New beginning, sort of...

I must admit, I was seriously considering quitting the modding scene last year. I started modding around 2017, and the Assetto Corsa modding scene has changed significantly over the years. It became increasingly difficult to gain some recognition and satisfaction from doing this, especially when you are doing it for free. I felt like my passion projects were being overshadowed by low-effort ripped mods which totally flooded the AC scene. I was still working on some updates, mostly for my private mods and my scratch made Slovakia Ring project, but my activity gradually declined. Basically, I was experiencing a classic "midlife modders crisis." 

Then, I created the Clio Cup V mod. I hadn't planned on doing it at all. But when I came across the rFactor 2 Clio Cup V mod on Steam Workshop, I immediately asked the guy who posted it for permission to convert it to Assetto Corsa (thanks again, Nick!). We had a long discussion, and we agreed that I would release it under his modding group's name. I started working on it, and I had a lot of fun! It was great to be back "behind the mouse" instead of a steering wheel again! :)

Originally, it was intended to be my farewell project, a project where I would showcase all of my skills and put my whole heart into it before deleting all of my modding tools and data from my PC. My plan was obviously to race more and enjoy simracing a little more, because I definitely spent more time in ksEditor than in actual Assetto Corsa over the past few years. However, a couple of L1 T1 crashes in LFM (ACC) and rF2 multiplayer convinced me to refocus back on modding. And of course, the fact that the Clio Cup mod was very well received, with many people posting positive reviews on Race Department or YouTube, was a big factor as well. I began to feel like I still had something to offer the modding scene, and I began to reconsider my decision, especially after two of my most successful mods were featured in the Low Fuel Motorsport portal in season 13 and the Clio Cup mod appeared on Slovak national television as a full-season e-sports event broadcasted publicly to the whole country. I consider this to be a significant accomplishment. That's exactly why I was doing my mods: to use them online for competitive racing, not to take some screenshots and forget about them.

I had been thinking for a while about how to approach this partial modding career restart, and I came up with the idea to give this Patreon idea a try. I had been against it for a long time, but when I considered all the pros and cons, I came to the conclusion that I should at least give it a chance. For me, it is definitely not about making money; I have a pretty decent job for that. It is more about having some funds to be able to use better tools and resources for modding. And mostly, it's about supporting people who are involved in my projects as well, because my mods are usually a team effort, and there are always some "external contractors" involved. And they are doing really good job, worthy of my appreciation.

So what can you expect here? My idea is to treat this place as my developer's blog. I plan to post updates about my current projects, about my future projects, perhaps some interesting modding stories and maybe even gossip from the real paddocks, and for sure some tutorials for other modders. I certainly plan to post WIP versions of my mods here for my supporters to try them exclusively before the official release date. If this Patreon page is successful and I receive enough support, I definitely plan to expand the team in the future, travel to more events to gather data directly on the site. I have made many friends in the paddocks over the years, so I am not concerned that they will not allow me to get closer to their cars :) Some of them use my mods for training, so it's a mutually beneficial arrangement. I want to keep my mods as data based as possible. So, guys, if you believe that I deserve your support, please feel free to select one of the four options and assist me in making my plans a reality. I am incredibly grateful for all of the support I have received over the past years  in form of paypal donations and will big thanks to everybody who decide to support me here in the future.

To conclude this completely not intended wall of text, just a short sneak-peek into my plans for the near future. I will probably stick to the cars that I am known for: tin top racing cars and perhaps some Czechoslovakian legends. I would like to keep the majority of TMM mods up to date, not necessarily by reworking them all to extended physics but by improving their appearance, updating their physics to current standards, and utilizing some new CSP features that complement the cars in a meaningful way. And of course, optimizing them for community racing, because this is always my top priority. To achieve this, I recently expanded my toolkit by purchasing a portable 3D scanner, a high-quality audio recorder, and a relatively expensive camera for shooting textures. I invested a significant amount of money in these things, so it would be a sin to let them gather dust. And I can tell that while I was typing this text, quite a big thing happened, I will work on a new car but what it is I will keep for myself for now, all what I can tell is "that the demand was too high" :D

See you all on the virtual race tracks...

Fuzo