| GT Racing 2002 Facts : | ||
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| BHMS: When and how was Sim Bin Development Team formed? Who was/is the father behind the idea and what was the purpose for forming this team? Eric Boosman: The history of GT Racing 2002 and the SBDT actually starts with Sports Car GT. Marco Demontis did 3d modeling in Zmod for a number of cars for SCGT. He also did a bunch of liveries, and started the M@dFactory for distributing them. Marco decided to port his FIA GT models over to F1 2001 with help from Locutus, and enlisted Neil Walker's help for the physics. These cars were released as separate downloads, with sounds as a separate download, and the manual installation process was documented online. Not user friendly, but it was brilliant. The screenshots looked like renders and the graphics had to be seen to be believed. Shortly after, Marco started a new job, which took all of his spare time, and he dropped out of modding for a time. Around this time, Ian Bell started a little website called "The SimBin", along with Stephen 'Rousseau' Smith. This site was dedicated to racing sim news and mods, and drew a small group of talented, mature individuals. A perfect breeding ground for the SBDT. After the initial FIA GT mod release there were big physics modifications by Doug Arnao. Ian had a good bunch of setups to offer, Neil created an installer, and Eric Boosman added a complete menu screen set along with a custom game icon. This was released as the FIA GT mod V2. Shortly after the V2 release, Eric completely repainted the JMB-Geisse 360 textures with double resolution, following in the footsteps of Ralph Hummerich's high resolution F1 textures. Daniel Karlsson quickly followed suit with the Italtecnica 550s. Eric then created high res layered Photoshop templates for the viper model, which was used for the three Paul Belmondo Racing vipers, then released to the community. It was around this time in March 2002 that the SimBin Development Team was formed by Ian, Doug, Eric, Rousseau, Bramzel Knot and Neil. Work immediately began on the FIA GT mod V3, with the goal of making it a revolutionary complete package, unlike any racing mod before. Ian started out initially coordinating the efforts as a project manager, and hosting a private team forum. Sean Vollmer was immediately brought on as a master track creator from SCGT days, and David Driver joined as an experienced track texturer. Bram was an invaluable resource for gathering information and reference photographs, along with having an early talent for car painting, which was evidenced in his beautiful porsche 993s done for GT Racing 2002. There was only one definitive guide on the web regarding how to add a custom team to F1 2001. This was Locutus' guide. Locutus was also the author of MAStudio2001, the tool with which we could write and extract from ISI's MAS file format. His programming skills and insatiable curiousity to see how things worked and broke made him a must-have addition to the team. Many of our tools and most of our understanding of the game's programming has come from his work. Marco finally settled into his new job, and got back into the scene, and was of course expected to be part of SBDT. He started adjusting his models to fit real world dimensions, tuning the cars' meshes to be more accurate, and began work on the brand new Diablo GT. Gabor Palko joined the team after displaying his talent for normals tuning on the incredible Porsche 993 mesh, which sadly, didn't make it into V3. This didn't stop him from fine-tuning the normals on the rest of the carset, really making them shine. Stephen Viljoen had been creating night and dusk variations of the original tracks, along with creating works of art with the car's projected headlights. How could we not invite him to join? He proved to be an invaluable asset when it came to final packing and bug fixing, but his real claim to fame was his multi-point environment map system. This allowed individual mesh pieces to be assigned separate environment map textures, allowing for realistic glass, and bright chrome rims, while maintaining a modest, realistic body reflection. Jan Frischkorn was brought on early for his beautiful Larbre Competition skins, but school and work dominated his time, so he had to leave the group until work on GT Racing 2002 was well under way. He's come back with a fire that can't be quenched, and he works like a machine, branching into every area of the mod creation, just short of modeling, and has been heading up the work on the forthcoming patch for GT Racing 2002. Daniel Karlsson was working like a factory, churning out hi res skin replacements for many of the cars. It turned out that he did more than half of the grid of cars for V3, so how could we rightly not have him in the team? His seemingly endless passion for painting makes him an irreplacable member, and his dedication to improving his technique keeps his quality improving where it seems improvement is not possible. Darren Barrett had been reworking some menu functions for more compact car setup screens, and more detailed game options and made a perfect addition to the team. He ended up developing a car browsing menu system which showed detailed information that the original game couldn't touch. Perfect for the GT car enthusiast. He's ended up being invaluable with his work on GT Racing 2002 with the new class specific game launcher, as well as all his menu work, including live track feed. Mana Pellizzer posted some incredible extremely detailed dashboard screenshots that he had worked on, and we didn't have anyone working on the insides of the cars, so we snatched him up. He has since gone from just editing textures to doing 3d modeling on the dashes and has created some masterworks with an authenticity that the actual GT drivers have remarked on. The team now had the main components needed for a big production. V3 was well under way. Physics worked and reworked, setups were developed, all car models were refined, all skins completed in hi res glory, the new menu graphics and menu system were developed, sounds were further refined, and some night tracks were thrown into the mix. Stephen Viljoen burned the midnight oil many a night to get all the bugfixes and final changes in (of which there were many, including the new environment mapping system). Come to think of it, he burned the 1,2, and 3 o'clock oil many nights, as well. This package was released as FIA GT V3, the ultimate recreation of the 2001 FIA GT season. V3 met with much praise. It received great reviews in Italy's "Autosprint" magazine and "The Games Machine" magazine, which also featured V3 on its cover disk, as did "Giochi per il Mio Computer". Hungary's GameStar magazine ran a glowing review as well. An online matching service was setup at Relay Games, and there was much rejoicing in the streets. There were still several acknowledged problems with the game, most of which were due to the game's engine itself, especially where the tire's physics model was concerned. V3 was a great racing experience, but it did not have what it takes to convert the most hardcore simmers from their beloved Grand Prix Legends, although most allowed themselves a nice 'break' from GPL. Armed with a new physics engine in F1 2002, and a host of improvements suggested by the community as well as inside the team, the SBDT attacked the development of GT Racing 2002 with a bright star still in their eyes. Doug had an early beta of the F1 2002 physics engine, and immediately began work on tuning the physics for the GT cars, as well as helping to refine the physics for the F1 game. Work started flooding in. Car models were again reworked, most from scratch, brand new models were included (the 996 gt2 turbo, 993 gt2, Marcos LM600), all 2002 FIA GT liveries were recreated with meticulous detail, surpassing that of V3. Music, sounds, dashes, menus were worked into a completely new look and feel, brand new tracks were added, having been converted from EA/Milestone's Superbike 2001 with the blessing of the original track author. New track textures were done utilizing the new multitexturing capability of the F1 2002 engine. Early screenshots were met with much approval and admiration. But our GT cars weren't the only previews receiving accolades. There were also a few rendered shots of some 1977 F1 cars that were quietly posted, and news of this spread like wildfire. These cars were done by Perran Truran and Martijn Haans, who were talented modelers and painters, but lacked the knowledge to get their beauties working in the game. Having been impressed with V3 and needing some assistance, Perran and Martijn approached the team about a possible combination, and they were welcomed into the family. GT Racing 2002 was well under way by this time, so Perran decided to temporarily halt 1977 work to create the awesome Marcos LM600. The only thing we lacked at this point was an announcer to call the driver names. Aaron Brown was brought on for this duty, but real life got in the way of his finishing the recording in time for the release. We brought on our latest team addition, Rick "Vince Klortho" York to help with website maintenance, and it turns out this professional C++ programmer has many more tricks up his sleeve. Work continued steadily on GT Racing 2002, and just as with V3 there were new additions and fixes up to the last day. Everyone really pitched in to bring GT Racing 2002 out, but Marco remained a driving force, and put in near full time hours to make everything come together. GT Racing 2002 was released on schedule (no mean feat!) to huge critical acclaim and adulation. There were 8 high bandwidth servers pumping out this 265mb behemoth, all of which were brought to their knees, as the near 80,000 downloads were requested in the first 24 hours. To date, well over 200,000 people have downloaded our magnum opus, with more joining the fun every day. It has spread to far too many servers for us to keep track of, all over the world, and can be found on nearly any peer to peer file sharing system. Everyone seems to love GT Racing 2002, from the novice Need For Speed arcade racer learning how to let off the accelerator, to professional racers. It has even claimed casualties from such GPL devotees as alien racer Greger Huttu and Alison "Eaglewoman" Hine. The sim racing community has really taken up the banner, and is no longer modding F1 2002, but GT Racing 2002. ... and we're just getting warmed up. BHMS: How did you go about selecting the team members? Eric Boosman: First we subject them to a number of humiliating litmus tests to find their exact PH levels, then this is averaged along with their FSD (farthest spitting distance) and we choose the top performers. Seriously, though, in the beginning there were only a few of us with common goals, and we had been working together as an 'unofficial' team for a couple months, and decided to give ourselves a name under which to produce future projects. Currently, the way we select new members is a little different. Most of us keep a fairly close eye on all of the race mod communities (racer, NFS, F1 200x, etc). We watch for someone that produces great work, works to find answers for themselves, and presents themselves in a friendly and respectable way (sense of humor a plus!). If we like their work, and can use an extra hand in their area of expertise we will contact them and offer them a position in the team. If this is accepted, we will put it to a team vote so anyone can veto the decision for 24 hours. Barring any reasons one of us has to admit someone, they will be brought on. BHMS: What is the background of the main members in the team? Eric Boosman: First of all, there are no "main members". We are a round table, and everyone is given equal input, and holds equal importance in the team. Some of us do project management, but that's more an organizational thing, than an importance thing. After all, we're all paid the same (not a thing!). Our backgrounds vary widely. We have a few university students in our midst, a few professional graphic artists, a couple professional software developers, a couple professors, professional race suspension tuner, an architect, and a few small business owners (entrepreneurs). All of us have a background loving race cars, though.BHMS: Who came up with an idea for the GT Racing 2002 Mod and why exactly this racing series? Marco Demontis: GTR2002 is born as a "son" of the original FIA GT for F1 2001. I would say that a GT mod for EA's F1 was originally my idea. I've realized by myself (with help from Marc Aarts and Turner) the first even GT mod exited for F1, the FIA GT Mod V1. Then I entered in the Simbin and we started to develop the updates for this mod, until the lastest one developed for f1 2001, the FIA GT Mod V3. Then, you already know the story for GTR 2002.... Why GT? I was always a fan of GT racing and each time the circus went in Monza for a race I was here, in the "prima variante" or at "Ascari". When I've decided to develop a GT mod for F1 (more than a year ago), I was known as a modeler/painter in the SCGT community. BHMS: What made you decide to do this mod using the F1 2002 game engine? Jan Frischkorn: The F1-200x series is the only game so far which offers a highly editable engine and convincing physics. Especially the F1-2002 physics are much better than the older releases of this series and offer a lot of new parameters for convincing closed wheel cars. Marco Demontis: The main reason is the better engine and the better AI! BHMS: When did the team start working on the mod and what were the 1st steps in development? Marco Demontis: As I said, GTR 2002 is born starting from the "old" FIA GT V3. So the first step was making the graphical update (3d Meshes and paintings) for the cars already present in V3. The developing is started approximatively in late may. BHMS: The 3D car models are great. How were they modelled and what is the average poly count for them? How did you draw the line between quality models and fast frame rate? Perran Truran: The poly counts of the cars are very low compared to the original F1 2002 cars; a balance was made between the very high texture resolutions and the low poly count to give a comparable performance to the original game. All of the cars were modelled in Zmodeller apart from the Marcos which was made in 3dsMax (and converted by Marco from Zmodeller) Marco Demontis: This is a good question! We have always used blueprints to perfectly match the 3d models to the real cars. Then we have resized the cars to match with real dimensions data like wheelbase, overall lenght and width etc. The main meshes are usually approx. 3500-4000 polygons "all inclusive"... The hardest step while developing a mod like this, with more than 30 cars on track in the same time, is to gain a good compromise between polycount/framerate and a high quality model... Everybody that knows how to use 3dS Max or Zmodeler is able to model a great mesh using 8000-10000 polygons... the hard step is to make the same using 4000.... BHMS: There are 8 new tracks in the GTR 2002 mod which were converted from Superbike 2002. Tell us all about them. How were they converted? Did you guys get a permission from Milestone... Sean Vollmer: With the exception of Mugello all the tracks were converted from Superbike 2002. I can't supply much info about the conversion of the SBK tracks but what I do know is the following... A converter was used to convert the SBK meshes into a Lightwave file and the Lightwave file was run through Deep Explorer and exported as a WRL file. This WRL file was then imported into Max using scripts that Neil wrote which automatically changed all the materials to Multi/Sub-Object. Once the work in Max was completed the meshes where then exported using the original ISA Max plugins to export as MTS files. Perhaps Marc/Ian can supply more details about the SBK tracks since I was working on Mugello while the rest where busy with the SBK tracks. I will concentrate on Mugello. Mugello originally came from GP500 which I converted to SCGT about 3 years ago. Bobi converted the track using Zmodeller with the idea of getting it to work in F1 2001 and sent it my way to be worked over. It was decided that I would work with the meshes in 3D Max and David would redo the textures. The main problem with the track (as far as the meshes go) was that the rumble strips where way to wide, so I set about recreating narrower rumble strips and added some height to them. Once this was completed the next step was to work on the barriers. Most of the barriers weren't double sided and I then set about updating the barriers. About this time F1 2002 was released and we now worked towards doing Mugello for F1 2002. The project was nearly dropped due to various reasons/problems but thankfully along came the F1 2002 MTS plugins for Max which was a blessing as they solved all the problems I was experiencing with Zmodeller in the export process. With renewed enthusiasm I set about the track again concentrating on redoing the pit buildings and making the pit garages to accommodate 36 cars. The next step was to add in multi tex's which F1 2002 now supported and most of this work was done by Locutus and David. While this was going on I started changing a few things on the track so as it would remotely resemble the real Mugello using some great photo's the Ian had found. Around this time the GTR mod was close to being completed and it was decided that since Mugello was just about finished it would be included in the GTR Mod, as there was an opening for one track to make the season complete. (Can't remember which track Mugello replaced) Doug was once again called in to make an AI for it and we had ourselves Mugello. Hope I left nothing out. BHMS: Doug Arnao was in charge for developing physics for this mod. Why did you choose him for this job? Perran Truran: Because we are very lucky to be able to do so! Jan Frischkorn: With all his experiences in real races and with the knowledge about suspension dynamics from his real workshop Doug is really the best man for this job. But did we choose him or did he choose us? No... We just found each other.BHMS: Where did you guys get all the data and if it is not a secret, what was the process of developing physics for each car? Doug Arnao: Being in the business I was able to secure many engine dyno sheets from Porsche, Chevy, and Viper engines throuhg contacts I had. Comparing what they were really getting for torque/HP against that are run in the LMS series. From there the rest of the engines were easy to extrapolte from. As far as the chassis paramters go, I've been into chassis theroy since I was in my early twenties. I was designing a-arm suspensions on paper and going to races measuring suspension points on some pretty high end cars over the years, then I'd write them down and map them out when I got home. Sometime in the early 80's I started building cars from scratch including a couple of tube-frame cars that were double arm front/rear. Also built a few with McPhearson strut and traling arm. I've got a few computer programs that I analyze and design suspension geometry in for my real customer work, and this is what I used to design the suspensions for the GTR cars before I put the paramaters in-game. I also used this to re-design the suspension links in F1-2002 retail for ISI and did the same for their NT2003 sim... Each car's suspension is unique in GTR2003. All the cars are double a-arm except the Porsche which use the McPhearson front strut and "5-link" rear suspension which has built in roll toe-steer. Great for the street as it promotes roll understeer, but not so good on a racecar. While I had hard numbers on the Porsche suspensions, the other cars I came up with general differences in the suspensions by looking at alot of pictures and doing my own "designing"... I think the results were pretty good, making each car feel slightly unique, and needing slightly different approaches to setup. The aero numbers again I had some hard numbers on some Porsche cars from LMS, some raw downforce numbers from rear wings that are being used on these cars... then theres is alot of info out there if you really dig, and then from there you fill in the gaps by connecting the dots so to speak. But in the end it all has to make sense - the G's, the top speed, the lap times, the feel, the setup changes doing the expected things... and this is where it takes time. Tieing everything together so it's all convincing.. BHMS: The engine sounds are great. Where did you get the samples and how difficult is to get the sound just right across all the revs? Marco Demontis: First, the sound engine is not perfect. It allows a lot of different samples for various rev ranges, but it doesn't allow to have a different sample for throttle on/throttle off (more important). BTW, we have used original samples from various car fan sites in the net, extracting a good loop where it was possible. We have used also a couple of samples made by GPLEA for GP Legends. BHMS: Programming artificial intelligence sure is a huge task. Since this is only an add-on, there was no programming involved (correct me if I am wrong), but more of changing different parameters. How difficult was to adapt the AI to GT racing and are you happy with the end result? AI cars are quite slow on starts. Should we expect a patch in the future which would fix this? Doug Arnao: Another example of how great the ISI boys are. We were fortunate to be allowed the use of their AIW editor, which was instrumental in the quality of the AI you see in GTR2002... the slow start issue is something that seems to go deeper than the AI editor, and we will probably have to live with for now... as we increased the AI cars from the F1's 24 to the GTR's 36 it got progressively worse, but I'm always finding new things as I experiment, so you never know... BHMS: How much help was there from Image Space Inc. (ISI), the original developer of F1 2002? Doug Arnao: They were very helpfull as you can see in the previous AI question. I (doug) worked with them on F1-2002 and NT2003 so I had a trust relationship already with them that I brought to the team. This helped when we were at a loss for certain problems and they were able to help us find an answer very quickly.....Along with the use of the editor were quick explanations of just about any file structures we needed... BHMS: Looking back, what was the most difficult part of development and why? Jan Frischkorn: This is a really difficult question, because everybody in the team had his own piece of work and his own problems with it. So I can't really say what was more difficult. I think the hardest part was the last weeks before release. The closer we got to the deadline, the more things appeared that needed to be improved. BHMS: Overall public was very positive about your product. Did you get and response from the publishers or other game developers? Doug Arnao: Yes. *blink* BHMS: Now that version 1.0 has been released, will you continue with development and release patches in the future? Are there any areas of the mod, you are still working on or improving? Jan Frischkorn: After the release people found several things that need to be fixed. Mostly problems with regional settings or drivers in Windows, minor graphical bugs and some bugs with tracks and sounds. Most of them can and will be fixed in a patch, which should be finished in January. Additionally we are working on some surprises for the future. BHMS: Will there be more cars, tracks or other special features such as night driving or is this more or less the final stage? Perran Truran: A TVR is on the way, as well as a lot of updates to the existing cars. Jan Frischkorn: We have already released 7 official addon cars and there are a lot more to come. The community is doing a great job on new cars, too. There are lots of community addon cars available. BHMS: We've heard you were developing shorter versions of Brands Hatch, Silverstone and Donnington which caused a few problems. Are you still working on them? Jan Frischkorn: We are working on several track projects at the moment. The F1-1977 mod will need some old-fashioned tracks and some more addon tracks for the GTR-mod are planned. BHMS: With GT Racing 2002 being a huge success, what does the future hold for the development team? Perran Truran: F1 1977! Marco Demontis: We are giving support for GTR2002 bug-fixing and we are developing various patches. Meanwhile, we have started to develop "more seriously" the 1977 F1 mod. After that, probably, we'll work on another covered-wheel mod, maybe GTR2003. |
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Comments : |
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| Author: rolfl | 28-01-2003 |
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Interresting article, keep up the good work, and I will say thankyou to the Simbin team! |
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| Author: Lans | 29-01-2003 |
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I don't speak english well, but that i want to say is easy: Thank yor very much SimBin for this job. I think this mod is the best game had been installed in my computer ever! Thanks. Lans. |
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| Author: Matt | 29-01-2003 |
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bloody awesome |
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| Author: TrakDah | 29-01-2003 |
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very good! |
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| Author: gui930 | 29-01-2003 |
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Very interesting article to undersand how GTR 2002 came up ! |
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| Author: 2re | 30-01-2003 |
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Awsome..Best wishes for the future |
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| Author: Sean_S34 | 30-01-2003 |
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Great work , Thank you for the Real Deal with Real Feel. |
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| Author: greg | 30-01-2003 |
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Bloody good work!!! Looking forward for the Legends Mod. I hope you all get offered a great deal with a big software house.. |
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| Author: Tom | 03-03-2003 |
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Great job. |
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| Author: McLowry | 16-03-2003 |
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This team has had the biggest impact on the sim racing community in my opinion sense SCGT. As with anything that is driven by passion rather than profit the results is evident . The quality of this mod speaks for it,s self. They have given thousand of us out here untold hours of quality fun and entertainment . Speaking from 58 winters this team has made one of my passion come true. My hat is off to this SBDT team and wish them nothing but the best and will continue to follow their every development daily. Thanks McLowry |
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| Author: david smith | 23-04-2003 |
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superp articles,keep up the good work. |
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| Author: trgz | 11-12-2003 |
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Fantastic mod - almost convincesme to leave SCGT behind (almost) |
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