Hello fellow MMG fans. How are you all doing? As its the GP Weekend things for me are a bit slow. I have taken it upon myself to take the GP Weekends off from MMG work so I can get a few days of relaxing every two to three weeks depending on the real life calendar. As I do not take any breaks at any other point of the year and I generally didn’t take any breaks on GP Weekends either, I thought it was time I started looking after my own health too and take some relaxation time for me.
Things have been progressing well within MMG. We’re working hard on the 2007 new releases, the 2008 mod and the 1991 demo so do not worry. This is a small post today and don’t really expect a large one until Monday night, Australian EST Time. I hope you all enjoy the GP Weekend and tune in again for the next blog posts.
Welcome back fellow MMG fans. My apologies for not posting over the past week but too much work and real life stuff has kept me necessarily away from being able to for the last week. However here we are yet again for another blog post.
First of all I’ll get to ctrlz request he posted in the comments of the last blog post in regards to telling more about Public Edition v2.0. Well…what to say that hasn’t really been said before? hmmm, well lets go through it. I know some of you may already know this stuff but another telling won’t harm. I’ll actually be able to shed some light into some parts that I haven’t done so before.
First of all MMG F1 2007 Public Edition is being completely re-worked to hopefully be a more complete mod then its v1.0 predecessor. Although it will not be as complete of a mod as the MMG F1 2008 mod will be, it will still be as complete as we could have made it seeing as we have moved onto 2008 modeling and working.
2007 Public Edition will feature different physics for each car. No two cars will handle the exact same. Lets take the Ferrari team for example. If you play with Kimi’s car you will find it will be a little different to its handling compared to Massa’s car. This is because in reality, no two cars handle the same way regardless of the fact that they have the same shape and dimensions. The two cars will not have great differences between the two, but the differences will be notable in the handling. This of course will ensure that it provides more of a challenge to the player to be consistently fast in all cars and in all tracks with those cars.
Another thing is that the cars engine.ini files have been remade with the exact HP and RPM as the cars have in real life. So what you’ll find is that the cars will have their real life performances. You won’t see a spyker at the top but you may possibly see a Super Aguri close to the top as they were very often in the top ten during qualifyings and races in the 2007 season. Yes the battling team known as Super Aguri showed up its main supplier Honda more often then not in 2007 and provided some surprises for their fans and all F1 viewers throughout the season. The cars will have their own performances and speeds so you will be able to have a more realistic race against the AI.
What we’re also doing is making sure the AI will do pit stops even at the lower race lengths. We have heard that players don’t like the fact that when they play a lower then 100% length race, the AI cars don’t pit. We are trying to change that to ensure that they do pit at least once.
One of the things we didn’t change that was asked, was the Ferrari sidepods where they were not realistic at the front as pointed out to us in our forum over at F1Mods.com before it moved to makmodgroup.com. The reason we didn’t change it was because the modelers began working on 2008 mod and it would have halted the progress of the 2008 mod longer. In addition, our mapper/texturer for the 07 Public Edition was moving homes and if we had fixed the models, it would have required re-mapping and re-painting which would not have been able to be done as our guy was moving homes. Due to this we decided to not waste more time on the progression of the mod and leave the end season ferrari with the same sidepod problem. But the car is still the late season one.
Phil has been working on the AI for the Public Edition and I believe he has pretty much nailed a very great AI package for fans. Of course they will work best on MMG tracks as the AI in rfactor needs to be coded on tracks individually for each mod, we can’t do it for every single rfactor track.
We have done some late season changes to other cars too like the williams and toyota, but I won’t reveal everything here just yet. Gotta leave some things.
Basically, because the 2008 mod is having such progress done on it, I want to ensure that once 2.0 Public Edition gets released, the members from 07 mod begin focusing on 08 mod as the MMG 2008 F1 Mod will have a lot more features and products compared to what you saw in 2007.
I must say that even as the leader of MMG, as much as I was not happy about how we blundered the first release, I am kinda happy that we did. It shows that we are not perfect and we are human, and it gave the entire group a learning experience we didn’t have before. We were able to take that experience and grow with it and now I feel we are much stronger and more prepared and more organized due to our failure with the first release of 07 mod. As much as no mod group like to blunder as badly as we did with the first release, I must say it did us a world of good in teaching us a lesson we would not have received otherwise.
The good thing however is that everyone in MMG is motivated and enthusiastic about what they work on and we have all grown a lot more since. Hopefully with our next mods we will be able to impress more.
Hopefully the new editions of the 2007 mod will impress enough until we release the 2008 mod.
Well moving on to something else. I just got the new 1991 demo beta today from Albert and Antonio (montesky) with the newly scaled and model fixed cars. What I’ll be doing it now is passing them to our mapper and painters to fix up the new mapping and painting, Sandrox will do the new LCD’s and LODS, and then we will be ready for Physic and Engine work with Derek Nye and myself. Things are moving along as planned so I am pleased about that.
2008 Mod is going good too, Koen has finished the Force India yesterday as posted on our public forum at MMG Public Forum but you can also view them below…
A masterful model yet again from Koen who did a magnificent job on this Force India 2008 model.
I was going to release a video of something new today but I decided not to last moment due to the fact that we wanted to make a few more things more complete before we did. This video had nothing to do with MMG mods but it did have something to do with MMG itself and another product. But I’ll have to leave that for another time.
As for my week. Its been a long and tiring week doing lots of family stuff and housework. I had little time to be able to even post online let alone post on here. But thankfully with all that over and done with now, I shouldn’t have problems keeping my blog updated every day. At least I hope…
Well, another day gone I guess. Its 12:19am here Thursday, which means you all are still living in Yesterday. GET WITH THE TIMES PEOPLE! Your still living in the past, sheesh. LOL I love saying that…The joys of living in Australia I guess.
Well, thank you for tuning in once again. If you have any questions, please post them through comments and I will answer them in the next blog post.
Cheers.
Hello fellow readers. My apologies for the delay in the post today, its been a rather long day for me today but kinda slow on my part in MMG. I spent most of the day working on housework that needed to be done and I’ve been neglecting for a while, that took up the most part of the day as I didn’t get done till about 7pm my time. After that I came on and checked on MMG happenings for the day, got to speak to Phil and Derek for a while today in regards to MMG F1 2007 Public Edition which is going well, and also with Derek we spoke about engine files and physic files for some of our other mods.
After that I began looking into trying to get a new feature I am trying to get to work in game to actually work. I have figured out the most part of getting it to work but requires some parts from the modeler and one of our coders, this new feature is not definite to be released unless it is successful and will be seen in the MMG F1 2008 mod if I do succeed in getting it to work. I won’t hint as to what it is right now however. I want to keep working on it and see how it goes before I reveal anything and then have those few who are my biggest fans coming around and saying how much I lie again. Thankfully Gjon had confirmed to me that what I am working on is possible so at least I am not going into it wasting time if it wasn’t possible, I know that it IS possible so I’m trying to get it to work.
Anyhow, aside from that, SandroX gave me the new dash’s for the 1991 cars today. He did a great job with what was given to him but I think I will need to have our mapper/painter re-design the entire dash for each team. There are parts that are just not working the way we want them to simply because the current paint of the dash is not 100% to the way I want it. We’ll see how the new layout goes.
Derek should be back from his holiday next week and we plan on finalizing the 1991 demo engines and physics. We’ll be working extencively to ensure we make some very nice physics for the mod.
I also did some browsing around the net. I must say the ALMS 2007 mod for GTR2 is looking very nice. VirtualR.net showed a preview of it today that you can catch here
http://www.virtualr.net/alms-2007-mod-prototype-screenshots/
Its in my most wanted list and I think it will be one of those mods everyone in the community must have.
In addition, if you check out VirtualR.net you should also check the Spirit of 76 1.001 that was released for rFactor.
http://www.virtualr.net/spirit-of-76-1001-released/
I have to admit that this is one of my top 10 favourite mods for rFactor. The boys who did this are just really great, if you don’t have it yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!?!? Go grab it now!
I also got to see the usual trolls bashing me and MMG here and there during the day but hey, we’ve all gotten used to them all now haven’t we? I know I have. I must say it sorta becomes amusing after a while. And its so funny how they always post as anonymous, as if they’re afraid to show their real name and show that they’re no better then what they claim me to be. Sighs, its just sad that these people have nothing better to do in their lives then to go around and bash groups. Ah well, guess you have those people in the world.
Back to MMG stuff again now, there’s not much to show today really. As it was rather a long day for me on housework I didn’t have much time to prepare for tonights blog post. But I will try and have some stuff to show in tomorrow’s. Things are progressing though and 1991 Demo as well as 2007 PE and SE are on schedule so we’re doing well.
I would also like to welcome Valiante and Markus, the creators of the 1985 mod demo. They have now formally joined MMG who will help them finish the 1985 mod. Valiante however is on his summer holidays so until he returns in September, he won’t be modeling any new cars. Markus, whose wife has just had a baby, has taken time off from modding to tend to his new little bundle of joy and to his wife. I know he is working on an update for the demo but I don’t know when it will be released exactly.
MMG has begun re-shaping the 1985 demo cars and we’re discussing on the possibility of releasing a new updated demo version with the new MMG quality liveries and helmets and some ingame processing. Something to be released over the next few months to give you guys an updated version to play with until the full version is done. We haven’t come to a decision yet though on if we will release an updated demo, but we’ll keep you posted.
I thank you all for tuning in once more, and I hope you will tune in again tomorrow for more news. If you have any questions, feel free to leave comments on this post and I will answer them tomorrow.
Cheers.
Welcome fellow MMG fans to our new devblog and the first post of what will be many as we go through with you each day the progression of our mods. I hope you will all enjoy the blog posts each day. Some days we will have more to talk about or showcase then others, and please feel free to leave comments. I’ll be sure to address any questions in the previous days comments on the next days post.
Bear in mind that you do need to register here to leave comments. Also note that comments are moderated. This is done to ensure that the flaming and bashing that occurs for hours upon hours while I am asleep doesn’t happen here, and I don’t have to waste time cleaning it up where I could be using that time on MMG’s mods. I hope you all understand. If you don’t, well…tough luck I guess, cause the system ain’t changing.
Well where to begin. Lets begin with today’s happenings. Well who would have expected the day to end up the way it did. I woke up in the morning, turned on the comp, came online and went to check rfactorcentral to see if the MMG08 mod had been validated, thought I’d check up on FSOne mod posts and wholla, what a nightmate. I’m glad I got in to stop all the bullshit that was occuring cause really it was very frustrating. Like I said there, I apologise to Codex and FSOne as I had no intention of badmouthing or hurting them and my posts were pure constructive criticsm, but some other members felt they needed to be harder towards them. I can understand their views, but I do not want these wars between mods. Due to this stupid scenario MMG has lost its renderer F1Racer who has now left MMG and become a neutral bystander simply because the community seems to want to blame the entire group for one person’s posts. F1Racer has his reputation to uphold too as does MMG, but I am appauled that the community is such that they would blame the entire group, people who didn’t even have a view or post, and also call those that were posting in a normal manner, MMG fanboys. This is just not on and has hurt MMG a bit today. I wasn’t too happy about it at all. But I consider F1Racer a good friend and I understand how he feels.
After that entire debacle, I got into working on the 1991 demo while discussing with Phil and Joni about the Public Edition of 2007. But we’ll get to that later.
I was able to acquire the new LCD’s or cockpit Dash’s from Sandrox today for the 1991 mod. Because the cars back then had a different Dash system we have done the best we could to make them as well as we could. Hopefully the community will like them in the demo. We do have a few ideas on improving them but these will do for the demo.
At the moment the 1991 Demo is going really well with only few things needing it to be released. Our aim is to release the 1991 demo within 4-5 weeks from now. Maybe sooner depending when it gets done. Its not that far off but you never know what tomorrow may bring that will push you further, so I’m not stupid this time to say a date. We’re just aiming for 4-5 weeks from now and hope it will be done by then, hopefully sooner.
Below are screenshots of the 1991 cars taken by Hoboholic who is MMG’s new screenshots director. Enjoy!
As you can see from the screenshots above, you have something to wait for over the next few weeks in regards to the 1991 mod. Hopefully this will make some of you happy.
Basically Antonio, who is better known in the community as Montesky who is MMG’s sounds Director and also does the 1991 mod sounds has had internet problems and until that is fixed, he cannot be on to continue the 1991 mod work. Albert McSaltens and I thought it would be good to release a demo of the cars we had quite good sounds for from Antonio. Finalizing the last pieces on the cars, we’re now readying a demo for you guys. The demo cars will have different engines for each team with accurate HP and RPM values for that year. They will also have different physics for each car as our 2007 Public Edition will have, and no we’re not that stupid to use 07 physics on 91. I think you will be pleasantly surprised on the 1991 physics though.
In all the progression of the demo is going very well and we’re very happy with the way things are progressing, so stay tuned, I hope to release more screenshots tomorrow of closeups of the other demo cars.
Moving on to MMG F1 2007. As all of you should know, we’re readying the new Public and Server Editions. We have been working quite hard on these editions to make sure they are done right this time around unlike the first releases which were rather pathetic.
The new Public Edition will house different engines for each car with accurate HP and RPM made to give each car the performance it had in 2007. In addition to this each car will have its own unique physic making it even more challenging for the players to be consistently quick in every car. No two cars are the same physics wise. That doesn’t mean Raikkonen’s Ferrari and Massa’s will defer greatly, but they will have noticeable differences when driving. This is done to reflect the cars handing for each driver in each GP.
The bugs from the first release like the tires going into the track during online racing, and specific bugs pointed out by the communities feedback have been fixed. The cars are also re-scaled now to the exact dimensions of the real life cars. I hope that the community will be surprised with the outcome.
We’re also still working hard on working on the tracks as much as we can. We’re also looking into the AI for each of those tracks, and also the pit strategies for the AI cars. There are several ways of doing the pit strategies but they are all limited by what rFactor can allow us to do, so we’re looking at the best option at the moment. We’ll see how that goes.
We’re also looking at better values for the Safety car. While this can be changed by the player, we do want to make better values to be there at least for those who do not know how to change them.
A lot of people have also been asking if the menu will be changed, we noticed in the demo that many people didn’t like the menu change, and so for the first release we had the rfactor blue menu. We will remain with the rfactor blue menu for the next release of 07 PE and SE. However for 08 mod, while we will still remain with rfactor blue, we will be making some changing to the spinner where we will be adding a more unique spinner style. I won’t give that away yet however.
Overall we have been working really hard on PE, and Phil has been doing a lot of the work with the re-scaling of the cars, better physics with accurate dimensions for the car and there are things we’re wondering if the community will pick up in the physics, if not we will reveal it shortly after the release, but it will be interesting to see how many pick up something in the physics to do with each team car. Main the comparison of the physics on different tracks for the different wheelbase cars, but I won’t say more.
Moving on to MMG F1 2008 Mod now. As you have seen on rfactor central ( http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=F1%202008%20MMG ) we have released info for the MMG F1 2008 mod. We are hoping to produce a more complete package with the MMG F1 2008 Mod, bringing new content to the mod and making it more unique then anything we have done previously. Some of the notable changes will be on the menu spinner and on the 08 tracks themselves, making the atmosphere more realistic.
Over the last year we have learnt a lot more and our mistakes on the first release of the 07 mod taught us a lot of what to and what not to do in modding. So we’re hoping we can produce a more complete mod in the eyes of the community and bring some new innovations previously unseen in rfactor. If we’re lucky enough to get those innovations to work, then it should be great, if not, at least we tried, but we’re looking at our options and doing our best, thats for sure.
I hope you all enjoyed this blog post. Wow, I began writing it at 10pm and its now 11:55pm. Although I was multitasking too. Ah the life of being a mod group leader, the fun never ends I guess. Well, I should cut it here for tonight. I thank you all for tuning in, be sure to tune in tomorrow for more news. Feel free to register and leave comments and I will answer any questions in tomorrow’s blog.
Till next time, take care all.
Welcome all to MMG’s new development blog home. As many of you will already know that we had a devblog over at Blogspot. I’ve decided to have my own blogspot on my domain rather then free ones due to the amount of extra editing I can do having direct access to files etc. I hope you will enjoy this new blogspot.
I will be making a post every day here to keep the community informed. Between 10pm and Midnight Australian EST Time (GMT+10) you can expect to see an update. I hope the community will enjoy this more so then the previous one. Stay tuned for tonights first official blog post with more info on MMG 1991 Demo, MMG 2008 Mod and MMG 2007 PE that I will post within 10 to 12 hours from now.
Thank you all for your support to MMG.