog throughout a series of all Turbo Sliders posts from the first time the ability to make 4000x4000 tracks became officially possible (in 2.0.0, you would use a mod to do so), until now where my first ever 4K track is finally released to public! This marks another release after Park Avenue and Autumn Peak which I released last year in May.
That's right! Indianapolis Motor Speedway is alive in top-down style!
Enter Indianapolis Motor Speedway, one of USA's legendary High Speed Grounds and home to the legendary Indy 500 race! After a long battle against demotivation, I have managed to finish this track out, which apparently also includes some interior work which required me to spin my heads the moment I revisited this WIP. Being a track promised to replace the previous Indianapolis in SCARTS (with an addition of road course configurations suitable enough for additional SCARTS races) and promised myself that I could finish it by January this year, there's absolutely no other way than finishing this one ASAP. Plus, the track will also be confirmed to be included in a SCARTS race mid-season (as Burnout told me on Skype), so pretty much is there a reason why I had to finish this one quick, in addition to another reason I will reveal within the next set of paragraphs.
To be honest, 2016 has been a crazy year from the start. We had low-poly flying Lamborghinis and alien invasions (shout out to GKRacer @ Trackmania Carpark for this one!), to some WTF-inducing censors, some bigotry here and there, Donald Trump, and too much political drama crippling the year. But even with all that stuff, there are also tons of good things, like Leonardo DiCaprio winning Oscars.
On a personal standpoint, I managed to try out some new things and reconciled with a fraction of my past. And even I am about to start my final paper project, which means this will be my last months of college! Waiting on the horizon are a bunch of job applications ready to be seized, and the road ahead will be more challenging as I go forward.
Closest. Finish. Ever.: Will Davison and Jonathon Webb of Tekno Autosport took Bathurst 1000 victory earlier this month from Shane Van Gisbergen and Alexandre Prémat after the fated incident between Whincup, McLaughlin and Tander which effectively denied Whincup's lead as he was given a 15-second penalty post-race. (Image: PSP Images / Touring Car Times)
So, it was a hot Bathurst 1000 weekend earlier this month. The race itself may not be up to the 2014 standards but everything changed at Lap 92 when Andrew Jones's big crash before reaching Brock's Skyline caused the Safety Car period, which pretty much gave a change of pace in the race. However, there was that one move that got everyone talking: Jamie Whincup, crashing into the Jandal Man Scott McLaughlin and domino'ed Garth Tander, nullifying Whincup's win due to penalty and lodged an appeal afterwards which was eventually dismissed. Thankfully, things took a positive turn for Whincup and McLaughlin, as proved by this clip courtesy of Australian Supercars' official Twitter. The race is won by Will Davison and Jonathon Webb of Tekno Autosport, with Shane Van Gisbergen and Alexandre Prémat just tenths of a second behind, making it the closest Bathurst 1000 finish in history, and apparently, second Bathurst win for Tekno and its drivers if you also count their Bathurst 12 Hour success this year.
So much happened before the Great Australian Race took place this year, one of them being Real Racing 3's own take of Supercheap Auto 1000 event in the new update and its inclusion of three Supercars cars, namely Ford Falcon FG, Holden Commodore, and Nissan Altima (which can be won in the Gauntlet Season 9 event). the three marques with quite a history of their own in the Supercars universe: Nissan marked Bathurst as their territory the first time in the early 90s with their Nissan Skyline GT-R Group A, dominating the 1000km marathon much to the dismay of both Ford and Holden fans. Years later, it was all Ford vs Holden until more manufacturers like Volvo and Mercedes Benz entered (until 2016), and Nissan returned as well (which marked its territory once more last year, but in a different race).
But of course we have lots of Mount Panorama and Supercars being featured already in numerous games, yet something doesn't seem to kick here, and a question popped out of my mind: what if there's Mount Panorama in a top-down perspective? Like...
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.
A brief fangirl moment here: OMG MY OLD SITE IS STILL ALIVE!!!1111oneoneone!!!11!!!!
For my next entry this month, I was confused as to what should be written for my next post: The IziEditor? My Student Study Service days? Or my new TMUF Skinning project? Writer's Block is a bitch, I know, especially when once again Fashion Week took over my life once more. It doesn't help at all as I also started to binge certain web series, and the high level of obsession with female leads of those series has dropped my will to be productive.
But interesting enough, I stumbled upon my old Turbo Sliders site recently and stoked that it is still active until now, compared to my RendyTUNED site that has been frozen already (yet thankfully Internet Wayback Archive allowed me to view the site however I see fit). There, I discovered one track that I stupidly forgot to release on my RendyTUNED days onwards: Fantasy Road, a countryside track situated near a river. The track has been floating for years, and it actually was a much more decent track than the existing ones if I had to be honest.
However, Fantasy Road isn't the only track I forgot as the search for my old tracks continue from there on, starting by digging my old CDs I used to store my files on from the day I started being crazy for internet cafes. I remember making tracks with the names "Champark" and "Manggus R1", two of the default car tracks unreleased to the site but with no luck, so I decided to turn into Mike Nike whose track/car search helped me the most. Using his help, two things were revealed: Number one, those tracks are in the broken HDD, and number two and the most important of it all is Night Beach Party, my first ever NightMod track. I would thank Mike Nike for taking care of the NightModded track since it was a product of disqualified origin for TS's first ever track making contest.
It turns out that my zip files for Gran Canaria and Frappe Snowland (evidence not pictured) tracks contain corrupted files.
It has caught my attention that some certain files whose links I had provided in several places, including my site (granted it's still in construction) and my blog here contain faulty elements, including corrupted ZIPs, missing tiles et cetera. I just found out last night as I tried to drive my old tracks just for fun and it petrified me that two custom tracks were problematic as soon as I extract all the track ZIPs. They are Frappe Snowland and Gran Canaria, of which they each had one corrupted file, and the file in question is the custom track's image. Additionally, I also found out that I forgot to put additional custom tiles for Templedore as the underpass tile is missing. Despite it is not much a problem as Sliderpoint has the underpass tile, I can't condone such a behavior as the tileset is less than 1 MB and I just need to include it all along. Even my second version of Tsukuba and Snow Complex has the same missing tiles problem too.
It also turns out that this kind of "rushed" behavior also the same behavior that affected how my tracks were before my trackmaking skills matured, same with my writing in which I had vocabulary issues too, resulting in either Engrish-y writing, erroneous grammar structures and vocabularies or a hybrid of both. Yet, when I don't rush in trackmaking, I did rush in releasing the track, which is what I didn't do until recently. Those who have downloaded both corrupted tracks and those with missing tiles, my apologizes to you.
#2 Black Falcon SLS AMG piloted by Arab Abdulaziz Al Faisal, German
Hubert Haupt, Dutch Yelmer Buurman and English Oliver Webb that took
this year's outright victory in the 2015-running 24 Hours of Dubai. (Image: Autocar India)
Finally the first legitimate post of my blog in 2015! I know, it's technically the second post of 2015, I just put that for the sake of randomness. Randomness aside, though, the first wave of events have passed. You have the Dakar rally that has recently finished hours ago at the time of this post, and then there were award shows like People's Choice Awards and Golden Globe Awards, yet there also was the 2015 24 Hours of Dubai, the tenth running 24-hour race event involving grand tourers, touring cars and endurance specials, battling it out for class victory. The race was won by the #2 Black Falcon SLS AMG driven by Arab Abdulaziz Al Faisal, German Hubert Haupt, Dutch Yelmer Buurman and English Oliver Webb, with the team's other success is the 1-2 in the 997 class, with the lady luck weren't on last year's winner Stadler Motorsport's favor due to an accident that eventually ended their run with 61 laps of mileage.
Yet, the more I think about the Dubai 24-hour race, I felt that there's more to the competitors and cars than in the race alone. I mean, they almost had everything in screaming colors; fireworks? Check. Competitors with interesting traits? You can check this post. A Corvette? Check. A big number of starters? Check. Rather than posting the race recap since I didn't stay up for full 24 hours, following the good 'ol Rendy's Blog tradition, this post will be dedicated to some of the unique things present in this year's race.
Sometimes you're too focused to one thing that you ditch one that you used to love. Maybe sometimes you make something out of your interest but either you have a Creator's Block or you procrastinate things that you lost your drive to make such thing. This happens to me, ALL THE TIME, especially when it comes to trackmaking in GeneRally. Trackmaking in Turbo Sliders is easy and quite straightforward, but GeneRally's is... Well, you have limited resource and you need to use those resources to make fabulous and creative things using them like most Track of the Month winners. It's actually easy, but it needs higher level of attention to detail, especially when you're aiming for that ToM quality.
Creator's Block (or in this context, Trackmaker's Block) is a sucky thing to happen, especially to me. You know you try to make a track until you're unsure how to put those concrete walls and give them a gap so the "Marshals" can "do their job when one is off course and is to retire from the race", or how to combine those office buildings to make one-of-a-kind office building without obstructing the view of the track, or even how to put trees correctly (e.g., try to make a forest that's not too dense, use combinations between two or three different trees). All these things are what makes a track ToM-worthy. Me on the other hand, is a usual victim of this. I've made lots of work-in-progress tracks but don't know how to put those things: trees, buildings, walls, even Lmap arts (if any) or Hmap works.
World Size is also a problem; most of my WIPs have a WS of 255, which might be too big for me, so to say. Knowing that I can't do big "things" I try to shift myself to do a smaller "thing" to make sure that I'm still worthy for GR trackmaking and that I can manage to make my own track. I do make tracks but they're Joint Effort Amateur tracks. I've done three tracks for them, they are a Rallycross track ACO Park, a tropical race with lots of layouts Tropico Isle, and most recently a rally course with elevations Deepwood Trail. For your information, JEA is where six persons take part in making a track. As one decided which them they are going to make, they will take turns once one is finished, and as it's finished, Bouncebackabilty, the driving force of Joint Effort concept, will do the finishing touches and everyone will get to propose a name. Sounds simple, eh?
So the answer is found: I am going to make a track with a WS of 125, which is a small but important step as I can't finish my WS 255 WIPs, and this time, a new track is born: The scorching arid road course with undulating hairpins called Grupard. The track, to be brutally honest, isn't all special: It's composed of hairpins and elevations with four pit crews and no walls that separate the main track with the pit, but it is somehow a "GeneRally-ish" track. It's a simple, no-fuss, racing track where everyone can drive, and default cars are the track's recommendation for this track. The objects used are also pretty simple; palm trees, bushes, an occassional cactus, and sunk tires. Furthermore, Hmap works are done, both on-track and as an environment.
A bunch of Generals taking the first hairpin that climbs to the second one.
I can't even find a good description due to the run-of-the-mill nature of the track, but at least convincing them that it is set in the arid is all I can do, don't know if it's enough to satisfy everyone. However, I can assure you that the track carries a simple GR style; not much tracks are GR-ish at the time of this posting. GRIF is flooded by Top Gear (a SNES game, not the show) tracks made by B@stos, real-life race tracks, and several tracks that are more than WS 125. By making this track, I can at least give an effort to make GR-ish tracks have their stand.
"This track is good. I find good, that, when I'm right, it is compatible with v1.05. And it's so simple. (y)" -RobertRacer99
"Its a good idea to make a small track. Good to see (for me) if someone
makes a simple and "GRish" track like this. The tracks with big WS -in
my opinion- are beatiful and needs many hours to make, but not enjoyable
like small tracks. So.. Simple and efficient job, well done. :)" -david999
Though the track is far from perfect: the AI line in the second turn sucks hard Haruna volunteered via Skype in the AI line fixing. About the AI Lines, what I am afraid of them is that they would "cut" the track and run the sunk tires. You know AIs that cross sunk tires are one of those sucky things in trackmaking, right? Maybe I've developed a phobia of having AIs too close to the sunk tires when driving... Thankfully, with Haruna's help on AI lines, racing with AIs will be much more exciting, but that means it's also a brightslap too, since... Well, trackmakers use their own AI lines, right?
At the time Lanz wrote that he would love to make a new Show Event track but he couldn't because he had no idea where to place the control points. Knowing that I could figure out the CP placements and learned the track's layout, and the fact that trackmaking in TS is my niche, I lend myself a hand to Lanz saying that he can leave the new Show Event track's responsibility to me. I spent days trying to make the cleanest layout possible, and the only long delay I had while making this track is just my Typhus bed rest. After I'm able to back in action, the track is slowly showing its progress and eventually it looks like this:
Adopting the style of the previous Show Event track which is based off of the iconic Race of Champions track at Wembley Stadium (due to layout perhaps :p), I think I could pull it off with style. The placements of the sponsorships are loosely based on the video reference of the Show Event course, which is revealed to be based on the real-life Show Event which was actually held at Munich in 2012. The following screens may convince you:
I had no problems other than the minor problem of both pits, which should fit nine cars for them to watch. As this course is no Super Special stage, racing with AI is very impossible, and racing is only possible via online races where two drivers race while others can only watch. However, once again, I could pull off such thing after learning the previous Show Event track used in PTM's inaugural season. The track is now finished and is ready to be driven by some of TS's greatest drivers in the upcoming Show Event race of PTM. However, I can't release this track yet as I should let the PTM drive the track first, and the course will be released after they've done it. So, if you want to drive this track, be patient, especially knowing the fact that this track is a... *cough* Purpose-built track *cough*
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES
To conclude this post, I would like to let you know that I've participated in Fandom March Madness, an annual LiveJournal event where we vote for our favorite TV series characters in a series of head-to-head elimination battles whose concept is based on NCAA March Madness Basketball championship. As I can't let this blog be off-topic with a Fandom-related post that you might not like, you can check my review of this year's FMM here. The championship this year is filled with new faces conquering the bracket, and returning faces that tried to take their revenge for their last year's failure and some that tried to battle for repeat victories!
In the end, let me break the barrier a bit with a new DVD collection of mine...
Blame Fandom March Madness for all these :p
And one more, which is an obligatory drawing of someone special... I know I should've put this and all my other drawings to my deviantART but well...
2013 has been a tough year we passed. There were many losses of figures last year, like racer Allan Simonsen whose Le Mans crash ended his life, actor Cory Monteith, and the hero who fought apartheid in South Africa Nelson Mandela, but the loss list is more than these three, but I can't list them all, but we can make sure that we lost many figures last year. Speaking of losing figures, I don't know if this is also counted but Timezone center of Cilandak Town Square?
Because of this, my visit rate to Citos is anywhere near zero. The only occasion I would go there once again sometime is to taste a certain restaurant where it serves a wooden-fired pizza
On a personal side, last year was also one of the toughest out there. With 2 semesters of 2013 went by, I've gone through a myriad of college-related assignments as well as personal matters. One of those is the city miniature project I made WHILE I had to stay at a hospital during the days where my father was treated due to Dengue. With this condition, my making city miniature and studying for the midterm tests were a bit low-key than when doing them at home. Though "Low-key", I've managed to slay them in a good manner.
But with those bombshells came great things. Personal-wise, I've got to try some activities I was dying to join; Fandom March Madness from the Livejournal fame, which is none other than annual voting for your favorite television series characters. Despite that, the strong competition and wide scope of fans (because USA is a Fandom country!) makes it worth of joining.
Other good things also came for other things, either if it came last year, or is it a development from last year and is continuing up to this moment. Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 4 has invaded Indonesia with Puri Indah as its first destination, then Mall Kelapa Gading and then sporadically distributed to most malls in Jakarta, even other malls outside of Jakarta have their fair share of MT4. Despite the lateness and the fact that it runs on the exclusive Indonesian server (which means we can't race against drivers from Singapore, Malaysia, NZ, Australia, Philippines, and Hong Kong, but we have plenty of time to transfer our 3DX+ cards to our Banapassports, something which the international server no longer able to do) everyone is excited to have it on their nearby malls.
And then there are developments of two games that I play mostly: Turbo Sliders and GeneRally. With TS's new version is still under development and another developer's blog for GeneRally came to the net we shall see how these two games try to evolve themselves...
Updates from Turbo Sliders
Yup! It's a barrage of FIVE tracks! Due to the fact that I am months late to release those first two tracks, I decided to make three more to make it a fair trade. So what are those three new tracks beside the first two?
Snow Complex is yet another TSE-style track like no other; the starting section, if linked with the section just after the first corner, forms an oval course, but that's not it. As you traverse the forestry road, drive above the Abu Dhabi-style pit exit, and pass through a skating rink, Snow Complex offers challenging race in a snowy and lush forest backdrop.
Grant Heights is a remake of what could be named as the most off-topic course released on TS: Grandview. Sure Grandview can be anything, but the inclusion of a certain TV series in its description proves that because that series's Grandview is actually a town, not a winding road. Set in an autumn season where leaves fall to the road, you can experience sliding your way through sharp turns of Grant Heights while stepping your wheels to the "leaves", whose effect is faithfully simulated. Also unique for this course is the fact that it uses a different kind of Nature tiles.
Templedore is a latest addition to the family of default tracks, both in the TS world and mine. I was going to make a separate North/South configuration in addition to the main one, but I dropped that idea and leave it as it is. The course goes from passing the nearby lake, to a hairpin which leads to a parking area of a forest recreation center. That said, Templedore is set in a road where it links to an ecological park nearby (not seen, possibly on the left side of the parking area) with a semi technical characteristic.
Also available are the previously shown tracks from a past blog post. One with the lighthouse, and one inspired by Japanese race courses like Suzuka and Tsukuba, and both tracks bear three configurations!
With those tracks already released, now it's time for the news from the game. The new version is under development but Ande, the game's developer, has announced that there are new features in the game. Among them are an increase of tracks' size up to 4000x4000, drafting, and tire wear. The drafting feature will enable players to gain speed by driving behind their opponent's car, and tire wear is... well, self-explanatory. Both these features however won't work with AIs, especially with drafting; AIs would "deny" their drafting against other racers according to what I read on the forum.
19.07.2013 v2.4.1b
- Added tyre wear support (read README-tyres.txt)
- Added drafting support (read README-drafting.txt)
- Track maximum size to 4000 by default
- Increased the max spectator count to 40
- Added car parameter 'rotations' (min 64, max 360). Max image width is 16384.
- Added GhostAlphaMode to sliders.ini, values 0-6, default: 3, (0 = invisible)
- Added command /listtracks <part_of_name>
- Added command /mute <player> <time_in_sec> (use 0 to unmute)
- Added command /muteall [0|1] (use 1 to mute all non-admins for this cup)
- Added command /startfueladmin.
- Added command /reloadcars [0|1], sets whether server reloads cars after cup
- Added command /sendinterval [1..20], default: 5 (to adjust server traffic)
- Added command /sayadmin <msg>, sends a message with different color
- Added command /aicar [<index> <car>], resets when a new cup is started
- ForceRaceMissiles is now public (set it to 1 to have missiles in races).
- MaxMissilesPerPlayer option now visible in help texts
- Fixed StartPos in racestats.log.
-When you use -p <n> as a command line parameter (target line of the sliders.exe shortcut), you can set up controls for all the n players (sliders.ini loses them if you don't use it every time).
***This means that TS will be the first game we know that can handle as many local players as you want. So, instead of 4, now you 'll be able to set even the full grid. ***
- Added /sayadminmono <msg>, sends an admin message with font data/font11dm.png
***This means that TS will get a new monospaced font designed to be used for the statistics. It will make stats aligned and looking much better.***
Speaking about the forum though, until this post, something happened to the game's official site. The last time I visited the site, it got "Account Suspended" page, but not sure why. The site underwent its maintenance since this is posted...
Let's hope that Turbosliders.com will back online...
Updates from GeneRally
From GeneRally side, the developer blog for the sequel has made another post of theirs. With its Kickstarter on the horizon, Kimmo, one of the crews of the sequel, showcased the video of carmaking in the GR's sequel. Initially, the cars would have 400 polies limit, but it is then reduced to 200 and texturing (read: skinning) would make carmaking in GR more complex, and potentially lose its roots, since the essence of the sequel is to not only improve anything but also keep its roots the first one had.
"Cars are the stars in GeneRally. So when designing the limits and parameters for the Sequel we have had to keep in mind what makes a GR car a GR car. For me, personally, that means simple yet recognisable appearance, simple colours, fun handling and spherical wheels. The last one is the most important as it really defines a GeneRally car.
The exterior level of detail, or polycount, is being increased (as many of you know). The original proposition of 400 polygons raised emotions and this shows how important the cars’ looks are to the community. We’ve since then experimented with different limits ranging from 100 to 400 and decided to cut back from 400 polygons (which really was unnecessarily high) to 200 and we now feel it’s a good limit for the goals we have in mind. We want to increase the recognisability and detail in the cars while still keeping them quite simple-looking. We also want to enable all cars to have a floor and wheel wells, so that they can be happily flipped over/rolled, without going invisible.
At the moment cars use a system similar to the original GeneRally’s: you can assign a material for each polygon that defines it’s color, shininess and other properties. Texturing is still under consideration, but I personally fear that enabling detailed liveries and decals might take a too long step away from being a GR car, and increase the complexity of creating cars significantly – this is one of the ideas we’ll be gathering feedback on in the weeks and months following Kickstarter." -Kimmo
Yup! The sequel will be better without sacrificing its roots!
With how the tracks, objects, and cars will look like in the sequel, we are, not just me but you readers, surely looking forward for its Kickstarter funding to run. Go for gold, Curious Chickens!
Something I'd like to do this month...
With the NaNoWriMo community on Facebook announced that JaNoWriMo or January Novel Writing Month is in effect since its announcement on January, it is time for everyone to take the second chance of writing, revising, and publishing their stories, while I on the other hand will plan on finishing the whole draft of my crossover fan fiction project, and when I say "The Whole Draft", it means the chronology of the story, from start to end. Since what I'm making is a Super Robot Wars-esque crisis crossover and can't afford writing a pile of badly-written did-not-do-the-research crossover fic, I decided to study the fandoms I've planned to put in the story. The problem is that this is set in 2008 and thus uses fandoms that ran that year, but there's no such thing as "too late" on writing fan fictions, isn't it? I mean, look at how many people writing Buffy / Angel fan fictions on Livejournal despite their (the series) age.
While posting one post per month is much better than no posts at all, I still feel that I need more encouragement to have more blog posts. While last year's blog post count is better than another last year's, it's not pretty active at all. I remember when Mikasa Drawing Office, a Japanese MiniRacingOnline racer-run blog, always post his progresses often, and I followed his stuffs also. I've got links to my other social media and stuff networks but planned to make a button for each of them to make it more stylish. Even though this blog simple-looking, I want to keep it that way because it serves its purpose as a progress tracker of my stuffs and vents out of my Tumblr and Livejournal.
Not only this blog, [R]GARAGE site also needs a heavy goddamn update. I can't be bothered to be lazy in editing my site anymore, but somehow I dreamed of working in an environment where the PC I'm using has moderately high specs and good internet speed for such purpose. The "somehow hard" process would be on uploading the pictures as you need a reliable internet to avoid upload errors, and the fact that uploaded pictures don't render transparencies (like in some *.png files I uploaded there). And if I were to remake any of my site's elements, that would be layouts for separate track categories. i.e., My older tracks for Turbo Sliders are put below my newer tracks with an assumption they have their own slideshows beside them. And with "Other Games" tab is filled by the "Coming Soon" in the form of one of the Gundam models in a Ultimate Knight Windom XP game invading a Trackmania United Forever race between Super GT cars in a Coast environment track, I think it's time to split them, so you would get stuffs from my other games like TMUF skins and custom UKWXP pilots, not to mention others like GTR2 (SKINS!) and much more PC games that allows customization.
Lastly, updating my Tumblr and my Livejournal is totally mandatory because Fandom March Madness 2014 is on the horizon, just like twelfth-grade students with national exam (how they call it in Indonesia). The problem is I had a First World Problem moment when uploading gifs for my Tumblr where it always show "Error uploading file". However, tons of other Tumblr sites show how to make their gifs uploadable while sacrificing some colors. Livejournal-wise, I was too dependent on trying to blog a series. The last post would be my post about a certain Australian TV show featuring a strangling controversy (Got triggered yet?), and that I saw an LJ friend's post about her everyday life and the fact that I CAN post on mobile though with limited functionalities, I facepalmed myself, but this year I'll try to update myself! But with a catch that my Livejournal posts cannot be the same as this blog unless it's about Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd racing in Le Mans.
While this month would be a temporary stop for releases of TS tracks and finishing Al Dasein 2013 in exchange of drafting my fan fiction's storyline, I will write a blog post about other things in between my drafting activity. So the to-do list for this month includes releasing Turbo Sliders tracks while keeping a track of its site's maintenance (checked), finish Al Dasein 2013, and updating my site, my blog, and my social sites, with storyline drafting on the MAIN priority.
But not like they're my resolutions though as I don't want to have resolutions other than 1366x768...
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:
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?
A course that passes the coastal beach's lighthouse, something TSE has never been done before...
Monsoon International is a race course situated in a tropical beach of Indonesia, located near the lighthouse. The course features a series of turns and a chance to drive past the coast's lighthouse at the hairpin. The course would have three or four configurations however I see fit. The idea to make this track comes as I wanted to make a TSE-style track and try to make something different. Furthermore, the lighthouse IS the track's mascot like some TSE tracks have like in Roaring for example with its "Lion" mascot.
Nippon Highlands
East and West!
While the name already hints the Japanese race course theme, the course is anything but finished. There are lots of things to do to the track like kerbs, objects, terrains, runoffs, etc. Other than that, the course is heavily inspired by numerous Japanese tracks like Suzuka and Tsukuba,
MAXIMUM TUNE: FINALLY ABLE TO TRANSFER IT TO MT4!
With yesterday being a bitch due to no lecturers present at my university, it turned out to be a luck of my answer of some of mainstream, mostly rename with SSS, rally cars SF-RL as it underwent 10 more stories in the chase of the Full Tune. This also marks the end of my 3DX+ days as I move on to MT4.
So long 3DX+! Vielen Danke for everything!
That means due to the nature of the mall's location being TOO FAR from my home, and Pondok Indah Mall, my nearest place for MT-ing, would get MT4 in a couple of months, I decided to stop playing MT for awhile and focus on several projects. Though if you (Indonesian readers only!) are reading this, my ghosts are available for revenges. And no, by "Revenge", I say no relation to Emily Thorne, not even the Graysons. VICTORIA GRAYSON CAN'T SPEED FOR GOD'S SAKE~!!!
For your information, I got lost when I went to Puri Indah from PIM. Yeah, seriously, I'm not lying. I relied on GPS until I found out that, while there IS a faster way to get there from PIM to Puri Indah, the GPS kept picking routes that are... false. Sometimes it leads to unexpected locations, but no matter how fishy the ride there, I finally managed to get my both cars to MT4. Both are Nissans, and probably those who read this might suggest me to do R35. :lol:
Compared to how it looks on 3DX+, the red color is noticeably fitter for S30. Looks like it IS truly a Safari Rally Car jejeje
Available Ghost Search Codes: MAAB8E (R34) and MKXF4J (this car, S30)
And now the only thing that would keep me away from this blog is the upcoming mid-semester test. Hopefully I could slay the mid-term without flaws.
Looking at the title, you know that Project TSukuba is still running. Unfortunately I couldn't finish both projects before Eid'l Fitr day as I visited so many places, all are family places (relatives' house, grandparents' house, you name it...), celebrating the spirit of aforementioned day; the day of the glory, brotherhood, and forgiveness that is... :)
Despite late by WEEKS that I just get ahold of my laptop once again after days without it at night after I got home from my grandparents' house, which is very far away from Jakarta, and worked a little bit on my Monaco track. Sadly, I thought to myself that I won't be able to finish it within hours given that it's far from complete and I have doubts of what kind of Landmap texture that can replace those white placeholder terrains and Height map that fits Monaco well...
Working on the Height Map and finding the suitable textures for the cliffs, as well as taking the "accurate" layout but horrible pit lane into account. Trigger Happy (formerly Ivo Porc if you remember from RSC forums era) suggested that I would need to either move pit crews closer to the tarmacs paved pit lane or to make walls bordering pits diagonal instead of 90 degrees. However, I worked another layout and understood that with this accurate layout and small world size (Remember! This is a New World Tour Track Project which required me to have a track no more than WS 180!), it'll look too horrible to be driven, even against AIs...
Still, depressions about HMaps and LMaps aren't over. I've tried to think how to make the track have a Monaco Street Circuit feel albeit the fictitious layout whose inspiration came from the last championship track of Sega Rally 2. Until weeks later, I played with some existing textures and played a bit with the WIP until I get this:
Unfortunately, because it is long overdue, and I have had too many difficulties on how I could work it after all those depressions... Sorry puttz, but this track has past its deadline... However, this last state of my Monaco will make sure you won't cry with nothing...
Sadly, after a long time, I have decided to call quits on my Monaco.
It's just that I've been in too many depressions as to how I could make
it look like a proper Monaco, with all those Hmaps, cliff textures,
objects, etc. The thing is that as I'm hit by numerous depressions and a
number of family matters and other projects, I don't have passion to
continue this track anymore. Plus, it's totally way OVERDUE...
Meanwhile for Tsukuba, the construction had to get hold for awhile. Not that it was unfinished, but after I added a parking lot, I was considering about adding tiles like TS cars and persons tiles. Yet, since it was 90% complete, I thought that I lower its construction priority a bit so to give way for my Monaco to be finished.
Japan's Temple of Speed is finally reborn on Turbo Sliders!
And now I've filled more than 85% of the parking lot throughout the track with default TS cars, and there are dby's "Persons" tiles even though they aren't that dense. And now, the track is set and ready to drive after weeks of waiting! Though I'd like to point out that it's kinda hard to have variety when putting different TS cars tiles adjacent to each other, which you need to consider the color and the model. You may not want a different car with one color being a majority on one parking spot, so does not want different colors but the same model (example: assorted colors of Antislider in one spot). TS Trackmaking is pretty easy, but you need to live up things to your expectations to achieve great tracks.
Download the new Tsukuba Circuit now! (1,77 MB) - SCARTS version will be made in a SCARTS race upon discussion with the organizer(s). Take note that I don't bother to upload it to TS's Tracks Database since I was experiencing errors back then when I tried to upload a track... :v
Back to a GeneRally-related topic, I've returned to the GR Competitions scene where I joined Lukeno94's GR Touring Car World Cup, a competition pitting AWD, FWD, and RWD tourers of different background. Team [R]GARAGE is formed with me driving the mighty, my favorite, Peugeot 306 Maxi Kit Car. It turns out that as I posted my application, my countrymate resir014 hops in the team's seat, driving the same car, and repeating what could be named as an "All-Indonesian Racing Team" campaign in a season of GeneRally Rookie Cup dated years ago...
That is before I read Bird's post which is posted AFTER resir014's. Talk about forgetting a new teammate... D'oh! Although not "All-Indonesian", Team [R]GARAGE suddenly becomes an "Indonesian-based International Race Team", with motto "International Team, Indonesian Taste."
...or another way around like... "Indonesian Team, International Taste"?
All Team [R]GARAGE drivers drive the 306 Maxi with a livery base shown
aside of red-painted polies, allowing for custom driver colors for all
drivers including me. Shown here are my player colors.
Well, this "GR Touring Car World Cup" thingy will be posted in the next blog post(s) as I have to drive the whole season first. :)
And for what will come in the next posts are:
Something that's new since the last time I do it...
Something that every Indonesian has waited for, literally, a long time...
And something that's really new to me...
As well as something that's... not really new but first time I posted this online...
Whichever comes first actually :p
Meanwhile check my Fandom-loving self in both my tumblr and LJ as you wait for me to talk about those things! And don't forget, visit [R]GARAGE's site!
