| F1 Challenge 1999-2002 Facts : | ||
|
|
Recently, the Blackhole Motorsports team had an opportunity to conduct an interview with the Carshape and Texture Design Project team (CTDP) about their upcoming F1 2004 season mod for F1 Challenge 99-02. This is what they had to say: 1. Please could you just give us a quick overview of who is in the team, and what their responsibilities are. The people who are permanently [some people just wanted to help with 2004 mod, but were too busy to join us as a team, and work on our other mods] with the team are: Member name / nickname : Role
The persons who gave a helping hand in the 2004 mod:
All the others we forgot... (they can contact us and we will add their name in the credits if someone slipped from our minds... sorry!) 2. How did CTDP get started, and how long has the team existed? Well CTDP the way you know it now, existed since F1 2002 was released. However originally it was founded by Ethone, called ICP back in 2000. His idea was for a place with the best modders of the community in one group working on different projects. Unfortunately this idea failed so Ghostrider took the ICP and created a new modding group out of it (CTDP). At first there were 4 members (Ghostrider, BMWFan, Theflori, G.E.R.). We created carshapes for F1 2002 and implemented them in the RH Updates (with permission). Our first big Update was the well-known 1995 MOD for F1 2002. We worked on carshapes for F1 RC and Gp3/GP4 too, but we stopped working on these games because they weren't really friendly to edit. With the release of F1 Challenge 99-'02 we started our first big project, CTDP2003. After TDG broke down, some ex-TDG members joined CTDP. And now we are working on CTDP 2004 MOD, with more people, more features, more ideas and much more passion. 3. How long have you been working on the 2004 mod? Work on the 2004 mod started when the first 2004 cars started being unveiled. As soon as the 2003 mod was out, we were already working on the 2004 mod. Since we are trying to mod nearly the whole game, and where possible do a completely new thing instead of giving it a makeover, work has taken a long time. Apart from that, the more things one adds, the higher the chance that a bug will appear, however, we managed to iron out all of them using one way or another, and the beta testers are doing a very good job in spotting bugs, so we can fix them. 4. What have you done to the 2004 mod to ensure it surpasses your 2003 mod (what new features are there)? Well practically we tried to make everything better. Improved carshapes, improved textures, reduce fps reduction to the least amount possible (all I can say is that on my Geforce FX5200 which is considered a bad card, I don't get any stuttering with 1280X1024 and everything maxed out with hud and mirrors selected. Our beta testers also seem to have become happy with the amount of FPS they are getting which is quite good and most importantly consistent), new physics which the public got to beta test, new team specific rims with motion blur effect and emap, new tyreshapes, new steering wheels for the majority of the cars, new 3d driver specific helmet shapes (Arai, Bell, Sparco, Schubert), new damage and lots of other stuff... However, we think the new feature that people are going to like the most is the totally redone menu, which we reprogrammed so as to give a new feeling to the game, and I think we're on the right track... 5. Which part or feature of the mod are you most proud of? We are proud of the whole mod... however probably we are mostly proud of the new menus and new tracks (that will follow in the future) (check out the screenshots of the new menu!) 6. What level of realism are you looking for in the 2004 mod? Have you had to make any compromises for playability and accessibility? We are trying to achieve the highest realism we can. However, since we don't have any contacts with real teams, physics for example, are the best compromise we could get after thoroughly reading driver comments, and watching videos closely, and that is one of the reasons why we gave the general public a chance to try the physics out and give us their comments and feedback, however all I can say is that since the last beta released for the general public there have been lots of improvements. Other compromises we have to make are things which are beyond our control i.e. hardcoded in the game's exe. Since we don't have our own game engine we can't edit everything so things like 2004 rules, with 1 engine per weekend rule, 2 qualifying sessions with 1 hotlap without any traffic, more realistic penalties (drive-through), and other extra stuff like 3d marshals, safety car, and so on. However, we've done our best to keep these compromises as small as possible. 7. Have you taken into consideration those drivers without the fastest computers? Is the mod relatively framerate friendly? Well, one of the issues we had thought about with the development of the mod was framerate. There was a time when with quite a powerful Pc and a powerful graphics card, from the back of the grid, one would get no more than 7 fps... however LODs started coming along, improved .GEN files too, and as I said above, on a Geforce FX5200 which is put with those medium-low cards, I can play everything maxed out with no compromises and get 30fps throughout the whole race, apart from the start, where from the back of the grid I get 27fps and that is with some LODs missing, so I don't think that people without the fastest computers will struggle as much as they think... For example, one of our members with a Ti4600 gets 40 to 45 fps during race, all this with 4x antistrophic filtering, with all game details maxed out. Another one gets 30-40 fps in race on a Geforce FX Go 5600 64mb (laptop)! So I think that overall, there shouldn't be any fps problems. 8. How close are you as a team to completing this mod, and what is planned for the first release content-wise? Currently, what's left to be finished is the new menu. That takes a long time, but we're doing our best to finish it ASAP. In the mean time, the last few bugs can be fixed. I'd say we are over 95% finished with our mod. Content-wise, in the first pack you will get:
As a separate pack, you will also get the first of our track updates, that is the long awaited Hungaroring track which has been mostly remodelled from the default version to make it more accurate. 9. Are there any further additions planned for the mod, or do you just intend to have a well-deserved break? Well we all took short breaks in the summer. As soon as our work is finished, so while the people will be enjoying the 1st pack we release, we'll be working on track specific cars (actually work has already started), and new tracks. The first track we release will be Bahrain, followed by Shanghai, and a completely new Monaco. However we plan to do all the tracks in the coming years, and make them as accurate as possible, because we feel that tracks are a weak point in F1C. Besides, once rFactor and GTR are released we'll need to have F1 tracks for those, so we would already have the mesh and just convert them over. 10. What is the future of CTDP? Do you plan to continue with F1C, or are you interested in working with GTR or rFactor? As for the future of CTDP, we plan to work on rFactor and GTR, probably both. However, if interest in F1 Challenge 99-02 stays high we will release for it as well. We will just do what people want us to do. But hopefully in the future CTDP will get it's own game engine and have no limits to what it can do, and compromises would be a thing of the past. However, that's just one of our long time goals, since to do that you need an experienced team of programmers. Finally, I would like to send a message to any PROGRAMMERS and SOUND guys who are willing to help CTDP. We would greatly appreciate it if you would contact us, so we can improve the racing experience! Above all, I would like to thank BlackHole Motorsports for their interest in our mod. ================================================================================= Well, a big thanks to CTDP for agreeing to give up some of their development time and free time to answer our questions. It is very much appreciated. Thank you also for giving us an insight into the development process of the mod. I am sure I speak for everyone in the community when I say that we are really looking forward to this mod! A special thanks also to Matthew (aka kimifan) for arranging this interview in the first place. If anyone wants to contact CTDP at all, or monitor the development more closely, then please do check out their website or check out their mod section here at Blackhole Motorsports. A good forum with a development thread is High Gear Thanks also to CTDP for providing BHMS with some exclusive screenshots of the new menus. I think you will all be amazed at what they have done. All the best with the development guys! |
|
Comments : |
|
| Author: Scott Michaels | 27-09-2004 |
|
Great interveiw! |
|
| Author: Tha-Skunk | 02-10-2004 |
|
Nice interview thx for the info. |
|
| Author: Hega | 15-10-2004 |
|
Thanks guys for giving this interview.You have done a great job with 2004 mod and it will be great!I hope you continue making these mods for F1C because I think it's the best F1 simulator for PC at the moment, and it will be even more popular when people will get this mod.So thanks for everybody. |
|
| Author: fabian | 15-10-2004 |
|
Great job as i can se till now, thanks to CTDP group |
|
| Author: Hakkiman | 17-10-2004 |
|
Can't wait for this mod hopefully its as good as RH04 is. And i hope you guys keep working on F1C and rFactor in the future! |
|
| Author: alberto | 27-10-2004 |
|
Thanks for your job... from spain Gracias por vuestro trabajo! Both of you |
|
|
published at : bhmotorsports.com © copyright 1999 - 2002 |