Clean Driving and Racing

Alright, doing full lap analysis and feedback of all the videos I see during larger moments of free time, at least to a reasonable extent. Will have to get to some others later tomorrow.


@randomshortguy Need telemetry to make more direct critiques, but will try my best.

SBR4: First turn, apexes were a little mistimed as you ended up drifting wide of the left side before the second turn. You generally want to be using the curbs on the inside of turn 2, and on the outside as well when driving the short variant of the track, and you would have achieved that by being more gentle on the brakes and getting off them sooner. For turn 3, you want to be a little more left before turn-in so you can brake later into the corner with a wider radius, and you want to get tighter around the inside at the corner exit to catch the deeper banking, about where that road to the left meets the track. Turn 4 is basically treated like a straight so nothing to report. Turns 5 and 6, you want to take the apex tighter on the curb in turn 5 to setup for a better exit out of turn 6. Turn 7, you want to apex a bit later to setup for earlier acceleration up the hill onto the bridge. Turn 8, you want to apex tighter, take the curb on the left and accelerate to track-out right near the wall with more speed. You took the esses just fine, but should have slowed slightly more for the final turn so you could get a better run onto the final straight, and you want to track out right to the gutter near the wall.

Sunburst: First turn was taken a little too wide. Better lined up for turn 2, but braked a little too long and didn't use the curbs to the left. Turn 3, a little too far to the right on entry, apexed slightly too early and with too much of an angle, got kicked off the curb and lost speed to the bucking suspension. Turns 5 and 6, much better than the SBR4, though the braking there was unnecessary with that line as you would have tracked-out close to the wall without impact at that speed. Good setup for turn 7 but too late of a turn-in which missed the apex. Also held off the throttle too long and didn't push close to the side of the bridge on track-out. Great line through turn 8, only improvement would be to carry slightly more speed and take it a bit wider towards the grass on the right. Missed the first apex of the esses and ended up a bit off the racing line, losing some speed to correcting. Final corner apex was much better, but hesitated too long on the gas pedal and didn't use all of the road onto the straight.

Not bad runs, but lots of room for improvement. Mistimed apexes and throttle application seemed like a much larger issue than your braking performance, and occasionally you actually braked too much rather than braking too weakly. Remember that you generally want to use all of the track and steer, brake or accelerate hard enough to reach the edge of traction so you can maintain a higher average speed both through the corners and down the straights.

A good way to practice is to bring up the G forces app and try holding the tightest turn you can at various speeds (40, 50, 60, 70, 80 etc. MPH) on gridmap or some other open paved area. Pay attention to how long it takes for the G's to settle when you initially start the turning circle and how high they get each time. You basically want your max cornering G's (negative/positive value on the left of the G force circle) to be close to the same value on each turn of the track that correlates to the speeds on gridmap. They won't be identical because of road banking effects and changing surface grip, and make sure you don't try to throw the car into turns with such aggressive steering inputs that you lose control or start sliding just to spike the G forces. Also provided controller tips in Spaceballs' analysis summation that should apply similarly to a PlayStation controller.


@Spaceballs the Username Oh cool, a fellow composer. Laughed pretty hard at the Spaceballs merchandising account theme you have going. Alright, again harder to analyze the lap as well without telemetry but here goes.

Hirochi Raceway Full: Felt like you held the steering too shallow and coasted the throttle through turn 1. You want to push the car hard enough to be utilizing your traction optimally between acceleration and steering, and you can definitely keep accelerating through a wide radius sweeper like that. Turns 2 and 3 you want to enter from slightly farther to the left and use the curbs more aggressively so you aren't having to steer as much around those corners. Less steering and a shallower straighter racing line means you can carry a higher speed through those corners. Turn 4, you were a little farther right than optimal at entry to start, but used overly aggressive aggressive steering inputs trying to force it left before the corner which scrubbed off even more speed sliding wide of the apex than if you had just coasted through the turn with a tighter line. Entry for turn 5 was a lower speed than necessary and done in a straight line to the apex when it would've been faster to move farther left before entry for a wider turning radius. Turn 6 was similar, you entered the turn closer to the center of the road rather than getting to the left, causing you to steer in an unnaturally tight radius which required a lowered speed to make. You also missed the apex which pushed you to the left and unnaturally tightened the radius of turn 7, causing a domino effect of time loss. Not sure if you accelerated hard enough out of turn 7 without telemetry, but you tracked-out nicely.

Turn 8, you almost had the right speed but missed the apex over the curb causing you to push wide onto the grass and lightly collide with the outside wall. A small dab of the brakes a half-second before the apex would've corrected your line. Turns 9 and 10 were pretty good, could have held a 5-10+ higher MPH speed through there with less choppy steering and more aggressive use of the curb on the right. Braked too early before the second bridge on the straight for turn 11 and missed the apex of turn 12 by turning in too late. You could carry more speed through the esses by using smoother steering inputs and more of the curb on the second left bend near the sand trap, but pretty good there, especially with an Xbox 360 controller. Turned slightly too late into the final turn and took it wide. Maybe not a bad exit onto the straight, but possibly held off the gas pedal a little too long based on audio cues.

As for ECA, I'd recommend analyzing my racing lines in this video as the Bolide and SBR4 hit similar speeds and cornering potential, just with the Bolide having the better braking performance I believe. But, quick run through below the video too.



East Coast USA: Closer to the right and more speed on entrance for turn 1 with track-out to the edge of the road, more aggressive throttle around the right bend with hard braking up the hill rather than coasting, tighter apex and more speed over the crest into the left sweeper, more power out of the sweeper and using the clearing on the right. Slightly later braking on the straight before the bridge, earlier apex over the crest aiming for the grass on the right to line you up for the right side of the bridge, keep it stable and accelerate hard off the bridge with a tight apex near missing the railing and track-out to the edge of the road near the trees. Can brake later over the bumps at the end of the straight, carry it left over the second crest into the dipping sweeper and let it naturally track out to the right before bringing it back hard to the left over the hill and maybe slightly over the grass since you'll be in the air over that part. More speed over the large hills, be calm and smooth with the inputs and don't lose control heading onto the second bridge, take it to the right edge of the hill before the blind cresting 170+ mph corner surrounded by trees and just ease it left over the crest, you totally got this (hopefully). Keep calm on track-out and keep your eyes focused ahead so you don't push wide on the bendy straight or miss your braking zone, and stay on the right until just a bit before the crest so you don't turn too soon. Aim for the grass after the bush, track-out near the trees, and then stay in the right lane until the dip. Aim for the center of the road after that dip so you don't get thrown by the aggressive elevation change on the right side of the road. Apex right over the top of the crest to set yourself up for a blind track-out on the right side of the bridge. Hold to the right lane and only turn left a bit before the dip to hug the left side around the turn and keep it left. You can carry more speed and not get thrown to the trees over the crest, and lap complete. Easy peasy. (Not really, even my time is multiple seconds slower than the theoretical best lap because of how challenging this course is to optimize without a wreck.)

Overall, working on your racing line knowledge and the concept of traction management would probably net you the largest time gains, as you had the base skills down but weren't using the whole track to your advantage at many points and didn't use the power as aggressively as you could've given the angle of your corner exits. In terms of controller steering technique, what I find works best for me on a 360 pad is steering with quick light taps and pushing more diagonally up, bleeding off the steering inputs a bit as needed for more subtle control. You might not ever be able to 100% match a wheel user's times on oval courses or rougher roads in power oversteer happy cars (coughBolidecough), but you can absolutely get yourself 99.9% of the way there in the more stable cars and on more countersteer heavy rallies. It just takes tons of practice to effectively translate optimal driving techniques to a control device they weren't intended for.


@Taza That's an interesting car mod. Don't see too many flaws in the Hirochi lap so will run through it quicker.

Hirochi Raceway Covet: On turn 1, eased off the throttle for too long with that steering angle and didn't push to the proper line, which was why you had to steer right slightly mid-corner to avoid running over the inside curb. Turn 2 was taken a little slower than needed because you avoided the curbs and didn't use all available grip, but made a smooth and well-placed apex and track-out. Turn 3, I'd say slightly too wide on entrance as the reduced banking that far towards the edge of the road forces an earlier turn-in that doesn't hit the apex well. You want to be lined up straight with the curb when you hit it so you don't get pushed off and sent wide of the deeper banking. Kept a bit too close to the left out of turn 4, didn't set up as well for turns 5 and 6. Pretty good apexes and track-out, but a bit weird in the middle. Might've been the ESC but it slipped to the left at the entrance of turn 6 and lost a bit of speed there from scrubbing the tires and missing the curb apex. Fairly good line through turn 7 but slightly longer on the brakes than needed and not accelerating to the edge of the wall. On turn 8 entrance, felt like there was a slow transition from gas to brakes there, and you dropped speed too early which forced you to straighten the steering mid-corner to avoid running over the inside curb again. You want to trust the car to naturally scrub speed from cornering and let it run through the apex and track-out with a steadier steering angle and higher average speed. Esses had nice apexes but were taken a little squeamishly on the gas pedal for an FWD vehicle. Little late on throttle application out of the final turn, but kept it tight and on a good racing line.

Hirochi Raceway 200BX Lap 1: Nicer line through turn 1 but could've used more power earlier, about when you were parallel with the curb. Good line through turn 2, could've gotten on the power earlier with that corner entrance and used throttle steering to rotate around the apex for a faster track-out at the left curb. Same problem in turn 3 as Covet race, too far outside on entry to make good use of the banking and not lined up with the curb at apex to dig into that deeper banking on the inside. Good natural track-out out of turn 4 to setup for turns 5 and 6, but too early of a turn-in and too little curb followed by hesitant throttle application lost a lot of time there. Could have been slightly farther to the left to setup for turn 7, but good apex up the hill and excellent acceleration to track-out onto the bridge. Bit slower than needed on the entrance to turn 8, but good track-out acceleration. Entrance into the esses was at a poor angle due to a somewhat late and choppy turn-in which forced an awkward line, causing the rear to break loose and losing time. Too tight of an entrance into the final turn, resulting in a very early apex that forced late power application.

Lap 2: Bit excessive on brakes into turn 1. It's usually better to carry more speed on entrance and let it scrub away some speed naturally to cornering forces there because the radius is tighter around the middle of the sweeper than it is at the entrance or exit. Not quite as good of an entrance into turn 2 this lap, but powered out of it more naturally for that turning radius. Same issue as last lap on the entrance to turn 3, though you held off the steering with good timing and took the second half with a better angle into the deep banking. Much better turn-in into turn 5, but still held off the throttle too long in turn 6. Missed the apex in turn 7 this time and consequently couldn't power onto the bridge as well from being too wide. Turn 7, even slower on entrance this lap because you used the same braking point with the reduced speed from the previous turn. Definitely want to accelerate earlier and track-out to the edge of the road there as well. This time a better entrance into the esses, but not accelerating optimally for that racing line. Final turn was mostly the same as last lap. You want to prioritize getting out of the turn with higher speed and earlier acceleration there, which means letting it push wider through the turn, then getting it rotated for a nice late apex to the curb on exit which sets up for a run all the way to the wall on the right.

Fairly consistent laps and a good foundation. I'd recommend paying attention to your steering mid-corner, and practice widening or tightening your turning circle more with your speed and gas/brakes instead of the steering wheel. An open paved area like gridmap is a good place to drill the concept, and then you'd want to translate the idea to the nuances of banking and elevation changes on a short hilly circuit (Hirochi Short Circuit happens to fit this, though Tsukuba is my personal favorite circuit for this).


That's all for tonight, will get to Baja Hills, Bathurst (I yearn for that buttery smooth steady 60 fps so much) and more tomorrow.

 

Also interesting to see that the SBR4 apparently has a much, much better radiator than the old Bolide.

 

Thanks that's really good feedback. Before that I didn't even know what apex meant but you made me google it I'll try to improve my laps based on your advice, thanks again!

 

A clean drive on the curvy Utah mountain roads

 

That was a 4500cc Bolide

@Spec Racer Z wow thanks for all the feedback!! I think most of my shortcomings are because I don't have very precise steering control. That usually results in me braking early in a lot of cases to be in the safe side, especially on bumpy courses like my ECA runs. I haven't had practice or time to study these runs in depth, so i don't know the location of every dip and bump, and braking early gives me a chance to absorb those dips and bumps if i come across one

 

Nah, just GTX 970, i5 4690K and 8GB of RAM, still in top ~10% in my country ( Maybe even higher ) costed double monthly payment but we all have different dreams which we can buy

^This PC + over 8 years old G25 ( had minimum 3 owners before me ) with hardware modified FFB and I set FOV to +10%, I recommend for 1st person cam +10/15% FOV, way more realistic IMO + gives a bit better sense of speed. Using only manual transmission with H-shifter and always using clutch while changing gears, Ik it's not required in BeamNG.Drive , but I like to reach deep immersion.

Yup, totally right. Thank you for comment.

 

@TripleAye All hail to the mountain! Will cover right recording and then left.

200BX: Bit wild on the oversteer through turn 1, but excellent quick recovery for low time loss. Pushing all the way to the curb is optimal but understandably not something to attempt when squirrely. Turn 2, could have been a wheel width or two closer to the edge of the road on entry but good braking. Corrected your speed a little too much with the gas before the bump sending you wide of the apex when the car lifted over that bump. Good track-out to the wall, but a little abrupt off and on the gas, might not've had that tiny bit of lift-off oversteer with smoother throttle input. Not close enough to the walls on entry or apex in turn 3, but good track-out all the way to the wall under braking. Good apex through turn 4 but time loss to the slide at exit due to not straightening the wheel early or proportinately enough for such aggressive throttle. Much too abrupt on the steering up turn 5, resulting in more sliding and major time loss since this tier performance car can be full throttle around that whole area. Turn 6, also wide open throttle if you get to the left wall before entry and keep the steering smooth as the following turn 7 bend is very shallow and the turn-in point for turn 8 is to the right. Rear slipped over the hill into turn 8 causing a worse entry and a bit of a missed apex for turn 9. Turn 10 was pretty good, though could have gotten a tire width closer to the right wall at entry and carried a few more MPH to the curb on the right at exit. Turns 11 and 12 of the first esses kind of fell apart. Too shallow of an entry two to three tire widths from the left wall, you became unsettled on the brakes and didn't apex very close to the right wall which set up worse for turn 13. Got back onto the racing line around then though. Fairly good apex though turn 13 if not quite rubbing the inside curb, but missed the apex over "The Dipper" in turn 14 causing too much distance from the wall by multiple tire widths and tightening the radius of turn 15, which would otherwise be taken flatout since turn 16 is such a shallow bend and can be entered from the center of the track. Had the right idea keeping it tight to the wall through turn 17, good racing line through turn 18 onto the straight. Turn 19 is just taken like a straight so nothing of note. Good entrance into turn 20 making use of the patch of road on the left. Could have moved a bit farther right on the straight before turn 21 and maybe a bit too aggressive on trailbraking to the apex with that slide, but good full throttle apex and exit out of turn 22. Missed the apex of turn 23 by quite a lot to understeer but overall a fair lap with a few sectors of large time losses.

Barstow: Good turn 1, just a slight kick of oversteer at the end. Still a tire width farther from the left edge than needed at turn 2 entrance and you turned slightly too late to account for the bump and missed the apex by two-three tire widths, but good track-out right to the wall if slightly squirrely. Turn 3, harder to see the right edge of this car but I believe you were slightly closer to the wall on entrance than with the 200BX. Not as tight to the inside wall as optimal through turns 3 and 4 but good track-out between them. Pushed it closer to the wall on exit but little too late on the countersteer resulting in that slide, and heavy weight transfer up the hill into turn 5, causing more sliding and similar time loss to your 200BX lap. Much better turn-in point right at the left wall before turn 6 and a good apex setting up for turn 7. Smoother steering and a straighter apex around turn 7 would be an improvement there. Still caught up somewhat in a slide through turn 8 but a good track-out. You might want to avoid apexing so tightly there since you need to move to the outside of the circuit before turn 9 anyways and would benefit from a more settled vehicle. Good racing line through turn 9, leaving a little comfort room on the inside and outside however. Started to veer left from the wall early before turn 10, want to hold on slightly longer before committing to an apex over the inside curb. Good track-out to the right curb, just a touch of oversteer. Turn 11, way farther right at entry than you want to be there but better apex to the wall than the 200BX lap. Flowed well through turn 12 and into the entry of turn 13, but drifted wide of the wall towards the second half of turn 13. Missed the apex over turn 14 "The Dipper" again, not getting very close to the wall. You basically want to aim for the upper edge of the wall there and let the natural understeer over the dip force you to near miss the wall at a high speed and better line into turn 15. Closer to the proper racing line for turn 16 with good acceleration throughout. Not as good of a line through turn 17, didn't account for the larger weight transfer and went wide of the wall with an unsettled car causing the missed apex at turn 18. Tried too aggressively to make up time on the exit by punching the throttle and lost more time to a hard slide onto the straight. Bit later onto the patch of road to the left before turn 20 than with the 200BX, didn't hit the apex as well consequently, but kept the car much more settled and stable in the braking zone. Also moved farther right to setup for turn 21 which is good. Too much power on exit though. Accidentally steered away from the inside curb in turn 22 trying to countersteer and ran off the track as a result. Good braking and apex into turn 23 but too much throttle on exit, caused you to slide to the center of the road and miss a good track-out.


Some better parts, some worse parts when comparing each run. Pedal control is definitely the area you need to work on, but although your steering inputs were often pretty quick and precise, they were still occasionally causing issues from not being complementary to the amount of power or braking being used, or the conditions of the track. The trick to throttle control is that you also want to be quick and precise, but not punchy. Under the right circumstances you actually can manage the traction on the rear wheels optimally by flooring the pedal within a couple tenths of a second, generally when dealing with certain high downforce scenarios or lower power cars, but more often you can only be very quick to a certain degree of throttle input and have to ease into full throttle based on your level of traction. Figuring out what degrees or percentages those are takes a lot of practice and a firm grasp of throttle steering and slip angles. You must be smooth and deliberate, but not so slow that you aren't yawing the rear of car at all and aren't using all available grip through optimal slip angles. You also want to be very fast onto the brakes and then ease away gently to maintain threshold braking and control. You never really want to gently ease onto the brakes while performance driving unless you only need a small speed decrease from a dab or light trailbraking, otherwise you'll be wasting grip with a slow transition from acceleration to deceleration. There's also the matter of elevation changes impacting grip, which is incredibly important for good Bathurst runs. You had multiple moments of undesired understeer or oversteer because you weren't adjusting for reduced front or rear grip when the car was lifting over crests and dips.

I'll highlight the various parts of my Utah run which put these principles to effect: Here for quick throttle with a bit of easing at the end; Here for qucik brakes and throttle; Here for a short blip followed but a hard throttle dab; Here's an example of quick throttle to a point (70%) and then easing to full throttle still fairly swiftly; Here's a quick 60% brake application followed by a not quite 100% dab of the throttle for weight distribution; Here are very aggressive ~80% throttle and brake dabs to take advantage of short bursts of grip from elevation changes; More very aggressive 90%+ dabs of brake and throttle; Hard brake application up to 100% into the uphill slope where grip is highest.

Edit: And one more.

@-randy- Don't think I've driven this map before and no telemetry, but I'll try my best to analyze it given my knowledge of the car.

Desert Rage: Turn 1 and 2 are fairly gentle. I'll call the bend up the hill turn 3 and the bend over the crest turn 4. You may have been able to get more to the right for a straight line up the hill to free up grip for a later braking point into turn 3, but racing line looks good and set up for turn 4. Left a one or two tire width gap on the apex with just a bit of lift towards the end, may have been able to drop a couple more tenths there. Turn 5 is a big sweeper with a decreasing radius blind crest at the end, could have apexed a little tighter over the hill. Nice line through turn 6, it's a shallow enough bend to treat like a straight. Good smooth line through turn 6 and 7 at full throttle. Good braking up the hill into turn 8, but I think I may see the potential for braking super late up and over the hill with no acceleration until turn 9. Maybe treating everything before turn 9 as one braking zone by lining up for a more aggressive and tighter apex that gets all of your steering completed before a jump. Otherwise, great apex and track-out through turn 9. Turn 10 is just a gentle left sweeper. May have been able to brake a little later by lining up more to the left and trailbraking into the sweeping part of turn 11, but very good late apex and racing line. Good late braking up the hill into turn 12 but a little late easing off the brakes, causing you to track-out very early in the right lane of the road over the hill. Turn 13 is another gentle sweeper. Good management of airtime over the hill, might've been able to carry 5-10 more MPH without getting too extreme on the landing. Good smooth line through turn 14, little time loss from the lift in turn 15. May have been able to brake later over the hill, but pretty good line over the dips in turn 16. Good line through the bendy straight before the right bend I'm gonna call turn 17, good smooth exit over turn 18 onto the straight. Good line keeping it tight around turn 19 up the hill and setting up on the left for the decreasing radius sweeper of turn 20. I actually might suggest waiting later on braking and trailbraking extremely deep into this particular turn unlike a conventional line though, as the hard dip at the end harshly limits your speed and the standard benefits of a late apex.

Turn 21 over the hill was nice, though I probably wouldn't bother lifting in an AWD car there. Excellent braking into turn 22, right to the edge of the road and a good apex. Not quite as strong into turn 23 though, straightened out more than you needed to on the exit of turn 22 and didn't really hit a firm apex over either kink in the road. Fine line around turn 23. Great line over the blind cresting S-bend (turns 24 and 25) with smooth trailbraking to the edge of the road and a perfect apex and track-out through turn 26, all very good flow and rhythm. Could have carried more speed over the hill in turn 27, might even be able to get away with something fairly extreme since the road keeps sloping downward farther ahead, but you may just get tossed off the road into the mountainside the following turn if you tried the Evil Knievel jump I'm envisioning. Turn 28 you may have been able to take with a tighter apex while still setting up for turn 29 down the hill but not much of a time loss either way. Probably could have carried some more speed over the crest before the turn 30 sweeper, but pretty much got the speed just right over the second crest after the bend. I may have been a little more aggressive over the third crest before turn 31 but I can see how it'd be pretty easy to overdo it there so erring on the side of caution isn't bad this late in the run. Not enough speed for turn 31 to be trouble, turn 32 could have been taken with less of a lift if you used a more aggressive apex over the hill, but good job not panic braking to avoid the ditch. Turn 33 over the next hill, looked like you got a little lost on the blind turn there but kept it together well. Could probably keep a bunch more speed through turn 34 if you got lined up with the left lane of the road over that hill and set up for a late apex at the crest near the right railing. Good pace through turn 35 though the safety lifts weren't needed. Looked like you were lined up well over the apex before turn 36, just missed the apex by a bit and didn't carry as much speed there.

Turn 37 looked like it could have been taken as a flatout corner but I imagine you were just aiming to survive toward the last 10% hence why weren't as happy with that portion. Definitely could have carried more speed over the crest in turn 38 too. Slightly choppy inputs into turn 39 but good apex and track-out still. Bit hesitant over the cresting turn 40 and down the bendy straight but not much time loss. Definitely a tad late braking up the hill for turn 41 but wasn't too bad since it set you up for a good turn 42 and 43 if you count the bend up the hill. About the optimal speed over the hill without more Evil Knievel jump gambling. Pretty good line through turn 44, a bit of an early turn into 45 but hit a nice clearing and across the line.


A very nice run. There's always tens of seconds you can save on these kinds of tracks, but super solid consistent driving. Didn't seem like there were any issues with the fundamentals of your driving techniques, you would just need to take more of the high risk high reward lines around the middle of the run and better memorize all of the nuances in the last third of the track so you aren't hesitating or missing the blind apexes. I definitely feel like chancing some of the crazier jumps and trying to smash the record on this, will see what I can do.


Going to post this now and edit in the other analyses as I finish them so people can see some of them before the end of the day this time.

 

Here is some Touge gameplay.



I know this isn't the cleanest example of driving, but it sure is fun to do. Video is 3 stitched parts together, since getting a full run that was both fast and fluid is hard to do, and even harder with recording anxiety.

Also sorry for poop video quality, I am open to suggestions as on how to make it better since I am brand new to recording. Hope you can still enjoy.
*(Recorded with Nvidea Shadowplay)

 

Posting two compilations of my previously recorded footage that I think fit the spirit of this thread, even if they both have exactly one race incident crash each. One is a compilation of apexes and track-outs that were close enough to obstacles to clip just the side view mirror off, the other is all of my noteworthy recoveries and close calls I had on High Speed Highway in the SBR4.





Edit: Also, @derpfleet55 for Shadowplay you'd theoretically just want to use the highest bitrate you have the storage for, choose in-game resolution, and 60 fps. If you're not getting smooth recordings but smooth gameplay, you might not have a storage drive with fast enough write speeds, in which case you might try lowing the bitrate to troubleshoot. If the edited video on your PC looks worse than your raw video, something's probably off in your editing software's export settings.

For a minimally edited video like yours where you don't need extremely precise cuts or filter effects, I would try something like Avidemux first because it can losslessly trim and append video clips along key frames without re-encoding for free. Match the muxer format to whatever the file extension of your source video is, then set markers along key (intra) frames to highlight the portion of video you want to export. Save to export, go play the clip to make sure there were no issues with the settings, then just export each clip you want until you have all the content you want in your video. After that, you simply open your first clip and append the clips in the order you want to stitch them together, then save to export the finished video. Once in a while the audio may desync or the video may glitch in an exported clip despite only editing along key frames, but perfect quality with an 80% success rate or awful quality with a 100% success rate are generally your options with free software in my experience.

 

Fast and aggressive, but not completely crashy. I like this very much.

 

@Spec Racer Z Incredibly detailed analysis, I especially appreciate how you break it down turn by turn. I generally have a pretty good idea of the ideal racing line but as you highlighted, my pedal control isn't complimentary of my steering inputs. This emphasizes where my short comings are and will allow me to properly focus on those areas that include but are not limited to how acceleration effects the turning radius. I of course already know how it does but to put it to proper use is another story. I also enjoyed the specific references to your videos highlighting some of the aforementioned concepts. Thanks!

 

@TripleAye Glad to help. In general, finding ways to practice techniques with drills is one of the fastest ways to improve and really take in resources like the list in the OP. I've even drilled accident recoveries in Forza by having a friend repeatedly PIT maneuver or shunt me in different ways on the test oval track at various speeds and attempting to avoid the walls and recover facing forward with as little speed loss as possible. You can create unique racing sim drills for just about anything with some thought and an occasional helping hand, and it really emphasizes the power of simulators.

Here's another scenario record run from my backlog this time, on Rallycross Long Course. This took 7+ hours over two separate days when I recorded it because of all the lag spike related crashes. Woe is my GPU.

 

You changed a game, before tires and wheels updates i did not enjoy the driving of the game (very slidey) now when i crash a car i feel bad for my driving because the handling system is almost perfect. I expect lots of refinements by you devs for the final release. Then we'll have a proper racing game

 

Damn it! That's faster than my life record, gonna try it again But I can't get used to handbraking with my G25.

There's another quick vid from short circuit on Hirochi Raceway in race version of older pessima.

Still not the perfect, but I was limited to 15 minutes before going to job I'll try to improve. Like before always using cluth while changing gears. Funny thing I've noticed, I was doing powershifts untill first turn, all other gear changes were performed with accleleration pedal let off (listen to blow off valve or watch pedal positioning). What do you guys think? Any major things I could improve?

@Taza I'm impressed with this drifting, I tried for hours, but even on open area I can't perform that well.

@Goosah Forgive me notification, but could we see anytime soonTM new blogpost about present tire model n stuff ? http://blog.beamng.com/a-look-at-tire-development-in-beamng-part-2/ This and previous one were very imformative and interesting to read and I think a lot changed from that time (IIRC it was around update 0.3.8 over 16 months ago).

 

@Goosah I saw that link and, if I'm interpreting the first graph correctly... the old hubWheel model was goony enough to make an old bias-ply tire blush - with the grip still climbing at a 30 degree slip angle (as opposed to old bias-ply street tires which were at their best at 12-15 degrees), they were practically arcade tires, and would definitely have explained all the complaints about how the cars are too slippery and feel like they're driving on ice.

If hubWheels are still supported, it would be interesting to go back and see whether adopting drift techniques would actually have lead to faster lap times.

Also, assuming the pressureWheel hasn't been brought significantly closer to reality since that post... that same graph still shows them behaving much like bias ply street tires.

Alternatively, I may be confusing data regarding the ideal slip angle for the entire car with data measured at a single tire. In fact, I probably am. Apparently, the ideal slip angle is the one that results in the rear wheels following the exact same path as the fronts - anything less is underutilization, anything more is skidding and slows you down. With this in mind, the ideal slip angle for any one tire is probably a bit more nuanced than the simplified explanation I once read in a book - 12-15 degrees for a bias-ply street tire, 6-8 degrees for a bias-ply racing tire, 5 degrees for a radial street tire, and 2 degrees for a radial racing tire.

The "same path" explanation for ideal slip angles would seem to be supported by your comment in that blog post that the late peaks could probably be fixed by stiffening certain beams in the tire - if the construction of a tire allows significant lateral squirming, then the back end might have to come out quite a bit to match the front tires' path through a corner.

Also, can it be assumed from this that the jbeam structures of different tires in the game can be individually adjusted to match the behavior patterns of different types of tires?

However, you'd probably know better than I would. I would much appreciate your input on this subject, as the slowness of drifting is one of my "pet" issues and I'd not like to go around spewing incorrect information on the subject.

 

@Drivver Yeah, handbraking was a bit weird moving from a controller to a wheel. It's not as intuitive as an actual handbrake would be, but I use the "circle" button on the shifter part as it's used on the PS3. I find having it there is much more manageable than trying to handbrake with the face buttons of the actual wheel during aggressive steering, plus taking a hand off the wheel to handbrake is more authentic to most styles of vehicle in the game.

There's going to be slight time loss to shifting each time you use the clutch or lift under acceleration since everything behaves like it has straight cut gears with no grinding or upset from powershifting, but nothing wrong with a couple tenths off to treat the car respectfully before the transmission nuances catch up later in development. Though in that same vein, you should try out heel-toe shift as well if you're interested in treating the transmission more realistically. With that out of the way, lap analysis go.


Pessima lap: Turn 1 was was taken fairly well, though slightly too early on the power pushing you a bit wide of the apex. On entry to turn 2, you had a bit of a lazy countersteer which caused the car to wobble before turn-in and miss the apex for some speed loss. Good use of the curb on the left but straightened too early and stayed too far right entering the turn 3 sweeper. This made for a very early apex and a wide line through the later half where the deepr banking is. (Also a bit of graphical glitching there in the skybox for whatever reason.) Stayed a bit too close to the left exiting the turn 4 kink before the turns 5 and 6 S-bend. This prevented you from using a straighter line through the middle to carry more speed, but you still had good acceleration and tracked out all the way to the wall on corner exit very well. You straightened the wheel too early around the slight bend here as well and entered turn 7 more from the center of the track. That entrance angle hugged the curb better but didn't allow for a later apex and faster exit. There was further time loss to a late throttle application that didn't track-out near the left side of the bridge at all. For turn 8, you weren't far enough to the right before the corner entrance and began turning in too early, resulting in a very tight racing line and no room to accelerate at corner exit. Had a good racing line entering the esses, but lightly missed the second apex over the curb to what I think was slightly sluggish steering (too slow winding to the desired steering angle at apex) rather than any problem with the turn-in point. Nice apexes and throttle application around the rest of the esses though. Good line into the final turn, drifted out to the center of the road nicely setting up for the final apex, but much too abrupt and early on the throttle sending you wide of the curb followed by riding the clutch a bit and not letting the car naturally accelerate out to the wall on the right.


A number of the mistakes were smaller things you'd likely improve on with more time to practice the track, but the two most common technique issues I noticed were sluggish steering inputs for certain circumstances and under-utilizing parts of the track by not moving far enough to the road's edge before some turns. When making a countersteering correction, you generally want to be very fast and precise. This is to catch it as early as possible before the needed steering angle to correct the car grows or the tires start to slide and scrub speed, and it's also to make sure you don't disrupt the weight distribution of the car mid-corner by changing direction too much. It takes a little time for 1-2+ tons of weight to move and load the suspension optimally for cornering, so you don't want to entirely shift the weight of the car by moving in the opposite direction during or just before a corner. That is, unless you're intentionally trying to unsettle the car for a drift or Scandinavian flick.

As for using all of the track, you'll always be able to carry more speed through the turn or set up to carry more speed out of the turn with a wider radius racing line given a flat road surface and a single isolated corner. You achieve that by entering and exiting the turn as far to the outside of the track as you can. This rarely changes for single turns followed by a straight in real track conditions unless there are very extreme bumps or banking characteristics to the road, which can cause lowered or lost grip. The one example of this on Hirochi Raceway is the sweeping turn 3, as the banking flattens out on the left edge of the road and starts to provide less grip for fast cornering than the center or center-left area of the road does. Turn 5, Turn 7, turn 8 are all taken best with a wide entry, and only turn 5 out of those three requires a tighter exit because you have to setup for turn 6 and the exit onto the straight immediately afterwards

 

Very enlightening; thank you for your response.

Ideal slip angles of less than 5 degrees would indeed be relevant mainly to race cars; while there are a few "race" cars already in, I suspect "that type" of closely road-based race car would tend to use lightly treaded "racing street" or "DOT Competition" tires, though what the actual ideal angle of those is (or what tires those actually use, freakin' useless computato) I don't know.