Our ReVolt Pub

This thread is intended as a reference to car submitter's at RVZ, anyone who's submission's do not meet the suggested requirement's may be directed here.

Please fully read this post to understand why your Car Submissions may not be approved over at RVZ

REPAINT's
This term apply's to all cars that are not your own original ReVolt work.

The basic standard requirements to be accepted as a REPAINT are :
1) An altered, enhanced, repainted bitmap/texture/car skin (xxx.bmp)that shows imagination or attention to detail.
2) Tweaking/adjustments of several values in the Parameters.txt file.

Will qualify :
1=good-great + 2=none-poor (A)
1=basic-great + 2=good-great (B)
1=poor-basic + 2=poor-good (C)

Wont qualify :
1=none-poor + 2=none-poor (D)
1=none + 2=good-great (E)

To help explain what is considered as poor
[img]http://revolt_f1.webs.com/RV-Tools/REPAINTS-NOT.jpg[/img]
These examples took seconds to create and are NOT acceptable as a basic repaint.
Using an image editing's basic tool's give's us the Gray-Scale or Inverted offering's. The lazy use of the fill tool give's us simple color changes or one color offering's, all these are not acceptable for submission and are graded less than poor.
By all mean's, create these simple repaints as a way of developing your own painting/editing skills, but I rather you upload them to a web page of your own, try Freewebs.com

A poor set of parameters is where the value TopSpeed in the section 'Handling related stuff' is the only value changed or maybe plus one other value.
So, if your repaint is basic or poor then ensure it has a good set of parameters.
A good set of parameters can be specific to a desired handling or tweaked for AI perfection, use a fully detailed Readme(see below).

To explain the grades above 'A B C D E', the most submitted cars fall into grades A & D. Grade C cars may be rejected if the car has not been packed/zipped correctly (see below), if they can't be bothered then why should I !
Grade E cars maybe overlooked if their repaint is poor or same as the original and poorly packaged, and so rejected without question. Include a fully detailed Readme(see below) to explain why your car is good if not great.
Grade B cars are very few, Aeon has produced a nice selection HERE

Examples of acceptable repaint's :
[img]http://revolt_f1.webs.com/RV-Tools/Acceptable-repaints.jpg[/img]
These examples are all TOYECA repaint's, but the rule's/standards apply to ALL cars, whether they are stock or custom repaint's.
Before you start banging on about your so called hard work, I suggest that you fully read this thread and honestly ask yourself "are my cars visually unique and of interest to others ? Have I put in as much effort as I say I have ?"

Other older submissions that are available may not meet these current standards, but that's the point, a minimum standard needs to be asked and maintained.
I for one am sick of seeing negative, bad and abusive feedback because the submission is below most people's basic standards.
Better standards = better feedback, for all.

Aeon @ Jul 26 2008, 01:32 AM wrote: That's why people are encouraged to keep their first projects to themselves, since while they may have taken WEEKS to complete, most of that time was spent learning how to do things, and the end results usually aren't that great.

But since MM referred to my cars as good examples for repaints, here's an in-depth look at what goes into them:

You can use the tuned  Ford Puma, one of my cars, as an example. I usually skip the conversion process because I don't care for that part, and I let Adamodell or someone else do that for me. So I usually have a basic car to start with, but here's a general overview of the steps I take to turn a regular converted car into one of my cars.

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• Spend several hours researching (via Google) the real-life car's statistics, including length, width, height, ground clearance, wheelbase, front track, rear track, peak RPMs, front and rear tire sizes, overdive gear, final drive, weight, weight distribution, horsepower, front and rear torque, lock to lock, spring rates and suspension settings, drag coefficients, frontal area, number of turbos and psi settings, downforce and additional features that may add to the vehicle's traction and handling.
• Resize the model to reflect the real-life car's dimensions.
• Calculate the wheel dimensions and resize the available wheels - or sometimes, adjust the model's UV mapping to allow me to place custom wheels where I want them.
• Use the car's wheelbase and front/rear tracks to attempt to calculate where the wheels should be located on the car. Start Re-Volt and view/adjust the wheels repeatedly until I'm satisfied with their positions. Sometimes placing the wheels where the belong includes modifying the car's model a bit so they fit right.
• Input all of the collected real-life car data into a special section of the parameters text that can be read by a custom program that I wrote to convert real-life car stats into Re-Volt car stats. (This took hours before I created that program.)
• Run the program and then run Re-Volt to see how the car sits with its suspension settings and adjust the wheel positions if needed.
• Create a new hull file for the car, usually based on the R6 Turbo, but stretched to fit the new car.
• Drive an average of about 100 laps around small to medium sized tracks in order to get a feel for the car's handling. If the car doesn't handle the way that real-life reviews describe the car's handling, I'll go back into the settings and tweak things (usually the suspension) until it feels right. I'll continue tweaking until I'm satisfied with the car's handling, and with the AI's handling of the car. That usually includes racing against this car quite a bit and watching how the AI handles it.
• Now we get to the actual repainting part. I start by browsing around on Google searching for any cool body kits or paint jobs used on the car that I'm repainting, or similar cars. If I find a cool body kit, then I might redraw parts of the car, and sometimes modify the car's model, in order to introduce the new body kit for my Re-Volt car.
• Next, I'll create a Paint Shop Pro file containing several layers, and I'll chop up the car's BMP image into several sections, including interior, exterior, paint job, lights, features and wheel rims.
• Then decide on a base color for the new car's repaint. Create a duplicate of the car's body layer and color this new layer to the new color that I've selected.
• I once again return to browsing around Google in search of cool color schemes and designs that work well with the color I've chosen. Once come across some ideas that I like, I'll browse through decal sites (or sometimes create my own) in order to find decals or additions that I like, and I'll recolor them to the new colors that I want and make them fit on the car. Add new decals, test drive the car to make sure it looks cool, and if everything works right, I'll keep them. I try to have decals on the sides, hood and rear, at the very least. Sometimes on the roof or front, too.
• Some cars may have special features added in addition to the paint job, such as carbon fiber hoods.
• I have a web site that I use which has tons of custom rim designs which work well with Re-Volt cars, so I'll spent a while browsing around and searching for rims that would look cool with this paint job, and try a couple until I find one that I'm satisfied with.
• If I think the car needs it, I'll adjust the model to remove any existing spoilers, then I'll either borrow a spoiler from another car model (which usually requires adjusting the UV map) or tweak an existing spoiler to create my own design, then I'll position the spoiler as the car's spinner.
• Once the exterior repainting is done, I might do some touch-ups with the interior as well, replacing console features, adjusting the look of the seats and giving it a new steering wheel.
• Continue test driving the car to make sure that everything feels right. Make tweaks if necessary.
• Create a display image for the car 
  (such as the above), which usually takes about 10 minutes to half an hour.
• Write up a readme file.
• Zip up the whole thing and submit it to RVZ.

A typical repaint can take anywhere from 6 hours to a week, depending on how avidly I work on it.

CONVERSION's
This term apply's to all cars that started out as a 3D model from another game or source.
These cars will usually need to be imported into a 3D modeler program, then altered/adjusted, then exported into a format that ReVolt can read. Other tool's and utilities may be required.
When submitting conversion's it is only polite to include the original author's Readme file and images to give credit to their work.
At very lease provide a full Readme of your own that has full credit references to the original author and their work and the origins of the model.

I know that some author's state that their work is not to be used or converted at all or at lease without their permission. As ReVolt is quite old now and there is no one who will ever profit from these models then I leave it to your own descretion when using other peoples work.

If you are one of those people who are good to great at conversions but really suck at creating parameters especially positioning wheels and body's to align with collision data, then ask for help. There are plenty of people who can provide explanitary help or direct hands on help. Why let your hard work get poor feedback due to a bad set of parameters.

Adamodell @ Jul 26 2008, 03:44 AM wrote:Holy crap, Aeon, I knew you had to do a lot, but not that much!

The only things you do that apply to me:
UV map adjustment
Hulscaled huls

I try not to rush my cars either though, and I've sort of adapted the "don't release so fast, drive it for a while" prophecy.

I'll try to list my work for my GT2 conversions since I find them the most difficult.

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• Rip the car mesh from GT2 with GT2Vol by identifying it with the ID sheet
• Delete unnecessary polygons that don't require existence in Re-Volt
• Run Gran Turismo 2 in ePSXe and take printscreens of rotating car
• Cut crop paste and whatnot in Paint.NET, brighten up the source images to remove any chance of pureblack, and turn it into a texture sheet
• Set up the textures so they are flat on a plane, rotation may be required
• Pureblack out the wheel well section of the side texture
• Open up my pre-saved car mesh in ZModeler, scale by 0.5 arbitrary here or in RV-Sizer, what I feel best with
• Select all the car's polies in the left or right views, start UV mapping here
• Fit it over the texture
• Move to front polygons, selected by hand individually, may or may not include hood depending on angle, stretch to fit the same way
• Move to back, map that to the back texture I made
• Little things like mirrors mapped later on, also map the roof and other parts if there is texture bleeding
• Export as 3ds, import in LithUnwrap for further UV modification, may make car have that half-textures and have the UV flipped on other side
• Once done with that, save again, import 3ds in ZModeler
• The dreaded normals error that Aeon discovered. I fix this by exporting the mesh as an FCE in ZModeler, importing it in FCE Finish, fixing the normals, saving FCE, importing back into ZModeler, and hitting Normals-->Calculate if there are any errors with it from this point for some reason
• Then export to PRM, use Manmountain's method for hulscaled huls with a bit of an Aeon touch (0, 0, 0 body offset)
• If all is said and done, I move on to the parameters and texturing touchups. If I'm not satisfied, I may well start the process over from step 13
• When I'm done with the params, I drive it for a while, let the quirks come to me. I always pull a TVTIME and look around the car everywhere to make sure there is no oddities

Bad list, I know. But I had to.
That's the condensed version. Just add water.

And yes, Aeon, I read your whole thing. I would go into a coma with that kind of detail to my work.

ORIGINAL's
This term is used for those cars that started out in a 3D modeler program and came straight direct to Revolt.
It can also be applied to those model's which are made up from several premade model's/part's but came together as an original idea. Provide credit where it is due.
When submitting original cars please include a detailed Readme file explaining the tools used and origins of inspiration, as this help's other's to apprciate the hard work gone into creating your masterpiece.

Again, don't let poor parameters create poor feedback, ask for help if needed.

BETA TEST your creations with close friends or select community members before submitting.

PACKAGING & ZIPPING
Your packaged/zipped car should include the following :
Parameters.txt, Car-bitmap.bmp, Readme.txt, Car-image.jpg (these are the minimum essentially required files needed, as other parts from other folder's could easily be used)
Car-body.prm, Wheels.prm, hull.hul
More than one wheel may need to be included and possible other parts such as :
Axel.prm, Spring.prm, Spinner.prm

File's not needed or required that need to be removed before packaging are :
carinfo.ini, Parameters.bak (created and used by Car-manager)
Thumbs.db (created by Windows in thumbnail view. May be hidden but should be easily deleted from the zip file)
Any large or unrequired bmp, jpg, or any other image file in other formats that are not required.
desktop.ini, zm_model.inf (created by Zmodeler)

All this help's to minimize the size of your zip file.

When zipping, try to include the cars main folder so that extraction can be easily made into the main Revolt folder.
I create a 'cars' directory/folder on my main drive and copy the my car folder to that direcory, then when zipping I select the "Save full path info" box.
So when you look in your zip file the Path should read something like cars&#092;carname&#092; for all the file's/part's of your car.

Many people do not include a basic Readme.txt which should include car specification & details, personal details and credit's/thank's to those who require it.
You can download and fill in a basic README.txt file : HERE open and save

If using Car-manager to create a basic repaint, then please check your parameters.txt file, the 'Model Filenames' section should read something like this : As some stock repaints maintain their original folder name during the car-manager process. If this happens your car may not show up in the car selection screen.

Always include an image of your car of how it will look in the game, it can be a shot from the selection screen or an action shot taken using the TVTIME cheat code or a replay. Utilize a good screen capture tool, PSP 4.15 SE has one which I use, you can download it HERE, just save your image at 250 x 250 pixel's in .jpg format.
It is also a reasonable image/texture editor for creating those unique repaint's.

WOW! I can't believe how 'of same mind' we all are.

GWC @ Jul 26 2008, 06:57 PM wrote:Anyway, plain colour, striped Toyecas have been 'done to death'.
Also, may I stress how important Adamodell's last point is - please, please, please drive your car around for a while, on several tracks (and not just your fav 1's) and correct ALL imperfections before you submit it. And then take the remote camera to a good vantage point and watch the computer drive it around for a while.

Now we need someone to do a similar job on the tracks

Geoff

I was just about to make a post with that very title.

The top 'done to death' stock repaint's are :
TOYECA, COUGAR, HUMMA, VOLKEN TURBO, SPRINTER XL, NY 54, AMW & ADEON.

The Toyeca was done in excess due to the initial online racing craze.
Everyone wanted to race with their own theme/skin (as if it helped), and so a flood of Toyeca skins emerged.
Due to the limitations of the mapping, Pig@sque developed and released the ToyTotalFreedom, but this only spawned a few repaint's.

The other's have had very few really good repaint's, mostly just the shade/hue/color changes.

There have been several good custom/conversion car models that have had easy to understand & symetrical mapped textures, but not many good repaints have ever come from them.

As for trial and error testing (both visual and physical) I always do my majority of testing on my own AI Project (Test Track)
Mainly because I developed it with several different terrians in one track, 5 different flow and surface properties. This way you can test the handling of the car on varied surfaces in just one track.
If I feel the car performs well (both manual and AI) then I test on other tracks just to be sure.

As Aeon & Adam have shown, creating a car is not always quick or easy, but with the right method and personal guidelines to follow you should create a reasonbly good-great car.

The Toyeca is the Noob's bread and butter, if you can produce a decent and unique Toyeca repaint then you will earn a certain level of respect amung the older members of the RV community.
But true, Toyeca has certainly had it's day.

As some of you will have notice, I have been quite nit pickingly critical of your submissions of late and have had to email you, not just the noob's but some of you more respected members.
This is to help maintain the basic standard and make my job easier.
If your submissions are as they should be then I can simply and quickly approve them, so they are up on RVZT within hours of being submitted.
Otherwise I have to edit them and contact the author to explain what the problems are, which can take time and may allow a submission to be un-approved.

I would like to thank those of you who are taking the time and effort to meet these basic standards.

That's all for now, I may add to and/or edit this post as needed.

I encourage anyone to add specific and relevent input to this thread, but be warned, useless post's will be deleted.

I recommend posting this help also to here:

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Re_Volt_Foru ... owforum=20

the problem with ORP is that unregistered users can't read the posts, so the aforementioned forum section better serves newbies.

It took embarrassingly long but the instructions are finally linked from car submission page.

After recent Car submissions over at RVZT, I think it only prudent to remind everyone of what minimum standards are.

We can post a link to this thread on RVZT. Can someone make it available to the public? Thanks,
Zach

zagames @ Jul 28 2009, 10:55 PM wrote:We can post a link to this thread on RVZT.&nbsp; Can someone make it available to the public? Thanks,
Zach

Zach, see here for public version of the same post:

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Re_Volt_Foru ... wtopic=474

rvzt already has a link in car submission page that goes to the re-volt forum

I'm sorry to be a bother and I don't know if this is the appropriate place to ask this, but I had a question about a car submission to RVZT. I have submitted a vehicle pack over a week ago and the website was updated without my submission. I wasn't sure if it got denied, but I never gotten an e-mail saying it was denied. I know everyone is busy with their own stuff, but I was just curious as to whether or not my car pack will be approved to be shown on RVZT. Thank you! :-D

Ask zipperrulez here, because he's the guy that's responsible for approving cars on RVZT and he never comes here.

Oh okay. Thanks again Dave! :-D

Updated all links in main post.

Manmountain @ 14 Apr 2013, 04:14 PM wrote:Updated all links in main post.&nbsp;

Oh yeah ? me too.

First of all, I apologise if this post seems a bit angry but that is because I am.

Who is the other individual that keeps randomly approving cars whenever at RVZ? You're making a complete mess of things and I'm getting fed up with it.

What am I talking about? Allow me to explain. As you may know, ZR used to be the car moderator back when RVZT was still around and he had an unofficial rule where all newly approved cars would get to spend at least one week in the latest/newest cars list so that they can get noticed.

Ever since RVZ went live and the role since passed on to me, this is the format I have been trying to follow but it's exceedingly difficult to when cars are just approved all willy-willy, irregardless of quality or other circumstances. If this is allowed and just, why do we even bother having moderators for this kind've thing?

I am not going to point out any specific examples except for today's one. There have been many times in the past where some cars were just approved, despite the list being full and other times where cars of questionable quality have been allowed, despite our "higher bar of standards" these days.

Just today, I had three submissions; one from Cat, one from thatmotorfreak and another from Dreamkaster. In the space of just three days, you have bumped off five of BurnRubr's newly uploaded cars. Now, I can agree that it was a bad idea for me to approve all of BR's cars so that they fill up the list and leave no room for anyone else to submit anything for a while... But think about it. Even if we didn't have the concept of a "gentlemen's agreement", you're still just throwing out five pieces of someone's hard work. Not only that, but you approved two of those cars and left Dreamkaster's car in the dark. What's that all about?

Now, I'm not trying to go full nazi dictatorship about this, I'm just trying to do what I feel is best as car moderator and this is just making it more difficult for me, ontop of having to fulfill everyone's requests when it comes to their cars. Of course, most of the time there isn't much activity and some cars do end up being on the list for longer than the usual duration because nothing gets submitted... Until we get a massive surge of submissions like the last few days and we have to deal with it accordingly. The reason I'm stressing this issue is because I feel that it's unfair when everyone's work doesn't get the attention they at least deserve.

"HURR DURR SKARMA, SCROLL DOWN ON THE MAIN PAGE!" you might screech at me. Y'know, the latest cars and tracks list is generally what most people tend to look at first when coming to the site.

Can I ask that, whoever it is, please stop doing it or at least consult with me before you do. We only needed one moderator for this task in the first place anyway. Otherwise, if this keeps up then I'm just going stop bothering with my duties and let RVZ run itself however.

And yes, this is partly the reason I've stopped uploading my cars to RVZ. At least for now...



TL;DR: Whoever keeps randomly approving cars, please stop it.

I do have Admin control over cars but have not approved any in a few years, I leave it to the newer Admin.

Your point is quite valid and I hope notice is taken.

Sorry for posting this in the car section, but I had a similar case. Someone was approving improperly packed tracks (USER_XXXX filesystem for example) and it was pain to fix them. I had to hid these tracks and upload as NEW, because erm... RVZ doesn't let you to update track archives with a different filenames, even for me (Feels like I'm complaining 10th time about this ). Don't even mention *delete* option, RVZ doesn't have that... I wonder why. It's not only with the content, but with comments too. I'm guessing moderators doesn't have *this* power, or Zach never coded this. lolwut

Anyway, this happened quite a while ago and only with few submissions. Thanks to whoever approved GOOD tracks when I wasn't there at that time, but I want to let you know to be careful with some *crappy quality* ones, and always check files inside archive before approving.

Other track mod besides me is Phantom, and he said it wasn't him. He actually never approved anything as far as I know.

I'm uncertain as to how this is occuring, as neither arto or Zach are around at present and ZR is fairly busy in real life to be around often anymore.

By the way, thanks for moving that post to this topic, MM. I can still use this to point people in the right direction when rejecting cars.