rec.autos.simulators

After some time taken away from the project, I'm finally getting an
official v0.4.8 release out the door. Highlights are improved physics
(duh), a new car with***pit view, and some basic multiplayer stuff
(although a lot of work still needs to be done there).
For a full list, see the log below.

It's Windows binary only still; Linux version (& source) will follow a
little later.

Get it at http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Thanks to Claes Wikdahl for the new car (Evo6) with models, and thanks
to FMod (www.fmod.org) for the sound API.

Hope you enjoy it! (and that the sound works, hm).
Ruud
PS To get ahead of myself, in case of any problems:
- Move the old Racer directory out of the way before installing the
new version and (re)install.
- Troubleshooting tips at
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
- No sound? Try audio.ini's 'type=winmm'.

--- THE LOG ----

Racer v0.4.8
------------

Bugfixes:
- When the car bottomed out, the wheel could get stuck
  for too long and gave strange forces, making the
  car seem to float or fly.
- Ran Purify on Racer and this caught a lot of tiny bugs. Fixed
  those and some memory leaks.

New features:
- Improved spline handling using full 3D surface patches;
  retry the Oval once more and you'll feel the difference.
- Surface detection; multiple track surface types
- Kerb force feedback effects (thanks to the above)
- Added the Evo6 as the new default car. It can show off more
  of Racer's capabilities than the Ferrari P4 can.
- Full 3D***pit is now possible (separate models, 3D dials etc).
  You can specify a special incar model for detailed***pits.
- Steering wheel model possibility added (the Evo6 has one).
- Physics option to use suspension force for load instead of
  direct tire forces. Idea by Paul Harrington. See debug.ini's
  use_susp_as_load. Perhaps gives more stable grip.
- Basic UDP multiplayer facilities for LAN networks (no dropped
  packets are traced so it will probably do very bad on
  modem connections). Not much yet, don't hope for too much.
- Improved envmapping; now also possible on transparent windows
  on multitexture-capable boards.
- Collision detection improved; it's harder to get stuck now,
  either in the railing or in the track itself.
- 3D sound (using FMOD) on Windows & Linux (see http://www.racesimcentral.net/)
- Upgraded sound system to 16-bit, 22kHz (upgrade those samples!).
- Music possible in the menu; no music is included because that
  would make the download bigger. Check racer.ini's menu.music.
  Streaming MP3, WAV and some others are supported.
- Toe in/out for each wheel
- FOV settings added for each car camera
- Added an ActLabs Force RS FF control set. Note these things come
  in various configurations. I now have a shifter, and support for
  it will be added in a future version.
- Added a Microsoft Gamepad control set.
- TrackEd adds batch ASE import (useful for people making new tracks)
- Modeler can set shininess per material now.
- Modeler can edit ambient/specular/diffuse/emissive color per
material.
- 'F' in Modeler toggles current-material flashing.
- Optimize in Modeler improved.
- Carlab fixed to give correct car camera views.
- Carlab can now edit the car camera FOV.
- Carlab's dialog now shouldn't disappear on Win98 machines.
- Ran Purify on Racer and fixed quite a number of bugs that it found.
  Has run cleanly through Purify (and you don't know how
  clean that feels!).

New requirements:
- A TCP/IP network protocol, because every game now behaves
  a bit like multiplayer.

Get it at http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Enjoy!
Ruud van Gaal

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Pencil art    : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

btw, i found on a web site how to compute a REAL intersection between a
ray and a nezier patch. Maybe it could interset you because i read in your
site that you were using the u,v coordinate of theray in the triangle
under the path to compute u,v in the patch, and that is not perfectly
right.

regards,
--
Sebastien TIXIER - Game Developer
Dynamics and Car Physics
http://www.eden-studios.fr
GPLRank Normal:-44.24 Monster:-124.44

long time no hear! Now, to the goodies...

Sounds like a glitch in the physics calcs to me, as the two should be
directly the same in stable conditions. You could have a period 2 (from
timestep to timestep) kind of oscillation in your system, perhaps a
revision of the integrator scheme would be appropriate.

I'll test it all when I get back home; can't wait to try it!

-Gregor

you have to project the bezier patch on two orthogoal plane where plane
intersection is the ray. The do some mathematics and you have the
intersection point between the ray and the path.

well, let me retreive the web site.... ,o)   [ checkin too big bookmarks
.... ]
damn... can't find it at works... i have it at home .. sorry...

regards,
--
Sebastien TIXIER - Game Developer
Dynamics and Car Physics
http://www.eden-studios.fr
GPLRank Normal:-44.24 Monster:-124.44

http://www-courses.cs.uiuc.edu/~cs319/Patches_files/frame.htm

thanks for the info. I think I can work from the general idea that
you've given, but the link would be nice to have as well :o). It must
require some solving of cubic equations, right?

-Gregor

Nice :-D  Just downloading it now - I notice NT4 isn't listed as working OS.
Does it work or not?  I suppose I should really get round to installing
Win2k at home.  I'm amazed you manage to keep it at just over 5Mb - that's
amazing!

Cheers,
Andy
--
PC-Based Multimedia System
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Just downloaded it, and trying it on NT4 SP6a, I get...

"The procedure entry point DirectInputCreateEx could not be located in the
dynamic link library DINPUT.dll."

I'm assuming this is something to do with DirectX != WinNT4

Todo list:
Get a decent OS.

Andy ;-)
--
PC-Based Multimedia System
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

sudesh

No iterations, and not even the quad-ray intersection calculations
(still the tri-ray intersection). :) And a bursting tasklist; every
implemented thing gives more & more new things to do.

Yes, that is the point; in stable conditions. The suspension force
allows me to keep the sim frequency relatively low. The tire rates
(+/- 200,000) are much worse than the suspension spring rates (+/-
75,000 depending). Haven't tested it with a wheel yet, but from what I
heard from the beta's it feels much better.

Yes, the period 2 was suggested (that the wheel was quickly bouncing
off and on the surface) by Paul, and I suggested I'd perhaps have to
try RK4 or inner loops or something. But other things took precedence
and the suspension trick seems to keep things nearly the same.

Have fun! It will probably not be too different from the last beta you
got though. (well, except for the interior view)

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/
Pencil art    : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

I'm checking out the URL. Seems very brief. ;-) It's Gregor to the
rescue?

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/
Pencil art    : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

Yes, indeed. Gregor already mentioned the solution to that by
iterating closer & closer to the actual (u,v) coordinate.
The problem for the intersection here perhaps is that I don't have
Bezier patches, but actually 3D hermite surfaces (so just 3 1D splines
combined).

Thanks,

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim  : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/racer/
Pencil art    : http://www.marketgraph.nl/gallery/

Unzipped it's 16.5Mb something, but that's because the .tga files get
so big (uncompressed). And ofcourse, adding tracks and cars is a nice
way to soak up memory. The Racer exe is only 276K though; still a lot
for code I think. But I'm oldfashioned. ;-)

Ruud van Gaal
Free car sim  : http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Pencil art    : http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Thought so, nevermind.

Yeah, but how many cars/tracks could you fit on a CD?  I'd say the size of
the executable is important, and it's tiny.  Congrats!

Andy
--
PC-Based Multimedia System
http://www.racesimcentral.net/