Completed first Spice

Finished up the first Spice. Pretty good results, a bit blocky in a couple of areas and I may have mapped it a bit different but it looks pretty good in th egame. It is a bit quick, but I am not very good at .veh files so i don't know how to sloe it down. the car isn't really competitive with the big boys but I guess I am allowed to make my own reality. I have to do the low res version, and am still playing with to see what is best.
Next up the sister, 22 car, just a clone basically then the 30 and 40 cars. They do not have the skirts so I will be deleting that aspect of this model. As well they are a bit different, as I said before this is a bit of a comprimise in design. Hey, squint your eyes they look great.

Spice SE90 Mapped

Finished the modelling and the mapping for the Spice SE90. As I say it is a bit of a composite because there was no single definitive configuration i could find for vents and what not. It looks pretty good. I will construct it today, then paint the first one. I am planning about four actual cars. Two with skirts, 2 without. Even if the modelling is a bit dicey for accuracy it will be an interseting edition to the field. When these are done ... back to modelling, (I am looking forward to the break from graphics and colour), and it will be a bit of time before there will be new ones complete.

Nissan's all done.

Finished both the 23 and 24 cars. Spent some time building a low-res model by which I hoped to be able to smooth the transition a bit. It did, somewhat. I noticed that the transition was really noticeable around the windscreen so I started to build the LR from that point. It did actually yeild not a bad rendition of the full model, about 200 polys.

The other thing I did was to use the original maps and graphics for the model. I was concerned that the "double rendering", (by using in game screen shots), was causing a change in the colour of the car, shading it too much and darkening it up. The results were better, but not great. The shape is better, less abrupt, but there is still noticable transition from low to high res.

Colour was more interesting because there were still differences in the colour, although they are the same original value. I am guessing that the rendering game engine has a different process for the low and high-res. Probably a simpler one for the low res. You learn something every day. The extra, hour or two is worth it, but again this is a very old gaming engine, you can't expect too much.

In game there are now 13 cars running, and I am not seeing a perfromance hit yet on at least my test tracks. The game can handle 16, within the original spec's of the cars. It has been modded, so that some tracks can handle as many as 24. It gets a bit flakey after 16 on some tracks so my goal would to have 16 performing, additional is a bonus. I have at least 10 more cars I would like to see in the game, but we will see how it goes.

Nissan 23 Completed

Well, not completely finished. I have to do the low res version. I was not satisfied with the Porsche LR so I am going to experiment and see if I can improve. But all in all it came out pretty good. The main problem I had was that the location of some of the details made the the mapping stretch over some angles and the got a bit distorted. In game you don't really notice, but when you examine them as a 3d model they jump out at you. Following my standard approach, (squint your eyes they look great), they are good in game. I will finish the LR, and create the 24 car.

Porsches Complete

I ended up doing seven Porsches. You can't do a Group C collection of cars without a batch of 962C's. At this point in the championship Porsche had pulled out as an offical factory entry. However, as was the practice with the 917's, when the factory left, privateers took over as a quasi-factory entry. During the championship season the "short-tailed", as I called it, increasingly replaced the traditional "long-tailed", finned standard 962C. That model was still used at LeMans, probably for the areo characteristics. The model itself is predominatley an exisiting model, as I have noted previously, I merely rebuilt the rear end, then made some minor changes to accomadate some of the variance in the design. At this point various teams began to rebuild the standard 962C, mixing new parts with the standard Porsche parts. From what I understand it was mainly to stiffen what was a too flexiable chassis. I have tried to capture some of the main variations.

Joest Porsche Racing

You could probably consider Joest Racing as the unoffical factory entry for the 962C. They have a long history with Porsche and it continues today with Audi. Figure out that relationship and it would be interesting. There are three cars included in the set I have developed. The numbers 7, 8 and 9 cars in the famous Blaupunkt livery. These cars are all essentially the same with small variation in the colouring of mirrors, sun shades and some decals as was the practise within teams. It should also be noted that even between races there were variations in the livery even on the same car. In fact there are minor variations between practise sessions and the race. The models that I do I attempt to be as accurate as possible, but invariably they turn out to be a bit of a composite of the pictures I can find. In game, there exisits some very nice long tailed versions of these cars, but none of the short-tailed version, (that I know of anyway).

Porsche Kremer Racing

This is another team that has a long history with Porsche which continued well into the 90's. The Kremer porsche was designated as a 962CK6. They developed 11 cars and sold them to other teams. The main trade mark of this variation was the inclusion of skirts over the rear wheels like the Jaguar team of the day. This skirts were only used, from what I can tell is mainly at LeMans, for the areodynamics of the high speed straights. For the championship, from I can tell, they mainly used the open wheel configuration. I have built the skirts for the model and if I do some LeMans variations at the end and may do a skirted version for the game. I used the same basic model, I really didn't see too much difference, visually between the CK6 and the standard, there may be, I just don't see it. There were also vents on the rear of the car which I modelled. But ultimatley when I completed them, in game, they didn't add much value to the model so I simulated them in graphics and dropped the detailed vents.

Konrad Motorsports

Konrad was a customer to Kremer and also ran a CK6 variations. Konrad is another name in racing which has a long association with Porsche. Again there is only a slight visual difference in the number 10 and 32 CK6's. The rear wing gurney flaps have a different shape. I am not sure if was really worth the effort, in game racing, you wouldn't see it but I figure that, to me, researching and finding the difference from photogarphs is some of the enjoyment I have doing of these models. (Where's Waldo). Konrad today is more closely associated with the FIAGT series, another modelling favourite with SCGT fans, so it was interesting for me to find out a bit of the history associated with the team. Konrad usually, even until recently, retained a distinctive baby or sky blue and white based livery, must be his favourite colour or something.

Brun Motorsport

Brun Motorsport was one of the more difficult model to research for this collection. They seem to change sponsorship and livery, even going to a fin-tailed car for some races, so it was difficult to decide which one to include. I settled on the FATurbo livery, it is famous on the racing scene around that time period, so I decieded to use it as the base. When I researched the team itself, it became clearer why, Brun Motorsports was having difficulty in securing sponsership for the 1990 season and they were influx the whole season. The car itself was developed by "John Thompson". There were eight created. In a modelling sense the variations are just around the wing gurney and some little flaps around the top body escape vents. Again, I modelled them but I don't know how much value they add in game.

Richard Lloyd Racing

The final variation, which was a bit of an after thought, was the RLR, 962GTi version of the car. This is notable because there was beyond the internal changes common in the CK6 and Thompson version some real changes in the external apparence. Notably the front brake duct were repositioned to smooth out the front, a single rounded headlight configuration adopted and the rear end changes to accomadate an elonglated rear bodywork and accomadation for skirts like the CK6. Intrestingly this car had a long life moving then the US with Dyson racing and is associated with Dauer racing winning Lemans in 1994. Don't know how much of the original 962 was left by then, but it is impressive success history for a single car. The skirts again where mainly used at LeMans, from what I can see, and the rear end changed slightly between some races. The rear end variation turned out pretty good. The front headlights, not so good. The model was built to accomadate the standard square headlight covers and when I filled them in and used a mask for the new round covers, it proved to be a too abrupt transition and it produced a noticable seam. I will have to watch that in the future.

All in all, I am happy with the models. The transition for the low res model could be better and I may change them. It's not the shape as much as the graphics on the mapping. I have been using screen shots of the car and mapping them on to the low res models, sounds good in theory. However the base graphics, which are rendered through the game engine, are then placed on the model, which is then rendered again through the game engine. Basically if there is shading added on the model, it is doubled and looks too dark in the final analysis. I am going to rethink how best to do that, because the performance increase is worth the effort. I am currently running thirteen cars with no performance issues, that's good. The game can handle up to 21, depending on the track, but does start being flakey at 16. My goal is to have 16 performing well.