sim. Okay the word "open" might be a bit ambiguos so let me try and define
what I mean by the term.
The developer of the initial sim would create the basic physics engine.
This would have to be at least on par with the GPL physics engine aswell as
including some additions which I will get to later.
The sim could be released with a set of cars and a set of tracks and of
course a menu system.
The rights to the core physics engine would be kept by the developers but
they would share the knowledge with the rest of the world on how to create
cars, tracks, graphics etc. They would not need to release an editor as
there would be no lack of programmers out there ready to have a crack at it
and with enough information it shouldn't be a problem for them.
The format would allow any sort (within reason) of 4 (or more) wheel vehicle
to be created and given a set of values which would affect it's performance.
Values that could be entered could be the drive wheels, tyre dimensions,
power, weight and virtually anything else that would affect performance.
Types of possibble tracks could include the regular road/oval/street aswell
as possibly off-road and point to point such as Rally or Hill-Climbs. It
could maybe be possible to create a virtual world where you can drive
anywhere within it. This would allow a type of Midtown Madness scenario or
even a cross country race. Hey! Cannonball Run On-line!!
For those of you familiar with Flight Sims would realise that what I am
describing is more or less the Auto equivelant of the Microsoft Flight
Simulator series. For those not familiar with this product just go to
www.flightsim.com and look at all the additional
aircraft/airports/scenery/sounds/guages/navigation systems etc. etc. that
are free for downloading. Microsoft actually encourage third party
developers by releasing instructions for making these additions.
Microsoft releases a new flight sim every couple of years (actually it has
been just about every year for the last few years if you include Combat
Flight Simulator) and each one sells by the truckload, most of the third
party stuff from the previous sims is usually compatible with the new sim.
A racing sim developer could go the same sort of route, people would buy a
new version every couple of years which would include enhanced graphics and
the possibility of a more complex physics engine which would be possible
because computers would be more powerful. The old cars, tracks would still
work with each new release though.
The closest we have got to this format so far would be SCGT for it's ease of
creating cars and GP2 which seems to have had everything about it edited.
I know Paul Hoad is trying to create and open sim and I know there have been
a couple of more attempts. I wish Paul good luck but in reality this type
of thing needs a big name to get behind it and distribute/market it.
Well I just wanted to put my ideas on the subject in one place. I'm sure
it could be a popular and profitable format as the Flight Sim community has
proven.
Chris