Nappe1
12-14-2003, 09:57 AM
(new section in italics)
my "NFS History" actually reach a lot more far away than just TNFS. I have been playing DSI / EA Canada's games since my friend got Commodore 128 and that happened 1987 I guess.
First game made by DSI which I played was Test Drive. Back then it was best racing game.
After that, Many classical DSI games has seen daylight. (Test Drive II -The Duel, Test Drive III and of course, one and only: The Stunts / 4D Sports Driving ) After releasing Stunts, I already though that DSI is dead. But in 1995 came The Need For Speed from EA Canada and from the very first moment while playing the demo, I knew that makers of TD2 and Stunts had made a comeback. (Demo took whopping 16 floppies to copy from my friend who had got CD-ROM Drive. )
I started to actively follow editing scene happennings when NFS 2 came out, but because of lack of the internet connection at home, I had to wait until NFS 3 was out. After that A New Design team called RP Design saw daylight. I and my friend (same guy since Test Drive 2 -times) opened a site with some information and stuff. a week later my friend, Jevgen, had first editted NFS 3 cars ready for releasing and another one of these two, Jaguar E-Type, was a success. It instantly went to the Hacked Speed 3's "Cool Cars" section, which was almost best place to have your car placed. It included only best of the Bests.
My personal first release was late. ( as my track projects usual are. ) My first track was called Granite Mountains. it was available in RP Design website and also in WORLD TRACK STUDIO in the summer of 1999. I still want thank Max Custer about taking me as part of the team. WTS was most remarkable "Track -site" back then and I think that track was very good, because I haven't got so much positive / negative feedback about any of my tracks ever since.
When I editted Granite Mountains, T3ed 0.03 was best and only track editor what designer could use. Ususally T3ed messed up polygons so badly that nothing could not be done and most projects went directly to trashbin. But I still have some of my earliest track projects as zipped file. I actually made 3 tracks before Granite Mountains. These tracks like "The Hill Race" were never released though, some of them were very fun to play.
After Granite Mountains I started to work with Project Y, which was going to be my first NFS 4 track. I even published first screenshots about it, but because of loss of interest, this track was trashed.
Then I got back to NFS 3 track editing. It still gave better options to edit. For example, no one really knew how to edit NFS IV textures because they were only 8 bit. (NFS 3 had two track textures. one for 3D accelerated, 16 bit and one for non-accelerated cards, 8 bit) My next project was called with codename "Buny Mountains" which eventually came also as release name. This track was my one of the longest projects and it had many drawbacks. For example I tried to make multiple routes for NFS 3, but it didn't work. when Buny Mountains at last came out, in November 1999, no one was really interested, because NFS 4 Track editing was developped so much. SideSwipe had introduced Multiple routes and Zacabeb's legendary Stone Town was out. (or at least it was almost finished.)
Now we are in January 2000. I ran out of disk space (or actually my quotta.) at our school's webserver and because of that, RP Design had to move to Xoom. WTS was becoming so quiet place, so I decided to start my first NFS IV project and this time have more time on updating more frequently our site, RP Design. that project is now known as Spike Mountain Roads. After releasing it, I quietly fade away. No one seemed to missing me.
in the last autumn, I decided to make come back to NFS Scene and started to work with Project X. Later on that codename changed to Alpine Roads. At this point Xoom was becoming rather problematic and RP Design needed desperately new home. Thanks to Remko, RP Design found it's new home where it is today. I still owe all of you who where deciding about taking RP-Design as a part of TotalNFS. Alpine Roads became longest project ever. It is easy to be wise now, but still I think that I really should have left those multiple roads out. And I am planning my next track, but seems that it will not include multiple routes. making them as working roads is pain and takes a lot of time. Also I don't think that my next track will need them.
------------------------------------------------------
ADDITION (1) to previous chapter: yes, indeed I have started working with "non-multi route" track, but what's the new thing is the 'scenery' around the track. ( almost all stuff around the road.) I have really build it from scratch. There has been a couple of bad problems during this project, but I think I have gotten over them. I am not hoorying things very much with this Project 'MCSS' as I codenamed it. and I am not sure if it is going to be ever finished, but let's hope. (at least beta is coming... that's sure.)
I also have started NFS releated programming project with my friend, Tommi Paju, but I don't want to cast light on it much yet because we are still very early stage. (actually hacking the files. )
------------------------------------------------------
ADDITION (2) to previous chapter: almost a year has been gone since last update and much has been happened. MCSS is still under works but at the moment suspended. That programming project that I talked about is finished and now know as Camera Editor 1.0. Also I have continued development of T3ed and Dev 2.5 support at last visibility editing and Neighbour table editing. I am not finished with T3ed sources yet and I have already working version of Dev 2.5 EE which could ba also called as Dev 3.0 pre-alpha.
Jevgen has returned from military service and started using new tools, like Z-modeller, few very good looking projects which some of them are ready for release. I have as active project something called 'Project BA' which will be announced hopefully soon. this new track has a few new things that has never seen before in NFS tracks. I am playing around with upcoming features of Dev 3.0 and have been taking track editing to new limits.
In generally, scene is getting smaller everyday. on the old schoolers, AccadaccA and CPD announced that they are leaving. AccadaccA anoounced leaving at the very moment and CPD announced being in the scene only as long as GT Mod project has been finished.
Also a lot of great NFS sites and even networks have came to end. JTrusty's BTWRacing was shutted down when He had no funds to keep it running anymore. half a year earlier The World Track Studio and PATWO DESIGN end their existance was doomed to die. Still Max Custer popped back to scene when he re opened WTS under geocities. He had even some new projects starting, but in last month when I found his new site and tried to contact him, never got an answer, so I guess that WTS is now officially RIP.
These news are sad but things just don't go always in the sunshine. it looks like, that after 7 successful years of existance, the NFS scene is really dying and it hurts. of course there has been a quite some time few good other communities around other games, but nothing will ever replace the NFS Scene in my mind.
to end, some positive... RP Design made a new daily hit record: 113 Hits after launch of the new editors. we also broke the landmark of 12500 total visitors, so thanks to everyone who has been visiting our site regulary, thus our updates have been more or less irregular.
------------------------------------------------------
ADDITION (3) to previous chapter: More than another year has passed by since I updated this history. 2 new NFS titles have been released, NFS HP2 and NFS U. first one seemed first to be answer to prays of Editing Community and though it has gotten some support from car modelers, it seems that there's certain limit when even new cars aren't enough to rescue crappy game play and it's reached here. Most likely because of success (or lack of it on PC...) EA decided to put higher gears in and year after NFS HP2 they released NFS U. Though engine seems to be mixture of old NFS3,4,PU stuff and NFSHP2, hacking of files formats has already showed to be feasible. Still, there's quite lot problems to overcome, but NFS7 could actually be the small help that keeps editing community running. Hoping the best, fearing the worst.
NFS 4 editing is becoming really quiet. there is still some active guys doing some cool cars and still pushing the old engine on it's limits, but on track editing side, there really isn't many guys left. In anyhow, I am still working on with new t3ed as well as 2 track projects, though my own "lack-of-time" has certainly slowed it down. RP-Design passed by 20,000 visitors landmark about 2 months ago and I just have to thank everybody still visiting our small site, though our updates aren't really gotten more often.
Though NFS4 is getting dropped from release lists, the engine has still a lot features that haven't yet editted, due the fact of missing tools to edit them. as a side note, I can say that there's almost whole toolset waiting to get released. Only thing delaying it is T3ed Dev 3, that is at the works. There's 1 more feature that I want finish before releasing it with other tools. T3ed Dev 3 will most likely be the biggest "Splash" on track editing since release of T3ed 0.04, that had NFS4 support. Dev3 will have features that allow new stuff editing as well as things that will cut amount of needed time to 1/10:th. Most Impressive Features include Medium and Low detail mesh generation and Shadow re-calculation.
Also, some old-skoolers have returned to scene. for example Ryan T as well as AccadaccA seem to use more time on community boards. The best part is, that NFS Scene has gotten more great software specialists who all are working on with NFS7 files. This is what we definately need, because without tools there won't be anything to edit.
The list of retirement is a lot shorter, but still consists some really great guys. Denis Auroux announced that he has left NFS development for good. Simple reason is that he doesn't have time for it anymore. oh well, as JTrusty said when Jesper Juul-Mortensen left: "Everything has to have an end. thanks for all you have given for community. hopefully you are happy with the path you have chosen to follow for now on. good luck. you might be gone from scene, but not forgotten."
and GT Mod is still on the works, though no one seems to be maintaining it anymore. Maybe some day, there will be real NFS MOD, but it is really hard to say if it is GT Mod.
I am really thankful if some one read it thru...
Written: 3rd of April, 2001 By: Lasse Kärkkäinen a.k.a Nappe1
Additions:
- (1): 11st of September, 2001.
- (2): 19th of June, 2002.
- (3): 14th of December, 2003
my "NFS History" actually reach a lot more far away than just TNFS. I have been playing DSI / EA Canada's games since my friend got Commodore 128 and that happened 1987 I guess.
First game made by DSI which I played was Test Drive. Back then it was best racing game.
After that, Many classical DSI games has seen daylight. (Test Drive II -The Duel, Test Drive III and of course, one and only: The Stunts / 4D Sports Driving ) After releasing Stunts, I already though that DSI is dead. But in 1995 came The Need For Speed from EA Canada and from the very first moment while playing the demo, I knew that makers of TD2 and Stunts had made a comeback. (Demo took whopping 16 floppies to copy from my friend who had got CD-ROM Drive. )
I started to actively follow editing scene happennings when NFS 2 came out, but because of lack of the internet connection at home, I had to wait until NFS 3 was out. After that A New Design team called RP Design saw daylight. I and my friend (same guy since Test Drive 2 -times) opened a site with some information and stuff. a week later my friend, Jevgen, had first editted NFS 3 cars ready for releasing and another one of these two, Jaguar E-Type, was a success. It instantly went to the Hacked Speed 3's "Cool Cars" section, which was almost best place to have your car placed. It included only best of the Bests.
My personal first release was late. ( as my track projects usual are. ) My first track was called Granite Mountains. it was available in RP Design website and also in WORLD TRACK STUDIO in the summer of 1999. I still want thank Max Custer about taking me as part of the team. WTS was most remarkable "Track -site" back then and I think that track was very good, because I haven't got so much positive / negative feedback about any of my tracks ever since.
When I editted Granite Mountains, T3ed 0.03 was best and only track editor what designer could use. Ususally T3ed messed up polygons so badly that nothing could not be done and most projects went directly to trashbin. But I still have some of my earliest track projects as zipped file. I actually made 3 tracks before Granite Mountains. These tracks like "The Hill Race" were never released though, some of them were very fun to play.
After Granite Mountains I started to work with Project Y, which was going to be my first NFS 4 track. I even published first screenshots about it, but because of loss of interest, this track was trashed.
Then I got back to NFS 3 track editing. It still gave better options to edit. For example, no one really knew how to edit NFS IV textures because they were only 8 bit. (NFS 3 had two track textures. one for 3D accelerated, 16 bit and one for non-accelerated cards, 8 bit) My next project was called with codename "Buny Mountains" which eventually came also as release name. This track was my one of the longest projects and it had many drawbacks. For example I tried to make multiple routes for NFS 3, but it didn't work. when Buny Mountains at last came out, in November 1999, no one was really interested, because NFS 4 Track editing was developped so much. SideSwipe had introduced Multiple routes and Zacabeb's legendary Stone Town was out. (or at least it was almost finished.)
Now we are in January 2000. I ran out of disk space (or actually my quotta.) at our school's webserver and because of that, RP Design had to move to Xoom. WTS was becoming so quiet place, so I decided to start my first NFS IV project and this time have more time on updating more frequently our site, RP Design. that project is now known as Spike Mountain Roads. After releasing it, I quietly fade away. No one seemed to missing me.
in the last autumn, I decided to make come back to NFS Scene and started to work with Project X. Later on that codename changed to Alpine Roads. At this point Xoom was becoming rather problematic and RP Design needed desperately new home. Thanks to Remko, RP Design found it's new home where it is today. I still owe all of you who where deciding about taking RP-Design as a part of TotalNFS. Alpine Roads became longest project ever. It is easy to be wise now, but still I think that I really should have left those multiple roads out. And I am planning my next track, but seems that it will not include multiple routes. making them as working roads is pain and takes a lot of time. Also I don't think that my next track will need them.
------------------------------------------------------
ADDITION (1) to previous chapter: yes, indeed I have started working with "non-multi route" track, but what's the new thing is the 'scenery' around the track. ( almost all stuff around the road.) I have really build it from scratch. There has been a couple of bad problems during this project, but I think I have gotten over them. I am not hoorying things very much with this Project 'MCSS' as I codenamed it. and I am not sure if it is going to be ever finished, but let's hope. (at least beta is coming... that's sure.)
I also have started NFS releated programming project with my friend, Tommi Paju, but I don't want to cast light on it much yet because we are still very early stage. (actually hacking the files. )
------------------------------------------------------
ADDITION (2) to previous chapter: almost a year has been gone since last update and much has been happened. MCSS is still under works but at the moment suspended. That programming project that I talked about is finished and now know as Camera Editor 1.0. Also I have continued development of T3ed and Dev 2.5 support at last visibility editing and Neighbour table editing. I am not finished with T3ed sources yet and I have already working version of Dev 2.5 EE which could ba also called as Dev 3.0 pre-alpha.
Jevgen has returned from military service and started using new tools, like Z-modeller, few very good looking projects which some of them are ready for release. I have as active project something called 'Project BA' which will be announced hopefully soon. this new track has a few new things that has never seen before in NFS tracks. I am playing around with upcoming features of Dev 3.0 and have been taking track editing to new limits.
In generally, scene is getting smaller everyday. on the old schoolers, AccadaccA and CPD announced that they are leaving. AccadaccA anoounced leaving at the very moment and CPD announced being in the scene only as long as GT Mod project has been finished.
Also a lot of great NFS sites and even networks have came to end. JTrusty's BTWRacing was shutted down when He had no funds to keep it running anymore. half a year earlier The World Track Studio and PATWO DESIGN end their existance was doomed to die. Still Max Custer popped back to scene when he re opened WTS under geocities. He had even some new projects starting, but in last month when I found his new site and tried to contact him, never got an answer, so I guess that WTS is now officially RIP.
These news are sad but things just don't go always in the sunshine. it looks like, that after 7 successful years of existance, the NFS scene is really dying and it hurts. of course there has been a quite some time few good other communities around other games, but nothing will ever replace the NFS Scene in my mind.
to end, some positive... RP Design made a new daily hit record: 113 Hits after launch of the new editors. we also broke the landmark of 12500 total visitors, so thanks to everyone who has been visiting our site regulary, thus our updates have been more or less irregular.
------------------------------------------------------
ADDITION (3) to previous chapter: More than another year has passed by since I updated this history. 2 new NFS titles have been released, NFS HP2 and NFS U. first one seemed first to be answer to prays of Editing Community and though it has gotten some support from car modelers, it seems that there's certain limit when even new cars aren't enough to rescue crappy game play and it's reached here. Most likely because of success (or lack of it on PC...) EA decided to put higher gears in and year after NFS HP2 they released NFS U. Though engine seems to be mixture of old NFS3,4,PU stuff and NFSHP2, hacking of files formats has already showed to be feasible. Still, there's quite lot problems to overcome, but NFS7 could actually be the small help that keeps editing community running. Hoping the best, fearing the worst.
NFS 4 editing is becoming really quiet. there is still some active guys doing some cool cars and still pushing the old engine on it's limits, but on track editing side, there really isn't many guys left. In anyhow, I am still working on with new t3ed as well as 2 track projects, though my own "lack-of-time" has certainly slowed it down. RP-Design passed by 20,000 visitors landmark about 2 months ago and I just have to thank everybody still visiting our small site, though our updates aren't really gotten more often.
Though NFS4 is getting dropped from release lists, the engine has still a lot features that haven't yet editted, due the fact of missing tools to edit them. as a side note, I can say that there's almost whole toolset waiting to get released. Only thing delaying it is T3ed Dev 3, that is at the works. There's 1 more feature that I want finish before releasing it with other tools. T3ed Dev 3 will most likely be the biggest "Splash" on track editing since release of T3ed 0.04, that had NFS4 support. Dev3 will have features that allow new stuff editing as well as things that will cut amount of needed time to 1/10:th. Most Impressive Features include Medium and Low detail mesh generation and Shadow re-calculation.
Also, some old-skoolers have returned to scene. for example Ryan T as well as AccadaccA seem to use more time on community boards. The best part is, that NFS Scene has gotten more great software specialists who all are working on with NFS7 files. This is what we definately need, because without tools there won't be anything to edit.
The list of retirement is a lot shorter, but still consists some really great guys. Denis Auroux announced that he has left NFS development for good. Simple reason is that he doesn't have time for it anymore. oh well, as JTrusty said when Jesper Juul-Mortensen left: "Everything has to have an end. thanks for all you have given for community. hopefully you are happy with the path you have chosen to follow for now on. good luck. you might be gone from scene, but not forgotten."
and GT Mod is still on the works, though no one seems to be maintaining it anymore. Maybe some day, there will be real NFS MOD, but it is really hard to say if it is GT Mod.
I am really thankful if some one read it thru...
Written: 3rd of April, 2001 By: Lasse Kärkkäinen a.k.a Nappe1
Additions:
- (1): 11st of September, 2001.
- (2): 19th of June, 2002.
- (3): 14th of December, 2003