962C previews

[chris]

Please see my attachment. I need as many photos as you can find of that Porsche 962C. It doesn't matter which car number it is, just as long as it is a Porsche PDK 962C, with that sponsorship.

If you see photos of this car in the Le Mans version (long tail, low rear wing) post those too.

I don't need photos of other versions, like modified ones with seperate rear wings, etc. Only the standard factory shape 962's are useful.

Thanks.

[Venom800tt]

I found a couple here: http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/Le_Mans-1988-06-12-photo.html

[[RS]Alt]

Here are some more examples:

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame.php?file=car.php&carnum=754

http://www.scheuern.com/mbhist98/p962a.htm

http://www.slotforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6365 - Slot Car Version

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/joest.htm - some good detail on body items

Hope some of these help you with your quest. Good Luck :)

[chris]

Thanks everyone.

I might have some previews to show in a few days or so. Don't expect textures, just the base 3d model.

It'll have the sprint version bodywork (short tail with high rear wing). By the way, the front of these 962's is a horror to model. &( It has lots of complex shapes.

[chris]

Please see the attachment for the first preview of the 962C sprint version. This is just in the standard factory form, not in one of the rebodied/re-engineered forms produced by places like GTi-Engineering.

[chris]

New updated preview attached. The poly count isn't too high now. The rear wheel arches will be created with texture transparency. I'm also about to work on the basic bodywork of the Le Mans version.

[VQ]

I wish i would work as fast as you! I'm still stuck on the side of my Golf which i really want to make.

[chris]

Don't be too put off, I've had plenty of practice at this sort of stuff, and I always make sure I have lots of reference material available for anything I'm making. :idea:

That's the most important bit, always have lots of photos and line drawings of your subject. The 962C is probably the definative sports-car, the one everyone remembers - so there is usually no shortage of information and photographs of the 962C in general. Although some of the more peculiar versions can be troublesome. Just because someone had spent a lot of money on a couple of 962C's didn't mean they were always going to keep them in the standard from factory specification or form. ;) Some of the teams very heavily modified their cars.

The standard car with rear wing fixed to the rear bodywork was evidently not the optimum setup, as proven by all the teams that modified their cars to have the wing seperate, and hanging behind the bodywork. This arrangement proved more useful so it seemed.

Of course, few went as far as Richard Lloyd Racing in their mods:

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1990/Le_Mans-1990-06-17-043.jpg

Could you get any further from the traditional 962C shape? This is one of Vern Schuppan's cars for comparison:

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1990/Le_Mans-1990-06-17-055.jpg

It was driven by Eje Elgh, Thomas Danielsson and Thomas Mezera.

[chris]

Here is the "Langheck" version of the 962C, only used at very high speed tracks such as the Sarthe circuit, venue of the annual 24 Heures du Mans.

Although funnily enough, when the dreaded chicanes arrived and wrecked the Sarthe circuit, some teams decided to enter their 962C's with the sprint bodywork, including the high rear wing, while others continued to use the long-tailed bodywork, despite the 5 kilometre long Mulsanne straight being split into 3 smaller straights by 2 chicanes.

Lap times seem to suggest the latter option was a superior choice if one were restricted to either of the standard bodywork options.

The first part of the divided Mulsanne straight was still quite fast, since cars raced onto it through the frighteningly quick Tetre Rouge corner.

[VQ]

Looks awsome, but yeah, I ahve a lot of images and reference, I just can't get myself to do it, I managed to make the Hurricane on about 5 pictures or so, and the Statesman used a similar amount, but I had access to the real car.

[chris]

Okay, I'm stuck, I need more photos of this car, particularly the back of it:

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1990/Le_Mans-1990-06-17-043.jpg

That's the Richard Lloyd Racing 962C. I believe it was designed by Nigel Stroud and Peter Stevens.

[chris]

Previews of the RLR "Porguar". This 962C GTi was very much like the Jaguar XJR9's. :)

I'm now working on these versions:

Brun Motorsport:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1989/Nurburgring-1989-08-20-jb1.jpg

Joest Racing:
http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1989/Brands_Hatch-1989-07-23-007.jpg

There are also plans for one of these beautiful Aston Martins to be built, but maybe not by me:

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1989/Brands_Hatch-1989-07-23-018T.jpg
http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1989/Brands_Hatch-1989-07-23-018.jpg

Those Aston Martin AMR1's were exceptionally well built, and quite apparently quite rugged in terms of engine and gearbox. The 6L V8 had over 700bhp. They were tidy little race cars - just needing some futher fine tuning and development to get that extra bit of speed.

[chris]

962C #17 from Le Mans 1988, where the 3 Porsches gave the V12 Jags a big scare in qualifying - only to lose the race to the British cars.

It was to be the final hurrah for the works cars from Weissach. They were retired IIRC for an ill-fated F1 engine project for the Footwork team.

[chris]

New 962C preview, with front wheels. Rear wheels still to be created, along with some various smaller details.

The front wheels are 488 polygons each.

[VQ]

A bit of time between updates there ey Chris? Well, things happen and fair enough. Those rims look great as well.

[chris]

Yeah, a "little" bit of a delay.. ;) But it's all systems go now.

Now got the rear wheels done as well. These are a different size to the front ones. I'll also add those funny turbine disc things to the front and rear wheels, since they were used with this car at Le Mans.

[chris]

May have another update coming for this 962 soon, along with perhaps a website unveiling.

[VQ]

Not bad, I think I get why they would put on the fin's, they make wheel's like this look better, and some brake efficincy cooling properties I suppose too?

[chris]

See attachment to see it in current form.

There quite a few details to be seen if you were to crash this car. The bodywork will fly off for instance.

As for the discs on the outside of the wheels, it is a mystery as to why some teams use them, and others don't at the same race-track, and on cars which are nearly identical. (special PDK 962C excepted).

The works 962's were that little bit better than the customer cars. ;) (innovative RLR 962's excepted).

Edit: More recent, less dreary screenshot added.

[VQ]

I don't like the rim design myself, the fin/disc thing looks better IMO.

What are you using to render the model in?

[chris]

In final form, the Porsche will be just near 6000 polygons in highest detail. It's 5962 at the moment.

I will cut that down somewhat for the wheels with the turbine discs, since you won't actually see the spokes on those wheels. While for the ones without the turbine discs, the poly-cost will be lower too. So the 5962/6000 prediction is a worst case scenario.

I'm working on the lower LOD's now.

[VQ]

i've always hated lower LOD models, and as a result never done them, I just don't feel I can succeed in my car being as good when they are lower then what I originally make.

[chris]

They are a PITA, but they are necessary to optimise graphical performance on most games. It's a problem when you start getting say 20+ 4000-6000 polygon cars on the grid at the same time. 20x 5500 equals 110,000 polygons. So it is needed to think of lower LOD models to be displayed for vehicles or objects that are far away. Since they are far away, the lesser detail is not going to be noticeable. :)

I've got a pretty reasonable texture-template done as well, so be assured there will be lots of repaints of various 962C's.

Initially, it will be customer and works 962C's in the Le Mans form, but later also the special Richard Lloyd Racing one. They'll all use the same texture template, but the mapping will be different to suit each car.

By the that time, I would guess an initial release should be possible, if some suspension bugs are ironed out.

[VQ]

Yes, when/if I ever do make cars that need to have LOD I will do them, but that's a big if, becuase I don't plan on getting involved with modding sim games.

I assume that the bodies won't be too different so retexturing won't involve severe work?

[chris]

No, they won't be dramatically different.

For the Le Mans spec 962's in works/customer design, the only difference is basically the very tail of the car, everything else is absolutely identical. So it will be very easy to repaint cars - a task made easier since I use some special materials allowing car textures to be chosen based on a entry into a text-file. So creating new addon teams requires absolutely no mesh-distribution, just texture creation, and editing a few text-files.

Very simple for the end user.

[chris]

Another little progress report on the car. Low poly models are under-construction and progressing quite well.

The "VB" part is all of about 839 polygons so far. the "VC" and "VD" body parts will have less polygons still.

With luck, I'll have this car in game soon. :) It'll be some nice competition for the Jag in my signature pic. :)

[VQ]

Yes it will, sounds good.

[chris]

Just finishing the final little details and then I'll bring it in game. The high-detail model is going to be about 5700 polygons I think. It's 5614 at the moment. I've got to add light glows and the driver. Those are already built.

The lower detail models are under 900 polygons, 550 polygons and 310 polygons respectively.

I spent a while working on various wheel textures, and I'll be working on quite a few more wheels still in the course of building other different forms of the 962C. I expect there will probably be at least 2 or 3 types of different wheels to start with, and probably a few different colours of each wheel.

The next type of 962 after this one will be the one with the traditional 956C style tail. I should have in-game previews of the Shell car just as soon as I've converted it over and sorted out inevitable little bugs.

In the final thing, the end user will be able to do some quite heavy customising of the 962 when creating their own teams. You'll be able to do a bit of mix and matching with the bodywork and wheels to achieve what you want. No modelling required, just a bit of painting knowledge and how to edit the text files that define a team.

[VQ]

Excelent, this is for rFactor and F1C right?

Today at my TAFE course, int he computer class, we started being shown CAD/CAM packages and the model they showed was of a Porsche Le Mans car designed for the newest computer controlled milling machines, made out of a block of Alluminium, will see one made next week as the TAFE network failed on us for some reason, but it will be interesting to see it.

[chris]

One or the other. Depending on which ends up being more suitable. Obviously if we have to reinvent the wheel to use our models in rFactor, then we'll continue with F1C. I'm now converting the 962 over to F1C at the moment.

I fortunately won't need to reinvent the wheel with the suspension model. The 962 and 956 have very similar suspension, only the wheelbase is different. I spent ages on the suspension geometry. I redid it quite a few times, but it's behaving as it should now.

The feel is good, especially with the force-feedback. I will be lessening the tyre grip a little and adding a little more downforce. So it will be a little bit snappy, but the normal handling is gentle understeer.

[FeZ]

So what you are saying is that I need to reinstall F1C ^_^

[chris]

If you want this, and other great 962's. :) We'll have a heap of them.

We'll also give some more information an a week or so when we sort of go public with it. Might have a video to show of the 956C. Might also have the website online as well. :)

I've also noticed a mistake on my paint-scheme too. It should have a dunlop logo on the yellow right side of the car instead of a shell logo. &(

[chris]

Here she is in all of her graceful long-tailed glory (see attachments).

The 962C is in game now. I've adjusted the suspension geometry accordingly as well. :)

I'll probably put a post in the main forum with some more info in the near future. :) Apologies also for the screenshots quality, I didn't use 8x Anti-Aliasing or 16x Anisotropic Filtering.

[VQ]

stunning work there.

[chris]

One more preview, a little better quality. This one will get a few paint-scheme changes. #17 car had black and white windscreen banner, another had yellow and black windscreen banner and the last one had a white and black windscreen banner.

[chris]

Damage preview attached.

Also, I've got another style of 962C in game as well. That one is seen in the photo I've also attached.

I'll post some screenshots of that one when I've painted up a few teams. I'll paint the following ones from 1989 Le Mans 24 hour race:

Team Davey #20: Tim Lee-Davey, Tom Dodd-Noble, Katsunori Iketani
Brun Motorsport #16: Uwe Schäfer, Harald Huysman, Dominique Lacaud
Brun Motorsport #17: Oscar Larrauri, Jésus Pareja, Walti Brun
Brun Motorsport #27: Franz Konrad, Rudi Seher, Andres Vilarino
Brun Motorsport #6: Walter Lechner, Roland Ratzenberger, Maurizio Sandro Sala
Brun Motorsport #5: Harald Grohs, Akihiko Nakaya, Sarel van der Merwe

Joest Racing will be another I'll paint, as will Australia's Team Schuppan who also used immaculately prepared and highly specced 962C's. And no joking, Brun had a FIVE car team - yes FIVE 962C's!! :eek::eek::eek:

Maybe the elderly 962C wasn't so quick as the big 5L twin-turbo V8 Saubers or the big-banger 7L V12 Jaguars, but one way to beat the big works teams was indeed to have more cars on track than they did. So you had a greater chance of finishing or winning the race than your rivals with less cars.

Another feature you'll discover when all of this is released is a modular system of 962C's where you can easily build you own standalone team, and your 962C's can have a choice of different wheel or bodywork options.

[chris]

This Joest 962C is in the middle of a huge accident. After it had settled, the car was completely ruined.

[chris]

Okay, I some help sourcing logos, in particular the ones in the following photo attached (Le_Mans-1988-06-12-033.jpg):

Marukatsu Cables & Flexibles

A top view of that 962 would also be helpful so I can see what logos are on top of it. :) This car is run by Team Davey.

Edit: I've drawn the logo manually. :)

[chris]

I've got all of the 962's teams that ran in LM 1989 in game now. Not all are painted, but it gives a reasonable performance preview, and things are quite good.

Also been working on a few different types of wheels for the 962C's.

[VQ]

Awsome, to bad you can't do a exaust fume paint as the race goes in, I know it could eb done beforehand though.

[chris]

Might be possible in rFactor. Cool looking effect to see the bodywork near the exhausts so blackened from the heat and exhaust fumes.

It could be possible with a very very very delayed and slow animation. But it'd hit problems with differing race distances, or, maybe not.. I might have an idea on how to make it work. :idea:

Here's a preview of the Team Davey car when I was in the progress of painting it last weekend (see attachment). And no, I'm not so keen on writing in Japanese. :o It's not something I do well. :o

So far, to give an idea on progress, there are 37 cars, not including 3 Sauber C9's (update happening), and 3 Nissan R89C's (waiting to go in game and to be painted). The Nissans are by DrBob who you may have sometimes seen around here. They are probably one of the prettiest Group C cars ever built. Very sleek (see photo also attached).

The R89 was powered by a Nissan VRH35 3.5L V8 with two turbochargers and two intercoolers. It had around 800hp@7600rpm. The chassis IIRC was the work of Lola, and it's proper name was IIRC Lola 89/10. Nicely designed and very fast. It was easily faster than the 962's on most occasions.

Shame for the Japanese that they arrived at Le Mans too late, near the end of the legendary Group C era, and close to the start of the Sport 3.5L era.

[VQ]

Excelent, I don't mind the loss of detail if I can get that realism.

[chris]

Here is another repaint in progress. This one is especially for Australians. :)

This car (along with no. 33 soon to be painted) is run by Team Schuppan, the Australian Group C team run by none other than our own Le Mans legend Vern Schuppan.

Schuppan was also active in the Japan Sportscar Championship (like a localised Group C championship) where he gave the local teams something to think about with his apparently ex-factory 962C's.

In 1989 LM 24 hour race, the no.33 car driven by Jean Alesi and 2 others unfortunately fell victim to a fire.

[chris]

Team Schuppan #33


http://rpi.racerplanet.com/uploads/takefuji.jpg
http://rpi.racerplanet.com/uploads/takefuji2.jpg

That's the #33 Team Schuppan car of Jean Alesi. Still got a few more things to add to the texture template for this car, it will be numbered in a similar style to the #55 car above, and have some other similar sponsors.

Also rather fun to see the AI drive these cars in the rain, trying to put the power down, back of the car twitching under acceleration. :cool:

[chris]

http://rpi.racerplanet.com/uploads/takefuji3.jpg
http://rpi.racerplanet.com/uploads/takefuji4.jpg

#33 962C testing at the Ring, going through Hatzenbach in a hurry. Notice that it's actually on 2 wheels only after bouncing off the ripple strip on the inside of the corner.

[chris]

Now with the correct style of wheels on it:
http://racerplanet.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5550

Attached is a photo of the real one from Le Mans in 1989 - scorching down the Mulsanne Straight - literally. :eek: