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This isn't up for Hexus really, I produced it mainly for thread on a simulation forum I frequent, but I'll post it here anyway. Here's a little descriptive of what it is, what the race is and how we go about it for.
Vader Trophy is a small community-based Grand Prix Legends online racing league dating back to the stone-ages. Vader Trophy Racing is the moniker we come under when we get together and go racing in larger, international racing events and series. Normally that means endurance racing. Endurance racing on this scale is something else... for any single race you'll get 35-40 cars, and with up to 5 drivers per car, there'll always be upwards of a hundred people over the globe racing or sitting ready to do a driver change, normally around 200. These aren't events spanning a week with stints stitched together. You all race at the same time, live, against every one else, with a full damage model meaning that after a months preparation for a 6-12hr race all it might take is an over-exuberant competitor at the start crashing into you, or worse you crashing yourself, and the race is over for your team. 3 of our team members have done a 10hr stint without stopping or leaving their seat due to unforeseen circumstances (hardware problem, lost connection, late drop-out due to illness, that sort of thing). We're all in constant radio contact with every other team member using Ventrilo, mapped to a button on the steering wheel.
In our first season in 2005 we won 1 race, were the equal fastest team, but barely finished any races, having appalling luck with engine reliability. In 2006 we made a clean sweep of every single race we entered, taking the car and team titles in the process. That run came to an end a couple of races ago, but we're still up there challenging. This brings us to where we are. The Le Mans 24hr race on June 9-10th. A full 24hrs of racing with a full grid against some of the best virtual drivers in the world. It's an immense event. Last year I did a 4hr stint at the start (3pm UK time), then went to sleep, only to get back up at 3am and drive until 8am. I finished the race (shockingly enough also at 3pm) too. It's punishing to say the least. Red Bull isn't a sponsor, it's a requirement.
The game we run is a mod of NASCAR Racing 2003 - GTP (Grand Touring Prototypes). This isn't some arcade game like GT4 on the Playstation. These are racing simulations, much like using Flight Sim with a full yolk. There are 4 cars of varying performance, and just like in real endurance racing, there are multiple classes. We are in the big one, the heavy league.
Anyway, the reason for posting it here is not because I thought people would care about the race, but because I'm teaching myself Adobe Premier, and wanted to see what you thought of what I've put together. A lap of the Le Mans 24hr 2006 circuit in one of VTR's Sauber c9s. You get the lap itself (obviously), overlays of my wheel and pedals and a throttle and brake trace to compliment them, a live track map and my commentary on the lap in question.
There are 2 versions to choose from depending how much bandwidth you want to waste. Also keep in mind this is now a 5 year old game, written on an 11 year old graphics engine. I'm sure you'll agree it looks pretty awesome considering.
First the smallest.
This version is a 640x360 XviD, 47mb, 3:40s. Right-click on the image above and click save target as. Click here for a full-sized preview image.
Now the higher-res version.
This version is a 1024x576 XviD, 103mb, 3:40s. Right-click on the image above and click save target as. Click here for a full-sized preview image.
Feedback is more than welcome.
Some more background on the making of the video to read about as you're waiting for the download. Of you could just go off and read the latest bash.org entries. Whatever.
I've had this idea floating around in my head for a month or so now, and knowing that Premier Pro was just a bit bunch of buttons and scary options, I went and got the Lynda.com tutorials for Premier Pro. I've always wanted to learn the basics of editing in Premier, so I set this project as a target towards starting off.
For example I had no idea what a key-frame was. The lighting on the track map (a live screen capture of NRTV (which we use when we're spotting for drivers) which I had running on my HTPC) was done using the key-frames. Bloody powerful tools.
Capturing my steering and gear changes was obviously simple. Tripod. Video camera. PC. Deinterlace. Simple as. The pedals were another matter. Obviously it had to be done at the same time, so I used the video function on the old Fuji S5500, and there was only just enough space on the 512mb memory card for 2 laps of footage. That was nothing compared to the practicality of it though. I tried a 45 degree diagonal angle, and it didn't really work. Not enough lighting, and too many shadows when I introduced a torch to the set-up. So I used some ingenuity for once. I took the shoulder strap of the camera and hooked it around the steering wheel, letting the camera dangle freely between my knees (you can just see this in the video). It was still far too dark, so I blu-tacked an LED torch to the top of the camera, which also acted as a ballast, pointing the camera downwards at an angle I could adjust. The only problem was that my knees occasionally bumped into it, which resulted in the pendulum effect you'll see in the video.
The next problem I had was syncing everything together. The video camera wasn't much of an issue, and obviously the track map presented no problems, but with the video of the pedals all I had was my feet moving occasionally. This is Le Mans. Every straight is about 6 miles long, so they all look the same. In the end I resorted to shouting "start of lap 2" or whatever as I started a lap, so I could get a rough idea of where on the track I was. It was still bloody difficult to sync together, but I got there in the end.
I thought I was sorted - just record the commentary, introduce a few effects, and that would be that. But no. Every single time I went to export the video Premier crashed. Even a render crashed it. I spent 4 hours trawling the web, installing patches and trying to figure out what the problem was, but nothing. I tried changing a few settings here and there, embedding the project into a new base project, but it still didn't work. In the end I extracted all the video bit-by-bit, then reimported it, and it works fine now. Virtualdub is free, and it doesn't have these problems!
I was tempted to redub the commentary, as I'm not particularly happy with it. There's a few points where the timing is off, where there's not enough info, the script is a little week, and my voice doesn't come across particularly clearly - "curve" sounds like "kerb", "we're heading" even I mistake for "wedding" - and it's generally not particularly sharp at some points. I don't even sound very Geordie, the very soul of my voice.... Martin Brundle and co have my eternal respect after this... I can't even dub a lap with a script, while they do it 'live'. I did do him the compliment of using his favourite "line of least resistance" though.
No it wasn't a particularly clean lap, and yes I really do caress the pedals like that.
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