weather generator confusion

Sil · Jul 16, 2021

Hi all,
i am totaly confused on what to believe from "Autosim Weather Generator v1_0 by alexz".
in the readme from author you can read this:

1. Run the program.
2. Specify what sessions you want.
3. Draw air temperature and humidity graphs.
4. Export the results to weather.txt file in GTR2 folder.

impossible as the program will force you to save "weather.xml" moreover when you choose to load the file, you are asked to load a "*.xml" file and even if you rename it, the program does not find it.

the "readme" say to export in main folder, and on other readme, it say to drop the file in "userdata/log"

Maybe someone could give some light on this, i would appreciate any infos on that because the way it is i cant logicaly figure out, i have been trying all possible ways to make it work, unsuccessfuly.

Thanks

The Iron Wolf · Jul 17, 2021

Sil said:
cool mate, will go and check this
btw i fixed the aiw magny cours, i did slow down AI before left/right medium curve after pitlane and no more spin, the secret for a good flow is to do it in a few parts, for exemple in magny cours you choose waypoint (start of decceleration) 90-100 at 0.700 then 100-110 at 0.800 and finaly 110-115 at 0.900 witch is the waypoint to reaccelerate from (to default 1.000), so AI will have a smooth decceleration witch is good if you are behind and no spin.

yep indeed up to a point it all can be improved, especially with AIWs specific to the class. But some things will require new plugin features.

Out of curiosity: is there a different AIW for rainy situation?

Sil · Jul 18, 2021

Not that i know, i see only one AIW in a location folder, actually it would be cool to have that but would be extremely hard to do because when the weather changes, the app should change AIW on the fly and i seriously doubt GTR2 can accept this, unfortunately.
The only thing i can figure is to make a session with assorted AIW would be to know what session you want prior to load the sim and put manualy the appropriate AIW in the location folder, nota bene there can be only one AIW in the folder otherwise you get some problems.
beside one could not make use of weather changes with this, its gonna be either sunny or rainy.

Bjarne Hansen · Jul 18, 2021

Off course there are dry and wet paths in the AIW files!
At least in all base tracks from Simbin.
It is defined as Lateral Offsets in the WP_path.
First parameters are dry path and second are wet path.

Sil · Jul 18, 2021

Well @bjarne, you got me there

of course your right, i had forgotten about this

Sil · Jul 18, 2021

@iron Wolf i tryed CC weather, it fonction good in qual and race, in practice i had no changes but that does not mean its not fonctioning.
wierd thing, in race i started with dry slicks, then it started to rain and my dry tires seemed to go well alltough it went to stormy but i kept going on as the tires had good grip so to be sure, i went to garage and i saw that i had wet tires alltough i was on my dry setup.
could it be that CC changed it to wet as soon as it started raining ?

Sil · Jul 18, 2021

@Bjarne Hansen ,
seeing that your so good at AIW, would you be able to do a application that does slow or make faster with possible graduation, i mean values we could change and waypoints to have start and finish ?
to do it manualy is a drag...
the app should then write those values in the waypoint event.

and sorry for my poor english, i am french

The Iron Wolf · Jul 18, 2021

Sil said:
@iron Wolf i tryed CC weather, it fonction good in qual and race, in practice i had no changes but that does not mean its not fonctioning.
wierd thing, in race i started with dry slicks, then it started to rain and my dry tires seemed to go well alltough it went to stormy but i kept going on as the tires had good grip so to be sure, i went to garage and i saw that i had wet tires alltough i was on my dry setup.
could it be that CC changed it to wet as soon as it started raining ?

no - CC does not change tires for you, yet. Everything CC does is documented in the manual, so make sure to check it and the changelog frequently, as I update it as new stuff comes in.

Another thing that in general, plugin does nothing unless you enable the feature. Except that next update will enable all fixes on by default.

Sil · Jul 18, 2021

very good news mate, its great you go on developing that great app !

ok it must be on my side, surely i did not check what setup i had on

yes i will check the changelog from now, everytime a update comes for CC, and guess what....cant wait for the new features

The Iron Wolf · Jul 18, 2021

Sil said:
very good news mate, its great you go on developing that great app !

ok it must be on my side, surely i did not check what setup i had on

yes i will check the changelog from now, everytime a update comes for CC, and guess what....cant wait for the new features

Thanks for the support. While I primarily do this stuff for my own uses, it is still nice to hear that someone utilizes enhancements as well.

yeah man it's really catching on. Yesterday one modder approached me saying he wants to port mod to GTR2 to specifically use features of the plugin. With some luck there will be few more things coming, and next update will for sure be a big one.

BTW - the weather that GTR2 Changeable mode generates most often stays the same for a while, but if you think about it it is realistic really. But yes, I had sessions when weather changed - most memorable races ever.

Sil · Jul 19, 2021

I must say, GTR2 has been reinvented with all those enhancements, and if you need something to be tested, dont hesitate to ask me.
happy to hear about mod to be ported witch makes full use of the plugin.
and yes i am going on with CC weather and i must say, the more i drive with this, the more i like the random of weather, so yes it gets really realistic, i think that it is the way to go.
I am using GTR2 since about 2 month and i left all other sim for the moment

Keep it going on mate, the community need guys like you that work on making sims better, spending hours and to share theyr hard work, i really appreciate what you guys do.

Thank you

The Iron Wolf · Jul 19, 2021

Sil said:
I must say, GTR2 has been reinvented with all those enhancements, and if you need something to be tested, dont hesitate to ask me.
happy to hear about mod to be ported witch makes full use of the plugin.
and yes i am going on with CC weather and i must say, the more i drive with this, the more i like the random of weather, so yes it gets really realistic, i think that it is the way to go.
I am using GTR2 since about 2 month and i left all other sim for the moment

Keep it going on mate, the community need guys like you that work on making sims better, spending hours and to share theyr hard work, i really appreciate what you guys do.

Thank you

Yes, I need help testing Sil. Game is big, feature rich and flexible, one of the biggest challenges is I can't test it all myself. Certain things like AI tweaks I won't even attempt trying unless I have some solid help with testing.

If you find features/fixes useful (that's very important part, because we all like different things, and not everyone cares about stuff in this plugin, but if one wants to help, he/she needs to care about those details of motorsport) and want to help right now, get well familiar with the manual, checkout the Beta thread at thecrewchief.org and reply there on that thread with your observartions. Currently, I am mostly on the lookout for new crashes and problems caused by the plugin, and would appreciate them reported

You can also find me on CC Discord - some problems are easier discussed in realtime, rather than forums.

Glad to hear you are enjoying it - I am surprised and happy about how good GTR2 still is, and with those minor tweaks of mine I enjoy it even more.

Sil · Jul 19, 2021

Ok Iron, i will go to thecrewchief.org and nose around a bit, and of course at EEC forum too, at the moment i only do edit AIW to help with AI, Since i cant invest much more time into this as i have a job that keeps me busy.
I just have magny cours and today Eurospeedway but i will do many more once i see AI going everytime out on a curve or breaking unrealistic etc, i edit to fix it, for instance at Eurospeed way, on every start there is a cataclysmic situation on the first curve after start, at least 15 cars crashes together because they dont break enough there. Of course FPS goes down under 20 ! so full yellow at every start, impossible to race clean.
All those fixes are in AIW file and GDB files.
I dont know if someone will be interrested on that, anyway as you said i need to read the manual deeply and see if i can help in some ways, I will see

>>>>> If you find features/fixes useful (that's very important part, because we all like different things, and not everyone cares about stuff in this plugin, but if one wants to help, he/she needs to care about those details of motorsport) and want to help right now, get well familiar with the manual <<<<<

I sure will dig in the manual, the only useful things i found are those fixes i said, but i will look at what else i could be helpfull.

The Iron Wolf · Jul 19, 2021

Sil said:
I sure will dig in the manual, the only useful things i found are those fixes i said, but i will look at what else i could be helpfull.

yes - thanks man, that is very important piece. My focus is driving mechanics and rules and all offline, I don't care much about visuals - GTR2 looks good enough by me with appropriate content (finally got to try FRM TC and their tracks and man can't believe how well GTR2 can drive and look. Added wipers to few cars, enabled more realistic shifting in plugin - it's gold). GTR2 FFB also is good enough by me, except for the lack of stationary friction, which plugin added already. So let's see if we will find any common interest.

Sil · Jul 19, 2021

Oh yes FRM is a great mod i agree, has ton of cars !
I did some changes on FFB, its more realistic i think, all the forces should not rip your wrist

so i found interesting to try other things and by the way looking into cchdc. i would like to understand it better, (but i have so many things to do) if you want to try this FFB, just tell me, you may say its very weak but as i did races in my young days, i had a good exemple to compare with.
Are you sensible to the various sounds, motor and others? thats a passion i have since long, (i hate driving in a race car that sounds like a vacuum cleaner) in case you want to add some sound features in CC.
Lot of people dont know that GTR2 was developed by a small team of motorsport passionate in 2005 - 2006 and with all the patches and CC, it looks and drives very good, nearly to today standards and now with the wipers mod it has all you can ask for a sim (including modability), at least for me

The Iron Wolf · Jul 19, 2021

Sound is important but I am a realism freak - you race with earplugs IRL, that's why for example I won't be adding any sound for overrev protection or gear grinding or DRS anytime soon (but gear grinding can be felt via transducers, meaning like in real life). I gather you are not a VR user - but one super thing about GTR2 it has directional audio! So when you rotate your head in VR sound changes - which is - wow! Now, just to be honest with you - maybe something will be done around sound, but that will be a low priority, unfortunately. BTW, if you love sounds - checkout game called R3E

It also has very good AI.

All you need to know is in the manual, but let me know if something is unclear. I can also send you a manual update for Beta plugin, or wait for the next CC update then I'll publish updated manual with the new features.

Thanks for the offer on FFB - but I am quite happy with it (although I had to fix many small problems in that mod, tires lockup too easily, seat positions, missing rainscreen/dirtscreen). For FFB I keep global gain the same and I adjust per car multiplier in the .hdc file. One day I might try to wire button for per car multiplier and save it in .cchdc, but no promises it is not as simple as it might sound. I will try that though because some bigger mods like PnG and FRM TC need per car FFB variability.

Sil said:
it looks and drives very good, nearly to today standards

This shocks me the most - we have very few modern games that have working safety car, rich ruleset, no ghosting in pits/formation, good damage, burning engines, flying wheels, great offline experience - and yes, with good content it looks and feels really good, which is kind of scary - 15 yo game.

Sil · Jul 20, 2021

The Iron Wolf said:
Sound is important but I am a realism freak - you race with earplugs IRL, that's why for example I won't be adding any sound for overrev protection or gear grinding or DRS anytime soon (but gear grinding can be felt via transducers, meaning like in real life). I gather you are not a VR user - but one super thing about GTR2 it has directional audio! So when you rotate your head in VR sound changes - which is - wow! Now, just to be honest with you - maybe something will be done around sound, but that will be a low priority, unfortunately. BTW, if you love sounds - checkout game called R3E It also has very good AI.

All you need to know is in the manual, but let me know if something is unclear. I can also send you a manual update for Beta plugin, or wait for the next CC update then I'll publish updated manual with the new features.

Thanks for the offer on FFB - but I am quite happy with it (although I had to fix many small problems in that mod, tires lockup too easily, seat positions, missing rainscreen/dirtscreen). For FFB I keep global gain the same and I adjust per car multiplier in the .hdc file. One day I might try to wire button for per car multiplier and save it in .cchdc, but no promises it is not as simple as it might sound. I will try that though because some bigger mods like PnG and FRM TC need per car FFB variability.

This shocks me the most - we have very few modern games that have working safety car, rich ruleset, no ghosting in pits/formation, good damage, burning engines, flying wheels, great offline experience - and yes, with good content it looks and feels really good, which is kind of scary - 15 yo game.

Yes i am not using VR just because i get see sick with this, but i wasent aware for directional audio in VR. and yes i have R3E since it started, its a good sim and Montiel did a really good job on the sounds, mostly the extern sounds, as you said, the AI in R3E is good too. but GTR2 still has more soul and deliver a special taste in my opinion, and its modable.
yes if i have questions i will ask you, and if your happy with the FFB its fine, this is also a personal taste of course.
Thanks for offering to send me the manual update, but i am so busy, i think i will wait till your update.
Your last phrase :

>>>>>This shocks me the most - we have very few modern games that have working safety car, rich ruleset, no ghosting in pits/formation, good damage, burning engines, flying wheels, great offline experience - and yes, with good content it looks and feels really good, which is kind of scary - 15 yo game.<<<<<

This is exactely what i think too, i coulndt say that better, its scary when you think about it, i believe this reflect what's happening in the world, we will see how all this goes.

Sil · Jul 20, 2021

Hey mate,
i found you on EEC forum and looked at all your messages but could not find anything related to weather in CC for GTR2.
Could you give me some direction ? would like to see your config for wippers on moded cars.
i look now in crewchief.org

The Iron Wolf · Jul 20, 2021

Sil said:
Hey mate,
i found you on EEC forum and looked at all your messages but could not find anything related to weather in CC for GTR2.
Could you give me some direction ? would like to see your config for wippers on moded cars.
i look now in crewchief.org

my thread with wiper patches is on the private EEC section - I don't know how one gets there

You can see how wipers created in HQ Anni patch, and manual explains process too. If you want, I can send you wipers for some FRM TC cars, privately.