Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Summer Speed Series

John B. Marine | 9:10 PM | Be the first to comment!
(UPDATED: August 3, 2016)
My latest GTR2 project heats up the Summer. I created a fantasy story regarding teenagers of legal driving age that participated in a Summer camp engaging in an unforgettable experience- an auto race around a famed racing facility. I will introduce you to this project and what all it entails with this blog post. It brings me great pleasure to provide this project to all of you. Let's begin!

LATEST UPDATE(S)/REVISION(S):

AUG 3 2016 - added video






Summer Speed Series


Here is the story to this project.


The Story.

As many as 50 High School students of driving age enjoyed their time at a motorsports Summer Camp. Of those 50, 20 were invited to compete in a unique racing challenge- 10 laps around Road Atlanta in identically-prepared 2007 Ford Focus RSes. Each of these determined teenagers will earn scholarships. Only one, however, will be driving back to High School in his/her own brand new Ford Focus. Twenty competitors. Ten laps around Road Atlanta. One race. One champion. Who will win this One-Make Series featuring these furiously fast Fords?


The Competition Car and the Racing.

Here is the car:

Coca-Cola Ford Focus RS
^ I designed this Coca-Cola livery on this 2007 Ford Focus RS for GTR2.

Each car is an identically-prepared 2007 Ford Focus RS completely tuned for racing. These are four-wheel drive machines complete with turbo engines, front and rear spoilers, and full roll cages. The cars make an estimated 297hp (301 PS) and 326 lb. ft. of torque (442 Nm). The series is called the Summer Speed Series. With all of the cars, I developed a Coca-Cola livery to be on all the cars since it is the primary sponsor of the series. Being able to compete with cars with so much power and ability will blow the minds of these teens. Despite this, these teenagers knew what they signed up for when they joined this motorsports Summer camp.


The Series.

Coca-Cola Ford Focus RS
^ from: (one of my Facebook albums) - This was a picture I made as a prototype for this project.

I chose Coca-Cola and Road Atlanta because Coca-Cola is based in Atlanta. I personally prefer Pepsi over Coca-Cola, but I put this all together to come up with a fairly interesting series. This story is only told about one race. However, I maybe thought of some other interesting projects I may want to work on to make more stories of this fictional Summer Speed Series. I guess if I had inspiration on coming up with this story, you can thank either a racing series here in the United States called the Summer Shootout Series and even the likes of the ToCA Race Driver series. I just saw something in trying to find certain GTR2 mods to work with and came along the Ford Focus RS mod. I had to try to make the livery as believable as possible of a Coca-Cola liveried car. I don't have too much experience skinning cars. The fact that all of the cars look the same may seem boring and lacks any real personality to most people. However, I am pacing this more along the lines of having one star emerge from everyone else.

Choosing the cars and the level of competition was realistic. It is truly fictional with fictional drivers, but I wanted to be realistic. I didn't want to (for example) tell a story of very inexperienced teenagers that somehow can race Formula 1 cars masterfully. This project is one of the first in which I try to utilize GTR2 to act out a story. It is also a chance for me to be inspired to make my own fantasy television coverage of a racing event complete with graphics and commentary. Think of it kind of like The Onion (if you're familiar with it), only not as funny and well-played as The Onion.

I may or may not have another project under the name "Summer Speed Series." The *official* name of this series as I came up with it is the "Coca-Cola Summer Speed Series."


How it All Plays Out.

This is a generally random sort of race. So therefore, there are no rivalries, no surely talented characters, heroes or villains, or anything like that. It is basically just a random sort of race I set up. This was mostly meant to be a random deal. Because I have never done something like this before, I will be learning all the while how to make game videos, especially in the sense of something like an AI race. Whatever I come up with will be the reflection of what I have learned so far making both skins for cars and a game video.

Because this is all mostly random (rather than trying to gain permission from real people to focus them in action with my previous project), I don't have to worry much about trying to have actual people featured or anything like that.


What I do come up with will be shared in a video. So make sure to visit my YouTube channel "JohnMarineTube" for more information.


Disclaimers, and Such...

A few notes...

• All companies represented (Coca-Cola, Ford, Mobil 1, Sparco, Road Atlanta) are registered trademarks of each respective company. All rights reserved.

• This story is completely fiction. Any correlation to the characters, living or dead, is purely coincidental.


With those notes out of the way, that's it for this post.






Summer Speed Series: The Video!


(ADDED: August 3, 2016)

Here is the video I created and released recently! Check it:


^ Coca-Cola Summer Speed Series - Road Atlanta

Variables used:
• 17:00 Start Time (5:00 PM)
• Time: Realtime
• Fuel Consumption: Normal
• Tire Wear: Normal
• Mechanical Failures: Normal
• AI Aggression: Psychotic

I wanted to provide the impression that these were not seasoned racing drivers. Since they weren't fully disciplined, I set the AI aggression to Psychotic. I recorded a few extra bits just to record some of the incidents on track. It took me about a week to do everything from decide on how to pace the video and do all the extra editing to put this video together. This ranged from the graphics to the audio narration.





Now you know about my project. Stay tuned for more when I eventually create a video to be released. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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Saturday, July 9, 2016

Fashion Racing Association

John B. Marine | 12:45 AM | | Be the first to comment!
Playing GTR2 and sampling mods has me thinking of series. Let me share this fantasy story representing one fantasy series I have in mind. It is part of a project for YouTube to expand my array of videos and have some fun. After all, this kind of stuff should be fun, right? So read on for more info. Maybe if you want to contribute something, feel free to contact me.


BEFORE I BEGIN...

This story is (obviously) fiction. All licensed brands featured here are copyrights of the respective companies.


About the Label: "Game Mods"

Blog posts in this category relate to my designs based on game mods. My own personal work is shared towards the work I produce.






Fashion Racing Association


Here is the story to set up this series idea. You will even get some ideas as to what I am looking to accomplish with such stories.


Story.

Certain fashion designers and motorsports promoters came together to discuss starting several different racing challenges as well as special events to try to offer a unique parallel between fashion and racing. This league is collectively called the "Fashion Racing Association." This series invites various fashion personalities the world over. The series primarily focuses on fashion bloggers, but even those even remotely into fashion will have their chance to compete in this unique series sanctioned by the FRA.

One of the racing events is a series featuring identically-prepared vehicles in a one-make series. Here is a press statement prepared by one of the promoters of the FRA:

For the maiden race of our series of races, we want to invite a host of fashion bloggers to a unique racing challenge we like to call the "International Race of Fashion." The racing challenge we have set up involves various fashion personalities all competing in cars as stylish as their blogs and outfits. While we are aware that racing is not the finest talent of these competitors, we must make sure to provide purpose-built race cars to ensure safety. The cars themselves are not to be anything overbearing. We are not interested in causing tension among the fashion community with heated rivalries or anything- our plan is just to let fashion personalties compete in single racing challenges. We welcome a vast array of personalities- petites, curvy/plus-size fashion personalities, thrifty fashionistas, and more. We also welcome personalities of many different ages. If one is old enough to drive, they are eligible to compete in our events. We are looking forward to making this series grow as much as we can.


Prototype and Plans.

My goal here is to come up with a unique kind of series featuring some peppy amateur-type race cars. In brainstorming this idea, I had initially thought of using a mod featuring the 2009 model Ford Fiesta ST based on mods I had at that time for GTR2. Then, I thought about using more proper and more sporty cars- namely the Hankook MX-5 Cup mod for GTR2. The mod seemed simple to mod. My intent was to make a certain livery for the car and have the individual cars painted differently based on the same scheme. I then thought about some other cars. So I looked at mods for GTR2 including a mod featuring the BMW 1-Series hatchback and another mod featuring the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. While I mentioned not having anything too extreme for race cars, I even considered a Porsche Cup mod to serve as the cars for the featured racers. Because this project involves envisioning fashion bloggers, the liveries of each car would have banners atop the front windshield bearing the name of the individuals' blogs. It is promotional while not trying to be promotional.

I had planned on setting up a pilot featuring certain bloggers I like or that I follow. As much as I wanted to make a pilot for this concept, I felt it would be wrong to try to innocently make a series without the consent of others. The plan for making this was to come up with some new content for my YouTube channel. I found this to be a fun concept to try out. It is just a pilot- a prototype, yet I didn't want to release a pilot video unwillingly without permission of certain individuals.

Another element of this series is an emphasis on two different classes: American contenders vs. international contenders. As part of the deal, the American personalities will have white banners across the windshields, and the non-American personalities will have red banners across the windshield. Those not born in the USA are what will be "international" contenders. The American drivers will have numbers between 4-99, and the international contenders will have numbers between 100-199. Examples of liveries I've created will be featured later in this blog post.


Story Execution.

The races to be set up are AI (artificial intelligence, for those not educated on gaming) races. These are simulated races. How will they play out? I don't know. All I know is that anything can happen when you set up AI races. I am not going to do any kind of tweaking just to ensure one personality wins. There is no favoritism at play here.


Personal Commentary.

In a way, I sort of thought of "Sex and the City 2" when considering the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG mod. Not that I seen "Sex and the City 2," but part of me made me think of Mercedes-Benz as one of the cars in this conceptual race idea I had.


Similar Plans?

I had interest in making extra series devoted to specific categories of fashion bloggers and even those who are just mere fashion personalities online (such as those who don't have fashion blogs or Instagram accounts).


There is your look at my series concept. Because I never did this before, I will be learning as I go along. Learning as you go along is a lot like life. I don't know what to expect, so I will slowly get better with my work over time the more I contribute to it.




The Competition Car


This car is a 2009 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. It is a mod for GTR2. Here is a look at the livery I have been working on as this first GTR2 project of mine:

fashion racing front
This is a basic view of this car.

fashion racing rear
This is a rear view of the car.

livery variation
As the livery was meant to be a template, I made a variation of the base livery. Also notice the text on the windshield banner. The name of certain blogs are displayed on both the front and rear windshield banners to identify the contenders. I am not putting myself in this series! I put this car in only as a demonstration.

As you can tell, the base white (actually silver) color is the base color complimented by the secondary purple/violet colors. I am a bit undecided on making tertiary colors with the rollcage. The color choices are decided by me to make as many different variations of this same livery as possible to fill out the grid of contenders. Each car boasts the same primary sponsor of Sephora. For those not educated about fashion and beauty, Sephora is a French company that is one of the most popular retailers of beauty products. Each car has the same primary sponsor.


My First Attempt at Sharing a Video Capture!

Want to see my liveries in action? I have this video for you all. There are skips and such, but this is my first-ever attempt trying to make a video from a video capture. Enjoy:


^ GTR2 Test Video and Pilot

You now have an idea of what this deal is like in action and what I hope to improve to make this special.







Special Request! Want In?


My intent is to pick out different fashion blogs to serve as contenders to fill out my field of cars for this fantasy racing series. I am torn between either featuring certain bloggers [with or without permission] I follow and asking for certain bloggers who maybe want to be featured in this just-for-fun series. I do want to feature certain fashion blogging personalities I follow and maybe feature some out of surprise- as in you may not know who I will feature.

All featured personalities will be represented with the same racing livery but in different colors. I want to make the colors fun since this this is not supposed to be some overly serious racing league. I may select certain numbers or randomly generate driver numbers to represent each contender.

So if you are a fashion blogger that wants to be featured in this series I'm conceptualizing, feel free to contact me online through Facebook or here in my blog. I am concerned about the permission part because I would feel guilty featuring something like this series without someone knowing beforehand.





If I come up with more concepts towards fantasy racing series, I will let you know in this blog. I hope you enjoyed your time here. Thank you for reading! Take care and be well.

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