Racer 0.5 - Free Car Race Simulation
Racer is a free (for non-commercial use), car simulation project using
professional car physics papers to achieve a realistic feeling. Cars,
tracks and such can be created relatively easy (compared to other,
more closed, driving simulations). The 3D and other file formats are,
or should be, documented. Editors and support programs are also
available to get a very customizable and expandable simulator. OpenGL
is used for rendering.
Click on the picture for a first screenshot or read more for features,
screenshots and download.
WHAT IS IT?
Racer is a free car simulation project, using real car physics
to get a realistic feeling. Cars, tracks, scenes and such can be
created with relative simplicity in mind (compared to other driving
simulations). The 3D and other file formats are, or should be,
documented. Editors and support programs are also available to get a
very flexible and expandable simulator. It uses OpenGL for rendering.
It attempts to do well at the physics section, trying to create
life-like cars to emphasize car control and doesn't cut back on
realism in the interest of fun. If you've played Grand Prix Legends
from Papyrus, you'll know what
FEATURES:
* It's totally free! (for non-commercial use) Available for
multiple platforms; Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
* 6 DOF models used (the car can move around freely)
* Uses motion formulae from actual engineering documents from SAE
for example.
* Total flexibility; almost everything is customizable through
ASCII files.
* Commercial-quality rendering engine (with smoke, skidmarks,
sparks, sun, flares, vertex-color lit tracks).
* Support for Matrox' Surround ***. See the corresponding page
on Matrox' site.
* Lots of addon cars and tracks available on the web.
* Easy integration of your own cars and tracks that you create in
ZModeler, 3D Studio Max(tm), Maya etc.
* At least 15 degrees of freedom for a regular car (6 DOF for the
car body, 1 for each wheel's vertical motion and 1 for each wheel
spinning, and 1 for the engine, several more for the driveline).
Depending actually on how many wheels you put on the car.
* Real-time internal clock; no physical dependency on framerate.
Controller updates are also done independently of the framerate.
* Not limited to 4 wheels; anything from 2 to 8 wheel vehicles are
currently supported (but mostly untested, and some problems with
hardcoded differentials for example may exist (v0.5.0)).
* Not much constraints on the track data; surface info is taken
from polygon data (VRML tracks), and splines are used to smooth out
the track surface (polygons are too harsh for driving on just like
that).
* Tools to modify the cars & tracks are freely available on this
site (though external utilities are recommended for best results).
* Some used algorithms are explained on this site. Also,
references are available. If you are programming a carsim, you might
find something useful here.
* Save game present! ;-)