Racing Modifications in GT5 - Discuss and Review

[Tenacious D]

I didn't notice TheCracker's post this morning. Put John's, his and mine together, and that's what Racing Modification should be like in GT5.

Along with that, Polyphony should have every purpose built racecar like the Mercedes CLK-GTR, BMW McLaren F1 GTR - and the Ferraris - be available in basic black again, so we can paint them up as we see fit. We should be able to put an artistic touch to every class of car in GT5 so we have our very own racing identities. And like I said some time ago, the good car painters could make a huge name for themselves, giving away or selling cars. This is already taking place online in Forza.

Oh, one more quick tidbit. I'd also like to detail the racing suit and helmet of my virtual driver.

 

[JohnBM01]

I came up with this thread to discuss Racing Modifications. I want to discuss as much as I can to explore the possibilities of Racing Modifications in as many aspects as possible. So bear with a brother.

I was thinking about this a little more. I wanted to focus in on paint schemes. Let's say that you had an Audi RS6 Sedan (all 400+ hp of it!) and wanted to race modify it. You can go with the Audi colors when Frank Biela was racing in the BTCC (silver car with red Audi rings), or you can go with another pre-made scheme. On other other hand, you can't take an Audi RS6 and give it the paint scheme style of the Aston Martin DBR9. Schemes should be custom-made to fit cars so that they don't look completely ridiculous.

The best use of custom paintschemes can be found with certain team-specific paintschemes. It's pretty much illegal to feature actual beer and tobacco sponsors. But imagine racing the classic white and red colors of Team Penske, like in the IndyCar Series. There is even the notion of a group (which I will feature in a future "Drifting and Other Motorsports" thread) we like to call... ARTA. Not the stock car series, you're thinking of ARCA. I'm talking about Autobacs Racing Team Aguri, perhaps one of the most heavily-involved racing groups in Japan. They are best known for their reddish-orange base color and the white field bearing the Autobacs logo. Just being able to modify the primary colors of the paint scheme will allow you to come up with any combination of colors to replace red-orange/white. If you're a big college sports fan, you could probably replace the red-orange with colors from Boise State, Washington, Georgetown, Niagara, Kentucky, or whatever. Only true race teams may "lend" you their team colors so you can use them to make your own paintschemes in GT5. Another nice option would be to create your own paintscheme in the mold of existing cars. You may have a scheme in which the front and rear bumpers are one color while the rest of the car is some other color. Your colors can spread to any other car you choose. I think if you'll be able to have your own racing team from the ground up, you can officially stage your own racing campaign in a variety of saloon car and prototype based race cars. I'd like to think of only simple race car designs, but there are some very complex ones. For example, do you remember the silver and indigo Audi Team Velqux(?) R8s? The Audi R8 that raced "The Race of a Thousand Years" with its popular crocodile paint scheme? The Raybrig NSX from Gran Turismo 2? Mika Hakkinen's Mercedes-Benz in "ToCA Race Driver 3?" Almost any flamboyant tuner car or drifter? Anything with airbrushed or faded colors can be tougher to acheive, especially if you want to come up with unique paint styles to make your own racing team scheme. My only real answer would be that you could modify paint colors and come up with a gradient fill. Something like the Mazda 6 Touring Car in GT Concept and GT4 is an example of a gradient fill design. You have the blue which blends into yellow up front. Note that I'm not really suggesting color-shifting paint, though there are few race cars which have color-shifiting paint, like some of the older Summit Racing drag racing machines. I also believe that older cars should have some paint schemes which aren't as insane as today's race cars. That's because older cars didn't have multi-million dollar sponsorship deals and layers upon layers of sponsorship. There has to be a unique chemistry with paint scheme styles and the cars selected. Away from racing schemes themselves, I think it would just be simple to place your name on the car as well as your nationality. So if your name is Lei Tran from Saigon, you'd simply put it as L. Tran and then the flag of Vietnam before your name. Or D. Brabham for David Brabham from Australia.

The ToCA Race Driver series features a number of fantasy paint schemes for fantasy race teams. A series which is a nonexistant series can feature an interesting collection of schemes. Some racing games feature paint schemes from actual teams, and then some fictional race cars from competitors not in the series. For example, take the BMW Williams F1 Team Challenge in "ToCA Race Driver 3." You get the awesome Williams BMW FW27. The first two cars are the beautiful white and blue colors of the Hewlett-Packard (just like my HP computer I'm working with! ^_^) sponsored race car. But all the other cars have fictional paintschemes. Now, I have created a GT5 (or GT4, maybe?) thread on customer race cars, but you'll have to do a search for it since it's an old topic. It is completely possible to perhaps come up with you own race cars only as long as licensing and stuff isn't stringent.

Lastly, this will blend into sponsorship. Think about the Autosport Clio Cup in "ToCA Race Driver 3" (that is, if you've played the game). Gran Turismo 5 could feature racing events and championships sponsored by a certain company. A series may do one of three things in order for you to be entered:

1. You must have sponsorship from the certain company added to your car.
2. Your car must be sponsored or fully adorned in the sponsor's colors.
3. If you don't have a car that's fully-sponsored or specially modified for racing, then you can simply pick up some sun visor decals in the company's name.

It would be fun if you could get sponsorship in much the way that Tourist Trophy had you in challenges to acquire motorcycles in TT. Only that you'd have to clear one or more challenges to win the sponsorship deal. You would then be able to give cars some sponsor love. I guess I was thinking about Pepsi sponsorship as an example, like a promotional car was once raced by my favorite NASCAR racer, Jeff Gordon. Recognition of a sponsor on a car should be like with "Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3." I think some of the Wanderers require that your car must carry the sticker of a certain gang or driver you've beaten in the game. Also in that game, you only need to put that sticker ANYWHERE on the car to instantly be recognized as carrying that specific sponsor or decal.

This was just some extra fuel to an already-burning fire. Carry on with discussion. Remember that this is your chance to further discuss the possiblilities of Racing Modifications in GT5 and how you want it all to work.

[UPDATE] Look for my GT5 thread on Driver Gear, for those interested in talking about racing suits.

 

[LeadSlead#2]

it's pretty much illegal for beer sponsers? you mean in a video game?

 

[JohnBM01]

Yeah, in a video game (talking to LeadSlead#2. That's why most games have generic graphics in place of actual beer and alcohol sponsors. At least that's what I seen in most racing games.

I've offered only a few ideas certain paint schemes that may be available to a number of cars. Are there any paint scheme styles you would like to suggest? Any other ideas to share on Racing Modifications? Proceed.

 

[Dave A]

Being sat at a desk in work means I can't go into detail with any ideas, but what I've read so far is very good..

 

[Tenacious D]

I'm assuming that the paint shops in both Forza 2 and GT5 will be much more powerful than the ones in Forza 1, and in FM1 you could do quite extensive car decoration. What you posted above, John, is a great idea for the basic painting templates in GT5. But I'm assuming that GT5 will alow us to go wild and express ourselves artistically as we see fit. Forza 1 already has a fairly effective fading tool for blending colors, and it's not hard to imagine all sorts of things which could be implemented in Gran Turismo. A spray tool should be easy, allowing us to do blended colors and draw them, and if Polyphony goes the way of Forza 2, they will allow those of us with Photoshop to download our car skins onto our computers and play with them there. Perhaps they'll even offer a Photoshop-like program. With this next generation of gaming, basically anything is possible.

I can't gush enough about how awesome it is in Forza to come up with racing schemes for your cars and watch them in action. And I am indeed doing the racing team thing myself. I'll be buying several cars to paint up, and will be coming up with virtual racing families, like my "Ian Fox" Porsche. There will be a few Foxes who's names will be appearing on cars in the future. I've already bought a couple of Silvias which I've given similar schemes for a Japanese racing family who's name I'm still playing with. A couple I've given the notorious HKS sponsorship, but another one will have his own sponsor in an upcoming car. I'm already taking my wishes for GT5 and Forza 2 and letting my imagination take its course, and Forza is just a taste of what I see coming in the sequels.

 

[Fat Boy Drifter]

If GT5 does bring back the racing modification you should have 2 or more kits to choose from. Also you should be able to decide what kind of racing modification, Ex: A JGTC kit on a car your going to use for rally isn't good.

 

[Jim Prower]

RE: Stage 1 paint

sure. good idea, but I might add the option of a few sponsor decals, ala Amuse S2000 R1. Flat rate for all colors

RE: Stage 2 Paint

Every car should have at least one "Official" scheme as per the manufacturer. the others should be famous racecars based on that model. add a "Gran Turismo" scheme, and that does the trick. as this simulates a vinyl "Wrap," make it a flat rate.

RE: Stage 3 Paint

Let's have as many graphic patterns as we can. Add Stripe patterns, Number boxes (And circles), perhaps even a feature that allows you to pull a picture off of the internet and paste it onto your car. (For example, a Confederate flag and the number "01" for the General Lee on a '69 Charger) as well, the more graphics (judged by number and size of layers) the highre the price goes. Also, the first color chosen should go all over the car, and counts as the first layer.

RE: All Paint stages

all paint shop stages should be available from the get-go, no matter what stage of racing modification, if any. This way, we can use stock-bodied cars. I'll use the example of a Jaguar XK-E, which often raced without special bodywork. Green paint, and some number circles, and you've got an authentic Jaguar racer.

 

[Tenacious D]

Don't forget the special colors, the "chameleon" paint that changes color based on the viewing angle and the light, like the TVR Tuscans and the Raybrig NSX. Love that car, drool.

Right now I'm gawking at one of my HKS Silvias which is mostly done, decals tastefully placed, and the paint scheme it has now is a stunning deep metallic midnight blue-violet. The color shift as the car rotates, and the blue that appears out of the black is mesmerizing, and this is just XBox power! I'll have to snap some pics of these guys over the weekend.

I want all sorts of things to go along with creating a race car, as you guys posted above. I want lots of decals, and like Forza does, I want Gran Turismo to sort out the decals based on the car that I'm detailing so that primary equipment decals will be of the equipment upgrades in the car, and the rest are of the ones appropriate for my car. I don't need to sort through decals for GM, Ford or Porsche manufacturers if I'm detailing a Skyline.

I also want flags of all the racer nations. I want a font table, and a font builder, and a text assembler so that I can pick letters that line up in a placer tool, like the driver name I want on my car, or if I decide to create a decal or sponsor. I suppose sponsors might be out of the question, but with a good paint shop, we can make our own. I created the Mobil 1 logo on the Ian Fox Porsche, and I'll be creating many others as key sponsors. We can certainly get away with manufacturer sponsors, like Ford Racing, HKS and NISMO.

 

[JohnBM01]

Just wanted to clarify something I didn't clear up in my last post. If you want to freely edit car skins, black would be a HORRIBLE choice as a blank car and here's why. You want to be able to note the lines of a car so you can build around them. You don't start with a black image when you start a brand new picture. You don't start with a black canvas when you're painting something new. So it's best to use white for blanks. It's the easiest to see and least likely to give you crappy results when painting up your car. So I say "nay" to black as a blank color.

I cleared the Roadster Endurance in GT4 to pick up a Mazda RX-7 LM Race Car. Some people don't like these fantasy race cars. Some say the fantasy LM Race Cars are "rice." But if you ask me, this is sort of what I want to accomplish by taking a production car and turning it into a pure race car. These specific dream race cars would be the ultimate modifications for a regular street car. And since GT4 had Le Mans, you can actually put them up at Le Mans to see how they would do if such race cars existed. Don't you want to tune up a car to racing spec, even if to these extremes? You want a race car, don't you? So how can these fantasy models be "rice" if they can actually perform like true GT racing cars? I've always considered the Honda del sol LM as the worst LM Race Car of all time as I had a tough time keeping it on the race track in GT1. The Del Sol probably looks better as a mid-engined car than a front-engined deal. I thought it was a very small Viper when I was very inexperienced about cars (call me crazy, I know!).

I think these fantasy LM race cars offer up what extent modifying a car could be all about. In fact, let's use an LM Race Car to serve my basis. Let's talk about the Honda S2000 LM Race Car. I want to use this car as an example because I want to go with cars that you don't have to unlock and are readily available for you to buy. A base Honda S2000 doesn't look outlandish and flamboyant. With tuning, you can modify into something that isn't your average S2000. Go further into Honda's menu in GT4. You come across the Honda S2000 LM Race Car. This race car is all in GT spec and may likely be a much more worthier model for those who love the S2000. This model is adorned with amber lights like most GT race cars should be. The amber lights are there so that sportscar racing competitors will better be able to diffrentiate between a GT and a prototype. Endurance racing cars usually need many more lights to better see in rainy or dark conditions. So this S2000 has four extra lights arranged in a rather unique way for this car. It's almost like the four horizontal lights on the Lancia Stratos Rally Car. This car features brand-new front and rear body work that looks much bolder, yet still carries much of the silouhette of the street car it is based on. You also note the driver number on the car, which is 30 whether you choose black/red, black/blue (like I'm using in my solo B-Spec run around Special Stage Route 5 Reverse), or black/purple (or violet). This race car features a racing roll cage which can mean a great lot in safety and stability. See the rear wing on the S2000 LM Race Car? That is a real racing wing for it and doesn't look like one you can just readily pick up from GT Auto. The rear wing looks highly aggressive and really adds to the downforce at the rear for this racing-exclusive S2000. There are even double fuel cells for the Honda S2000. The Racing Muffler has been moved from the rear to somewhere along the side skirts. All in all, it's the ultimate modification possible for taking a street car into a true GT race car.

Love or hate these fantasy race cars. They do, however, serve as the basis of what some of ultimate modifying could be like. So they aren't all "rice" or whatever. Then again, how do you explain that fantasy Seat GT race car in "Forza Motorsport?" We can now take the Honda S2000 LM Race Car and apply my description to the models we are either discussing or proposing. Here are changes I'd make to the car if I could freely paint it to whatever I want. I would think I could change the driver number and the flag. Instead of #30 with the Japanese flag, I'd modify it to #25 and an American flag. I could even change up the paintscheme from black/blue and maybe keep the blue and just add a darker and richer blue color. So you'd get dark blue/blue. The blue color combination I had in mind are similar to Vibe and Blue Pearl on an FPV F6 Typhoon (I would have said the FPV GT, but I'd only get a Vibe-colored FPV GT if it was dark blue with white or silver accents, not orange accents). I'd replace the GT logos with some specific sponsor. Since I'm not making an all-out model, I'll be generic. I would put on the logo of GTPlanet.net. I would keep the Honda adornments on the car and simply replace the Polyphony Digital logos with something like PlayStation 2 or some extra graphics. The theme for some of my blue cars is nighttime. So I would like either some sparkly effects or lightly-brushed circles to mimic stars at night. The nighttime theme could continue with something similar to the BBS 001 wheel in GT4, only painted in yellow or gold. I would also put my name on the car's back windshield in the order of F. LastName (using FirstName LastName as a dummy). Then I'd hit the track ready to own some ass.

Racing Modifications talks continue. You're free to resume discussion.

 

[Dave A]

Bravo John, however one minor point because I being pedantic, that fantasy SEAT GT car the Cupra GT in Forza Motorsport is very real.

 

[Jim Prower]

The more I read into this, the more I Like it.

I've been thnking, though, if you can paint your own car, why offer it stock in different colors? what about just offering the car in one color, (not necessarily white, just to break up the monotony) and then painting it?

 

[Dave A]

Because not everyone will want to spend ages painting each and every one of their cars. Also some people like keeping their cars stock, that includes the paint job. There is no benefit of offering each car in only 1 colour from the showroom, yet offering the colours the car does come in will please the people that like their cars standard in every way or don't want to have to pain all of thier cars to make them a nice colour.

 

[Jim Prower]

I figured as much. It was really more of a "Devils Advocate" type idea.

however, the showroom colors should be had in stage 1 and stage 3 paint

 

[whh01]

Since this is pie in the sky dreaming I will share my two cents...
I bought Gran Turismo to RACE. I have never used the photo capability. I have NASCAR 06 and tried painting the different cars. It's mildly amusing but not enough to pique my interest. I like your ideas about doing more and different mods. It would be awesome to try Bridgestone tires and then Michelin to see the differences.
It would also be very cool to pick your opponents. Let's say you are in a Honda S2000 and want a straight up race on a certain track with Nissans and Mazdas. That would be fun.
What I am most interested in are two things: more TRACKS and more CARS.
Some of the GT championships could be more closely related to the real GT or F1 championships. I like that about the TOCA games. It's a shame that EA Sports has a lock on the NASCAR circuit. I would love seeing Darlington, Daytona, and so on in Gran Turismo. There are many Grand Prix courses that could also be included. I hope that happens.

 

[Dave A]

I'm the opposite, I want to see less focus on the sheer numbers of cars and more on the depth and immersion. I want more mods, a cockpit view, better AI, I love painting up my own car in PC games and in Forza, also I don't wan my fully modded car to be the same as everyone elses fully modded cars, the tuning is in stages in GT, change that, give each stage multiple choices etc. But this is going off topic.

 

[whh01]

ok, how about better and different cars? I don't need 13 types of the Mazda RX-7 or the 1886 Mercedes or the 1915 Model T. I would like to see this years selection of cars from all the makers that are in the game.

I too (like many others) would like to see a career mode that takes you through a season and not just a simple 5 to 10 car championship.

Last thing is online play. I won't buy a PS3 and GT5 until I have heard good things about getting online and taking others on head to head. It's what we have all been waiting for.

 

[Dave A]

Having mutliple versions of the same car is better than having one, the simple fact of the matter is that it takes almost no time and effort for PD to use the same car model and give it different stats like power and weight to represent different models. Having a car that's actually different takes a lot more time and effort, so getting rid of the car variants won't mean thoes variants get replaced. They'll just lower the car count. But we are getting off topic here, we should be discussing race mods.

 

[superfast]

Personally, I like the mods of Need For Speed: Most Wanted, where there were several different kits (though some were just plain stupid), rather than doing it piece-by-piece. But really, I don't care very much. As long as racing modification is back at all (provided it isn't butchered) I will be happy.

I'm the opposite, I want to see less focus on the sheer numbers of cars and more on the depth and immersion. I want more mods, a cockpit view, better AI, I love painting up my own car in PC games and in Forza, also I don't wan my fully modded car to be the same as everyone elses fully modded cars, the tuning is in stages in GT, change that, give each stage multiple choices etc. But this is going off topic.

Yes, it is off topic, but that is putting into words exactly what I've been wanting out of the GT series for years. I don't like how if two people fully modify the same car, they will be exactly the same.

 

[greenlightning]

Really great stuff in this forum topic !

I agree with about everything that has been said. Race mods and hopefully a paint shop in some form or another must make it into GT5. If not I think it will be seriuosly lacking and force some to go to other games.
Race mods for GT2 was great, many an hour I have spent buying cars just to see what paint they had with race modification.

If they have paint shop, hopefully you could easily transfer colors from one car to the next etc. within reason. Maybe save custom color mixes. Do think that stickers and decals should also be include. I would envision many online car clubs / race leagues with their own decals possibly paint styles that you could apply to your ride showin that you are a member.
Have a GT Planet decal or sticker even that you could add to your car.
Download decals,stickers etc. from online players.

Hopefully we will be able to trade / sell cars to other players online. Have cars that you sell keep all mods, custom paint, custom wheels etc. I think when you trade cars from memory cards with GT4 you loose all mods, car is returned to stock. Another thing I would like to see in some future version is online used car lots. Players can sell or trade the cars they have to online used car lots. Imagine thousands of used cars in dozens of online used car shops. Oh and let us set the used price or at least have the resale value based on depreciation plus cost of added on parts etc.
Maybe the online used car lots would flucate the prices of the cars based on how many they have in stock. Basicaly just wanted to say it would very kool and a definite edge ( perhaps ) to trade full customized cars with players online.

Another ideal I have is what if used cars was more like actually used cars. We have high milage, but what about chipped damaged paint or even some slight body damage. Also maybe bald tires, cracked windshields, engines in desperate need of tune-ups or parts replaced.

 

[inferno]

only one thing i wanna say. my only beef with the racing mod is that it changes the color and apearance of your car. to this end i love the "wing" method used in gt4. They can do what ever they want with gt5 as long as i can get all the performance improvements without having to make my car multiple colors or a color that i dont like, or have to plaster it with sponsors. as far as weight reduction, that's already covered. if you want to completely strip out your car then the stage three weight reduction should (if it dosnt already) do that for you.

[EDIT]

the idea of body modifications however does apeal to me. i wouldnt mind being able to equip front and rear facias, flared fenders and all the other miscelaneous underbody components that improve downforce and drag along with my wing. just so long as those pieces become the color that the car already was. and assuming these pieces are crafted out of carbon fiber or the like, they should reduce the cars weight as well.

 

[Uncle Harry]

I liked race mods in GT1 and GT2.
I did not miss them in GT3 and GT4 as there were enough race cars to pick from without having to race mod road cars.
I expect even more race cars for GT5 so the need of race conversions will be reduced further.
However a staged car customising centre would be of interest to enhance your road car.
It raises the question of what should be better, the full blown factory race car or one I build from parts from the customising centre.

 

[JohnBM01]

More Racing Modification love you ask? Here's some more for you!

I'd like to return to the Honda S2000 LM Race Car example. I forgot to mention that the engine is much different. Whereas the base S2000 has about 240hp, the racing variant has about 316hp. This is a key issue for Race Modified cars- new engines to take advantage of all the lighter weight parts as well as the fact that it will no longer be a street car that happens to also be a weekend racer. Minute details on the car feature some of the graphics on top. The roof of this race car features a Castrol logo (one of the longtime sponsors on cars since GT1), three drivers listed on the car, and a 24 Heures du Mans (24 Hours of Le Mans) sticker. If this were actually racing today, it would be in an outdated or nonexistant class, as it says "LMGT4." The Automobile Club L'Quest (ACO, sanctioning body for Le Mans) would have to develop a class for very-low powered machines like this one. It would have to compete in a GT3 class which would be even lower than today's GT2 machinery. But at the end of the day, this is a dream race car and the ultimate level of race car tuning.

But what if you can't modify a car to the absolute ultimate? Well, you get something like the Spoon Sports S2000 Race Car or a car I was completely unimpressed with, the Calsonic Skyline Race Car (from 1993, not the JGTC/Super GT model). These are what I'd consider more like mid-level cars, even though both models are more powerful than their road-going counterparts. I think the 1993 Calsonic Skyline Race Car is perhaps the ultimate in being a highly-powered race car which looks nothing like a pure race car. I can say the same for the Gathers Drider Civic.

The lowest possible definition of a race car is a car which has racing car parts, but not so much modification. All three Race Cars from the Volkswagen lineup in GT4 would be candidates for low-level race cars. All race machines in their lineup are significantly more powerful than their road-going counterparts. There's nothing wrong with racing one of these. In fact, the Lupo Cup Cars are very agile around a race track. I remember when I did Midfield Raceway in GT3 with a Lupo Cup Car. The car's handling was sweeter than sweet potato pie. That's something to keep in mind those of you who love bashing low-horsepowered cars. Lower-powered cars mean that it's more possible to go flat out around a race track. The Lupo race cars pack pretty decent power. You're talking about 123hp for the 2000 Cup Car. It is also a front-wheel drive car, so you have to take the issue of understeer into account. The New Beetle Cup Car is a sweet machine as well. Who doesn't love this quirky and cute little number from Volkswagen? Most Cup Cars are based on inexpensive cars lightly to moderately modified for racing. Popular models include the Toyota Pro Celebrity Race. Remember the sporty 180+ hp Celica GTS Liftbacks zooming around Long Beach? They were specially-prepared for celebrities and professionals alike. And let's face it. I thought the 1999-ish Celicas were VERY sporty and racy. Just too bad it didn't last as long. Now the Scion tC (a car I would have liked to have seen in GT4) is the Celica replacement. Cup Cars can be very fun as long as they are mostly inexpensive coupes and sedans. We're not mostly talking about (for example) Jaguar XJ220 Cup Cars or whatever. But you know what I was thinking? Why not stuff like the old Motorola Cup (now the Grand-Am Cup series)?

Let's take some lessons from "Tourist Trophy." You have to have played Tourist Trophy to know what I'm about to talk about in this paragraph. Winning or earning a Racing Modified bike in Tourist Trophy made you pick a number for it. When it was all done, you would go racing with that number. You could only choose numbers 5-99. Win a championship, and you can choose to get a #1 plate. If you wear the #1 in a sport where defending champions get #1 plates, then you're the one to beat for next season. It isn't like NASCAR in which driver numbers are as important as the sponsors they parade. I can remember that when Steve Park raced the Pennzoil #1 in (then, 1999) Winston Cup, I wouldn't note him as a defending champion simply because of the #1. But when Juan Pablo Montoya won the (then, 1999) CART Championship, he took the #1 driver number. He would have an almost HORRIBLE season in 2000. I believe that If you're going to buy a car to go racing with, you should be able to have the option of modifying it with driver number plates. Things to take into account are where you'd like to place the driver number stickers on, how to apply them, what number style you'd use, and simply what number you'd like to use.

Finally, I just want to go back to "Ridge Racer V." The difference between the model I'm providing in GT5 and RRV is that RRV has you as part of a race team with your own modified cars. The Standard cars in RRV are more like your Normal cars in GT games. Everything from the Kamata Fiaro to the Himmel E.O. in Standard are basic cars with racing graphics. Those graphics and performance get even better when you view the Extra class variations of these cars. Since this was one of the first PS2 games, you'll note just how low-res a lot of the graphics looked. We've came a LONG way from that. Still beautiful, regardless. You see the Extra cars and how modified they are. You see racing wings and extra bodywork. RRV proved the perfect example of taking certain paint schemes and then painting them up in any color. You edit four colors. You have a base color, your secondary color, your tertiary color, and the fourth color (usually reserved for miscellaenous graphics. Just for fun, I modified my tri-color Rivelta Mercurio race car with white/red/green/black. You end up getting something like Castrol colors. Go ahead. Try it. And continue on with your own replies.

 

[JohnBM01]

Racing Modification discussion continues.

I had to rebuild my Sports Car GT collection here on my new computer and on my older computer. Now that I have most of everything all set up (and much better since I have this great computer), I began to think about the paint schemes on the cars. A number of automobiles in SCGT (remember, get the PC version of this old game and not the crappy PS1 version) have independent paint schemes. There are even a few BMWs with Image Space (the game's devolper and even the maker of the newer game "rFactor") livery. Just about every class (except maybe GT2 class) features some sort of independent paint schemes. So why don't we take a closer look, GTPlanet?

-GTQ-
GTQ is the lowest class of Sports Car GT competition. The cars have no more than 300 horsepower and feature three cars- the Porsche 911, Panoz Esperante, and the BMW M3. Many of the cars have fictional liveries. Some of the Porsches remind me of the old school Speedvision logo. That was of course, what Speed Channel used to be. Many of the cars look like they could use some extra paint-up jobs to look more interesting.

-GT3-
The GT3 class is more powerful with more expensive cars and more powerful cars. A new car you can purchase is the Saleen Mustang (which I'm currently using in the GT3 class). Many of the cars are more powerful and does feature some more interesting liveries including some of my all-time favorite BMW paintschemes- the Prototype Technology Group BMWs. Some paint schemes are more realistic and more interesting including the older Porsches with the shark teeth surrounding the front grill.

-GT2-
Sports Car GT's GT2 class is like GT1 in the ALMS and at Le Mans. These are some of the highest-possible tuning jobs you can do to a car. Sadly, you get about 11 or so cars to choose from. It introduces the last American supercar before the Saleen S7 hit the scene- the Vector M12. Powered by a Lamborghini engine, it gives you great power and some nice top speed. There are also even better cars available including more Porsche and BMW love from Germany to you. The paintschemes are well more realistic including the Porsche with multiple color accents and STP sponsorship.

-GT1-
Almost every SCGT gamer's drean racing class is the GT1 class. There are no upgraded cars here because they are all pure racing machines. Not to mention they are my fondest memories of the sportscar racing I've missed out on for years since getting into racing in 1998. You get the Porsche 911 GT1, McLaren F1, Panoz Esperante GT1, Callaway C12, Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR, and even the Lister Storm. Many more cars have believable and realistic racing liveries. Maybe the most popular machine in this class is the Rohr Porsche complete with a gold-colored main body and extra dashes of color along the top of the car. The Lister Storm features some football (as in soccer) sponsorship from a little team you British may recall. Maybe a team called... Newcastle United. The McLarens and Callaways don't really have interesting sponsorship. The McLarens either come in the red/white/blue of America with stars or the blue/red of the United Kingdom with a big Union Jack. The Callaways are either silver with blue stripes, or white with red and yellow.

Sports Car GT has about the best ideas of interesting paint schemes to start off with. The only way you can modify the paint schemes is if you use some extra software to extract images (24-bit, 17.6 million color bitmaps) and edit them with a Paint program. That's what I'm going to try to do with my collection of blank cars I downloaded many moons ago. If you use a Paint program of some kind for SCGT, make sure you're using a Paint program which features layering options. Layering options are important because it gives you the best chance to better edit textures without having to sacrifice losing quality with original textures. One thing you can do is to designate if a certain layer can be created with Soft Light or Hard Light. This way, you keep the lines of the car intact so that you don't overlap them. The difference is that you get to be able to freely modify the car and keep the lines intact so that car doesn't look like a middle school student designed a so-so paint scheme for a certain car. After painting up the cars with layers, you then flatten the layers to get one bitmap to use for that car. A Gran Turismo model will have to incorporate designing the car's colors so that work won't have to be completely stringent. Basic painting of cars would be as simple as a driver plate and a sun visor decal across the top of the windshield.

By the way, one last bit of information I wanted to add to extend this post. The season finale to Speed Channel show "Pinks" had a drag race between a 1960s VW Beetle and a 1990 Honda CRX. In the final race, the Beetle had the wheelie bars off by negotiation from the Honda team. The rear-engine/rear-drive Beetle broke an axle, spun into the far lane wall, and had a horrific crash. The driver was alright because he had installed a racing roll cage into the car and showing that racing isn't just "go fast or go home." There's also a degree of safety that goes on in these races. The Beetle racer insisted that he doesn't race unless he has a racing roll cage installed in this unstable rear-engined drag race car. The whole point of all of this is to show what a real racing modification should entail and how it should work in a worst-case scenario. It shows that roll cages in cars actually work, especially really good ones. The host (Rich Christensen) even stated it's best to have racing on a track than out on the streets since you have an ambulance and such to compete. So let's think race cars here and not about wicked-looking street cars.

You are free to discuss ANY aspect of Racing Modifications from painting to body modification now that this post is done.

 

[JohnBM01]

I actually encourage a lot of you to look around in the world of racing and think of as many different paintscheme styles as possible. I just wanted to elaborate a bit on the pre-made paint schemes.

There are two types of pre-made paint schemes: manufacturer-specific paint schemes, and team-specific paint schemes. Have you unlocked the Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM Race Car in GT3 or GT4? The Brilliant Silver colors of the car is actually a mix of the base color and small "D2" logos. Take a close look at the car's paintscheme. You may notice small, silver "D2" logos all across the car to accompany the big "D2" logos among the four different dimensions of the car. Maybe you've seen the #55 Mazda 787B. That is also a manufacturer-specific logo.

You may remember Mazda showcasing a race-prepped MX-5 Miata. The color combination isn't very pretty with the white dashes, orange patches, green patches, a silver patch, and a black patch color. I think the patches across the car is more like a classic Porsche 917 that was painted in a peach-like color with black dashes across, resembling when pigs were cut up before heading into the meat market. The car also has "Renown" on the side in blue letters. However, it's a color combo that shouldn't be messed with and used on some other cars. It is a retro paintscheme that worked pretty nice for the Mazda RX-8 Concept LM Race Car. So it's probably not a good idea to use the 787B colors on something like a Nissan Cube or a Chevrolet Corvette C5. Certain paint styles made famous by other racing teams probably isn't a good idea. Any paintscheme baring the colors of a certain company would be foolish to use on some other car. Look at the silver Audi in GT2 (A4 or S4). The Racing Mod is silver with red Audi rings. You wouldn't want the same style to be used on a BMW now, would you? I think some of those manufacturer-specific Racing Modifications should only be used by that specific car company.

The other Racing Modification is team-specific. The difference is that team-based paint schemes have no real prefeence as to what cars are treated with the certain colors. There are two examples in two different automotive disciplines. One is the Japanese tuner group Yashio Factory, famous for their Hot Pink-colored cars. A racing team example of team-based paintschemes are ARTA, or Autobacs Racing Team Aguri. These are team colors free to be used on almost any modifiable car. Pre-made racing colors would have to require you to come up with colors which doesn't resemble their colors. I want to think that an interesting way to come up with certain race team sponsorship is to earn them like in Tourist Trophy. The minimum requirement for the bigger teams would be nothing less than an International-grade license. What are examples of bigger teams? I'll name a few from past and present. There is the Gulf colors (Sky Blue and Orange), Momo colors (Doran Ferrari 333SPs), Marlboro Team Penske colors (White and Red), Target Chip Ganassi (red with white accents), Castrol (white with red and green accents), Spoon Sports (sky blue with orange-yellow), and the like. I say that the Gulf team is more of a team-specific color because if you recall, there is the classic Gulf colors on the Ford GT40, but there was also a Gulf-colored Audi R8. The classic question is this: do you mess with historic paintschemes or leave them alone? The answer kind of depends on how you feel about this deal.

I sometimes feel there needs to be certain variations of paint schemes for certain teams. An example of alternative Castrol colors would be like the Castrol Supra in GT3 (which is also featured in GT4) and then the Castrol Supra in GT Concept and GT4. Imagine if you could choose between these two different Castrol schemess for your car if you choose for a car. What I'd likely suggest something like realistic sponsors, only that generic models don't exactly have Castrol colors. Just imaing a car painted up in white/red/green, but not with Castrol sponsorship. And I'm thinking about the Castrol colors before GT Concept. Continue to have fun with this topic.

 

[Tenacious D]

In Forza, I've been approaching car liveries with this same philosophy. Rather than draw inspiration from existing race teams and cars at Forzacentral galleries, I've been trying to let my imagination take me places, and based on lifelike situations.

Like racing families, such as the Andrettis and Pettys. I'm creating some virtual racing families, such as Ian Fox and his son Nigel, Japanese-Americans, Americans, and a few more Europeans. Each one will have their own color schemes on their cars. The parents will have just one or two paint schemes, and more basic ones, while the kids will have similar but different ones, and theirs will tend to vary more and be more adventurous.

Since my new profile is Nigel Fox's, I've been focusing on their cars, and using fox-like colors of red, orange, white and black. And as powerful as the Forza paintshop is, you can do an awful lot with just a couple of colors. And I'm working on the sponsor angle too, with the parents getting bigger name main sponsors like Mobil 1, and the kids being a little behind their pops in advancement and prestige getting lesser ones like tuner upgrade companies. Likewise, the older racers will be more likely to have an Enzo, while the kids will make do with Mustangs and 350Zs, at least at first.

 

[lynk26]

All this stuff is very nice and stuff, but i imagine it would take forever to try and include all that in a game. People get impatient and stuff when it takes a while for a game to come out, like people got impatient when GT4 was coming out. Heck, i'd love to see it, but fact is, most people arent gonna wait around a heck of a long time for that stuff. It would only be mostly hardcore GT fans willing to wait it out.

 

[Tenacious D]

This kind of thing won't take all that long to build into the game. It's just modelling of performance parts and putting in a paint shop, which both of those are almost no brainers to be in GT5.

What will take a long time to build right is a good damage system covering all the cars. That might conceivably take a good hunk of the development calendar. Wanna ask they drop it?

 

[stumpydino]

roof chops! airbags! paint of course too

 

[Jim Prower]

roof chops! airbags! paint of course too

Yeah. You're joking, now.

Like I said earlier, I think there should be at least one type of Paint that features ready-made famous race car schemes for that model, so that you don't have to go through and paint each and every car you've decided to race-mod. They do this in real life - It's called a Vinyl "Wrap", which consists of a paint scheme on a set of giant stickers - and It'd be convenient for those of us with huge garages (especially those of us who use cheats) and don't want to drive a monochromatic car.

I also heard something about the Model T. How about doing it like a real teens-era racer? remove the fenders, the sides of the hood, use the roadster body, wire wheels, go nuts.

then allow engine mods. Rajo OHC heads, period H.P. carb, high compression, the works.