Background
One of the joys of putting this blog together is simply going through a nostalgia trip and some happy memories. In seeking out old downloads and sharing them with you, it has been a joy to find some forgotten about content, and reliving GP4's community modding history.
That was certainly the case when I was going through the old www.gp4db.com site. I remembered the 1989 WSPC beta mod that only included one car, the Sauber C9 made by Erik van Leeuwen. I thought it looked a bit sad as a mod with one car racing around, so I thought I would make a mod around it.
In looking back at a couple of threads, there was an ambitious mod planned and quite a lot of work done, but never released. I found out that a number of cars were well in progress, even completed.
The Porsche was being progressed by Erik.
Aid (known as user Kaid) had created the Nissan, both with and without the rear wheels covered.
And Öggo had been making the Aston Martin AMR1.
Sadly, btone, who left the GP4 community for his health, is not contactable, but he appears to be doing well.
Contributors
I do not have any contact with Erik or Aid, but I do have contact with Filou and Öggo and thankfully not all that was worked on back then was lost! The Sauber by Erik was obviously in the beta released by btone...
...and I was sent Aid's Nissan, which I was able to paint the Courage livery on too.
Filou managed to find an old beta that had some more work in which included his Spice car and a Nissan by Aid with textures painted by btone. There was some work on the Jaguar XJR11, but sadly that is lost. Filou was able to share with me a Mazda 767B, which I was able to map and paint.
Öggo provided some final tweaks to his Aston Martin, with some help from Erik, and the car was ready to be used in the mod.
I've included his Arai GP2 helmet, but I've made a few amendments. I removed the visor and I also revived the 3D arms idea, first pioneered by Erik for the 1991 mod. I think it fits this mod better with a few amendments to the mapping.
Öggo then hooked me up with Ulf (Alesi_fan), to which I am so grateful, because he has been a major contributor to this mod even though he is technically retired from GP4. He helped create some new content for this mod, for which I'm grateful. He's pushed this mod beyond my original plans for this. All the beautiful work on the different rims and tyres are all his work, and they really are fantastic.
Around that time, I knew Huskyman49 had shared some Le Mans and sportscar mods from that era and I am grateful for him to provide the Porsche 962GTi from the 1990 Le Mans mod. I did have to do a little work to the model and I created new liveries for the two Richard Lloyd cars.
For my part, I was able to add the Jaguar XJR9 and my version of the Porsche 962C. Whilst I was able to obtain a completed model of the Porsche by Erik, it was unmapped and I was already nearly finished with my version, so I made the decision to include my model instead.
Thanks also to Meteoro405 for the use of his engine sounds for this mod, as well as his work on the 'Random' generator and various graphics on the CSM and in game menu side. Again he was a big help in getting this project done.
1989 Le Mans mod
The beta mod I received was very ambitious. btone had planned to do the 1989 WSPC season as well as the SuperCup, which was largely based in Germany. However its a bit too much for me to work on by myself.
So I settled with simply the 1989 Le Mans race, which includes 22 of the best performers. I've kept to btone's list of entrants picked by btone for this mod. I've used his performance and physics files (slightly tweaked).
I've tried to keep things simple on this mod, so there's only a few pitcrews done (basically due to a lack of photos), and all drivers have white helmets.
However, like in the 1994 mod, this mod makes use of Öggo's Individual Meshes & Textures dll tweak, which controls:
- the car specific tyres and rims,
- car specific collision meshes.
- lods
- and car specific cockpit meshes.
There's still some limitations on the cockpit side, so I've not created any working dashboard elements, and the text still appears over the 3D steering wheels that I've created. Having said that, I like the different in-car cockpit views in game.
For this mod, I've also included drt01's petite Le Sarthe track (original version) integrated as part of the mod.
Whilst there's a possibility to run more laps than what I've set, running any more does cause some issues for cars running heavy on fuel and crashing out.
It's been a pleasure to work on this project quietly in the background, resurrecting some long lost cars and adding a fresh injection of some of the latest modding developments in GP4. This mod is just a bit of fun, bringing some long awaited Group C action to GP4. A massive thanks for all the contributors, mentioned above, along the way. From btone and MarioB in the early days, to today, everything has now come together to make this mod a reality. I hope you like it.
Installation Notes
Zaz Tools & GpxPatch
As with all my mods, you will need Zaz Tools and GpxPatch installed. You will also need to install CSM Process (CSM Add-on) for this mod to work too.
Follow this guide to help you install it: Guide to installing Zaz Tools and CSMProcess
Download GPxPatch Download Zaz Tools Download CSM Add-onHappy racing!
