Shortly after the release of Grand Prix Legends the sim racing community looked forward to another title that promised to offer a similar insight into historic racing. Trans-Am Racing ’68-’72 ultimately never released, a victim of a publishers shady dealings, but as a part of my research I uncovered a VHS of a never-released trailer for the game. Watch the trailer and read about what sim racing missed out on.
Video game development is rarely about one man, but if it was, then Terence Groening should certainly get a mention for his contributions to the genre as the man responsible for the physics of Sportscar GT, EA’s PC F1 and NASCAR games of the early 2000’s, rFactor, rFactor 2 and every title and rFpro simulator that spawned from ISI’s engine.
This interview with RSC details his early life and career, through to him joining iRacing in 2021.
In an announcement on the official LFS forum, lead developer Scawen has previewed some upcoming changes that will enable mod support for owners of Live for Speed S3.
The selection process for mods are quite strict:
– No real car names or logos, unless permission is proved during the submission process.
– No meshes converted from other games, unless permission is proved during the submission process.
– Model sizes limited (e.g. triangle count and texture size) so the mods are quick to download.
Read more at the thread linked above, or check out the background and basics of the new system quoted below:
We have always wanted to support mods because of the huge variety that becomes possible. We thought it could be done after the new version release, with the new physics. That would have been ideal but there is a lot of demand for mods and we started to look into it this year.
At first we started thinking about simply allowing VOB mods, with some restrictions. But it would of course be better if we had an official way to edit and export mods. So I experimented with some changes in the current public version of LFS, to the point where it could load VOB models saved from our development version. It was immediately obvious that it would be too restrictive if we only allowed VOB mods on existing cars. So I made more changes to save fully edited vehicles that could be loaded in the public version.
As a standalone model and vehicle editor was proven to be possible in principle, we got more serious about the whole thing. We started working on a mod submission system, with mods stored on our website and automatically downloaded in LFS. With the new system, you can visit any server and see new mods there for the first time as they are automatically downloaded like skins.
To make a mod you can build a model (3D mesh) directly in the LFS modeller or start by importing one from another program, e.g. Blender, then make adjustments and apply texture maps within the LFS modeller. To create a driveable vehicle with your model, you could either start from scratch with a new vehicle or choose an existing car as a starting point. Adjust wheel positions, mass, suspension, engine and so on. Test the mod in your public version of LFS then export and upload it to our website. Reviewers will check it follows the rules and approve / reject / request changes. When approved, the mod can be downloaded in LFS and used online.
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