iRacing

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I generally don’t like to talk too much about what is going to be released in the next build until closer to the actual release, but I will talk quickly about some of the things we are working on.

The biggest project we are working on is the NASCAR Hall of Fame project. It’s really shaping up to be a slick modification of our software to meet the needs of the Hall. It will be the exact same software that we run on the member site but it allows the Hall to essentially run on its own. The reason this is a big deal to our existing customers is because our branding is all over this. Every person who tries the simulator at the Hall will be walking away with a sheet of paper with their lap times or race results and that directs them to visit our website to sign up for a discounted membership to our service.

One of the projects involved with the Hall of Fame project is creating a replay client that allows us to connect to a race and not impact it in any way, which will ultimately lead to us being able to broadcast races.

We are working on a more realistic transmission model and updating as many cars as we can with a new aero model and a tweak to the tires similar to what we did on the IndyCar, ‘Vette and Star Mazda last season.

One project that is a much longer term project is we are going to replace our sound engine with a new one. This may not even make it into the build after next but we will have a much-improved system released in the next six-eight months.

Dave continues to work on a new tire model, some of which may make this next build but the more significant changes are still a ways away.

We will also be putting in place the ability for our customers to use third party painting applications to create their own paint schemes exactly like we used to do with our Papyrus products. It will be up to the members to share these paint schemes—our system will not do that.

We also have a significant amount of work to do to crown our first World Cup of iRacing-winning club in the beginning of next year, which should be very exciting.

We definitely plan on having endurance races in iRacing in the future. I won’t make any promises as to when that will happen, but I expect it will be in the next year. We are going to start planning to have more special events this year and at some point we definitely want to run 12 and 24 hour endurance races complete with driver changes.

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Everyone has heard about the upcoming ability to produce and race your own custom paint with the IRacing sim. Well, here is a little insight on how it looks thus far. I am in no way a solid painter, but with just knowing the basics of photoshop and how easily IRacing has made it to import a scheme, I was able to produce a few options within no time.

IRacing will provide the initial templates. In the future, Im sure you will be able to find members created templates with more options and layers to work with. With what little time Ive spent with it, Ive noticed that IRacing template was much easier to use when lining up certain pieces of the car and making graphics seamless across the vehicle.

When using the template, IRacing gives you the option of personal sponsors and the color and graphics of the car itself. Your number although, will be the number you choose and design within IRacing's current paintshop. This may not please all members, but what it does do is cut part of the lengthy creative process out of making a scheme. Your sure to find a number font and color combination that will work with your overall design. Whats up to you is throwing down some paint and a few easy to place sponsors and your basicly done. Newly created members templates will again cut down on the length of the process.

Once you have your car designed how you wish, its time to plug it into the sim. At this time, this is a super simple step. Save your work in .tga format. You will then place it inside a specific folder in your My Documents/IRacing folder. Thats all there is to it. You start the sim, and hit the track and there is your new scheme.

Currently, IRacing will not provide an auto upload feature that will capture your other competitors schemes once you join a session. We have seen this in other sims, but there are some dangerous legal grey areas that IRacing chooses to steer clear of. What will need to be done by the community is a universal website that would serve as a gathering place for everyones schemes. Thats one reason why I wanted to post this information in the first place. With the option to paint your own car coming very soon and the absence of an auto upload feature, its going to be up to us to keep things as organized as possible. What would be preferred is a website with a file transfer system like we've seen in the past. If someone does choose to run a custom scheme but you are unable to acquire it, what you will see on your end is the scheme they have saved inside IRacing's current paintshop.

In addition to that idea, it might be clever to also produce a car viewer program, as currently the only way to check your work is to resave the scheme and plug the new file into the data and hit the track thus checking the replay. This process is the only time consuming part at the moment.



Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy knowing a little inside info on the upcoming custom paint feature. Below are some of the work Ive been able to produce in just a very short period of time. Go easy, Im no expert on the art. Just a huge fan.

The .tga image size is 1024X1024 and is about 3megs in file size currently

Here is a quick remake of a JRM Nationwide car for 2010, compared with an actual photo of the car.




Here is a fictional Amp Energy COT



And lastly a fictional Late Model scheme



You can see that all Ive done is produce a base scheme. Placed a few sponsors, and then the last step was to match an available number from inside IRacing's current paint shop. I remember that custom painting was a massive part of the sim racing community from past DK simulations. I hope that we see a resurgence of community creativeness like we have seen in years past. Have a good one. Jr