Historic GT & Touring Cars v1.96 released!

So 2013's Xmas arrived and with it a new version of Historic GT & Touring cars mod for rFactor. This time is v1.96 and despite it has been a success in terms of downloads it's also a sad moment because is most than probably the last version of this mod that we'll release for the now aging rFactor simulator.

Time will tell what is going to come in the future. But it has been both a challenge and rewarding to work on this mod with such amazing team of people during the last seven years.

Despite we have a way bigger user base we've just go over 2500 Facebook fans a couple of days a go, and that makes me specially happy also. Thanks to you guys for all the support. Hope to see you soon on the racing track. Hopefully onboard of a new car made by HistorX Modding Team :)

Historic GT & Touring Cars v1.95 released!

Hi again!

this post arrives with a bit of delay, as our last version of Historic GT & Touring cars (designated as v1.95) was released at the end of July.

It included tons of improvements and fixes, and a new car: the Chevrolet Camaro Chaparral 70' (for a complete list of changes you may want to check the change log of that version), and after five years working on this mod we're quite happy right now with it.

So v1.95 is meant to be the last version of this mod using rFactor as game engine. We've already ported some of our cars to the rFactor2 platform to start learning what it could offer as game engine, and the results are very promising. Personally I think rF2 is the obvious choice when it comes to modding a racing simulator, so I even did a new user user interface for what we could name HistorX 2.0 (which remains unknown for the public right now). But anyway right now it's time for us as a team to decide what it's going to come next.

Creating a mod is not an easy task, so to do it properly it requires planning, getting resources, etc. But even more important you need a clear goal. And no matter how much time it could take to decide about that I really think we have to focus on that before starting to invest a serious number of manhours on our next project.

In the meanwhile, and as I wrote before, I've found again the joy of composing music. So until more news about HistorX are worth to be shared you may expect some new songs to here :)

That's all for the moment! Enjoy your day!

About modding, music and other stuff

Doh!

once more I didn't post that much around here... I guess with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn I feel I have almost all the fronts covered. But I know I should come back sooner than later to share with those of you who aren’t in contact with me through social networks what has been happening lately.

Well, no need to say I've been as busy as always!

First of all, Historic GT & Touring car finally got a big update release on December 2011. The v1.9 is not just an update, but almost a total new thing compared with the initial v1.01 we released on 2008. Since that first release I’ve been working like hell in that update, mostly doing 3D and creating textures for our new cars, but also improving the user interface and messing with other stuff. In these three years I think we’ve improved quite a lot and I think the new cars we got in this last patch are good example of it.

 

This latest version of the mod has been a huge success among the rFactor community once more, and I’m proud to say we’ve got a lot of downloads. It's really hard to track them, but we’re around 20000 just from our official forum and campeonatoPDLR (one of our main mirrors). But we estimate that much more people got it through any of the many other mirrors provided by different simracing sites, so we think that figure doesn’t really show how many people is enjoying the mod out there.

Apart of that our work has been present also during some real historic racing events in the form of simulators available for the public (as happened in Australia during Longford’s revival festival).

I decided to took some holidays from modding after the release of the patch, and during this time I’ve gone back to compose some music again. During these last three years I was so focused in this modding thing that I had left music composition a bit too behind, but I always missed it so still got some small bits done. The two available here are examples of that. The first one is just a little lullaby I did when my niece Martina was born. I published it on Facebook back in the day, but in a few days I'll try to remember to upload it to YouTube also.

The second one is just the result of a little exercise I forced myself to complete: getting an existing YouTube video and create music for it, using a style of music I’m not really comfortable with.

In the last weeks I’ve got some new pieces of hardware for my modest home studio and I'm trying to improve my mixing skills so probably in a close future I’ll release some more stuff.

In the meanwhile I'll try to enjoy my summer holidays. But hey, I'm already modding a very nice sport car from the 50s (with rF2 in mind, which is becoming a very good piece of simracing software, BTW). 

But before that happens our last patch for "Historic GT & Touring cars" will be released for rF1. Apart of tons of fixes it will include some more content. Just keep an eye on our Facebook page or on our official site to know when it's released.

So, that is all for now. Hopefully I won’t leave this unattended that much next time. We'll see! :)

Yes, it's finished!

Hi once more,

I've been quite busy during the last months on the new house, but I've found time to still doing other things. One of them finishing the Aston Martin DB4 Zagato for the HistorX mod.

Well, may be is not 100% finished, as some details have to be improved, but I can say that its currect status will be very similar to what you will find once this one is released,that's for sure :)

As I usually do, I've used this personal project to learn now things about modeling, etc. I wanted to have a lot of detachable parts on this car. But that put a big problem on my work table: if i want to have a detachable hood i should be able to put something below as having a hole where the nice Aston engine was expected to be found be wouldn't look that good...

I searched on the Net, but there weren't any proper pics to be used so... what's the solution? as always, if you can find it done just do it by your self!

So, using some pics as reference I created something to be put on that hole, as you see in these two pics.

Yes, materials look a bit rough, but more detail wasn't really necessary as I only needed that engine to get some credible renders so i could put a low poly version of it in the car (the engine itself got as many polygons as the full body of the car!).

So, i just created a box and mapped the renders of the engine on it, so in game you can see something similar but with less detail, of course.

Ok so now i had that hole filled so was time to move on, basically to finish both left and right hand drive versions of the car, as well as to prepare the spinner hi poly versions of them.

These two versions aren't just mirrors of the same model, but have different elements. The RHD version was developed to look more like a racing car, while the LHD was developed to look more like a street version.

So, and to stop my usual long writings here are two pics illustrating the current look of both LHD and RHD versions (including hi poly spinner models):

Hope you like it!

Cheers

A little update about what's going on

Hi there!

yes, i know I wrote my last post time a go. Time passes fast as hell, that's for sure! The lack of activity here has been replaced by thousands of posts on different forums (and I mean that) and some writing in the cheesy Facebook (which lose interest for me each day, as in the end it's becoming just a tool to feed the gossip side of many people), no need to talk about some important changes regarding real life.

But apart of that I haven't been idle at all.

In the last months I've been improving my 3D modeling and painting skills a lot, which is my main creative activity right now. Being part of HistorX modding team is an exciting and addictive activity, not only by the artistic challenge of creating the virtual version of such wonderful classic cars but for the people I've met doing it. No need to say about how glad I'm seeying that even after so many months we still have new users being added to the thousands who consider this one of the best mods available.

In this moment I'm finishing the beautiful Aston Martin DB4 Zagato.

I started with the cockpit view, and first was the turn of the left hand drive version (LHD), which was modeled by Grasshopper, another HistorX's member. Then I improved it and created additional 3D elements (like the steering wheel, buttons, etc), as well as all the textures.

After that one It was the turn of the right hand drive version, which I'm trying to finish now, so stills being in "work in progress" status. As you can see it looks like a racing version, while the LHD looks closer to a street version.

During the past months I've finished other models also, like the Porsche 904 GTS and the Ferrari 250 GTO. And much more are on the way also, but that's something I'll left for future posts :)

Anyway, having 3D knowledge is handy indeed. Having bought a new flat now we're in the process of reforming it. And having the possibility of seeing how it would look in advance has a lot of advantages, as you may imagine.

And if you're wondering if I've been composing music lately, I have to admit that composition has been put on stand-by mode for some time. Despite I still like a lot to compose I'm now focused in other artistic activities, as you've seen, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested about music anymore. I still playing quite often, and still having fun doing it, so there's nothing to be worried at all really, as I may come back eventually.

Well, time to go back to real life. Hopefully the next post will arrive sooner than this one :)

Regards

Historic GT & Touring cars mod success and a new project

Welcome back!

the release of Historic GT & Touring cars mod for rFactor (the last project I'm involved) on 23th June has been a total success!


With thousands of downloads we got a rFactorCentral's "Hall of Fame" award in less than 24 hours, and due the amount of community votes and their rating we're on 7th position :)

We got our own section at RaceSimCentral also, and the support to our project there, as well as other community sites has been huge.

There're a lot of online servers running the mod too, so is very easy to join an online race to get some fun with a lot of guys.

Even more, the guys of SimRacingTonight created an special program with the preview of the mod.



(If you prefer the HIGH QUALITY version of the video CLICK HERE)

After a short break due summer holidays the project will continue, and in the future we'll release new cars, as well as some fixes to the issues which have been reported.

You will find more information about this project at our official site, as well as at RaceSimCentral and rFactorCentral.

Apart of that, due that the work i did with the user interface of the mod I'm close to get involved on another simracing project developed by an american company. Once we agree the conditions of the contract I'll talk a bit more about this new project. Anyway, here you have a little video showing part of the work I did with that user interface.



Come back soon to know more about these projects and more. As you see I haven't been very active lately as music composer, but probably I'll go back to that soon, as I'm starting to miss it also!

Hope you have a good summer!

Regards

News about my music and simracing

Hi there!

yep, I'm still alive! :)

I haven't posted a lot in the last months, but that doesn't mean I've been idle. A lot of new things came to my life, in form of new projects or interest.

If you came here to know more about my music I have some news:

"Strategic Command 2: Weapons & warfare expansion" for SC2 was released in the last days of November. In that turn based strategic WWII game you'll find some of my WWII songs. If you like that game genre probably you'll love this game ;)

For those of you than don't believe that, take a look to this pic :)

Apart of that, a couple of weeks a go I received an offer to compose the full soundtrack of a new movie. I can't give you much more details of that for the moment, as I'm waiting for more info about the script, etc. and I haven't decide yet If I'll get involved in that project or not. Anyway, a great new, at least for me, hehe.

Following with this WWII games, don't forget to take a look to the release of Forgotten Hope 2.

This amazing Battlefield 2 WWII modification, which first version for the old Battlefield 1942 already included some of my songs, is going to be revolutionary, so If i were you I'll start downloading as soon as it's released tomorrow! :)

But I've been focused lately in other kind of things. Mainly in simracing. About that, I'm the coordinator of the 'Historic GT & Touring car' mod for rFactor

We're developing a huge mod for that racing simulator, focused on classic GT cars of 60s-70s. Realistic physics, gorgeous graphics and sounds and much more features (many of them still being kept in secret, hehe) make this mod one of the most desired in the rFactor community.

I invite you to learn a bit more about this simracing thing. It's a real cool hobby that let you experiment a lot of (virtual) speed and excitement safely, racing against other simracers spread around the world :)

Just an example: in our modding team there're people from all around the world, with ages from 15 years old to men in theirs 50's who own or have driven (even in races) some of these classic cars, working together in this thing. So it's really a good way to do new friends with similar interests ;)

Take a look about this video I made, where you can see my simracing hardware, as well as the main simracing titles I play.

About the new style of this site and my own 'corporative image' I've delayed it for a while, until I get a bit of free time to organize it.

I'll be back soon, with more info with my music, as well as other things. In the meanwhile take care, and don't forget to come back again ;)

Kindest regards