Milestones, New Skills, Surprise Bills, Burn-Out!! (Patreon)

Happy June you lot!! We're in the dead of Winter here in Aus and 6 months from Christmas! As I type this I'm blown away by the channel members milestone that we've just passed - now over 2000!! Amazing! Thank you! I'll be sure to conjure up a free release to celebrate, chime in with suggestions if you have any. Cheeky plug, but if those channel numbers were to be on my minimum paid tier, I'd have some decent ammo to focus on this full-time!! Nice to dream right!

Been a minute since I last posted an update, but rest assured I have been chipping away at a number of projects and skills - maybe too many!!

Anyone that dabbles in the modding game knows full well how long all of these projects take and at times, how frustrating the many challenges of mod building can be. I've definitely hit that wall at points this year, but always love coming back to take on the challenge.

Photogrammetry, LiDAR, Drones and Workflows:

I've been playing with some concepts and workflows to create the most accurate 'from-scratch' maps that I can. I have proven a few concepts using video capture, 360 imagery, open source LiDAR and Drone footage. Unfortunately there are some decision points in software that can cost $1000's to pursue, so I'm working on a more cost effective way to create these environments for Assetto Corsa. I've got my eye on some awesome tech that may speed this along, but I'll need a fair few more Paid Memberships before that happens! Will keep plugging at this, stay tuned for some cool stuff. On the unexpected bills front, while sourcing some Google Maps API's, I got an email/bill from them for the data I had used - probably the fastest $100USD I've spent in a while - whoops!

Car mods:

Per the pics, I've got a LOT of WIP cars in various stages. Some are real-world cars from magazines or my childhood/younger days, some are requests from my paid tiers. Like maps, you can churn out crap quickly, or you can spend a LOT of time trying to make things accurate and immersive. There's so so much to making a decent car mod and I like to pour myself into getting as much of it right as possible. Just doing custom sound banks and engine sounds is so time consuming, but very satisfying when you know the files in the car are your own, not just another rip of someone elses. I'll be aiming to wrap up and release some of my car mods very soon so be sure to jump on a paid tier for the early access to these.

Burn-Out:

Not the kind we like to do in the Sim, the other kind we don't like to talk about so much, especially us fellas. Life is pretty damn busy and intense these days and I've definitely experienced some low points this last year which are simply from the cumulative effect of feeling fried. There are definitely days where you can have zero in the tank thanks to all of the other things going on - this can even suck the joy out of your most favourite hobbies. At those times, its even more important to connect with folks and be honest with where you're at, take a pause, realise whats important, what you have to do and what you need to do. They're not always the same thing, but there does need to be some enjoyment in there somewhere. Take care of yourselves and those nearest to you.

Be good or good at it,

Dave