LFS Companion (Alpha)

[Becky Rose]

As some of you know i've been beevering away on a pit radio mod for LFS, it's still not in a state I would call finished, but it is now basically useable. It includes my previous backfire mod.

What this mod currently does
Adds pit radio messages from your pit crew giving you information about the race around you.
Adds backfire sounds to cars.
Adds a relay so you can get multiple insim & outguage applications working together
Produces post-race statistical reports for use in web format, ideal for leagues

Other Mod Compatability: Pit Spotter
I have tested Pit Spotter and it does work with the relay, but the two radio mods may try to talk over each other. I plan to add my own version of Pit Spotter into the mod at a later time.

Other Mods: Momoled & G15 Keyboard
I believe both these mods work with the relay and can be configured to work at the same time.

Installation
Extract the download with the folder structure intact. Run the LFS-Companion.exe program.

Within LFS open a message box and enter "/insim=49999". Later on I will include an auto-launch feature which does this for you, but for now you can automate the process by right clicking your LFS launch shortcut and going to properties and adding the insim command to the Target Field (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14210&d=1154631433)

My To Do List - in no particular order
Those marked in blue are ready and will be in the next update, those marked in red are a high priority and planned for the next update.


Now supports races up to 1000 laps (previously 99)
Relay Bug - Relayed applications sending the command to close down insim now get intercepted and discarded
Feature - Races held over a number of hours needs support
Add wrecker report button (Barricade link) to the main menu
No longer reports "cannot load fart file" if you remove unwanted backfire .wav files
Realtime stats system - STCC/360/OWRL/Generic
Add Track Map & Bouncing dots
Race Statistics Feature - Lap Chart
Race Statistics Feature - Final Result
Race Statistics Feature - Optional Graphical Lap Chart
Race Statistics Feature - Optional Graphics Final Result
Dot Map to Lap By Lap Statistics
Auto- launch LFS (drag and drop LFS program into window to set path)
A pitspotter alternative built directly into the existing radio mod
A few extra samples on the radio mod(mid race point, and post race messages)
Surround Sound on the backfires, and backfires on other cars
Improve backfire sound selection on the profiles for each car on gear change
Improve backfire sound selection on the profiles for each car on throttle-off at high revs
Crowd noise (requires surround sound system to be working)
Number Pad hooks to request specific information over the radio such as current position, gap to car ahead/behind, laps remaining, predicted fuel range and so on.
Strategy management, pit instructions on when to pit based upon fuel load
Cull radio messages after race starts
Improve compatability with the insim settings of other mods to improve versatility and inter-program compatability (Improved, but can still see ways to make it better)
Restructure MCI (NLP) data struct interpretation to prevent "position overlap" bug
Possible add realtime recalculation of car positions to prevent "position overlap" bug
Test insim at a lower refresh frequency to reduce CPU load if possible
Try to recapture graphics card RAM on Shift-F4/Alt-Tab scenario
Use lap/split position calculation method for autocross tracks, allow option to be selected for layout racing
Excessive bass notes on other cars for drifters / cops n robbers (requires surround sound)
Default relay setups for other mods such as momoleds
Cop Siren with on/off keyboard hooks
Add indicator tick sound
Allow drag and drop customisation of startup mod list
Bug - Backfires & Fuel reports still given when on pit screen
Radio mod for qualifying reports
Bug - Players with ^ control codes at end of their name but missing colour codes causing crash
Allow password entry for people running localhosts with password protected insim connections
Automate support for "Insim+Outguage" applications in the relay, such as LFS Display which also uses both systems.
LFS Display compatability requires LFS Companion to accept NLP packet data (for all but future pit spotter mod) instead of MCI.
Include LFS style colour coding support in the UI for cleaner menus
Use alternative font for clean display on all systems
Tuning Bay - LFS 0.5 U20
Tuning Bay - LFS 0.5 U20 Dedicated Server



Downloads
0.5mb LFS Companion v0.3 to v0.41 Updater (Updates v0.3 only) (www.theoc-clan.com/lfs/LFS-CompanionAlpha4update.zip)
Hosted by The OC Clan / Webtek

LFS Companion 0.41 Alpha (Updates v0.3 only) (http://www.pcgames.extremepcgamerz.com/dsplus/m.php?p=LFS-Companion.zip)
Hosted by steve30x

3.74mb LFS Companion v0.3 Alpha (Full Version) (http://www.theoc-clan.com/lfs/LFS-Companion.zip)
Hosted by The OC Clan / Webtek

34mb LFS-Companion version 0.2 Alpha (Full Version) (http://thegreenhell.rscsites.org/lfs-companion.html)
Hosted by The Green Hell (ajp71)

34mb LFS-Companion version 0.2 Alpha (Full Version) (http://rapidshare.de/files/28145617/LFS-Companion.zip)
Hosted by Rapid Share

32.7mb LFS-Companion version 0.1 Alpha (Full Version) (http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/LFS-Companion.zip)
0.7mb LFS-Companion update version 0.1 Alpha to version 0.2 Alpha (Update) (http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/LFS-CompanionAlpha2.zip)
Hosted in Hastings, UK

Alternative UI's
Preview (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14331&d=1154802772)
By Micron 88: Download (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14332&d=1154802772</p><p>)
Preview (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14335&d=1154805362)
By Sven Menkhoff: Download (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14336&d=1154805362)

Preview (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14446&d=1154987724)
UI by Tweaker: Download (http://www.lfsforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=14447&d=1154987724)

Example
This isn't a great quality recording but it should give you an idea of what the mod does.
Radio Sample (http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/radiosample.wav)

Preview
http://www.bansheestudios.com/img/lfsCompanion.jpg

[thisnameistaken]

Becky, your post only tells us what your mod hasn't got. What exactly has it got? ;)

[Jakg]

nicked frm the stcc site

"Some of you might know I am working on an LFS Companion program which adds lots of audio to the game. Currently it is a work in progress and there is still much to do before it is released, however I thought some of you may like to try out the version that is in development.

Currently it includes the Backfire v2 Mod, although does not yet have surround sound so this may sound a bit wrong when watching the cars from external camera, it also only effects the currently selected car at the moment. Both of these issues I plan to fix. Every car has it's own unique sound set.

This mod also includes the ground work for my pit radio mod, it is still very early stages and is being held up quite a lot by me having tonsilitus so I can't do the sounds for the female speach, but I have a friend doing the male voices for me so it is moving along using those at the moment.

Eventually the radio mod will take keypresses from the number pad to determine what information to give, it will have it's own pre-LFS configuration screen (currently it has a debug window - please ignore it).

I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the radio mod, then I will put in surround sound support and start adding environmental sounds like air tools in the pits and crowd noise from the grandstands which goes into a frenzy when there's an overtake and so on.

You can download the current VERY early version here: LFS Companion.

It is not compatable with other insim and outguage applications at this time, although I will be adding a relay in the future. It operates on insim port 29999.

Quick guide: Start this mod, start LFS, in LFS open a chat window and type:

/insim 29999

You will get a message onscreen confirming that insim and outguage has started.

Enjoy!"

[Becky Rose]

Becky, your post only tells us what your mod hasn't got. What exactly has it got? ;)
Um, please dont think i'm being overtly sarcastic, but the first paragraph...
i've been beevering away on a pit radio mod for LFS

jakg - the STCC post (for an earlier version) is mostly duplicate and outdated information.

I hate it when a post for a release goes way off base before it's even had it's first reply. *throws arms up in the air*.

[thisnameistaken]

Um, please dont think i'm being overtly sarcastic, but the first paragraph...

As some of you know i've been beevering away on a pit radio mod for LFS, it's still not in a state I would call finished, but it is now basically useable. It includes my previous backfire mod.

OK, so it's a "pit radio mod". Way to go writing a reply that doesn't actually answer my question.

I hate it when a post for a release goes way off base before it's even had it's first reply. *throws arms up in the air*.

I hate it when the first post doesn't contain enough information to determine what it's there for.

[Gunn]

Best of luck to you, I'm looking forward to seeing how this one develops. I can live without pitspotter though, will I be able to disable it?

[Becky Rose]

will I be able to disable it?
Yes, when I write the front end you will be able to choose what audio elements you want to hear.

@thisnameistaken: Great job wrecking the thread, I hope your driving is better.

[Jakg]

jakg - the STCC post (for an earlier version) is mostly duplicate and outdated information.

I hate it when a post for a release goes way off base before it's even had it's first reply. *throws arms up in the air*.post? what post? :D

[Ryanry64]

Yes, when I write the front end you will be able to choose what audio elements you want to hear.

@thisnameistaken: Great job wrecking the thread, I hope your driving is better.

He does sorta have a point though. I for one don't really understand what it is either. Ok so it's pit radio, but.. mmm. Either way I doubt he was actually trying to be nasty about it.

Anyway, I'll give it a try later to find out, thanks for all the work put into it I'm sure it'll be useful to people :thumb:

[DratsaB]

Number Pad hooks to request specific information over the radio such as current position, gap to car ahead/behind, laps remaining, predicted fuel range and so on.

I like the sound of that. Pit spotter compatibility would also be most welcome.
Keep up the good work. :thumb:

[Becky Rose]

It's a pit radio, it's a radio link between you and the pits which is used to discuss the race and get information not otherwise available to the driver. Pit radios are used at all levels of motorsport (except rental). Obviously you dont have a real pit crew in LFS so the program plays the part of your crew. The program cannot understand what you say, so instead will be configured by a pre-game menu and number pad presses - but this isn't done yet.

[thisnameistaken]

I doubt he was actually trying to be nasty about it.

I just want to know what it does before I download it. :shrug:

It's a pit radio, ... Obviously you dont have a real pit crew in LFS so the program plays the part of your crew. The program cannot understand what you say, so instead will be configured by a pre-game menu and number pad presses - but this isn't done yet.

I'm going to get roasted again for this, but: You still haven't actually mentioned what it does. The above explanation, once again, only tells us what it doesn't do.

:banghead:

[Becky Rose]

OK I am going to type this very slowly so that you can keep up.

It adds a pit radio between you and the pits, and plays the part of the pit crew.

There's also things it does not do yet, however this first bit - as is foxtrotting obvious and has been from the beginning - DOES FRIKKING WORK.

It's a foxtrotting pit radio mod, what the foxtrot do you foxtrotting expect it to do? menu loop music?

No wonder Yorkshire has unemployment problems.

[DratsaB]

yep.. "Roasted" :bananadea:cookiemon

[mkinnov8]

LOL!!

Seems like the start of a great project you got here, downloading now. Quick question, the size of download is because of the audio files? Is that right?

Cheers

[Jakg]

LOL!!

Seems like the start of a great project you got here, downloading now. Quick question, the size of download is because of the audio files? Is that right?

Cheersits the audio files, although i believe you can add your own if that so pleases you, its a great sounding program, just a shame the relay isnt finished, as i would love to use it in the STCC, but i cant live without Pitspotter or Momoleds

[thisnameistaken]

OK I am going to type this very slowly so that you can keep up.

There was no need for that at all.

It adds a pit radio between you and the pits, and plays the part of the pit crew.

Once again you've told me what it is, not what it does. See Becky, I wouldn't keep asking you if you'd put some effort into actually answering my question instead of continually insulting me.

No wonder Yorkshire has unemployment problems.

Really classy, Becky. Nice one.

[tristancliffe]

Forgive me Becky, but if the numpad stuff doesn't work yet, what does it do now? Does it tell you gaps, damage status, fuel loads, remind you to pit, or what? If it only does that at the moment then I think it'll be useful, but it's still not entirely clear what uses this mod has at the moment.

[Becky Rose]

yup, the application itself is 481kb and the rest is all sound files.

It's probably using the wrong sound quality and some audio engineer will come along in a minute and go into great detail about gold coated audio cables, audible frequency of CB radios, audio recording software and voice actors - but then not offer to make samples at all in any way, then somebody will offer to help out - but not have a microphone, and somebody else will ask about the momoled mod, three people will ask for it in German, eight people will say they cannot understand what the guy on the radio mod says (which at least would be realistic :)), Polish players will think it's great, make their own sound samples, but never say a word of thanks, and the thread will end with somebody who can't get it to work despite everything appearing to be setup correct, they'll blame it on my application but if I actually botherd to look deep into it i'd find the same thing I always find - either they didn't read the instructions and it wasn't setup "I did everything", or there's a fundamental issue with their Windows install, which is usually covered in the opening post with "the pc is fine.".

[S0ul]

hmmmm,seems like its just the backfire mod....which is too loud and really spoils the sound.I would use it if you had the frontend yet,but its just disturbing. Still i like your idea,cant wait for it to be finished :thumb:
S0ul

[joen]

Basically it plays pit messages triggered by an event. For example it tells you when the gap to the car in front of you has increased or decreased. It tells you if you're racing the car in front or if it's a backmarker, etc.

As I understand it, in new versions it will be possible to change what you want to hear and what not, and you will be able to ask the pit for messages that you now hear automatically using the numpad.

I tried it out and I like it. It does need configurability and volume adjustment for me to use it permanently but that's already planned. I see a lot of potential in it, nice work Becky.

[S0ul]

Aaaah,i see now,its great!But it is possible to turn the pit stuff on,but the backfire off?

[Becky Rose]

Not yet Soul, but volume and on/off toggles will probably be in the next update.

[S0ul]

lol,i just removed the bfire folder and tried to start the program and it said: Cant load Fart File 1....Now thats a great description for cars backfire^^

[Becky Rose]

:) I put in error checking on the loadup to help find out a problem somebody was having, anyway if you want to disable them for the moment you'll need to either use an empty or extremely quiet sound file.

[herki]

I don't know if it's already on your to-do list, but it would be nice if the your pit crew would "shut up" if you watch other cars. I am always told to refuel, because they lack fuel information :p But maybe that exactly is the point where you could distinguish between the player car and the other cars. If fuel=0 (or whatever OutGauge gives for fuel information on other cars) ShutUp(PitCrew) ;)

[Becky Rose]

The only way the program knows who to watch is by reading off LFS' report of the currently selected player, but your suggestion gives me a better idea of setting up the player to watch in the front end (leaving in place an 'auto' option).

[Cue-Ball]

Thank you Becky!!!

I asked for help creating a program to do this exact thing not very long ago (see thread here: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=9169). I can't wait to get home and give this a shot. I assume once you're done with the UI that we'll be able to enable/disable each warning individually, correct? Are you planning to make any sort of "roll your own" event trigger? For instance, will we be able to play a sound file when we reach lap X (for instance, I'd like to hear "You're halfway done. Keep pushing" or something like that on lap 25 of a 50 lap race)? Will we be able to have a "This is the final lap!" trigger? Stuff like that.

One bit of constructive criticism if you don't mind: you appear to be using all .wav files. If you change these to .mp3, .ogg, etc you can save yourself a TON of disk space and make the downloads of additional voice packs much, much smaller.

And just to make sure i'm not the "sound engineer" you were talking about, once you're satisfied with the tool and have a v1.0 I may be able to make an "American" voice pack. :) Perhaps you could make a list of the sound file names, a description, and what triggers them? This could be helpful if people want to make voice packs in the future.

Edit: Looks like you've already got messages for last lap, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 laps remaining. So nevermind that request. :)

[Becky Rose]

Lap reports are already in, but it's not possible to trigger sounds with a scripting system. I thought about doing it that way as before I started this project I was already knee deep in a script compiler (even handles variables but I digress...), but because everything needed requires extraction from different LFS data structs I figured the resulting scripts would probably end up even more complex than just coding stuff. However, in Scawen style I am willing to add triggers I think are a good idea and are plausable.

enable/disable each warning individually
In groups yes

If you change these to .mp3, .ogg
Yah, I really didn't think about sound format at all. I guess it would not be hard to convert to .wav with an .mp3 codec but if it goes over 5,000 downloads I would have to pay the £20,000 license fee. .ogg is free of licenses but i'd need some kind of 3rd party .dll driver for it as i'm curry puckered if i'm going to write a decoding kernel. People keep telling me one to use, and I keep never getting around to looking at it.

[Cue-Ball]

However, in Scawen style I am willing to add triggers I think are a good idea and are plausable.I'd like to request a "halfway done" lap notification if possible.

I haven't had the chance to try it since I'm at work, but if you start a 20 lap race do you get the "20 laps left" notification as soon as the race starts? What happens if you've got 10 laps left, and you're down to X% on fuel, and you just set a best lap, and there's a driver closing, etc. How do you handle that stuff? Is there some sort of priority given to the sounds? Is there ever a case where you would not hear one sound because another is overwriting it? I can see this being a possible issue, especially if you have a "halfway done" sound file and a "10 laps left" sound file both triggering at the same time.

Also, your first post mentions crowd noise, but I don't see any sound files for it. It also says surround sound is required, but LFS doesn't support surround sound. Is crowd noise included right now or on the to-do list? Can you give details about what triggers the crowd and how it's implemented? Just curious.

Edit: One small "bug" to report. You have several behindLooseX.wav files in the pit/male/relative directory. These should really be behindLoseX.wav (one "o"). Just a typo, but easier to fix in the earlier stages, i'd surmise.

[Becky Rose]

Current lap triggers are 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, 5, 2, and 1. It triggers when the leader crosses the line to start the nth lap to go. I will add a half distance notification.

you start a 20 lap race do you get the "20 laps left" notification as soon as the race starts?
I think this is one of the glitches I need to remove. Also after the race the notifications go crazy as everyone piles up after the line, i've culled a few, but there's more to do here.

Is there some sort of priority given to the sounds? Is there ever a case where you would not hear one sound because another is overwriting it?
There is a sound que so when a new sound is needed it is added to the que, likewise if there is a sound in que the radio is not re-keyed, instead the channel stays open until all messages are played and then you get the radio close sound.

As it can take quite a while to play the full que when things are busy there is a check to ensure that two messages of the same type are not played, so if there is a message in the que for "P8" and your position updates to "P7", only "P7" would be played.

[herki]

I'd like to request a "halfway done" lap notification if possible.

I haven't had the chance to try it since I'm at work, but if you start a 20 lap race do you get the "20 laps left" notification as soon as the race starts? What happens if you've got 10 laps left, and you're down to X% on fuel, and you just set a best lap, and there's a driver closing, etc. How do you handle that stuff? Is there some sort of priority given to the sounds? Is there ever a case where you would not hear one sound because another is overwriting it? I can see this being a possible issue, especially if you have a "halfway done" sound file and a "10 laps left" sound file both triggering at the same time.

Also, your first post mentions crowd noise, but I don't see any sound files for it. It also says surround sound is required, but LFS doesn't support surround sound. Is crowd noise included right now or on the to-do list? Can you give details about what triggers the crowd and how it's implemented? Just curious.

First of all: Read carefully: Crowd noise is a planned improvement. Moreover Becky's program doesn't use the LFS-Soundengine, so it can use surround-sound on its own.
And from what I found out, the sounds played after each other, e.g. "That's your fastest lap. Only 5 laps left. ..."

edit: bah, beaten...

[Becky Rose]

Also, your first post mentions crowd noise, but I don't see any sound files for it.
It's on my to do list :).

It says surround sound is required, but LFS doesn't support surround sound.
All sounds from the mod are being played through an independant sound system which duplexes with LFS'. This engine is current stereo (although most sounds are mono) but I will update it to surround sound soon.

Can you give details about what triggers the crowd and how it's implemented? Just curious.
I havn't found samples yet but i'd like different levels of cheer, clapping and those air horns. The crowd will go into a frenzy when there is an overtake for position, and will be louder the closer to the front it is. I will manually position a sound emitter at all the grandstands on all the tracks. This is a bit of groundwork, but primarily it is dependant on me getting the surround sound system working which requires me to track the camera movement within LFS - this is actually the hard part, as i've done surround sound enough times to do it in my sleep and i'm told it's very good - although I dont actually have a surround sound rig to test with - so i'll be relying on feedback to tweek it - in any case us users with a stereo system will still hear the benefits of it.

Edit: One small "bug" to report. You have several behindLooseX.wav files in the pit/male/relative directory. These should really be behindLoseX.wav (one "o"). Just a typo, but easier to fix in the earlier stages, i'd surmise.
It's not "lose" as in the word lose, it's actually shorthand for "Losing Over Omega Sound Emit", which is to say, the sound that is played when you lose over the threshold stated.

*chuckle*

EDIT: Also beaten... What a wierd cross post... :)

[Cue-Ball]

It's on my to do list :).I see. Thanks for the clarification. Dunno how I missed that it is forthcoming, not already included.

It's not "lose" as in the word lose, it's actually shorthand for "Losing Over Omega Sound Emit", which is to say, the sound that is played when you lose over the threshold stated.Ah, yes. Why hadn't I thought of that? ;)

[DEVIL 007]

Look good per the voice example above.I have to install it later today and try in in real conditions.

1)Why the example use WAW.It took ages to load it.MP3 example would be much better.
2) I work for a company where I daily use english to talk to people from various countries speaking their own version of english including english native speakers from UK and US.
Its not that I did not understand what was in the example but for less english experienced people it will be probably impossible to understand.Did you record your own voice?The sound quality could be improved as well.

[Cue-Ball]

1)Why the example use WAW.It took ages to load it.MP3 example would be much better.This was already addressed earlier in the thread. You can convert the wavs to mp3 yourself or record your own sounds in mp3 format.

Its not that I did not understand what was in the example but for less english experienced people it will be probably impossible to understand.Did you record your own voice?The sound quality could be improved as well.I somehow don't think that voice belongs to someone named "Becky". ;)

You can always record your own voice samples for use in the program. If they're decent, you can release them for the public as well. I plan to do the same in US English. Maybe I'll even have to put together a "Days of Thunder" sound pack. :D

[Becky Rose]

I can barely speak at the moment because my tonsils are inflamed, but I do plan to release a female voice pack at a later time.

I might surruptisciously recode the .wav's with an .mp3 codec but keep them .wav - then deny all knowledge when the mp3 standards group comes knocking on my door for their license fee - "but they're .wav!" i'll say...

[Cue-Ball]

I don't think you have much to worry about on the mp3 front. This is a non-profit program which is only interesting to a very small subset of people. If you're REALLY worried about it, release the program as one download and the sound packs as separate downloads. Then individual users can make their own sound packs and "spread the blame" so to speak.

[Becky Rose]

I've done the first menu screen, here's a sneak peek:

http://www.bansheestudios.com/img/lfsCompanion.jpg

The backfire menu should be pretty quick as it just has on/off and volume so i'll probably get that done tonight. I'll then start work on the relay because when that is in everything that you guys need to use the mod is basically in place and everything else is just lacey underwear.

[Cue-Ball]

...I'll then start work on the relay because when that is in everything that you guys need to use the mod is basically in place and everything else is just lacey underwear.Pics? :nod:

Edited my quote to make it a little more...ahem...clear. ;)

[Becky Rose]

There's one right there, does it not show?

[S0ul]

Becky.....may I say that you are Brilliant?!Youre getting things done pretty quick,so it can only be a few days for the final version^^Dont want to set you under pressure but i really think you could do that :nod:

[Rtsbasic]

This mod is great, i didn't know it was possible to do this with LFS, been using it all evening and it sounds like what i'd expect, much more immersive than normal. My only complaint is with the car sounds turned up to 20x so its balanced i get a lot of distortion, so can't wait for the next version so I can turn the volume down and use my normal 12x volume ingame.

[Cue-Ball]

This mod is great, i didn't know it was possible to do this with LFS, been using it all evening and it sounds like what i'd expect, much more immersive than normal. My only complaint is with the car sounds turned up to 20x so its balanced i get a lot of distortion, so can't wait for the next version so I can turn the volume down and use my normal 12x volume ingame.One thing you can do...if you have two sets of speakers you should be able to assign Becky's mod to one set and turn them down, leaving LFS on the other set running at full volume. My friend does something similar with Ventrilo. He lets LFS run through the speakers, then forces Ventrilo to run through his headset.

Of course, it would be easier to wait for the next release, but it's an option and it might be more immersive to have the pit crew voices coming through the headset while the car voices come through regular speakers.

[Becky Rose]

I've not done the menu's for it yet but the outguage relay just tested fine, the insim relay is a bit more complex though (uni-directional and I have to filter out some stuff).

[Sven Menkhoff]

Thanks for this mod.
I just DL it, but it really sounds great from it options.

I've not done the menu's for it yet but the outguage relay just tested fine,
Sounds like a very good time to release a new version, so we can test it out :)
(okok, we can´t wait for a relay)

Great Work, keep it on :thumb:

[Lible]

GREAT MOD!

I plan to do Estonian, but it will take pretty much time. 1. The recording 2. Editing

Yould you please send all the noises etc (backrounds)

I'm right now trying to figure out how to make my voice match the raido.

EDIT: Here is one sample, I need to configure the noise a bit, and the quality too :)... http://my.opera.com/Lible/homes/files/fuel1.wav

[Becky Rose]

I'm glad you appreciate it and i'll happily host the Estonian files for download when you are done. :)

The current files are 44Khz, 16bit, Mono. All "radio static" is added to the sounbds by the program and so your samples should be clear, the only thing you need to remember is to leave a pause long enough for the radio start tones (around 0.5 of a second).

It does not matter if your volume settings are different to the existing profile as the update in the next day or two will give you volume control, BUT all of your own samples should be recorded at the same volume level.

There are a few additional samples which will be needed soon that are currently not in the download, but i'm going to make all sounds fail safe soon so if you dont do a sample then no radio message is played. I'll post details of any new sounds added.

[Becky Rose]

I'm back at work today (although still spluttering), but tonight I will recode the .wav's with an mp3 codec, put in a failsafe for missing samples in 3rd party profiles (so if I add a new sound file to the master set it wont break existing profiles), and i'll sort out the insim relay.

The relay is a lot of work as anyone who has dealt with insim may realise when they get the problem of two independent ISI packets with different settings... :pillepall so the insim relay might appear in stages with ever increasing compatability with other applications. (TechNote: I use MCI packets, i'll get as much as I can working with NLP packets for those mods that want NLP data, but it will loose a few of the radio warnings if a 3rd party mod only works with NLP packets.)

Pitspotter: The planned release tonight (or tomorrow) with the relay will work with pitspotter, however the two mods will talk over each other. My own version of pitspotter will come at a later time.

[Sven Menkhoff]

I found the time to test it, and i like it.

The PitRadio is really hard to understand, for me. But that´s only a question of the used sound-files, so don´t matter. I get or make SoundFiles i can understand better.

But a bad thing was, that i was on place 1 like 1-2 seconds ahead, and i got the messege i´m on place 2. That really needs to be fixed. It was no LFS-Error, my position-count on the display in LFS was on place 1 too.
I know, this is hard to code, cause those errors are in most Tools. I hope it´s possible to fix that.

Otherwise: Great Work, :thumb:
and i hope i can test the next version soon.

EDIT: Could you insert an option to change the Audio-Device for the PitRadio?
I would like to get it, into my HeadSet, while i have my LFS-Sound on normal Speakers.

[Becky Rose]

But that´s only a question of the used sound-files, so don´t matter
If you make a new profile can I host it for others to use please ? :)

i was on place 1 like 1-2 seconds ahead, and i got the messege i´m on place 2
It's to do with LFS' outputting of the data (basically it outputs 8 cars at a time, so if I process 1 lot of data and they've all moved "3 nodes" and the car ahead is only 1 or 2 nodes ahead it will show as overtaking when it hasn't yet overtaken), i've had two ideas here though which will increase accuracy and 1 of them might make tonights update. It's a matter of time though as i've only got a few hours to do all this stuff tonight :) I shall do my best.

I would like to get it, into my HeadSet, while i have my LFS-Sound on normal Speakers.
Hands in the air here, I have no idea how to do that.

[Vain]

@LFS on speakers and Companion on Headset:
I'm not a pro in sound related things, but during sound initialization you should have a line that binds to a device. Usually you use the "primary device", the standard choice that will make DirectSound pick a device. You should also be able to ask DirectSound for all available sound devices and then ask the user in a menu which one to choose. But that is a feature for later use, when you got the userinterface.

Vain

[nikimere]

I have to agree with Kev, your 1st post is just crap. Excuse the language but it was pretty frustrating reading your replies to kev and your immature level of communication.

I actually had to read loads of posts just to find out what the hell it was...
A description of what the application is wouldn't go a miss....

LFS Companion.... is it a virtual friend that appears on your dashboard!?

Nothing there says that a voice plays over your speakers infoming the driver about certain events, which is basically all i wanted to know....

Anyway now that thats all out of the way, it could be quite a good application. I'll try it out when its complete, keep up the good work.

[Becky Rose]

A description of what the application is wouldn't go a miss....

LFS Companion.... is it a virtual friend that appears on your dashboard!?
But how would it be a virtual friend that appears on your dashboard when it clearly says it is a pit radio mod? What would a pit radio mod do if it didn't send messages to the driver about the race around them? Sure it did not clearly say they where audio messages but that's what the example sound file is there for...

*boggle* - maybe i'm just spoilt by the fact that i've used a real pit radio so I know what one is, but i'd have thought with the coverage that pit radio's get in televised motor sports that any and all racing fans would be familar with the concept, no?

@Vain - the DX sound initialisation is being handled by the compiler, i'm not setting up control manually. If I was writing it in C++ i'd still be working on the backfires :).

[nikimere]

But how would it be a virtual friend that appears on your dashboard when it clearly says it is a pit radio mod?
Ok but that doesn't matter what its called, we have a PitSpotter mod, does that play sounds? No! it displays text....
I honestly thought thats what ur PitRadio mod did too...

maybe i'm just spoilt by the fact that i've used a real pit radio so I know what one is lol!!! thats makes no difference. i used them too but that doesn't make me understand your post any more...

[Sven Menkhoff]

Sounds like i have some special mental forces.
I knew from the first posting what it is, and i understood the:" Feature not ready, yet"
It means it will do it, as soon as the tool is done.

Perhaps she´s writing in a bad english, which fits to my bad english :D
I don´t care. I could read and understand it. :smileypul


And yeah, if i can get a Sound-Pack, i will give it to you. And i can host it on my Root-Server too.
And btw: Do you allow me, to host your Mod(perhaps all your mods) on my server, and to offer it on a new german LFS-Portal?

[Becky Rose]

I've never been keen on hosting software on 3rd party sites for two reasons, firstly that of loosing the statistical reporting (which is very useful information), it means I create an app, then hear silence. Also it means users are looking in the wrong place for updates.

However my narcicistic message on the first race restart after loading should ensure that all drivers are aware of the latest version, and I guess I can live without statistical reporting on software of this type as it's not a prime release, but rather a 3rd party mod for somebody elses software which was only writen because I wanted the functionality for myself, and not because i'm reacting to market trends...

So yeah, ok. You may host it for all your autobahn racer mates to download.

[Becky Rose]

we have a PitSpotter mod, does that play sounds? No! it displays text....
If you're talking about Kegetysis' pit spotter mod, it plays sounds.

[thisnameistaken]

So we can make the assumption that it plays sounds when certain events are triggered. What sounds? And for what events?

Although I still don't actually know what it does, I doubt it is so complex and involved that telling us what it does would've been a time-consuming task. I can only assume you were/are being obstinate for the sake of it.

[Becky Rose]

I have changed the example to be in large and bold text so hopefully now people will stop saying "But what does it do?".

As far as Kev is concerned, he opted to make the post confrontational. As far as I am concerned this attitude of 'pick fault in the 1st post' on these forums has been going too far lately, it's one thing to flame a newbie for not using the search feature on the grounds of some anally retentive drive for this forum to be unique amongst all others and never twice repeat a topic, but it's quite another to bitch at someone who's just toiled day and night to improve your play experience.

As far as I care Kev can rot, he doesnt have to download it. He doesnt have to understand what the mod is, he doesn't have to use it, provided he races fair when i'm around I dont give a hoot what he does. I committed myself to releasing the mod, I did not commit myself to helping others get a clue.

[Becky Rose]

I can only assume you were/are being obstinate for the sake of it.
You now reveal yourself as wanting to know how it works, but have been asking what it does. As an end user I had assumed you wanted to know what it was, in which case, it is a radio mod. If you want to know how it works, i'm afraid i've lost the motivation to go into detail.

If you want to know what triggers are included, actually there's far too many to go into detail. Try the mod, ask for changes in any triggers you think are wrong - but do it through a proxy, as i'm likely to be short with you for some time.

[thisnameistaken]

You now reveal yourself as wanting to know how it works, but have been asking what it does.

Piss about with semantics all you like, I asked what it does because I wanted to know what it does. You repeatedly replied with what it is - not what it does - because you were too busy whining about forum etiquette to read a perfectly reasonable question properly.

As an end user I had assumed you wanted to know what it was, in which case, it is a radio mod.

So you concede that if you'd just read my posts properly instead of making silly assumptions none of this would've happened, and yet...

Try the mod, ask for changes in any triggers you think are wrong - but do it through a proxy, as i'm likely to be short with you for some time.

...you're still sulking. Well I suppose I won't waste my time asking you for anything, given how loud I'd have to shout for you to hear me from that far up your own arse.

[Crowley]

Hi Becky,

this is a very good mod. Actually a while back I was thinking, how cool it would be to have exactly this kind of pitradio.
I tested it today for some time. Apart from the volume it worked really good. I noticed, that I'm hardly looking on the mini map anymore. :-)

So this is really a nice tool that gives even better immersion in the game as well as additional info. I already have some improvement suggestions, but I will keep them to myself until you publish a beta or even final version. Maybe those things are still to come anyway.

But there are some glitches that I would like to report:
As you said yourself, after a race is finished the pit radio get's a bit carried away. The same happens, when a new race ist started. While I was waiting in the pit, no messages at all (which is normal) but as soon as voting for new race was successfull, several messages are coming before and while I was placed in the grid. I guess until the actual start of the race the pit radio shouldn't say anything (or even better until first split, to avoid adding to the usual T1 confusion :-).

First I was racing on a server with obligatory pitstop, where I was correctly told when the guy before me yet had to pit (really welcomed information BTW). Then I changed onto a server without pitstops. There I kept getting this message, even though it made no sense at all.

After closing LFS and restarting it while leaving your app open, LFS couldn't connect to your app again ("/insim=29999"). I had to close your app as well and restart it. Not sure whether this is by design, just noticed it by coincidence.

So, again, this is a very nice and welcomed mod and I'm looking forward how it develops.

Crowley

[Sven Menkhoff]

@Becky: Thank you much.
But perhaps it could be easier for me, if you post here a list off all files and what is spoken there. Some of the files i can´t translate, so it would be good if i get a list.

and it could answer all questions of thisnameistaken.
OK, it seems like he just wanna make trouble here, and after that list he will find something different to keep discuss about your style of this thread. But he would need to work out new argues.

[Becky Rose]

several messages are coming before and while I was placed in the grid
This one needs me to go through all the triggers (I may aswell use the same jargon as everyone else in the thread ;)) and put in exceptions for post/pre-race messages. There are a lot of exceptions for pre-race stuff already (because it needs historical data to work), but some I know are still playing. This wont be in tonights update, but it will get fixed soon.

I was correctly told when the guy before me yet had to pit (really welcomed information BTW). Then I changed onto a server without pitstops. There I kept getting this message, even though it made no sense at all.
I've looked right through the insim docs and there seems to be no way to detect if a server has compulsory stops, I need your +1 vote on this thread here to fix it :) (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=10807). The good news is the configuration options in tonights mod will allow you to manually turn the pit stop reporting off :).

After closing LFS and restarting it while leaving your app open, LFS couldn't connect to your app again ("/insim=29999"). I had to close your app as well and restart it. Not sure whether this is by design, just noticed it by coincidence.
Yah that would happen. I might fix it in the future, I might not, i'll list it as a minor issue that would be nice to fix if there wasn't all this other stuff to do :).

I already have some improvement suggestions, but I will keep them to myself until you publish a beta or even final version.
There's a number of new message triggers coming and some new features, but i'm happy to hear your ideas now especially if they involve fundamental changes it is often better to plan ahead :).

[Becky Rose]

post here a list off all files and what is spoken there
OK, but it might not be tonight as I want to get the relay finished and the update out.

[Becky Rose]

So you concede that if you'd just read my posts properly instead of making silly assumptions none of this would've happened, and yet...
I concede that if I participate in an internet forum it is my job to be understandable, but not my job to be understood.

[Sven Menkhoff]

Sure i have time.
But i thought that you already have that list used to make the voices in it.
So i thought it´s just copy+paste :)

You already did a good job, and you´re very interested in feedback and suggestion.
I like that, it´s great if somebody makes improvements for the community for free.
:thumb:

[nikimere]

@ BR: looks like you are pretty handy with the programming but man ur people skills could do with some work.... :shrug:
i dont wanna go OT again, but as far as i could see kev jus asked a question. and one that a few people would have like the answer to.
back on topic now for me. the apps looks very promising, hope u stick at it :thumb:

[Becky Rose]

Kev used sarcasm, he got it back, when he stepped up the ante he got a napalm flame bomb on his lap. It's clear that he's not even interested in the mod despite posting throughout the thread. So yes maybe I need to let myself be walked over - but I should think in the 1000+ posts i've made it's clear to a regular poster like him that i'm just not like that. Put me in a corner and I scratch - appeal to my narcicistic tendancies and I purr...

[Cue-Ball]

I've compiled a list of all the sound files and the messages they relate to. Note that it doesn't list exactly what the sound file says. It just gives an idea of what the sound file is trying to get across. I figured it would be a waste of time writing out each sound file verbatim since they will end up being changed for each language. The file is in microsoft Excel (.xls) format.

Becky - I'll volunteer to change the .wavs to .mp3s. I actually started conversion last night. I can easily do that during my spare time at work today (I hope). So, if you want to save some time and effort I can handle this portion. I'll need any updated sounds from you though.

Edit: MP3 sound files are done and have been sent to Becky for inclusion in the next release.

[Becky Rose]

No updated sounds just yet, email addy sent via PM.

[Lible]

Well, I can't actually just add static to it, it sounds silly then... I'm stretching (making my voice sound lower) the loops anyway. Who has heard of a young pit crew member, like me? :D

Well, I'll start some real recording tomorrow, when I have figured out all the effects I will add to it.

[Becky Rose]

UPDATE

0.7mb LFS-Companion update version 0.1 Alpha to version 0.2 Alpha (http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/LFS-CompanionAlpha2.zip)

Enhancements Include:
User interface;
radio volume control;
backfire volume control;
enable/disable features;
outguage relay;
insim relay;
support for multiple voice profiles (just add a folder);
failsafe (untested) for missing sound files in a profile;
a few trigger tweeks.

Does not yet save config settings when you quit, that will come in the next update.

Leach & flame as usual ... :)

IMPORTANT CHANGE
In order to maintain compatability with Pit Spotter I moved this application to use insim port 49999.

[Jakg]

UPDATE

0.7mb LFS-Companion update version 0.1 Alpha to version 0.2 Alpha (http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/LFS-CompanionAlpha2.zip)

Enhancements Include:
User interface;
radio volume control;
backfire volume control;
enable/disable features;
outguage relay;
insim relay;
support for multiple voice profiles (just add a folder);
failsafe (untested) for missing sound files in a profile;
a few trigger tweeks.

Does not yet save config settings when you quit, that will come in the next update.

Leach & flame as usual ... :)

IMPORTANT CHANGE
In order to maintain compatability with Pit Spotter I moved this application to use insim port 49999.hmmm, im gonna want to try this, if only i knew how to get LFS to always be /insim 49999

EDIT - woo, that was simple to set up, now to test it...

[Becky Rose]

Right click your LFS launch shortcut and goto properties then add the /insim=49999 to the Target field as shown in the picture attached.

[Jakg]

Right click your LFS launch shortcut and goto properties then add the /insim=49999 to the Target field as shown in the picture attached.doesnt work because the folder name has a space, which i will need to fix, also, can i add this to a .bat file? i do it so that it launches all my LFS stuff at the same time (i tried /imsim 4999, but it didnt work!)

EDIT - it works when i type insim, but i havent tried it with momoleds etc

[Becky Rose]

if you type /insim=49999 you no longer have a space and LFS still accepts it :) That works for a batch file too.

I will add an autolaunch feature (the button is already there) I just havn't got to it yet.

[Captain Slow]

I hate it when the first post doesn't contain enough information to determine what it's there for.

give her a break man.

[Jakg]

if you type /insim=49999 you no longer have a space and LFS still accepts it :) That works for a batch file too.

I will add an autolaunch feature (the button is already there) I just havn't got to it yet.no, i meant the path for lfs is E:\LFS\Actual Program\LFS\LFS.exe, but once i wipe my old windows (what im posting from atm while i nab the files) ill put LFS on its own little partition and fix it

[S0ul]

UPDATE

0.7mb LFS-Companion update version 0.1 Alpha to version 0.2 Alpha (http://www.bansheestudios.com/ftp/LFS-CompanionAlpha2.zip)

Enhancements Include:
User interface;
radio volume control;
backfire volume control;
enable/disable features;
outguage relay;
insim relay;
support for multiple voice profiles (just add a folder);
failsafe (untested) for missing sound files in a profile;
a few trigger tweeks.

Does not yet save config settings when you quit, that will come in the next update.

Leach & flame as usual ... :)

IMPORTANT CHANGE
In order to maintain compatability with Pit Spotter I moved this application to use insim port 49999.

wooohoo,Becky...will you marry me?XD No,alright that would be too hasty,but please keep it up,this is getting better and better!
S0ul

[steve30x]

Could you possibly make it possibe to remove some of the backfire sounds and still make it work? But as I said before the Backfire sounds would sound better if the cars had a set backfire for upshift/downshift instead of randomly picking the backfire sounds. I am disabling the backfire for now but I will say your work is good so far and i look forward to your future updates.

Heres a list of the backfire sounds that I would like removed because they dont sound right to me but might be alright to others.

backfire (4).wav
backfire (5).wav
backfire (13).wav
backfire (15).wav
backfire (19).wav
backfire (21).wav

these ones would be alright if the engine was at high revs for a while and then you lift off the accelerator completely

backfire (10).wav
backfire (14).wav
backfire (20).wav

Also to those that cant understand the first post just leave it alone. I am not speaking for everyone else but I understood clearly the first post. Also I cant see anything wrong with Beckys attitude. She is just standing up for herself the same as any normal human would do because you guys are picking at her like a dog to a bone.

[Becky Rose]

"E:\LFS\Actual Program\LFS\LFS.exe" /insim=49999

Quotes should fix it :)

Cheers Steve, i'll look at those samples when I turn my attention back to the backfire mod, i've had a few ideas on that one - a single pop for upshift sounds, and the repeating pops on throttle off from high revs. Basically I need to sort and order the sound files and group them better than the haphazard system that is in place now. I may well drop some or all of the samples you suggest too.

I may also think of ways to make the backfires more user configurable, but i've got to think of a good method for it.

[S0ul]

hey becky!Is it possible to play a pit radio sound at a certain amount of tyre consumption(i wonder if thats the right word),that would be soo handy because i never know how well my tyres are....
S0ul

[Cue-Ball]

If anyone wants to update their sounds to mp3's to save some space, or if anyone wants to save a bunch of download time in the first place, here are the downloads. Hopefully Becky won't mind me posting these since I was able to convince a friend to host them. I haven't had the chance to try them in-game yet, but they're straight conversions. Assuming the program can handle the mp3 codec, they should work fine.

Edit: Removed the mp3 links since the program was having problems playing them back, for some reason.

Steve - If you don't like those particular sounds you can just rename them (assuming Becky has fixed the program to have it not worry about missing sounds). If that doesn't yet work, you can just replace the ones you don't like with ones you do like. Just keep the file names the same. :)

[Captain Slow]

hey becky!Is it possible to play a pit radio sound at a certain amount of tyre consumption(i wonder if thats the right word),that would be soo handy because i never know how well my tyres are....
S0ul

press f9

[S0ul]

that only shows temperature doesnt it?

[Becky Rose]

Cheers Cueball i'll update the download with the mp3 codec samples with the next update.

Currently the backfire samples do report an error if you delete the files so you would need to put a null file in there, or copy over one that you do like. I will take a longer look at the samples used and when they are played when I get the camera tracking in.

[Cue-Ball]

hey becky!Is it possible to play a pit radio sound at a certain amount of tyre consumption(i wonder if thats the right word),that would be soo handy because i never know how well my tyres are....
S0ulRealistically, your crew chief doesn't know how your tires are either (unless the telemetry says they're losing pressure, in which case they pit crew would know you had a puncture). You should know approximately how many laps your tires will last from experience, then use the "you're on lap X" to determine when you should pit. In all honesty, unless you're locking up the brakes and cooking the tires, they should outlast your fuel pretty easily.

[S0ul]

erm,im getting an error when i use pitspotter i cant use your mod(if you said so before,sorry i didnt see it^^).It says:Packet received before ISI Packet

[Becky Rose]

that only shows temperature doesnt it?
Thickness of the line shows tyre wear.

Currently LFS does not export tyre data through it's various network ports. Of course a smokemod type approach of scanning memory for the data would work, but then it would need updating every time there is a patch so I dont fancy taking that route.

I think when the tyre model has been stable for a while it might be worth asking Scawen to include tyre data, but whilst the tyre model is still unfinalised it might not be worth him adding it yet.

[S0ul]

Realistically, your crew chief doesn't know how your tires are either (unless the telemetry says they're losing pressure, in which case they pit crew would know you had a puncture). You should know approximately how many laps your tires will last from experience, then use the "you're on lap X" to determine when you should pit. In all honesty, unless you're locking up the brakes and cooking the tires, they should outlast your fuel pretty easily.
alright,you got a point there,since LFS is a sim....still it would be nice

[steve30x]

Thanks cueball. I never thought of changing the samples mysele. I sometimes lose brainpower and never think of things like that , but Ill change the samples anyway.

[S0ul]

Thickness of the line shows tyre wear.

Damn,im playing this game for about 1 year.....i never notice,Thank you!

[Becky Rose]

erm,im getting an error when i use pitspotter i cant use your mod(if you said so before,sorry i didnt see it^^).It says:Packet received before ISI Packet
hmmmm.

I tried multiple startup orders and all seemed to be robust. First off launch LFS Companion and setup the relay (I understand Pit Spotter uses 29999 by default), then fire up Pit Spotter and you should see an outbound relay automatically created (I believe on port 30000 by default). Then launch LFS.

If this fails launch LFS first, then LFS Companion, then configure the relay, and then Pit Spotter.

Both of these methods should not report this error, (I hope).

[Cue-Ball]

Damn,im playing this game for about 1 year.....i never notice,Thank you!The tires last quite a long time. Unless you're running endurance events or are a REALLY good drifter it's unlikely that you've ever worn out a set of tires before the end of a race.

[Becky Rose]

On patch S tyres didn't last so long, but yes now soft compound tyres can last about 2 fuel tanks for me.

I think the ISI packet error that SOul is having might be because you've set the relay to Pitspotters input port (30000). It needs to be the output port (29999).

EDIT: Nope that's not it, but in all cases you need to configure the relay before launching Pit Spotter (or indeed any relayed program).

[Sven Menkhoff]

On patch S tyres didn't last so long, but yes now soft compound tyres can last about 2 fuel tanks for me.

I think the ISI packet error that SOul is having might be because you've set the relay to Pitspotters input port (30000). It needs to be the output port (29999).

EDIT: Nope that's not it, but in all cases you need to configure the relay before launching Pit Spotter (or indeed any relayed program).

This tool seems to get very great.
I don´t like the backfire, and i can turn it off :)
I like the PitRadio, and i can configure it to fit perfect.
I get Insim and Outgauge Relays: GREAT
For the moment, i miss a config-file or an auto-save for my InSim and OutGauge Relays.
Everything else seems like bonus and bugfixes. Cause this tool already can everything i need, and it help me to use the tools which are already there and not worked together yet.

:thumb:

And now i go and test it out more.

[S0ul]

hmmm,i always get this error-.- Am i doing something wrong with the relay?I switch outgage realy to active and put 29999 in the relay line....guess im too dumb for this

[steve30x]

I think your talking about the relay for this mod which is 49999 as far as I know soul.

[Rtsbasic]

Excellent update, works very nicely, just run a few races and it does help immerse you in a bit more.

There were a couple of bugs I noticed - not to knock your work, but at this stage I figure bug reports are good, in brief:

Randomly when i was in 6th it would say I was in 9th


Have to go all the way up the volume to go down? Almost blew my ears out I think :)

When Shift-F4'ing to it to change volumes, the ui takes a very long time to update. Same after exiting LFS

Doesn't save settings, this I think is the biggie.

Maybe make the ingame message text colour adjustable? :)


Btw I ended up with these volume settings:

Car Sounds: 12
Radio: 10%
Backfire: 30%

Very nicely balanced, all I get with the car sounds volume any higher is extra interference and distortion.

Will be nice when there is a couple of radio profiles to choose from, and if you get the time to tweak the backfire part a bit :) Very nice work though, thanks.

[Becky Rose]

I switch outgage realy to active and put 29999 in the relay line....guess im too dumb for this
Your not dumb, something isn't working right and i'm not clever enough to figure out what :pillepall, perhaps a fresh LFS download to a new folder might be worth a try? I dont think it could be a firewall issue, it's very strange that it does this.

Does the outbound insim relay detect when you fire up pit spotter? It should automatically fill that one and is a sign that the relay configuration is all ok, assuming the radio/backfire mods also work then the program configuration is ok, I dont know what else might be wrong :/

For the moment, i miss a config-file or an auto-save for my InSim and OutGauge Relays.
Its one of my top priorities, right after taking a short break. :)

Maybe make the ingame message text colour adjustable? :)

It wouldn't be true narcisism if it didn't match my player name ! :)

When Shift-F4'ing to it to change volumes, the ui takes a very long time to update. Same after exiting LFS
I'm not sure how to fix that, i'll have a think about it. It would be nice if it didn't loose the graphics display, but I think i'm being booted off the graphics card by windows. There is a test in indi-gaming circles called the Alt-Tab test, and I always fail it because i've never really looked into it, it's basically to do with Windows reserving the graphics ram to another application, or something like that anyway.

Randomly when i was in 6th it would say I was in 9th
It probably was reporting the radio for the wrong car, a 'quick fix' for this is to tab then shift-tab back again on a straight - but I will soon allow you to type your LFS name into the radio mod config and it'll play radio messages for that car regardless of the camera focus which is a much better solution.

Currently I think it might be bugged for the car in pole position, not sure yet.

Also it cannot report positions on autocross layouts because the information it uses to calculate positions isn't available (it's that path node thing Scawen talk about when people ask for "full Aston" configs).

Have to go all the way up the volume to go down? Almost blew my ears out I think
I'm glad you've recovered from the ordeal, I almost faced a court case once for a game that had high volume settings and when you ran it a high pitched tone was played as part of the intro, it allegedly gave a pet a heart attack (the things people will claim!), anyway I was setting up my own volumes earlier and it struck me that the right mouse button would be handy there. Also there's currently no way to remove a relay so I need to fix that in the UI too.

[Becky Rose]

I think your talking about the relay for this mod which is 49999 as far as I know soul.
Just to be clear, as I understand it the LFS Companion mod works fine for SOul, the problem is getting the relay to let Pit Spotter work in tandem, right?

[Rtsbasic]

narcisism..now theres a useful word to remeber ;)

Lol @ the potential court case, bit silly. Right mouse button would work well. Would be nice if you could use the scroll wheel when hovering over it to make finer adjustments, if possible.

Couple more things I noticed - when starting a 5 lap race, it runs the "only 5 more laps to go" sample, which sounds a tad silly just before the race starts. Can you catch when its the 1st lap of a race and exclude it from lap announcements?

Some sort of hotkey to disable it for autocross would be nice as well..espically with the popularity of cops & robbers at the min.

[Becky Rose]

hehe, yes and yes. :)

[Cue-Ball]

Some sort of hotkey to disable it for autocross would be nice as well..espically with the popularity of cops & robbers at the min.Would probably be easier to just autodetect and disable if track == autocross.

[Becky Rose]

Front post massively updated to reflect the programs current state, and includes everything on my to do list.

[Becky Rose]

Would probably be easier to just autodetect and disable if track == autocross
I think I will probably detect track and then use lap count & last sector information to calculate positions instead, rather than turn off position reporting - because not knowing your position when banger racing makes it hard to decide whether to bash or race :).

[Rtsbasic]

Sounds good. If theres no checkpoints set (e.g. cops & robbers) it just won't say anything?

[Becky Rose]

Ultimately I think in the case of cops and robbers you would probably hit the numpad key to turn the radio off, I can't think of any messages that would be useful when playing those servers - what that needs is the cops all on team speak.

[Vain]

About the outgauge-issue:
MOMOleds runs at port 53551 or something like that (read it up in the configuration file). That means an outgauge-relay to 29999 won't help MOMOleds at all. And pitspotter doesn't use OutGauge at all.
After switching to the correct port outgauge worked nicely. Great tool. :thumb:

Vain

[Becky Rose]

One idea I did have with drifters in mind, which might suite cops and robbers, was when I did the atmospheric sounds to apply an environmental sound to other cars, namely an excessive bass note thumping away just like the ricers who tear up the street setting off car alarms.

[Becky Rose]

aye 29999 is for Pit Spotter. I'm glad the relay does definately work for momo leds though. I wonder if I can squeeze room in the relay menu for some default configs.

[SpaceMarineITA]

Really interesting mod!

Have u thought of editing the voiced for making it a bit more like "radio" message?

I mean with the interferences and the usual background sounds of a pit radio message, similar to GTR or NR2003 ones

[Cue-Ball]

It already has the background static and the start and end radio noises. What else would there be?

[Citywidemicke]

@Becky Rose (http://www.lfsforum.net/member.php?u=87907)

Very good! nice work there :)

[Cue-Ball]

Becky - I finally got home and had the chance to try my mp3 versions with your program. It wouldn't recognize them with the .mp3 extension. I renamed them to .wav and they sound very distorted in-game. However; if you listen to them in Media Player they sound perfectly fine. Any ideas?

Also, a little user experience - I've found that the messages that you're battling a car ahead/behind are mostly unnecessary. When the car is a lapped car, or when you're a lap car they're nice, but when you're on the same lap as the other car you generally know it. I've renamed ahposX.wav and behposX.wav which makes it much nicer. You may want to make a separate on/off checkbox for position announcements of cars on the same lap as your car.

[Cue-Ball]

A couple of bugs to report which may or may not be related to the same thing that causes bad sectors to not be reported. I've seen the following:

Messages that I'm in position X when I'm either ahead or behind that postion (ie: it thinks I'm in 6th when I'm in 4th or vice versa). Someone else reported this already, I know.

I got a message that I was on the last lap, right after I'd crossed the finish line and ended the race (in first place).

I got a message that the car ahead had not yet stopped for fuel, but I was running in first place.

I got a message that I was running great (I'm guessing it was a "fast sector" message, but I had just spun out and lost a ton of time not 10 seconds before I got the message.

Other than these little problems, I love it. :) Once it's polished a bit I'm sure this will be a VERY popular mod.

[Hyperactive]

Hmm. The download link isn't working in the first post :x

Great piece of programming, Becky (or how should I yet know :p)

[Becky Rose]

had the chance to try my mp3 versions with your program. It wouldn't recognize them with the .mp3 extension.
It is possible to encode .wav files with a .mp3 codec but still conform to .wav protocols, which is what I had in mind. I will have a look at using raw .mp3 files. I suspect doing so would have a small but visible effect on framerate for some people (1-2 fps).

@Cue-Ball - it sounds to me like you where getting radio messages for the wrong car and the mod had lost track of who the selected player was. I will have to try to improve the auto-selection, and also provide a text field to put your driver name in so you can specify which driver to follow.

The download link isn't working in the first post
Please try again later.

[Becky Rose]

when you're on the same lap as the other car you generally know it.
I think the usefulness of this information may be relative to the length of the race, when I am doing [real] endurance racing this is the most vital bit of information I get, because it means I have to start studying the lines of the other driver to work out a way past.

[Lible]

Ok, I started recording today, some loops are louder, but I can't do anything about that... my crap microphone :). The loops will be much shorter, because I only repeat everything 2 times and I talk very fast.

EDIT: I found a function in Audition, which can put all selected files to selected volume

[Fischfix]

where is the link to download this one? the actual one from banshee does not work ...

[Becky Rose]

The Banshee site is down at the moment due to a server issue, it will be back soon.

[S0ul]

Alright,so i started Companion and then started spotter....Then a message appears in the spotter window,saying:Conecting to [IP adress]:29999........Connect timeout
Could it be something with the firewall?

[herki]

Maybe you can attach the updatem, Becky :shy:
I can hardly wait to have it :)

[Becky Rose]

Spotter will keep reporting 'attempting to connect' until you fire up LFS, then the messages that spotter is sending gets replied too and you'll see an "STA" message in the spotter window.

Is the outbound relay appearing on the relay list within LFS Companion? That means spotter<>companion is setup correctly.

And just to be sure, the companion mod is working with LFS without pit spotter right?

[Becky Rose]

Maybe you can attach the updatem, Becky
I'm at work, the server should be up well before I get home. I've had a few server problems recently, apparently it got infected by a worm, but I am actually started to get a bit frustrated with it now.

[S0ul]

Spotter starts up correctly now,but doesnt appear in hte relay list....Companion works alone,but whats really confusing is,when i activate the relay,but no other mod,it doesnt work anymore.So it just doesnt seem to like the relay,for unknown reasons

[Becky Rose]

It sounds like a port conflict, are you aware that I changed the insim port Companion uses for this release to 49999? I must admit I can't see how it would be working on 29999 anyway (when pit spotter isn't active) so I think you must be.

Do you have any outguage apps to try (maybe the backfire mod by disabling backfires in companion) so you can be sure the relays are working at all, I can foresee a potential problem to do with streams and an unassigned floating stream (it's supposed to goto a spare port and isn't actually used - but must exist, maybe I should specify the port).

Also check you have the latest version of pit spotter, when I get home I will confirm what version I tested it with.

[S0ul]

i got the latest version,i think,but im not too sure.....ill get backfire mod and try if it works,after lunch^^

[Sven Menkhoff]

I have a lil Problem.
Your Tool always change this in my cfg-txt:
OutGauge Mode 1
OutGauge Delay 1
into:
OutGauge Mode 0
OutGauge Delay 30

OutGauge Mode 0 mean something like disabled, or not send data.
I preffer 1, for send data in Race.
2 would be for data in Race and Replay.
And for the delay, i preffer 1, cause some tools show the RPM, and it looks smoother with lower delay settings.

Can you do something on that?


Everything else looks great.

[Becky Rose]

OutGauge Mode 0

It's LFS that is resetting Outguage to 0, but it's not important that this is happening (The reason it is doing this is because Companion is getting the outguage data through insim and then relaying it to other applications as if it was outguage data - LFS therefor turns outguage off).

The relay is always active (although can be manually disabled in Companion) so it sends data regardless of race or replay, as outguage mods do not send initialisation packets I cannot detect what settings you want, and at the moment companion itself makes no distinction between replay or race mode and as it needs the outguage data constantly (for other things) it therefore always relays this information.

OutGauge Delay 30

This is the outguage frequency used by the various outguage elements of the companion mod but I see no harm in adding a relay frequency to the relay configuration.

I've added these items to the to do list:
Allow customisation of the outguage relay frequency
Auto detect the relay frequency requested by relayed insim applications rather than force companions frequency rate upon them

[Becky Rose]

The Banshee server is backup so the download is working again.

[Sven Menkhoff]

Ah ok,
so i´m forced to use the Companion if i don´t wanna edit the cfg by hand everytime after i used the Companion :)
It will be no problem, as soon as it saves the relay-settings.

But 1 lil thing i still have.
The space to klick the buttons are a lil bit small.
At some of them, i need to klick several times before i hit it, and i can change settings.
sorry, can´t explain it better.
If you don´t know what i mean, i make a pic for you ;)

[Becky Rose]

The menu selection buttons or the menu item text buttons? I can make the selection area larger.

[troy]

great tool becky, had no time to test v2 until now but already saw the potential in v1

keep on the good work

btw i made a mirror with v1+2 on rapidshare so your banshee host can breath a bit ^^
http://rapidshare.de/files/28145617/LFS-Companion.zip
(maybe you can add it on the mainpage)

greetz

[Becky Rose]

Just reading some other mod threads, I see there is demand for a cop siren type thing but the mods out there are just stuck on permanently. If it's not treading on toes then when I put in the keyboard hooks to control the radio mod i'll put in a keyboard hook to control the horn & lights too.

[Lible]

Ok, I've done 30 loops by now and it seems, that I'm not able to do an Estonian version, because my <censored> microphone is only for skype calls.

[S0ul]

seems that you just love to work,eh^^No,i think thats a good idea,keep it up :thumb:

[Becky Rose]

Ok, I've done 30 loops by now and it seems, that I'm not able to do an Estonian version, because my <censored> microphone is only for skype calls.
That's a shame as I know there's quite a lot of Estonian drivers around in LFS who would have appreciated it :(.

[Hyperactive]

The Banshee server is backup so the download is working again.

Sorry, but it's still not working for me. Tried with Opera and Firefox, no luck yet. But I can wait, just saying it doesn't work atm. :)

[Cue-Ball]

That's a shame as I know there's quite a lot of Estonian drivers around in LFS who would have appreciated it :(.Before we all get too gung-ho on new voice packs, are there going to be more sounds added to the program? You mentioned additional trigger sounds in an earlier post.

[Hyperactive]

I just remembered this: http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=5888 ;) Becky, any chance? :shy:

[Becky Rose]

Banshee Server: Down again :( It will be a while, but a new mirror will be online when I get home in about 30-60 mins.

Indicator tick: Yes sure why not, i'm not sure yet if I can make it sync with the actual flashing though - it depends on what the outguage data does. It's a low priority though, when I do the environmental sounds i'll probably look at this.

Re new sounds: Yes there will be new sounds and triggers, but it wont break a voice pack if there are missing sounds. I will clearly state when new sounds have been added and what they do.

[EveningStar]

I just wanted to say "THANK YOU" for this great mod!

And one question: Do you plan to implant the crowd sounds also for the drag strip? That would be awesome! Would kick ass when they start screaming louder if you make a donut or burnout after the race. Dont know if thats possible.

[Lible]

That's a shame as I know there's quite a lot of Estonian drivers around in LFS who would have appreciated it :(.

Well, I need to get these guys, who would appreciate it to buy me a new sound card and microphone, then :). Well... you talked me into it.

[Rtsbasic]

Indicator tick would be cool. To sync it up with the flashing, all you need to know is the time interval for the light? Then just loop a sample thats the same length.

[Captain Slow]

And one question: Do you plan to implant the crowd sounds also for the drag strip? That would be awesome! Would kick ass when they start screaming louder if you make a donut or burnout after the race. Dont know if thats possible.

i might be wrong, but looking at his idea above, lfs lapper gives a score when you drift, mibi, the crowd could cheer louder or harder when you do a good drift. just a thought. personnally i dont like drifting but it could mibi appeal to people who do liike it. i dunno. :shrug:

[Cue-Ball]

Re new sounds: Yes there will be new sounds and triggers, but it wont break a voice pack if there are missing sounds. I will clearly state when new sounds have been added and what they do.I'm not worried about the new sounds breaking the old packs. I just thought that it wouldn't make much sense to make a voice pack, then have a bunch of new sounds added (that wouldn't be in the old pack) a few weeks later. So, if you know what is going to be added already, it would be good to know before anyone starts making a voice pack.

[Becky Rose]

Do you plan to implant the crowd sounds also for the drag strip? That would be awesome!
If there's a stadium it'll get a stadium sound emitter, if there's a large group of people standing they'll got a group of people sound emitter. I've not looked at the drag strip particularly so I dont know yet what is there.

Would kick ass when they start screaming louder if you make a donut or burnout after the race. Dont know if thats possible
Currently my plan is to play noise on overtakes for position, I would like to add noise for yellow flags too, especially if I can find some crowd "ooh" and "ahh" samples :). I'm not really sure how I would detect a burnout or a donut from the available data though.

To sync it up with the flashing, all you need to know is the time interval for the light? Then just loop a sample thats the same length.
If the relay was set to a very high frequency in order to detect the start of it... We shall see.

[ajp71]

I've not been able to download this program yet. Does it give yellow/blue flag notifications, and can I just enable them as all the radio I get? It would be great as I could finally start racing in shift + F.

[Becky Rose]

I believe those messages still appear on shift-f don't they?

You do get notification of whether a leader is behind you, but LFS doesn't actually export blue/yellow flag data as far as I can tell. It would be nice if it emmitted data saying a driver who has caused a yellow flag because this would be really handy and open up all sorts of new possibilities.

lfs lapper gives a score when you drift, mibi, the crowd could cheer louder or harder when you do a good drift.
Personally I wouldn't know how to score a drift so I doubt I will do this.

[Hyperactive]

That rapishare link seem to be working well :)

*attaches wheel to desk

[Becky Rose]

ajp71 has kindly provided a new mirror:
http://thegreenhell.rscsites.org/lfs-companion.html
Full v0.2

[ajp71]

ajp71 has kindly provided a new mirror:
http://thegreenhell.rscsites.org/lfs-companion.html
Full v0.2

Thanks downloading now... :)

[Jakg]

if this is the verrsion where i can save things ill give it a try, is it?

[Cue-Ball]

if this is the verrsion where i can save things ill give it a try, is it?Should be the same version that Becky posted yesterday. Saving doesn't work yet, but it only takes me about 10 seconds to set things up. I change volume to 20% and turn off backfires. Open LFS and start playing.

Simple.

[Becky Rose]

No it's still v0.2. I'm going to add config file saving, and maybe a few quick things this weekend, then i'm going to start doing the features I need for the STCC (which spawned this whole project) because the first race is only a few weeks away now and i've a bucket load of stuff to do.

The major improvements planned will be a little while coming, but config file saving is my top priority - I may even get it done tonight after i've eaten, but I have only just finished work and i'm still not back to 100% health, so we'll see.

[felplacerad]

i'm still not back to 100% health, so we'll see.


/newent health

[Hyperactive]

/newent health


Also:

/set coding speed=200%
/no sleep


Hmm. I have some troubles to get it working with the U19, I just reinstalled LFS and companion, let's see (pit radio worked with U17 but not the backfire...

[Montana]

Also:

/set coding speed=200%
/no sleep

Hmm. I have some troubles to get it working with the U19, I just reinstalled LFS and companion, let's see (pit radio worked with U17 but not the backfire...No problems here.

[Hyperactive]

Reinstall did the trick. Now I have new favourite insim app :)

[Becky Rose]

/set coding speed=200%
/no sleep
Working at 200% speed would slow me down too much, but I suppose I should take some breaks whilst i'm off colour :).

[Cue-Ball]

No it's still v0.2. I'm going to add config file saving, and maybe a few quick things this weekend, then i'm going to start doing the features I need for the STCC (which spawned this whole project) because the first race is only a few weeks away now and i've a bucket load of stuff to do.Just out of curiosity, what are the features you need for STCC and how exactly did it spawn this project? I'm guessing that other leagues may find this tool very helpful as well. I was looking at the STCC page and didn't see any downloads for videos...do you guys have any? I've always thought it would be cool to make a video of a really good, long race in the broadcast style. Something similar to Le Mans, but using a replay from the Endurance League or something. I think the biggest barrier would be the time it takes to capture video, especially with multiple camera angles. That, and the addition of a position ticker at the top of the screen.

On the topic of the tool - I'd also like to suggest the default sound volume be set to 20% once you get configs working. That's what I use and someone else in the thread mentioned the same setting as well. At the very least, it will be easy for someone to turn it up louder if they need to, but the low setting will keep people from getting blasted out on their first try. :)

[Becky Rose]

STCC is all about what you mention, the first race is later this month which is why there isn't a video yet, just a trailer.

I got started with LFS' insim & outguage because I needed to measure the gaps between each car for the commentators and television captions to use, but had no way to find and store the data in a format the commentators could conveniently use for the way we where working - as it's a highlights show with spit and polish watching the race replay file for the splits would not have worked.

The features it needed are not much, but of course now i've started i'm going to take it to the nth degree, basically i'm going to extract more stats from the race than have ever been previously given for a league race and all of the features will be available from within the mod for everyone to use.

I'm not much of a web page programmer though so I intend to read off a standard .html file and look for a marker (probably '*1' and so on) and insert the data at that point, i'll put a very plain default template in with the mod.


The information also needs to be historic and not dissapear off screen. I asked the guy who did LFS Stats (the popular post race league stat tool) but he was not keen on doing it, so I figured i'd do it myself. I am after all a programmer.

And I figure if i'm going to do a tool then it's going to have everything, plus bells and whistles, and a bit of spit and shine, because when I code anything that's basically what I do.

I guess by now a few might start to doubt the project as i'm very ambitious, i'll just say i've been around a long time.

[Rtsbasic]

Sounds like the end result could be pretty big, best of luck. Out of curiosity what language are you writing this in?

[Becky Rose]

Probably the better tool for this kind of thing might have been Pure Basic (assuming it has UDP support, which I think it has) but I only have passing acquitance with that and as I knew I was going to be ambitious it had to be a language I was more familiar with, if I was recommending a language to somebody else to write this that would be my first thought.

I chose Blitz3D (http://www.blitzmax.com) because it has UDP and a surround sound engine all built in, although it's data handling isn't OO - tbh I find OO slows me down on something this size and just gets in the way. There is an OO version of Blitz3D as it happens, but working in B3D I get so much more done so much faster.

[Rtsbasic]

I've experimented with B3D before, seemed quite well equipped, although I'm not exactly a programming guru. Personally I prefer VB.NET but I only do a quick bit here & there once in a while.

At least that explains the slightly unusual interface :)

[Becky Rose]

I hate coding UI's, so I keep them quick and simple. UI coding, if done "properly" with windows gadgets and so on, ends up dominating the source code and taking most of the time to develop. The way i've done the interface here is quick, simple and effective. I know it's not the greatest interface in the world, but I hope it is acceptable for the purpose :).

[filur]

This is all pretty neat, but i've got a few suggestions nonetheless. :)

Don't hardcode the loading of backfire sounds, let your program load either any sound files in the backfire directory, or any files matching "backfire (x).ext".

Don't load the radio sounds into RAM, even if you switch to a compressed sound format it's really alot of unecessary memory usage. Just stream from disk once you've picked a sound to play. Needing a bit of performance for backfires makes sense, but you'd probably never notice a radio sound playing 50ms too late.

[TagForce]

Just out of curiosity, what are the features you need for STCC and how exactly did it spawn this project? I'm guessing that other leagues may find this tool very helpful as well. I was looking at the STCC page and didn't see any downloads for videos...do you guys have any? I've always thought it would be cool to make a video of a really good, long race in the broadcast style. Something similar to Le Mans, but using a replay from the Endurance League or something. I think the biggest barrier would be the time it takes to capture video, especially with multiple camera angles. That, and the addition of a position ticker at the top of the screen.

On the topic of the tool - I'd also like to suggest the default sound volume be set to 20% once you get configs working. That's what I use and someone else in the thread mentioned the same setting as well. At the very least, it will be easy for someone to turn it up louder if they need to, but the low setting will keep people from getting blasted out on their first try. :)

[totally offtopic mode]
Making really good quality videos will only be really possible with a system that has the ability to stop the playback and process each rendered frame in a non-realtime fashion. So that even the slowest of machines capable of running LFS can render movies at a full 29.97fps 768x525 NTSC DVD with everything turned to maximum eyecandy. It will also need to be able to grab the audio from the engine (so that it can perfectly sync audio to video). If such a system is created, then adding a ticker (you're american and used to watching FOX and NBC broadcasts, aren't you? ;)) would be just a matter of creating a flexible add-on for the capture engine.
[/totally offtopic mode]


I would add to the volume a slider control, so there's more freedom than 10% increments if possible. And recode the wavs to 8khz... It's radio transmissions, those aren't CD quality anyway. 8khz is more than enough, and make it sound like a radiotransmission.

[micha1980de]

good point with the CCIT suggestion (~300-3Khz)
1+

[Becky Rose]

So that even the slowest of machines capable of running LFS can render movies at a full 29.97fps 768x525 NTSC DVD with everything turned to maximum eyecandy
768x576 here, i'll do a letterbox version for you Yanks after ;) ! I dont get the point though, I have all the eye candy on and record to a DVD recorder, then (I have to find a good app for this still) decode the vob files to avi and edit. Full eye candy and max quality. All I have to do is find said application and get my gold cables from my parents house before the first race.

[Becky Rose]

I would add to the volume a slider control
I 'could' do a slider, but i'm not going too. I can make it go up less than 10% though as there seems to be a few requests for that, i'll make it 5%. I dont think it needs terribly accurate settings for the volume, provided enough volume steps are there to cover the range of different sound settings people have.

recode the wavs to 8khz... It's radio transmissions, those aren't CD quality anyway.
This one might be worth doing though. I was a bit hap hazard with the initial audio sounds and just worked with what I was given with a wee bit of editing. I'll be migrating to an mp3 codec too.

Don't hardcode the loading of backfire sounds, let your program load either any sound files in the backfire directory, or any files matching "backfire (x).ext".
I'm not sure how the sound profiles for each car would know which sample to play if I did that.

Don't load the radio sounds into RAM, even if you switch to a compressed sound format it's really alot of unecessary memory usage.
I was concerned that on some systems, especially single processor systems, systems with HDD's that power down in short order, and slow access HDD, that this might cause pauses in the main LFS display so for wider compatability I loaded into RAM, which if you think about it means i'm making use of memory if it's there, or using virtual memory (ie: The Hard Disk) if it isn't. The only downside to this is if you are running other applications in addition, but as LFS is a game, this is unlikely. I could make this an option, but I think I need to hear a reasoned argument to counter my thoughts on it first.

[Cue-Ball]

[totally offtopic mode]
Making really good quality videos will only be really possible with a system that has the ability to stop the playback and process each rendered frame in a non-realtime fashion. So that even the slowest of machines capable of running LFS can render movies at a full 29.97fps 768x525 NTSC DVD with everything turned to maximum eyecandy. It will also need to be able to grab the audio from the engine (so that it can perfectly sync audio to video).I agree with you that such a thing would be really nice. But I think that for a somewhat long program (say, a half hour or hour of TV-like coverage) it's overkill. As long as the framerate can be kept over 30fps and there isn't a lot of "lag jumping" and warping in the replay, the video should be plenty good enough. I'm 90% positive that I could record good quality video on my home machine without a problem at the resolution you suggest. A hardware based capture card works wonders. :)

If such a system is created, then adding a ticker (you're american and used to watching FOX and NBC broadcasts, aren't you? ;)) would be just a matter of creating a flexible add-on for the capture engine.Actually, I mostly watch SPEED. They have a ticker on most of their race coverage including Speed GT, Speed Touring Car, American Le Mans, etc. It constantly scrolls the names and numbers of the cars along with their positions. It also has an indicator for when the track is under a full course caution, and it sometimes shows the leaders for each class in ALMS.

The rendering system you describe would be nice, but I think i'll be old and grey before we see such a thing. It seems to me that it would be just as easy to just render a ticker using data from the race. Then, that could be overlaid on the video using video editing tools, similar to what a real TV station might use.

I still contend that the really hard part is the camera work. A single race lap might take shots from half a dozen track cameras, a forward facing car camera, a rearward facing car camera, etc. Then there are cameras in the pits (not much to see in LFS at the moment in that regard) as well. Getting all of these shots in LFS is VERY time consuming. Hence, most of the LFS videos we currently see are either very, very short or they're longer, but taken from very few camera positions. Following a two car battle for the lead in LFS, over the course of a single lap, would take a long time. Doing it for a whole race, then adding in extra camera views, slo-mo replays of accidents, etc. is going to be a huge undertaking. I can see it taking months of production and some seriously good video editing tools just to cover a single 25 lap race in this "TV style". I'm VERY curious to see how STCC does their videos.

[TagForce]

768x576 here, i'll do a letterbox version for you Yanks after ;) ! I dont get the point though, I have all the eye candy on and record to a DVD recorder, then (I have to find a good app for this still) decode the vob files to avi and edit. Full eye candy and max quality. All I have to do is find said application and get my gold cables from my parents house before the first race.

Aye... But you only have 24fps... PAL.
There's actually more than one point.
1. Realtime camerachanges are a pain to do this way.
2. Not everyone is able to record in your way.
3. Even though it looks really good, it's still a conversion from a computer output to a TV system, and then back to computer again. Quality loss is impossible to overcome. What you encode and are stuck with are the colors that are sent to the TV system. You edit those (wrong) colors with all new computer graphics and re-encode that to another system. So there's 2 cycles where you lose quality. If you can grab and edit the 100% uncompressed full-size output from LFS there's only 1 encoding cycle.

If you have GPL or NASCAR Racing 2002 or 2003, try to find GPL2AVI and fool around with that for a bit. The system is sooo much better than Fraps or TV/Out recording.

But that's totally off-topic ;)


Actually, I mostly watch SPEED. They have a ticker on most of their race coverage including Speed GT, Speed Touring Car, American Le Mans, etc. It constantly scrolls the names and numbers of the cars along with their positions. It also has an indicator for when the track is under a full course caution, and it sometimes shows the leaders for each class in ALMS.


Ah.. I get Nascar Busch Series on motors TV here, and those are FOX and NBC broadcasts... They have the same ticker. I find the ticker system to be so much better than the "hope we get to see the time difference for the top 10 before the end of the next 40 laps" F1 approach of providing (no) information.


The rendering system you describe would be nice, but I think i'll be old and grey before we see such a thing. It seems to me that it would be just as easy to just render a ticker using data from the race. Then, that could be overlaid on the video using video editing tools, similar to what a real TV station might use.


Well, it's there for GPL and NR200x Season. I think it's possible to have LFS stop rendering and proceed a set interval with insim commands, so it shouldn't be too hard to make it.
I seriously believe you underestimate the amount of work involved into creating a ticker by hand. I've tried it before, and it's quite a big job to get right. It's actually easier to write a program to create that ticker for you using readily available LFS info and preset images for various portions of the ticker (course status, advertisements, driver names, etc).

[Becky Rose]

I'm VERY curious to see how STCC does their videos.
I plan to record the race up to around half a dozen times, most of the streams using default camera positions, with a few hand controlled camera's thrown in to 1 or 2 of the feeds. The races are about 30 minutes so this will take an evening.

'Directing' would be quite quick after that, the leg work starts when adding captions and replays if necessary.

I was an editor for post race coverage of a 24hr race once and that took me ages to go through all the video footage to make sure nothing was missed. I wont be doing that again, i'll be trying to show all the action but an anal attention to detail is just going to make the series implausable. You dont have to show every spill, only if it's major or exciting, you just aim to and try to show every spill and accept that you miss what you miss.

I think in actualy most of the action would be covered in the first 4-5 race recordings, after that you're looking for specific shots and probably using fast forward just to get to certain bits.

My main concern is that my old video editing software is out of date so i've bought Adobe Premier, but I havn't learned how to use it yet! There just isn't time, so I may have to do race 1 a different way to the rest.

If anyone knows a good app to recode DVD's into AVI's i'd be grateful to learn more, the shareware ones i've tried so far dont seem marvellous.

[Becky Rose]

Not everyone is able to record in your way.
Not everyone is editing STCC races. Specifically I am, and I actually bought the DVD Recorder specifically for the purpose last month.

3. Even though it looks really good, it's still a conversion from a computer output to a TV system, and then back to computer again.
It's a one way conversion in terms of the analogue signal, and being as i'm using the PAL signal I don't have to use what in the trade is referred too as "Never Twice Same Colour".

[Becky Rose]

If you have GPL or NASCAR Racing 2002 or 2003, try to find GPL2AVI and fool around with that for a bit. The system is sooo much better than Fraps or TV/Out recording.
I'm not sure GPL2AVI is going to help me record STCC races though is it? I'm confused at to what you are getting at here, you seem to have a passion opinion about something, but the point is missing me.

I might also use Fraps, at the end of the day my PC can record with Fraps at 800x600 at 30fps with all the eye candy turned on, allowing me to make high quality NTSC and PAL versions for the final output. I wasn't impressed with the quality of Fraps audio when I first tried it but i've since found this to be a driver problem with my onboard sound card - and it would meen I could put my DVD Recorder into the living room.

[Cue-Ball]

Well, it's there for GPL and NR200x Season. I think it's possible to have LFS stop rendering and proceed a set interval with insim commands, so it shouldn't be too hard to make it.Neither of those games have a real-time sound generation system. I'm not a programmer, but from everything I've read that is the one big thing that prevents LFS from having the things that other sims often do (rewind in replays, for instance). There seems to be no easy way to get the sound out if it's not running in real time.

[Becky Rose]

I believe Scawen said in the U19 test patch thread that rewindable replays are coming quite soon, i'm not sure about pausing each frame, and I still dont get why I need to do it.

If your talking more generally for LFS users to make movies with then this isn't the thread for it. Here is the LFS Companion thread, a mod made for use with the STCC which has a video output stream that i'm making, and commentators are adding too.

[Cue-Ball]

Becky - Are you saying that you plan to record each race from your PC to your DVD recorder, from multiple different angles? Am I hearing that right? That means that you'll have to play back the race, in real time, at least half a dozen times, using at least half a dozen DVDs. Then you'll have to rip those DVDs to AVI so that you can edit them.

I would definitely recommend trying Fraps before you go through that much work. Though, recording a half hour program via fraps is gonna give some HUGE files. If you can get your hands on a hardware MPEG2 capture card, that would be your best bet. Too bad you're in PAL-land or I'd loan you one of my NTSC cards.

[Cue-Ball]

I believe Scawen said in the U19 test patch thread that rewindable replays are coming quite soon, i'm not sure about pausing each frame, and I still dont get why I need to do it.I'm under the impression that replays will be able to "jump back" like a tivo, not actually rewind or play in reverse. I don't think you do need to be able to record each discreet frame. It will give you a cleaner source to work with, but I think it's overkill for something like this.

Sorry to drag things OT.

[filur]

I'm not sure how the sound profiles for each car would know which sample to play if I did that.
A format like XRT_backfire (x).ext has been successfully applied elsewhere i believe. :)

The thought behind this suggestion was basically to let people not only customize, but also remove stuff they don't want without creating empty placeholders.
I could make this an option, but I think I need to hear a reasoned argument to counter my thoughts on it first.
Argument would be that the performance loss of streaming from harddisk would probably never be noticed, while as your program is currently designed it uses over 40mb of RAM where 90% or so results in a performance gain nobody will probably ever need.

While arguing that using memory if it's there is kind of a good point, arguing to not use memory when you don't need to is even better.

[Becky Rose]

Argument would be that the performance loss of streaming from harddisk would probably never be noticed
That depends so much on the system though. My PC sure, but I know for a fact that over 99% of LFS users don't have a RAID array. What if the HDD's are in power save mode because LFS has been playing 15 minutes?

I think if I did this it would have to be an option, memory is a huge wasted resource most of the time and virtual memory is there otherwise, which does exactly what you're asking if the RAM isn't there.

I'm not convinced yet.

[Becky Rose]

Becky - Are you saying that you plan to record each race from your PC to your DVD recorder, from multiple different angles?
Yes, it's one option - Fraps now i've sorted the quality issue is another - although i've only got the demo atm, Fraps uses about 10mb a second at 800x600 at 30fps, that's 18gb for half hour I think, so i've room to edit a race. I've got about 300gb of space.

That means that you'll have to play back the race, in real time, at least half a dozen times
If i'm going to understand the race well enough to produce a good highlights program I need to watch it a few times anyway. Plus the post race scrutiny in STCC is extremely strict and that needs me to watch the race too.

using at least half a dozen DVDs. Then you'll have to rip those DVDs to AVI so that you can edit them.
They are a few pense each from work because we buy in huge bulk, and it would only take 2 or maybe 3 disks per race. Recoding back to AVI isn't really a problem on my system as it's very fast - I just go an have dinner and maybe a short soak in the bath, or watch a telly program (for once!).

[TagForce]

Not everyone is editing STCC races. Specifically I am, and I actually bought the DVD Recorder specifically for the purpose last month.


It's a one way conversion in terms of the analogue signal, and being as i'm using the PAL signal I don't have to use what in the trade is referred too as "Never Twice Same Colour".

But everyone is a potential LFS video editor. And your way may be good enough for your purposes, a better system is always welcomed once it's created.

The NTSC versus PAL debate is still ongoing. PAL has better colors (although less 'vivid'), but NTSC has a better refresh rate for better high-speed actions (like camera switching).
And yes, it's true that you have only one conversion of the actual signal. But what I was saying was that you're converting a perfect image to a less perfect system, then editing that less perfect system, and re-encode that to an even worse system (xvid, or some other codec, or possibly back to DVD).

Not saying your idea is not the way to go for now, just saying that there are better solutions possible if someone would be willing to undertake such a project.

[Cue-Ball]

That depends so much on the system though. My PC sure, but I know for a fact that over 99% of LFS users don't have a RAID array. What if the HDD's are in power save mode because LFS has been playing 15 minutes?I'd like to see you drive for 15 minutes without hearing a peep from the pit guy. I can hardly go three turns without him spouting off something! :)

[filur]

What if the HDD's are in power save mode because LFS has been playing 15 minutes?
Just poke the HDD holding the files every now and then, if this is the main problem.
I think if I did this it would have to be an option, memory is a huge wasted resource most of the time and virtual memory is there otherwise, which does exactly what you're asking if the RAM isn't there.
I'd say it really doesn't, Windows can't figure out which things should preferrably be kept in RAM and which things could work just as good in virtual memory, having all your radio sounds in memory might create a situation where an SQL query on my PC ends up being handled in virtual memory, something i'd really notice.

[Becky Rose]

I'd like to see you drive for 15 minutes without hearing a peep from the pit guy. I can hardly go three turns without him spouting off something! :)
:D So i'd be keeping the hard disk from entering power save mode, thus increasing wear and tear. I'd get sued again! lol ;)...

And your way may be good enough for your purposes, a better system is always welcomed once it's created
I'm sorry to say this wont be coming from me, i'm quite busy enough! And it's not really my area of expertise. I have one compression routine of my own but it's quite slow, i'm not sure I have the necessary skillset to work with video codecs.

[TagForce]

Neither of those games have a real-time sound generation system. I'm not a programmer, but from everything I've read that is the one big thing that prevents LFS from having the things that other sims often do (rewind in replays, for instance). There seems to be no easy way to get the sound out if it's not running in real time.

Final off topic post on this, I promise.

No, the problem is that there is no per-frame car state saved in the replay. In fact, LFS is capable of playing sounds at any speed you watch the replay. All the other games stop the sound because their sample timings will be off at anything other than 100% speed. In theory, it is possible for LFS to generate the sound there would be from the current point in time until the next "frame" in the replay. It would need to know exactly how long the time between each rendered frame was, though, and take into account any changes to the sound between 2 frames.

It can't rewind because the output is actually calculated by the physics engine, and there's not enough info saved in the replay to be able to "step back the variables". Scawen is working on implementing some sort of car state packets in the replay file, like key-frames in a video. Frames in which all the necessary info is recorded, so the engine can pick up from that point.

[Kris-Is-Awesome]

it wont let me click "Launch LFS"


What gives?

[Cue-Ball]

it wont let me click "Launch LFS"


What gives?That feature is still on the to-do list. The graphic is just there as a placeholder, like some of the other buttons on the top menu.

[Becky Rose]

v0.3 will be out later today and it is quite a big update, i'm just trying to stomp a bug at the moment and then it's ready. After this update I will be doing my STCC stuff so other features will be a while. You can see what is new by looking on the first post where i've highlighted stuff on the to do list.

[Jakg]

woo, cant wait to give 0.3 a try!

[Quint999]

Hi

when i try and start the game with V2 running i get

/insim=49999
Insim Initialise Bind Failed

same if try and type in game
any ideas ?

Am only running Windows Firewall and its not piped up .. and dont think it blocks outgoing requests anyway

thanks

[Becky Rose]

I have had this but I cant think right now what causes it, but v0.3 will be out very soon (just looking for a host as Banshee is still down) and in v0.3 you can specify the insim port for LFS Companion

[Quint999]

Becky i'll glady host it for you , plenty of space and bandwith available

PM me if your interested

[Becky Rose]

UPDATE

Saving & auto Loading of the configuration
Bi-Directional volume adjustment in the UI
Recode .wav's to mp3 at a lower frequency
Change volume control to work with smaller increments (5%)
Improve auto detection of currently viewed player
Allow players to specify driver that radio messages are given for
Allow customisation of the outguage relay frequency
Auto detect the relay frequency requested by relayed insim applications rather than force companions frequency rate upon them
Cull laps to go message before race start
3.74mb LFS Companion v0.3 Alpha (http://www.theoc-clan.com/lfs/LFS-Companion.zip)
Hosted by The OC Clan / Webtek

Many thanks to Quint for hosting the file :).

[Jakg]

rapidshare! ok, most peopl cant use it, but for one month i can, so do it!

EDIT - Damn, beaten!

EDIT - looks good, although hearing someone SAY "Beep" whenever i press save could get a tad... annoying!

[Jakg]

added it to my script (to start this, momoleds, spotter, LFS in that order) and i got the "Cannot load Fart 1" error

[Becky Rose]

That says it cannot load the backfire sample, which I suspect is because the archive either isn't extracted with the folder structure intact, or the download was corrupted.

EDIT: just checked the download and all is ok

[Jakg]

That says it cannot load the backfire sample, which I suspect is because the archive either isn't extracted with the folder structure intact, or the download was corrupted.

EDIT: just checked the download and all is okill re-extract that in a min then, but the relay does work

[Quint999]

reinstalled lfs , patched to u19 and insim port problem gone, works well, really like the backfire mod

may have already been noted, but still backfires when in pit screen

[Becky Rose]

Cheers for that, I was aware but I had not put it on my to do list. :)

[Crowley]

Allow players to specify driver that radio messages are given for

How and where can I specify the driver to follow? Or am I being stupid here?

Nice work. It gets better and better... :-)


Crowley

[Becky Rose]

It's on the config menu, leave it on auto and race a lap in windowed mode and you will find it has auto detected you, turn off auto and save the config file, eh voila :)

[Sven Menkhoff]

It´s getting better each day :thumb:

Do you allow to make custom-GUI´s and that they get shared in the community?

Here´s an example:

[pb32000]

Great app, really adds another layer of immersion to the game.

Thanks :D

edit: Can I suggest providing the update information as an edit to the first post. I didnt read through all 7 pages so downloaded ver0.2 AND ver0.3 thinking due to its size ver0.3 was an incremental update. A little note to say its standalone would benefit many people I imagine :)

[Becky Rose]

@Sven: Provided the buttons / Windows all work and I dont have to recode anything I have no problems with that.

@pb: That's a very valid point, I have updated the first post to make this clearer :).

[Becky Rose]

I'm working on the statistical reporting at the moment, it's still early stages for this so ignore the menu on the right as it will change.

The key feature here, other than the fact that i'm going to extract every concieveable bit of data I can find, is that the program inserts the data onto a template page that you can design yourself. Shown here is the default template I have made, but as long as the web page is .html format the stats output will comply with it.

I hope this will give leagues a whole new level of post race statistical depth, it generates reems of data already and i've only just begun :).

[Becky Rose]

Ooops I fogot to attach the example picture, here you go :)

[Sven Menkhoff]

@Sven: Provided the buttons / Windows all work and I dont have to recode anything I have no problems with that.

Thx.
The Buttons are all aligned to the positions of the original GUI.
No need to recode. It works fine.

Only thing what cause some lil problems, is the background of the settings.
If i use a plain black background, the datas don´t go away at menu-change. Only the new data get shown too.
I don´t know why this happens, and for the moment i use your background of that field, and it works good.
If you know a fast solution for it, please let me know. If you don´t know it, don´t care about it. It works good.



hope this will give leagues a whole new level of post race statistical depth, it generates reems of data already and i've only just begun .

great

[Becky Rose]

If you know a fast solution for it, please let me know. If you don´t know it, don´t care about it. It works good.
That's because I left croma-keying on as it didn't effect my background image, allow me to explain:

Any pixel that is colour 0,0,0 is shown as transparent so when the image is pasted down to clear the screen (no point in doing an actual screen clear when your pasting a full screen image) those transparent pixels are not covered.

To counter this you should ensure that no pixel is 0,0,0 - but there's a complication.

Anyone with a Windows bit depth of 16bit may have their colour indexes remapped so you should ensure that each pixel is at least 8,8,8 - but there's another complication.

Because the image is .jpg the actual colour of a pixel may change when you save it, so you should make sure each pixel in the text area has at least one colour index of about 16.

[Sven Menkhoff]

OK thank you.
Something like that i thought.
With your explain i can handle that easy. :)

[Micron88]

i have done a new ui to. take a look

[Becky Rose]

Neet :) I added it to the front post, cheers.

[Sven Menkhoff]

Here´s the 1 i did.
I also changed the beep.wav.

The Buttons lite green if marked.
And the save-sound is a crazy horn, short and not disturbing.

[Becky Rose]

Yay ! Added. :)

[Becky Rose]

@Private Message Person - posted here for all to see.

I dont mind you taking my ideas and running with them, I dont mind you taking things further where I havn't and I dont mind you recreating my work providing you dont brand it as mine or directly use my work without asking.

What I will not do is give away an active project, i'm still writing this, today alone i've added around 10-15 pages of source code. That's a lot by anyones standards, and it's all been a slog because i'm dealing with awkward stuff I dont usually deal with.

That does not meen i'm incapable of writing the project.

So sure, recreate my work I wont stamp on you. However I will not just give you the entire source code. I'm actually quite insulted as to the suggestion. I suppose you asked Scawen for LFS' code too so you could add shader 2 support?

If you want a feature request it, but bear in mind that I have only once ever released the full source code of a project in all the years i've been coding. If you want help making your clone, ask in the appropriate place. Don't expect me to just hand over an active project, I am not incapable.

[Jakg]

Yay ! Added. :)Yay! nnow such a cool program doesnt look like its on a SNES!

[Jakg]

just to check, does this need any outgauge set up?

[Rtsbasic]

Update sounds excellent, just got in from work so not tested yet but will have a go tomorrow. Its pretty cool its skinnable as well, I'll have to have a quick go at one tomorrow :)

Regarding open sourcing your app, I can see the point of view from the person who sent you the message, theres quite a few applications that have done much better being open sourced than they could have by only having 1-2 people work on it. Look towards projects such as Linux, The Gimp, Firefox, OpenOffice, etc. I would not see it as an insult, I have released some of my work under an opensource licence (GPL V2) before which helped them grow. I would agree though its best not to do that at the moment as its still in very heavy development, and it is of course your choice if you prefer to remain the sole developer, very often that works better on small projects with specific goals. Like LFS Vs Racer for example.

So basically, don't feel insulted someone else wanted to hack away at your code :) Take it as a compliment.

[Sven Menkhoff]

just to check, does this need any outgauge set up?
No, it sets everything by it own.
You just need to make the InSim-Connection.

Standart-Setting is 49999
But in the new version, you can set the InSim-Port on your own.

[Micaoct]

I just got around to trying LFS Companion and I gotta say GREAT work! I love it and im looking forward to future updates. Im hoping that this will replace my ingame HUD and add to the immersion factor. It's genius! The backfire mod sounds good too. Thanks :thumb: Now I got more testing to do! The voices are a little hard to understand at times but I guess that's a feature not a bug. :D

Looking forward to the other great features as well, cant wait! This is something that i'll be definitly keeping!

[Nard]

Whereas the backfire mod kinda leaves skeptical (it just sounds sampled too much as you'll hear the exact same backfires over and over), the pit radio is just plain incredible. Becky, you need to make the on demand reports thing go. That'd just be too awesome.

Tying acknowledgements for in-race pit settings changes would be pretty cool too, like, when asking for a tire change, having your radio operator going "Got it!" would be funny. :D

One suggestion though, to whoever worked on putting radio call-ins and static, the call-ins and outs are a little too loud, I'd lower their volume by 10-15%. Aside from that, those samples are great!

[DratsaB]

I seem to be having some trouble trying to get Companion to work with PitSpotter. The Companion radio sounds and backfires work fine, but pit spotter only annouces the postion of a car ocasionaly and not at the right times either.

I have setup the insim relay to port 29999.

Any ideas on what I might be doing wrong?

When you where testing it with Pitspotter Becky, did it work normally for you?

ps loved new version, cheers :thumb:

[Becky Rose]

Yes, but pitspotter did not get extensive testing, just enough to write and prove the relay. If I can confirm this issue I will see what I can figure out.

Whereas the backfire mod kinda leaves skeptical
It's like marmite, you either love it or hate it. I will be trying to improve it later, maybe that will win it more votes - but probably loose some of it's current ones :) ! lol

[iNfa-ReD]

Had a quick scan through, doesn't seem like anyone else is getting the same problem as me but v 0.3 won't work at all on my end.

I get error messages saying admin password is wrong and then the same one as soul when he's doing whatever.

I'm not running anything else apart from companion. Fix me please :)

[Sven Menkhoff]

Had a quick scan through, doesn't seem like anyone else is getting the same problem as me but v 0.3 won't work at all on my end.

I get error messages saying admin password is wrong and then the same one as soul when he's doing whatever.

I'm not running anything else apart from companion. Fix me please :)
Go into yout LFS-Online, create a new Server, and delete the Admin-Password.
Or open cfg.txt and delete the admin-password here: "Game Admin "
After that it works

[Becky Rose]

aye, you've got insim password protected and currently Companion doesn't like you enter one. I've been meening to add support for password protected insims', i'll put that on the to do list. :)

[Becky Rose]

UPDATE
A new version featuring webpage driven post race statistics is now available. I've not completely finished them yet as it still needs a proper "Final Results" page and at least a lap chart before I consider it to be useable - then everything else is a bonus.

However i'm having trouble getting it to detect pit stops properly and half the problem is not having very good replays of a race with pitstops to use so I have released it and would like to ask anyone who uses it to post me feedback regarding races with pitstops and the post-race statistics.

One known issue is if you compile the post race statistics twice for the same race you'll get multiple blue/red sector times. I also think the pitstop issue 'might' be related to the second and subsequent times you compile stats when running the tool - but i'm not sure atm until I get some better races to use it with.

You can use a live race to report stats or watch a replay, it really doesn't matter.

You can configure the appearance of your stats pages by editing the source file inside the "stats/source" folder so your stats output can match the design of your league website. If you do this, within the .html file try to ensure the *1, *2, and *3 marker are on a line all by themselves as otherwise the program may not be able to handle your layout. Putting them on a line by themselves fixes this, ie:


<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
*2
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>


Fixes & Features Covered in v0.4

Bug - Config file properly saved when menu option selected, not on program exit
Bug - Program cycle rate interfering with fast frequency insim applications, program now adapts it's own frequency to the speed of the fastest relay.
Race Statistics Feature - Lap By Lap Information
Race Statistics Feature - Complete Lap Table (sortable by split or total time)
Race Statistics Feature - Best Lap Table
Race Statistics Feature - Average Lap Table
Race Statistics Feature - Potential Lap Table
Race Statistics Feature - Individual Driver Lap Sheets (sortable by lap or time)
Race Statistics Feature - Poor Sector Time Report
Race Statistics Feature - Sector Consistency Report
Race Statistics Feature - Laps Led
Race Statistics Feature - Pit Stops
Possible bug: Not reporting bad sector times, needs investigating
Input menu bug on Outguage relay frequency if another keyboard entry had already been given since program start
0.5mb LFS Companion v0.3 to v0.41 Updater (Updates v0.3 only) (http://www.theoc-clan.com/lfs/LFS-CompanionAlpha4update.zip)
Hosted by The OC Clan / Webtek

[Becky Rose]

Example of output: http://www.simtouringcarcup.com/stats/example/index.html

(I found some capital letter issues on the "averageLap.html" and "driver*.html" files which are fixed ready for the next release).

[Becky Rose]

I just released an emergency patch to v0.41 because of a quite series mistake, I didn't see it straight away, so you've got 3 fixes :)


Bug - Some stats pages had wrong case in their filenames creating dead links on Linux web hosts.
Aesthetics - The blue colour had been used for both best sector time and on the lap by lap chart for loosing a place, the lap by lap chart has been changed to cyan.
Bug - Menu Lockout was occuring when not using a relay because of changes to the program's cycle rate

[Sven Menkhoff]

i have another Bug for you.

I use MomoLED at OutGauge-Port 56551.
We had a couple of races today, and after the first race i got this error in my MomoLED.
I never had this error before, so i´m sure it´s caused by LFS-Companion.

I hope you know what that means, and how you (or me if it´s only a setting) can fix it.

[Becky Rose]

Is this everytime you use it or was it a one off? The UDP ports may have lost their sync as a one off. To understand that output i'd need to speak to the author of Momoled to find out what it being reported there.

I would suggest using v0.41 as the relay has been greatly improved now, the timing issues in v0.3 and v0.4 could also have been the problem.

[Veiti]

Hi Becky Rose,

thanks for your "LFS Companion". It is really fun! :D

Ciao
Veit

[Sven Menkhoff]

Is this everytime you use it or was it a one off? The UDP ports may have lost their sync as a one off. To understand that output i'd need to speak to the author of Momoled to find out what it being reported there.
It wasn´t the first time, but i didn´t played enough to say exactly when it happens.
The author of MomoLED is Kegetys, if you need that info.

I was using the update.
And i had it before, too.

[burnsy1882]

i'm having problems with the relay to pitspotter. everytime i join a multiplayer game, or the race restarts, i get the errors listed in this jpg. plus pitspotter shows the error to the right of the jpg that it basically has disconnected. anything i need to know to fix this?
http://burnsy.no-ip.info/lfs/lfs-c_error.jpg

[Becky Rose]

Well they both seem to be relay related issues and I have made changes to the relay with regards to it's timing maybe this has fouled things up in a way I havn't thought of yet. I will look into these problems.

I should point out the relay isn't anywhere near finished and has just basic functionality, but pit spotter and momoleds where both key applications that I hoped/intended to be working at this stage.

There will be issues using it with some applications, particularly ones like LFS Display that use both outguage and insim, for details on how to get that one working I made a quick post in the LFS Display thread.

There's also problems with applications that want data packets that Companion isn't interested in such as NLP and MSS packets, as this data is mutually exclusive with the packets Companion does use (MCI and MSO), but I plan to remedy this in the future by having LFS Companion output either NLP or MCI through it's relay. LFS Display wants NLP data and this breaks the pit radio which uses MCI.

Time is the enemy here as i'm developing in public.

[Sven Menkhoff]

There will be issues using it with some applications, particularly ones like LFS Display that use both outguage and insim, for details on how to get that one working I made a quick post in the LFS Display thread.
Strange thing is, that i already got LFS-Display and MomoLED working, with LFS-Companion.
But i tryed a lot, and it was only 1 time.
After that i thought, great i got it, and on the next start of LFS it already didn´t work :(

Nice to hear your working on our problems

Keep on this great job, please. :)

[burnsy1882]

well, thanks for clearing that up for me. i really want to use your program as it is very cool, but i can't drive without pitspotter. although, i bet you'll be able to make one yourself as you indicate, and it may be better. can't wait for updates to see if pitspotter works better. keep up the good job.

[Sven Menkhoff]

OK, the Error at MomoLED happens at end of the race.
At Qualify it works good, but as the race ends, MomoLED get the error i have posted above.

I hope you can work with this information.

[Becky Rose]

I'll try and get hold of a momo wheel so I can use and test the momoled application, but I have to wait for my email to be 100% uptime back again otherwise i'll miss any reply from my Logitech.

[Tweaker]

Here is an LFS Companion UI I made.

Simple and clean, I hope you like it ;) (logo has a little race car driver in it :p)

Just place it in LFS Companion's UI folder and replace the originals.

[Jakg]

Here is an LFS Companion UI I made.

Simple and clean, I hope you like it ;) (logo has a little race car driver in it :p)nice work

/me changes to it

[Tweaker]

The space to klick the buttons are a lil bit small.
At some of them, i need to klick several times before i hit it, and i can change settings.
The menu selection buttons or the menu item text buttons? I can make the selection area larger.
Yeah the menu buttons at the top have a very thin selection area, it would be nice if you could select them easier.

I would suggest that you make the selection area "thicker/taller" what it is now. Starting from the top-down... because the top of the selection area is fine where it is. It just needs like 8 more pixels of selection height added to the bottom.

Also, visually, the text in the content area is very simple. If you somehow could make the text like so, it would be nice:

Fuel Warnings ON
or
Fuel Warnings ON

Just so it makes it easier to see. As most of the options all look rather 'hidden'. I would prefer the latter of the two.

nice work

/me changes to it
Thanks. :)

[steve30x]

You Can download LFS Companion at my site also @ http://www.pcgames.extremepcgamerz.com/dsplus/m.php?p=LFS-Companion.zip

[Pablo.CZ]

2Tweaker: nice gui, thx.

Becky, I have 2 problems with LFS Companion:
1. very small font, I have 2 WinXP installed and on both font is very small (see attached picture). But I saw normal font on other's screens :shrug:
2. Relay.. I cannot get ghost car working. Ghost car mod using insim port 28888, I have Companion on 49999 and 28888 as relay port, is it right?
Another problem is that Companion often dont answer on my clicks, I have to close app and try again. For example insim outbound relays is 5min of "hard work" to enter some. Would be much better to have text .cfg file instead of binary.