OCTOBER UPDATE?
In the last update I mentioned that I would be working on something different and here it is, Racing Legends recreation of the Lotus Team Transporter as used by Team Lotus between 1968 and 1971. It is currently just the body that has been done, and that is not complete yet. The image below shows it how it stands at the moment.

It proved to be quite a challenge gathering reference material and specifications for the vehicle. After eventually establishing that the chassis was a Reliance Swift (I know a lot more about old buses and coaches now :) I was able to track down an old sales brochure which had the all important dimensions. Finding blueprints for such a vehicle is simply not possible so it was a case of preparing my own from the limited reference material that I had found. The finished article is shown on the right beneath the chassis drawing.

Although probably not 100% accurate I am satisfied they are as close as I will be able to get them. The only challenge now is finding some good shots of the interior of the transporter! (If anyone happens to have such material I would love to know.)

The next image is one of the few reference shots I have collected and shows the transporter and team in the paddock  What a difference from today's F1 paddock!

During my research for the transporter I have lucky enough to come across the current owner of the vehicle. Below is a picture of the vehicle as it is today and it is looking a little sorry for itself. The good news is that the it has recently been shipped of to Classic Team Lotus to undergo a complete restoration. I am hoping to get the opportunity to visit during the restoration which should allow me to collect all the reference material needed to finish the model and to check that my blueprints are not too far off the mark.
 

The rest of the work this month has been dedicated to in-game presentation and the user interface. Over the past year I have had various goes at sorting this out and I think I have now found something that we like. Its not really practical, or very interesting to show any of this at this time so I will hold off on this until it has been integrated into the sim.

For those that may have missed it in the forums I have uploaded a couple of wallpaper images should anyone be interested. I believe these have appeared on other sites and by all accounts have proved to be quite popular so in case you are interested here they are. You have the choice of either the Lotus in the pitlane or the lotus outside the garage. Both are available in 2 sizes designed to work with resolutions of 1600x1200 and 1024x768. Should anyone desire different sizes please let me know. I do also have one designed to spread nicely across two monitors!

Pitlane

1600 x 1200

1024  x 768

Garage

1600 x 1200

1024 x 768

Gregor has been adding to the physics engine with the result being that 'motorcycle legends' is now possible :O) I not really sure how he does it I just know we are really glad he does.

There has also been some theorising and testing of some new multiplayer ideas to help minimise the dreaded lag that spoils the experience of online racing. Its early days but so far the results are very promising.

Chris has been doing more work on the inverse kinematic system and the implementing  3D into the user interface. He also have a nice new text rendering system that allows us to use any font in any size and any style. All this should make it easy for users to customise the interface to their own preference.

To finish with a number of people have asked to see more of the garage area so here is a different angle. I can't show anymore than this at the moment as the model stops just off each edge of the picture. I will show more once the builders return!

That's it for this update. During the next month we plan to get the user interface up and working and I hope to get some more done on the transporter.

WHATS NEW THIS MONTH?
Time for another update. Its been a really good and productive month and it is so nice to be back working. Having said in the last update that I wanted to do more on the 312 the reality is I haven't been near it. Oh well. As the images below show its been more work on the 49 and especially on the engine as well as the start of something new.

Racing Legends will feature various 'diorama' areas. We have ideas for a number of these areas eventually and the accompanying images show the current progress on one of these areas. This is the classic courtyard scene. This is where all off track work will be based. Initially a lot of the garages will be empty but as you add more cars to your collection each will be allocated its own garage area and the various cars can be wheeled out and inspected at anytime. When all the bays are full you can transfer some of the less used cars to the storage area to make room. There will be workshop areas where the cars will go to be dismantled, inspected and race prepared and somewhere to display all the trophies you win.

Selecting a car to go racing with will be a case of opening the doors, wheeling the car out and having it loaded onto a transporter to be taken to a track. Obviously you don't have to go through this procedure if you don't want to but its nice to have the choice. Imagine the scene as you roll out your latest addition, the crunch of tyre on gravel, the sun gleaming off the freshly polished paintwork, the transporter waiting! Definately a photo opportunity :)

Next we have the DFV again. A lot of work has been done refining and tidying up, however most of the work has been on the workings of the engine. We now have all the major components of the engine modelled including gaskets and seals and these are ready to be linked together. When done you will be able to watch the engine in action. There are few bits to do, mainly the fuel system but its very nearly complete now.
 

This all goes with the idea of building proper race teams to get the most out of Racing Legends. Different people seem to enjoy

Having the components of the engine modelled gives the engineer a visual system to service the engine. Individual components can be removed, inspected, fine tuned and then reassembled.

Each component will receive wear and damage depending on the driving style adopted during races which will reward careful drivers and penalise those who are harder on their machines.

I think it also interesting for people to be able to learn how these cars were put together and how they worked. I also believe that it adds to the realism of the sim knowing that you driving more than just a 3 dimensional shape with pretty textures and might prompt drivers to take more care of the machines.

On the programming side its more of the same. Every update I ask Chris what's been happening in this area of development and every time the answer is sooo dull that I find it difficult to jazz it up to make it sound sexy so this time I am not even going to bother.

What I can say is that whatever it he is doing he is very happy with and apparently it is all going to make our lives an awful lot easier later on, which I think is a good thing. The time will come when Chris gets onto the more 'nitty gritty' aspects, the bits that have some form of visual impact which I can report but for the time being it seems to be all about systems, debug stuff, scripting code, inverse kinematics exporting and planning.

Ok, I think that's about it for this update. I am about to start on a new modelling project for Racing Legends and I hope to show you more of this in the next update. It is something a little different and unusual so stay tuned for that.

To finish off here a closer look at the dashboard of the 49B. It clearly shows the work that is still to do i.e. dial, switch and light textures and currently there is nothing to go behind these dials but maybe that can rectified before the next update also.

LATEST.
The long, enforced, break is over and we can now return to developing Racing Legends fulltime. The break has seen considerable changes in our personal and business lives and has resulted in a lot more security for both us and Racing Legends. We are now able to concentrate on developing Racing Legends free from all the stress we had before.

Can I also take this opportunity to restate a previous comment. There seem to be a number of people who, for whatever reason, take exception to what we are trying to do and take it all very seriously. We are absolutely the first people to say that Racing Legends should be taken for what it is currently and that is simply words, pictures and promises of what we hope to deliver. And words mean nothing, some of the pictures are quite nice I feel, but again mean nothing. Until there is something to try Racing Legends will continue to be words and pictures and should be taken that way.

There are those who don't believe we can deliver what we say but the fact is we believe we can and with the sale of our house we have staked everything upon it. Unless we try we shall never know and the only people that stand to lose anything, at the end of the day, are ourselves.

So on to what we have been able to get done since the last update. The cockpit of the Lotus 49 is progressing well. Below we have an in-car shot showing how it looks at the moment. The dials still need individual textures. the battery needs to be connected, the dash has no back and there are currently no pedals but thanks to Goodwood I now have some excellent reference shots of all these features so they can soon be added.

And whilst on the subject of Goodwood may I take this opportunity to thank all those who allowed myself to crawl all over their cars, and especially to Colin Banstead (I hope I have remembered that correctly!) who removed all sorts from the 312PB so I could get the shots I needed.

The next image shows the entire 49 tub, make a nice controller don't you agree? The tub is about complete save for a few small details. The inspection hatches need to be finished, the roll hoop needs some mounting plates, more mounts required for the water pipe down the sides and some brackets are missing to which the rear suspension is attached.

The main jobs now on the 49 are the front suspension and cooling system.

More work has been done on the motion blur system. In a previous update I mentioned that we have a progressive motion blur in Racing Legends. We have added to this to allow us to blur not only the textures but the objects as well so we can have 3D rims that look correct as the car speeds up. Below are some stills that I hope demonstrate this. If you look closely at the spokes of the wheel you should be able to see that in the first frame they are modeled and have depth but as the wheel speeds up these spokes become less visible as motion blur takes over.

Chris and Gregor have also been progressing in their areas. Gregor has been working on 'chassis flex' which is an important and often overlooked part of the cars handling and has also been optimising the core physics engine.

Chris has been developing the lighting system to provide more realistic lighting and to permit real-time lighting so we can have time of day and weather effects.

In the upcoming weeks I am keen to do more on the 312PB. I love this car and as can be seen from previous updates a lot of work has already been done on this car but it came to a halt due to a lack of decent reference material. I now have all the reference I need to complete this car and think it will provide an interesting comparison for the Lotus 49B.

The test track is also calling and I hope to get some more done on this soon.

On a sadder note I must post that Spooky was run down and killed earlier this year. He was a great character and had become quite well known in the community.

I think that is about it for now. Its nice to be back at work and doing what we enjoy. As promised normal service can now be resumed. Thank you for your patience.

GRAPHICS
Lots of little bits and pieces this month and unfortunately some of them not graphic related but I have managed to get some more done on the Lotus 49B. I have the cockpit in and almost done.

Here is a view similar to the one in the last update. As ever please ignore the flipped texture :O)

It currently needs more textures for the dials, switches and indicator lights and also some pedals and proper seatbelts. The battery needs finishing and there is all the ‘behind dash’ detail to be included. That will then only leave the front suspension geometry and some more work on the engine remaining to be done. As I mentioned in the last update after all that comes the rigging and preparing for inclusion into Racing Legends oh and I mustn’t forget a general tidying up, a polish and a few finishing touches. Great fun :O) 

And here is a larger version of one of the images from the last update.

After a number of abortive attempts to design a proper logo and the in game presentation I think I may have finally come up with a look and feel that I am happy with. I am going to live with it for a while to see if loses its appeal but if all is well then we can draw a line under that particular task.

The designing of the logo was bought about from the need to start thinking about the GUI (graphic user interface) for Racing Legends and you cannot do that until you are happy with the way it is gong to appear.

Chris is about to do more work on the GUI so it was important to get a style finalised, well nearly finalised, there is more work yet to be done on it.

I think the following few weeks will see me working more on the presentation of Racing Legends than on anything else but I do hope to finish modeling the Lotus.

A couple of shots of the right rear upright, brake and wheel assembly. The left shot shows how it will appear at rest and the right image is at speed. There will be a number of graphics to represent degrees of motion blur and these will fade between each other to get smooth transitions. You may also notice that all parts that spin have these motion blurred textures.

I couldn’t resist the temptation of loading up Westlake and having a little play. I enjoy doing the cars but it certainly is nice to have a change. I deliberately didn’t do much as I wouldn’t be able to stop myself but  I had a little play with some textures and tried some new ideas and anyway its been a while since you had something other than cars to look at.

CODING
As ever a brief synopsis of what is happening on the coding side of Racing Legends as there jobs are a lot more involved and complicated and unfortunately do not always result in anything that can be seen but yet is absolutely vital.

Gregor is still hard at it. He has been working on the constraint system and improving his solvers apparently :O) He is also experimenting with some new ideas for the tyre model.

Chris, apart from the GUI as I have mentioned has been converting a lot of the code over to work as DLL’s. This will allow us much more flexibility and will make updating Racing Legends a lot easier. Whilst he has been doing this he has taken the opportunity to document a lot of the code. As we plan to make the engine available at some time for people to create their own add-ons it needs to be very well documented to make it as easy as possible. We are creating an SDK for Racing Legends and Chris has been busy preparing his code for this end.