NASCAR Racing 2 progress

[RacingAC]

I posted a thread a few weeks ago asking for help with MIPs in NR2, but I think I've figured most of it out thanks to some extensive online research.
And I've cracked the code on getting a relatively detailed paint job into the game.

MIPs: I had to dig up a copy of WinMip1 which made it pretty simple to get the MIP workflow going. I haven't been able to figure out what the NR2 button in WinMip2 is useful for, but I probably have the workflow wrong somehow. No matter. Winston Cup signs are in the game. In the original resolution, all of the signs look great, no bugs. But when running the 3DFX version, the signs can get distorted but a simple ESC out of the game and then right back in fixes them. So I don't know ha!



PAINTING: We have it so easy these days painting cars for NR2003 because we don't have to deal with PCX files. I've had to take a crash course on what makes things tick, and I still don't really have a firm grasp on what's going on. Thankfully, I've found some old NR2 sites (on Angelfire and Tripod, for example) that have cleared things up. Now, I don't have Corel Draw or Paint Shop Pro, but thankfully modern-day GIMP can still export in PCX format.




^This is a 320x200 template that I've kind of Frankensteined together in Affinity Designer during some experimentation. There are some slight gradients over the car that are barely noticeable, but...



^...when imported into a GIMP file using a Nascar Racing 2 palette of 255 colors (and one invisible), GIMP converts it to the color profile, and here's the result. So for the time being, I'm kind of working blind before importing into GIMP. If there are some experienced GIMP users that are wondering why I'm doing XYZ or ABC instead, please let me know. I'm just more comfortable working in Affinity.



^The paint job imported into the Detail Shop.




It's around this time that Ryan Reynolds would pull down his surgical mask and ask, "But why?" -- NR2003 is definitely the gold standard of Papyrus sims, but there's just something about NR2. This is partly nostalgia speaking since the notion of revisiting this game has been bouncing around in my head for maybe two years. But I'm not letting the nostalgia cloud my judgment. I'm currently running a season on the game, I'm 15 races in, and the words that come to my mind to describe the game are "sturdy" and "fun."

I've played loads of NR2003, as we all have, but NR2 has it beat in multiple areas.

1. There are no A.I. pit-road merging cautions.
2. There are no nasty wrecks on double-file starts.
3. The A.I. doesn't get spooked as easily.
4. F2 standings doesn't wait for the start/finish line to re-order the standings, plus it has a "Pit" indicator for cars in the pits.
5. A.I. doesn't collide on pit road, i.e. no "flashing" or "towing"
6. Random spin-outs. It's always bugged me that these aren't in NR2003. However, the reason for the spin-outs is that I'm fairly certain the A.I. can't make contact with each other in normal racing. During a wreck bunch-up, sure, but through 15 races I've yet to see two A.I. cars touch. Papyrus solved the obvious issue with a NASCAR game not having cautions by putting these random spin-outs in there that can affect any driver at any time. It's still neat every time I see one.
7. You don't spin out and throw your race away by lightly touching the A.I.
8. NR2 has a pit-road autobrake you can toggle that puts a limiter on your engine on pit road to stay under the speed limit. Huge fan of this. I've never seen an A.I. car get tagged for a routine speeding penalty, so why should I have to worry about it? Overall, I'm not kidding myself; NR2003 is the superior sim.

My eventual plan is to build a NR2 resource site of some kind that has everything someone would need without having to spend hours in the Wayback Machine only to reach a dead end with a .zip file link having expired. That will be in the first half of the new year sometime.

 

[Ongias25]

Whatever it is that You do it's always top notch work. From Your videos to the car sets and soundpacks and everything else. Good stuff!

 

[RacingAC]

Whatever it is that You do it's always top notch work. From Your videos to the car sets and soundpacks and everything else. Good stuff!

Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoy everything.

 

[Guitarzan]

Cool stuff. I'm not sure but that might not be the Denny Hoffman body as it makes the default bodies look much closer to the real thing. I have his version 2 but not version 3 but even that makes the cars look a lot better. I totally agree with you that the older Papyrus sims had something that were unfortunately not carried over to NR2003. I loved the way the A.I. performed in those sims. Right now I'm just starting on a NASCAR Legends season with the original schedule and tracks. I love the way the A.I. spreads out and not in a large pack which was much more era appropriate. Great to see people still running the old sims!

 

[RacingAC]

Good eye! I’ve lost track of the mods I’ve added/experimented with. Have you ever come across a 1994 carset for N2? I have the IWCCC sets, but I haven’t seen a 1994 set anywhere.

 

[Dr. Noise]

Since the PCX files have a limited palette, and the game specifies those colors (if I'm understanding and remembering correctly), could you simply use that screen capture of the paint shop within the game to make sure you're using colors that will translate into the game? Based on your description, when you import into the game itself it sounds like you can't always predict the colors. I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense or helps. Maybe? lol

 

[RacingAC]

Oh! I probably explained that wrong. Basically GIMP is using the NASCAR 2 palette. But the only hiccup in my workflow is that I'm designing the car in Affinity Designer, exporting as a PNG, then dropping it into the GIMP workspace using the palette. So when it gets dropped in, it will automatically adjust to the palette being used. The big headache has been using gradients for shading, but since I've fixed that by painting highlight shading pixel by pixel instead, it's becoming much more predictable when I drop it into GIMP. I should also add that I won't have to paint the shading for every car. It will be just different shades on the grey scale. Some extreme body colors like black and white have forced me to use a paint bucket to change the grey shades, but that's trivial compared to the idea of painting the shading for EVERY CAR.

 

[Dr. Noise]

Ahhhh, I completely understand now. So many steps. But as I'm sure you clearly already know, once you get those steps down, it's second nature and everything starts to flow well. Always sucks at the very beginning sorta stumbling through it, though, right? lol. That's how I feel starting any new project. And that's even without any extra hidden steps or stuff to learn.

 

[RacingAC]

Oh absolutely. And given the 320x200, painting cars won't be as tedious and time-consuming as when we're using these fancy-pants 2048x2048 templates. But, yeah, I'm just laser-focused on getting a solid base/template/workflow set up, and then painting cars (from any era) will be relatively quick.

 

[Guitarzan]

Just checked out your Youtube channel. I started with the first N2 race (Andre the Giant) Great job on these. I normally don't invest a lot of time watching other people racing or playing games, but your videos are very entertaining! BTW I don't know of a 1994 set.

 

[RacingAC]

Ha! Thanks! I don’t expect anyone to watch all of them, let alone all of every race. Probably just good for a scroll through most of the time. More than anything, I’m killing two birds by doing videos while also running the game and experimenting with driver ratings.

 

[RacingAC]

Rolling up my sleeves some more and tackled Kyle Petty's Silver Bullet.







I'm by no means an elite painter; it's just a relaxing hobby that I'm slowly getting better at. That being said, there is nothing better than googling for assets and logos and not having to track down high-res versions ha! You can just grab a 200x200 thumbnail from a vector site and be done with it. And there's freedom involved with painting these because you just can't expect perfection. You can see on the front hood that the template has body parts you have to account for to keep lines curved/straight, etc. I'll eventually have to throw a grid of some kind onto a body and see where it all lines up in game. Also, I'd want all of "Coors Light" to be above the area of the hood that starts sloping down and stretching the text, but then that affects the rest of the scheme. Kind of just have to roll with the punches. Still can't crack a consistent shading solution, but we'll get there.

 

[Rob D.]

Looking forward to this!

 

[RacingAC]

I figured the best way to figure out the body lines was to throw a grid on the car. I'll make some kind of number/letter/color system to identify the lines when they're on the car. The main thing I wanted to tackle with this grid, though, was the issue with the front of Kyle Petty's car, but it still has me confused.





I'm not sure if the gold on the hood serves a purpose. I think I put it there to see where the hood and side of the car meet at that angle that is actually pretty discernible using the grid lines. A little trial-and-error near that line with different colors one pixel width at a time until they disappear SHOULD give me a dependable body-line transition there. Then I guess it would be a matter of having to nest the different parts of the car in their own masks essentially.




This Hornet car seems to have the seem issue of a bulge/distortion of some kind in about the same place as my Petty Coors situation. In the grid 3D picture above, you can see the lines changing direction slightly, but I don't feel like it's as big of a change that I've seen with Petty Coors. I've taken into account how paints on even modern NR2003 models can look distorted from certain angles, but the Petty curve looks bad from all angles. In the Detail Shop for the Hornet car, you can see the highlights/shading I'm striving for without having to handpaint/bucket tool the shading for every car ever.



Also, all of the green parts in these 3D images can be solid colors only, not paintable. You can eyedrop from the car body for an exact copy, but it adds another wrinkle to painting on these.

 

[RacingAC]

And finally, I overlaid the grid system with the hood design of the Petty car to find the problem area. Pinpointed it to the neon green square areas.





Much nicer obviously, but you can obviously see yet another nasty nasty problem where it reaches the Goodyear decal. Will just have to use the grid system again. There's not gonna be any tried and true system short of making an actual wireframe as a guide, which will have to be done eventually.

 

[RacingAC]

I have a working solution for universal shading of any color. Involves Gaussian blur and a blur tool in GIMP.




Still not refined. Gotta find the template edges at the bottom of the hood and I guess just get good at making body lines on hoods. But the highlighting was the major hurdle that I just had to figure out first.

 

[RacingAC]

Some more progress on shading and highlights. I'm open to any and all suggestions. Should things be brighter, duller, am I missing something anywhere? I think it just comes down to black being super tricky. In the screenshot here, Geoff Bodine's 7 hood just looks wild to me. But then my Earnhardt hood doesn't cut it, either. The hood is the one remaining weak spot I feel. So, please, any advice or feedback is sorely needed. I just don't have a good eye for these kinds of things.

 

[RacingAC]

WE'RE COOKIN

 

[Rob D.]

WE'RE COOKIN

View attachment 161893

View attachment 161894

Looking great!

 

[RacingAC]

Hunkered down and started setting up the 1994 template with Dale's 1994 car. Still need 1994 contingencies. Again, black is tricky. But she looks pretty good! I remember someone telling me way back in the day: save pitch black for shadows, stupid.