Project CARS – Project CARS – Build 226 Released.

BUILD 221 AVAILABLE.

A new weekly build of Slightly Mad Studios’ WMD-powered Project CARS title is out.
Build 226 for all members to enjoy.

Build 226 (1/6/12, Junior Member+)

• Fix for ps3 compiles
• Fix for the broken track select navigation. SetMenuAutoScroll and SetMenuScrollOnlyOnClip needed set for the location and map screen menus
• Code fix for menu data flag issues in car setup screens (similar to track select fixes)
• Ghost system:
• – Ghosts will be recorded (and potentially saved and uploaded) in all game modes, to mirror the behavior of stat uploads
• – Lap Data Header chunk contains information about bit precision used for the data stored in the Lap Data Stream chunk. This makes the compressor more extensible for the future and increases backward and forward compatibility of the data format
• – Reordered fields in the Lap Data Header chunk.
• – Ghost player sets up participant for the ghost that is supposed to be replayed in the race
• – Ghost participant is set up with the correct upgrade specification (fixed a bug where physics and render specifications were mixed up).
• Belgian Forest – update trees and crowds for new inner terrain
• Additional Track Photos submitted by the WMD community
• Caterham R500: camber animation source files added
• Palmer JPLM: added TM hotlap contest livery
• BAC Mono: Tiny UV fix
• Caterham SP300: added CPIT meshes, prepared for 1st export, fixed various issues
• Updates on textures of Harrison Pike. Rescaled , replaced polished up
• Added missing strings for the Tuning Slot screens
• BAC Mono: texture tweaks
• Ariel Atom – Added LODD meshes to all 3 cars
• Caterham sp300r : animation pack1
• Added helmet view for 70′, 80′ and stock
• Sakitto: new textures for kartbuilding
• Stockcar90: Added 2 more liveries
• X4: LODC reworked, LODD added
• Additional textures for bathurst
• X4: fixed damage on LODC and LODB, LODD refined rear a bit
• Basic_windows shaders modified to use a parameter to scale the emissive strength – this is so that a wider range of effects can be achieved without suffering from texture banding issues
• New Thrustmaster Static Adverts for Thrustmaster Sakitto Event
• Grid texturemap bologna
• New Emmissive maps added to tents and vendors assets
• New Emmissived added to Illuminated Trackside Trucks
• New Dynamics Scene for Sakitto GP
• Caterham SP300: added livery 01.02 names
• Sakitto_GP Thrustmaster event dressing
• Caterham SP300: added new black rim
• Caterham SP300: added new livery
• Separated VSOUTPUT and PSINPUT in cloud_model.fx to allow for centroid usage (PS3 doesn’t like it on VSOUTPUT)
• Thrustmaster specific textures .dds files
• Sakitto – Concrete Barrier Fix for Thrustmaster event
• New BAC Mono export
• New Caterham R500 export
• Caterham SP300R added
• New Bathurst export
• New Belgian Forest export
• New Harrison Pike export
• New Satikko exports

Build 225 (31/5/12, Senior Manager)

• Implemented additional session calls (and App API for them):
• – Change session attributes
• – Promote users to session admins
• – Advance session state
• – Kick users from session
• Updated physics to record actor-related events to replay buffer with up-to-date simulation time
• Timestamp for start of wheel release phase is now set to up-to-date simulation time
• Ghost system:
• Fixed ghost decompressor not dealing properly with event id and event version
• – Renamed some variables called ghost to ghostId to make it clear when the internal ghost ID is used.
• – Ghost player can have either owning or aliasing pointer to the ghost data it is replaying.
• – Ghost system will initiate load and decompression of ghosts that should be included in the race.
• – Ghost system has a list of ghosts that are being loaded for the upcoming race.
• – Ghost system will delay race setup until the ghost data needed to create participants are either loaded or known to have failed loading. 
• – Format of the ghost car visual chunk has been extended to be more flexible when adding new visual information in the future.
• – Ghost format supports interior livery indices.
• – Decompressor supports chunks that can be present multiple times in the data stream
• – Added support for vehicle upgrade spec to the ghost data stream
• Animation fix: gear_to aniumation modified, so that hand never cuts through car mesh in 3PV
• Sakitto GP and East tracks: Added pit lane support with 27 pit spots and 54 garage spots. Increased grid size to 54 to match
• Fixed up new Track Select and Layout Select screens
• Fixed scrolling for car setup load and save screens
• Tidied scrolling code for track and layout select
• Cloud Work in Progress. (currently the code is disabled)
• Basic Cloud Manager creating clouds in a circle in the sky
• Setup of Cloud model fx shader that allows passive lighting
• Build pipeline changes required for clouds
• Setup code for MorphMesh Type
• Sakitto: new textures
• Ariel Atoms: setup range adjustment, damper ranges from Koni reference, engine/gearbox data matched to source Honda parts
• PALMER: vinyl cover update over wood splitter
• Stockcar90: Added painting contest winner liveries (Top20)
• Stockcar90: added wildcard liveries
• Controller Images w-i-p
• Set initial wet parameters on treaded tires
• Stockcar90: Added LODX/Ultra setup
• Stockcar90: fixed missing CGP file for Oval version
• Stockcar90: checked/fixed LODs
• Update to cloud loading and new changes for shader so it pivots from the pivot center
• Belgian Forest – add missing textures
• New Stockcar export

Known Issues: Track select screen has some issues with scrolling. 

Build 224 (30/5/12, Senior Manager)

• Changed attribute parsing to skip over unknown attributes
• Online:
• – Error information from CSAPI is kept in the storage manager job structure so that it can be examined later
• – Added an assert that guards from using uninitialized server URLs before they are known
• Ghost system:
• – Ghost cache entries have a reference to the cache
• – Implemented ghost data server upload and download
• – Added development-only code to set up ghost testing
• – Added a handy shortcut function to calculate CRC32 of any ghost data, even if it’s not in the CompressedLap data structures (which allows to perform full sanity checks before the full data structures are allocated)
• – Added an extra print debug level to separate reasoning information and detailed information about jobs
• – Implemented pruning of compressed and uncompressed ghost data from memory cache when the data is no longer needed
• – Added interface for locking uncompressed ghost data in memory. This will instruct the ghost cache not to prune the data when it’s locked, because someone outside the cache will need access to it in the future
• New GUMPERT Apollo export

Build 223 (29/5/12, Manager+)

• Game manager now checks that the server reported all session members before finalizing session create or join
• Online:
• – CSAPI will not append certain automatic parameters to the requests if the requests override the automatic handling
• – Stat manager will properly pass user id through all layers of API and callbacks
• Ghost system:
• – Implemented support for changing ghost magic for ghosts in memory or the disk cache, if the ghost magic hasn’t been set yet
• – When upload is requested by the server, the ghost cache will set the ghost magic to the value sent by the server
• – Implemented background compression and decompression of ghost data in ghost background thread
• – Implemented support for compression and decompresison tasks in the ghost cache
• – Save and load tasks will gracefully fail if their prerequisities are not fulfilled, instead of asserting. This is especially important in case of compression or download failure preceding a save
• Fixed ps3/360 compiler error
• Track photos asynchronous folder for Track Select screen
• Placeholder images updated for TrackPhotos
• Harrison Pike initial version of viewer spotlights
• Memphis textures initial versions
• New Memphis export

Build 222 (28/5/12, Senior Manager)

• mplemented handling of all game session-related notifications from the server: user joined session, session member updated, session member left, session attribute changed, session state changed
• Special handling of user and attribute updates while joining/creating session
• Added logging of various networking/data issues to game manager
• Updated adjustment of contact constraint orientation (preventing vehicle scooping) to correctly handle the case where constraint primary axis is perpendicular to vehicle’s XZ plane
• Fixed helmet cam audio so it doesn’t remain on during replays or when switching to an AI car. Bug reported on WMD forum
• Added on-demand reload of FFB tweaker file to F1 menu (Input/Load/Reload FFB Tweaks). Rename F1 menu option "FFB Grip Multi" to "FFB Grip Multi (Legacy)"
• Ghost system:
• – Added explicit initialization and cleanup calls for the object encapsulating the ghost background thread
• – Implemented task queues (pending and finished) for the ghost background thread
• – Ghost background thread is started on demand and stopped when it’s idle for some time
• – Compressor and decompressor have now a better interface for returning and/or releasing ownership of the output buffers
• – Moved Entry class out of the Cache class, so that forward declaration can be used
• – Moved the Cache and CacheEntry routines to more appropriate source files
• – Implemented a skeleton of ghost background thread that will perform lengthy tasks like compression or decompression in the background
• – Cache entries now have a list of tasks they’re queued for and information about task that is in progress
• – Added job queue for the ghost cache
• – Deleting cache entries locked in memory will only queue them for deletion, instead of deleting them immediately.
• – Ghost cache will now process certain tasks on ghost entries: load/save is implemented, upload/download and compress/decompress will be implemented later. The cache will either perform the tasks on its own, or will offload them to the background thread, as appropriate
• – Added API to initiate ghost download. The cache will decide from where the ghost should be retrieved
• – Cache search functions will ignore ghosts queued for deletion
• Latest Loire HUD maps tweaked.
• Delaware: New AIW. Added raceline, pitlane path, corridors edited to usable track width surface
• Harrison Pike. removed trees intersecting with tribunes
• Harrison Pike Raceway – add new textures for curved wires
• Adding Autograss to the Harrison pike track
• Forced rolling start and limited participant to 42 on Delaware
• Memphis, Henrico, Delaware logos added to splash screen
• BAC MONO: Livery colour updates
• WTC overcast fog fix
• Latest Belgian circuit HUD map added
• Added co-ord’s for : Belgian/Memphis/Harrison_Pike_Raceway maps
• New Harrison Pike Raceway export
• New Sakitto exports

Check out http://wmdportal.com for more info – http://www.slightlymadstudios.com