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Helen Weales

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Posts posted by Helen Weales

  1. 2 hours ago, CarCrusher said:

    Just for the record, how many people agree with Helen Weales that a stage 4 electric MT is desirable? Just trying to figure out if this is actually a thing many folks believe, or if Helen Weales is just a fringe individual in his position.

    lol, why does it even matter what others think?  It's been repeatedly proven that Tesla Model S cars always demolish ICEs off the line, and in many cases 1/4 mile straight lines against cars that cost several times more (and the Tesla is not exactly built for top speed).  But don't take my word for it, go look it up for yourself.  There are probably hundreds of videos of Model S cars destroying ICE-equipped cars with ridiculous amounts of horsepower, like the 800+ HP Dodge Demon; to engineering marvels like the McLaren 720s, along with plenty of other supercars.   If a mess of a company like Tesla can achieve this, imagine what will happen when real car companies like Porsche, Audi, VW, Ford, etc start releasing electric vehicles... 

    Now considering MTs involve short bursts of power on smaller tracks, it's a no-brainer as to what would happen with a properly engineered electric monster truck.  It would be game over for stage 3 trucks.  Bigfoot would once again be banned from competition, just in time for the 30 year anniversary of the first banning. 😅

     

  2. 4 hours ago, NtheDiggerfan said:

    Okay. I agree with everything but this made me sick. Painful to sit through a woman doing the same thing a man can and kick butt while doing it? I smell bitterness or jealousy. That's not PC-ness... That's human decency. Unless you still believe women need to cook and clean and let the "Men" do the "Hard work"? Because let me remind you, that "Zombie Chick" Bench Presses/Dead Lifts 100+ Pounds (As seen on social media), rides dirt bikes, and could kick your a** any day. It's just sickening to see people do this to the concept of Female equality. The overload of testosterone prevents most from seeing the fact that women do the majority of things better than men... Let's not forget, a woman has won 2 World Championships and openly spoken about how she whopped the boys' a**. Most of us men are the real sissies, not the women. Just because you're a "certain age" (There's a specific age group here i'm referring to that seems to think that everything in the world is terrible and still holds 1800's style values) doesn't mean you can portray this much of a lack of human decency. I know it was stated it had "nothing to do with female empowerment", yes it is, and you know it. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with both parents working. I was raised with both parents at work, and have STRONG familial values, as do most other families. Why not have the man stay home and implement the "strong familial values" if they're so superior? I'm just revolted.  Also, "Unfortunately, I won’t die soon unless I’m lucky enough to get cancer or die in an accident. I’m serious. I truly do not wish to live in this world" is mortifying to read. You've been gifted with the most beautiful thing, life, and this is what you do? Are you kidding me? Way to be an ungrateful piece of crap. You know how many people die, are dying, or are having a family member die at any age because of a multitude of factors, who would give anything to have the gift of life re-gifted to them? It's quite honestly nauseating that someone would be this much of an ungrateful brat to wholeheartedly wish that they'd die. That's just disrespect. It's not okay, and quite honestly revolting and disgusting. This is without a doubt the most  stomach-churning thing I've read on this site. I find it quite ironic that people from this crowd claim "The new generations are ruining the world and spreading hate" while the real ones poisoning our society and and spreading hate are quite the opposite. 

    Well, you've managed to completely misunderstand everything I wrote. 🤣

    But I'll just leave you with this: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/tennis/aus/2017/01/21/serena-williams-nicole-gibbs-australian-open/96876832/

    Apply this to any other physical sport.  It's why real sports are segregated by gender.  It's why trans women entering women's sporting events demolish actual women and vice versa.  It's scientifically proven and you can't use emotions to debate such a thing no matter how much you want to believe what you've been told by a feminazi who probably knows nothing about the actual history of feminism.  Superiority in sporting events doesn't make one gender overall superior because there's more to life than sports, and both can perform various tasks better than the other, and when paired they can compliment each other really well.  It's the way the world has worked for thousands of years.

    P.S. monster trucks are not a physical sport, or even a real sport.

  3. 56 minutes ago, Brad Kerlin said:

    This thread is getting too deep.

    This mentality is one of the problems with younger generations.  Everyone is now "good vibes only" where reality is not allowed to enter their "safe space".  No critical thinking, no sort of thought process whatsoever; just living on non-stop erratic emotions.  Not saying this describes you at all, but it's okay to have deep discussions.

    • Upvote 1
  4. 1 hour ago, CarCrusher said:

    All I can say is - SCREW YOU FOR BEING RIGHT!!!!!

    But seriously, I’m afraid you are correct about everything. We are indeed living in dystopian times. I hate living in this world actually. The culture I care about is dead. It’s quickly being replaced by a world I don’t recognize and don’t really want to live in. Unfortunately, I won’t die soon unless I’m lucky enough to get cancer or die in an accident. I’m serious. I truly do not wish to live in this world. Everything that ever meant anything to me seems to be dying out and a new world replacing it.

    However, I don’t agree that your electric “stage 4” truck sounds appealing at all. Who wants to go watch a quiet electric monster truck race? 

    The loudness argument is weak.  Probably one of the most talked about motor sounds in MT history has to be BF 8 & 9 -- for a while they ran mufflers which were super quiet with a whistle.  People loved it because it seemed futuristic and different.  Also, large, powerful electric motors, especially 4-8 running at once, are NOT quiet, just different.  The performance alone would make you forget about lack of ICE sounds, especially if you saw a stage 3 truck being embarrassed by an electric stage 4.  It would be like this:

     

     

    And as for the culture you love, try to preserve it and live the life you want to live.  Otherwise, you'll never be happy.

  5. 22 minutes ago, CarCrusher said:

    @Helen Weales when you say monster trucks would have to move to an alternative power source to get manufacturers attention again, do you mean that MTs would likely go electric, or some other kind of fuel? I can promise you that I would never pay one red cent to watch electric monster trucks. That would be the lamest thing I could ever think of.

    Everything you say is unfortunately exactly what I’ve been afraid of. The modern world with its technology marching right along will soon completely alter the world we all know. Automation will do everything for us. There will be no jobs. All vehicles will be self-driven, IC engines will become a relic of an age gone by, people will barely leave their houses because they won’t be working. The automation taking all the jobs will necessitate government dependency because working will become virtually obsolete. This will cause a missive shift in zeitgeist which will destroy things we once loved like motorsports and such. It will become irrelevant because cars in general will lose relevance, just like nobody really cares about horse racing anymore, though it used to be widely popular if you go back far enough in time. Now it’s a primitive relic that time has left behind.

    I know that I’ve feared this stuff for some time now, and I feel that these major changes are just around the corner. In many ways I envy the older generation now, because they got to live their life in the golden period before any of this happened. I’m only 28, so I’ll have to live with this stuff for decades. I look around and even now the younger generation is becoming more and more worthless with basic skills and knowledge that used to be commonplace. The young men have no handy skills, no car knowledge, or anything like that. I don’t want to live in that world. Sadly, we’re already living in the beginning of it.

     

    Yes, electric or something else.   Electric makes the most sense, and not just from a marketing standpoint -- the performance advantages alone would absolutely destroy anything a current MT can achieve.  Comparing an electric stage 4 truck to a stage 3 truck would be similar to comparing stage 2 to 3, which was a massive jump in its own right.  Independent suspension, minimal drivetrain, a motor for each axle or wheel, insane acceleration, low cost, etc.   Throw this technology in with demanding tracks that actually put truck integrity and driver talent to the test and it could be incredible.   Let's face it, a Monster Jam truck with 30-year-old technology performing 19 backflips while the driver makes a cup of coffee isn't going to get a Ford or GM executive to think "wow, we really need to be a part of this again!", nor will it capture the attention of a real motosport fan long enough to make them a hardcore fan.

    As for automation, technology changing the world and making manual labor tasks more simple is nothing new because this has been happening since the beginning of time.  The loss of skilled jobs and government dependency in the US started many decades ago with an on-going weaponized globalist agenda, which includes moving jobs overseas, defunding public education (and re-writing history books!), killing traditional family values by putting both parents to work (to tax both parents/have kids raised by public education & Hollywood; nothing to actually do with female empowerment), and infiltrating the country with drugs via "wars" and big pharma --  just to name a few because this list is endless.  Therefor I think lack of skilled labor is largely unrelated to automation, because for every area that becomes automated, often new avenues open that need actual human hands; it's just that too many people lack guidance, are under-educated, and are intoxicated with drugs and the entertainment industry (politics, TV, films etc) to the point where they cannot focus on living meaningful lives, nor would they know how if they could focus.  It's a completely broken system that will either work itself out with a happy medium of man-machine, or humanity will end.

    But humans will always still do things, just differently.  For example, eventually the average person might not manually drive cars around towns, but that is great because at this point the average person is so irresponsible and incompetent, they have no business being behind a wheel in the first place.  But I think/hope there will always be people actually driving and racing.

    The last thing I will say is, the problem with technological advancements is rarely ever the technology itself, it's the abuse of technology by corporations/politicians/government (all the same same thing at this point).  Take the Internet for example, what a wonderful thing it could be...  Except it's really not.  It was in the cards all along to infiltrate every human with a device that would allow governments and corporations to monitor every move of every human; and the progress of this agenda since 9/11, and the effects it has had on society (globally) are truly terrifying.  In the beginning, few had any idea of the repercussions it would have on society, and most were distracted by all of the amazing possibilities.  On one hand, it's given people like me and you the ability to share our creations and communicate with one another (in which before probably wouldn't have been possible), but overall I think the cons outweigh the pros by a large amount which is why people are always trying to "disconnect" from social media, but can't escape it.  We are literally living in a dystopian sci-fi story, and few seem to notice it's the same story that has been told a million times over the past 75 years.

     

     

  6. I have watched and kept up with monster trucks for 32 years now (before points racing even existed!).  I witnessed it go from exhibitions to full-blown racing, before ultimately having the sporting aspect stripped, leaving it a circus show on wheels for children.  Monster trucks have not been a legitimate form of motorsport since 1998, with USA Motorsports live on TNN's Motor Madness being the final piece of the puzzle.  USA being purchased by Pace, Pace splitting with Bigfoot, and the addition of freestyle all led to the absolute death of monster truck racing -- the sport -- and all of this happened within one year.   It was mind blowing to witness this happen in such a short period of time because the future of the sport seemed so bright with the live telecasts on TNN, which produced some of the best MT racing I've ever seen (next to TNT), and the Monster Truck Madness game series (made by the most valuable company in the world at the time) which were insanely popular.  I do think it's possible for it to return where it left off in 1998, but stage 4 trucks would need to be built, freestyle would need to be dumped; and they would likely need to use some form of alternative power in order for manufactures and other corporate sponsors to associate with monster trucks again.  I just don't know if enough people would care as nothing is "shocking" any longer in this modern jaded ADHD world. 

    NASCAR, which I have watched for over 20 years as well, in my opinion has never produced better racing than what we have been seeing for the past 4-5 years.  If fans who complain about modern NASCAR were actually around to watch racing from 20 years ago, they wouldn't be complaining today, because a lot (but not all) of those races were REALLY boring.  I'm talking 400+ mile races with little to no cautions, and sometimes no lead changes.  And very few cars had chances of winning back then.  With that being said, I don't think the actual racing has anything to do with lack of spectators in the stands today.  NASCAR simply got too big, too fast; and it was nothing more than a trend.  Like all trends, it crashed, and crashed hard.  However, the TV ratings really aren't that bad (especially the races on local channels), and certainly not as bad as people are being told because the Nielsen rating system is obsolete and broken; and doesn't take in account modern TV viewing habits.  NASCAR seems pretty healthy to me, it's just that people keep comparing it's current popularity to a level from 15-20 years ago that was simply not sustainable.  It will never be that big again and could be compared to pro wrestling in the 90s, or even monster trucks during the 80s.

    And there's also the issue with young people being less interested in cars, and it's probably only going to worsen as fewer young people get their licenses and choose to use Uber-type services instead.  The world is definitely changing, and changes this century will only become more dramatic.  Most racing series' will likely fold, but the ones that remain could produce the best racing we've ever seen.  For example look at Formula E.  Formula 1, the supposed "pinnacle of motorsport", hasn't produced racing as good as Formula E in well over a decade.  So many huge auto makers and sponsors have left F1 for FE, and it's only just begun.  The obvious direction of motorsport is electric power, which FE has exclusive FIA rights for until 2039.  This means the most popular form of motorsport in the world (F1) will have no choice but to find some other form of alternative power, merge with FE, or fade away like IndyCar; and this will have to happen within the next decade because auto makers are not going to continue to dump money into a series that is not relevant to what they sell to consumers.  This logic could also be applied to monster truck racing (if it were to ever return.), and NASCAR.  

    All in all, I wouldn't say motorsports have declined, but rather the number of series have declined; and the modern world is going through a huge transitional period (in terms of technology) in which things are so different than they were even 10, 15 years ago.  There is a lot of good racing all over the world, with some series only getting better.  I think the best is yet to come, unfortunately for things like monster trucks, they are long gone and might never return.

  7. Lots of amazing stuff in this thread from everyone!

    I've been working a lot on my electric stage 4 trucks. After making the radical Le Mans/Dakar rally-style Straker body, the other two looked like dinosaurs. I ended up making new Ford and Praxis bodies as well that are more sleek and aggressive looking. The bodies will all extend to the bottom of the chassis, which would keep a lot of debris out of the electronics, and the cabins will be airtight. Basically they are monster cross-country rally vehicles now.

    The Ford will have a unique door setup -- a door and an opening panel next to it. The cabin door opens upwards, and the panel opens downwards, which will be a set of steps. So if you were entering the truck, you would walk up the steps, then step to the left and enter the cabin through the door opening. You can see the outlines of the doors in the Ford in the last photo.

    Everything other than the bodies in these models are placeholder parts.

    xEAGGt2.png

    85MrJ0E.png

    EHN6Me7.png

    6jRk2SQ.png

    LGBmNXb.png

    • Like 3
    • Upvote 9
  8. 6 hours ago, Outlawed said:

    That reminds me, did anything come from the 8th/9th gen ford f series bodies you were planning to make?
    Regardless, glad to see you posting on here again!

    I actually worked on it a few weeks ago for the first time in a long time. It's far from finished, though (I wish I could find a high quality 3D model to modify, but the ones I have found were very expensive). Hopefully I will have more time for it soon.

  9. I'm in the process of rebuilding the Straker Omega/4 electric truck. Still a lot of work left, but so far I think it's fun in an over-the-top way. It will be interesting to adapt old liveries like Taurus, Stomper, Equalizer etc to something so futuristic. 

    Edit: This is basically the Raptor version of the Omega/4, which would still fit within the Powertrax production vehicle rule.

     

    W6jVFYT.png

    exqbL7n.png

     

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 6
  10. On 10/18/2018 at 12:07 PM, stimson122 said:

    More projects. First real attempt at putting together a chassis from scratch with Overkill, pleased with how it turned out. Still work to do but been fun working on these so far. 

    Awesome work! If I may suggest a few things, the front wheel wells on Bigfoot need to be a bit larger, and the Ford flags should have a 2D blue oval logo instead of the 3D version.

  11. I haven't posted here in a while, but I've been hard at work on trucks and tracks. This is a Mickey Thompson stadium-inspired track that I just started (yes, they all start out looking this rough 😂).  I'm still trying to figure out how to place crushable cars on elevations, but when I do there will be plenty of cars to crush when going up the large three-step hill climb.

     

    OTBBkIH.png

    vJJfKNQ.png

    • Upvote 12
  12. I'm adding crushable cars to all of my tracks, but I'm running into an issue that I'm not sure how to properly explain. Basically, my tracks are meshes with no heightmaps; so tracks with elevated areas are raised above the actual ground in RoR. When loading the track in RoR, the crushable cars (.load files) instantly fall through the mesh and land on the default ground.

    This is a view from the cars, showing both above and below the track surface. The black area is the ground.

    j9tEUcw.jpg

     

    This is where the cars should be sitting: 

    PnSII4R.jpg

     

    This is a view of all of the elevation changes. Matching a heightmap with this mesh seems incredibly difficult, if not impossible; unless there is a method I am not aware of.

    jyvVoTu.jpg 

     

    Is there a way to prevent this, or do I have to use heightmaps?

  13. Did you ever figure this out? In case not, use this template for the material file:

     

    material SOLID/TEX/YourTransparentTexture.png
    {
        technique
        {
            pass
            {
                scene_blend alpha_blend
                alpha_rejection greater 0
                depth_write off
                lighting off
                texture_unit
                {
                    texture YourTransparentTexture.png
                }
            }
        }
    }

  14. Just an FYI for anyone else with this issue: I set my BIOS to the default settings, and it fixed this issue. I was actually trying to fix two other OS-related issues, and this ended up taking care of all three! I am not sure which BIOS setting was causing this, though. I bought this ThinkPad used and actually forgot to reset the BIOS before installing a fresh copy of Windows 10.  I do know Intel Rapid Start had been disabled and no longer is.

  15. I recently started using a different computer (ThinkPad W540), and now Blender 2.49b (both portable and standalone) are showing trails when pressing B to use the selection tools. They do disappear when I actually start selecting things, but it's still quite annoying. I'm using Windows 10 Pro, which is what I was using on my previous computer that did not have this issue. I've tried running Blender in every compatibility mode configuration imaginable, but it makes no difference. Has anyone else had this issue?

     

    PxWjv8P.png

  16. On 2/7/2018 at 11:39 PM, DiggerFan said:

    As far as placement on the track, I pretty much use trial-and-error. I'll set them up with an assumed set of coordinates in the .tobj file, load the track in-game & see where they ended up, then adjust the coordinates accordingly.

    You might already know this -- but in case you (or anyone else) do not, I just found this out and it makes finding coordinates a breeze:

    1. In the desired terrain, walk over to where you want the crush cars to sit, and load the cars.

    2. Find the car name under the Vehicle menu and click it (as if you were going to enter a vehicle to drive it);

    3. Press H. 

    4. Open the ROR.log file. The coordinates will be there!

     

    This also works for finding the start positions in terrains.

  17. 10 hours ago, tyrannos said:

    0.4.7 (at least in my experience) has weird issues with turning radius. you might turn faster and tighter in one direction but slow and wide in the other.

    Good to know, thanks! I've gone with 0.4.6.

    I feel like the trucks behave somewhat differently than in the old versions (0.3X), or maybe it feels different due to such a higher FPS? I've had to adjust my trucks and give them more grip and adjust the brakes. I don't recall these issues when I was pushing for the community to move to 0.4+ a few years ago. Have other truck makers noticed this, and if so what kind of changes have you made?

  18. Hello all,

    I've been away for quite some time, and am getting back into the swing of things with RoR. I left off with the POWERTRAX electric series close to completion, but I recently had a setback when I accidentally deleted some of my newer track ZIPs. Not a huge problem as I still have the actual files to recreate them, but before I do I would like to know which version of RoR is now most common -- 0.3, or 0.4? I see lots of new content being made for 0.4+ (compared to when I was last here), so I can only assume it has finally become the norm? 

    I also see there is a new version of RoR (0.4.7) -- is there anything I should know about this before diving back in to editing?

     

    -HW

     

    P.S. -- did anyone ever figure out how to add mud to terrains in 0.4+? I remember this being the only issue I had with it. (EDIT: nevermind, was finally able to solve this)

    P.P.S. -- I meant to post this in the Help and Support forum -- feel free to move this (sorry, it's been a while! :lol:).

    • Upvote 1
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