Racer v0.8.31 released!

Ruud

RACER Developer
Just before the weekend... v0.8.31

Get it at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.31.zip (75Mb)

Changes:
- Added racer.ini dev.note_ini_unused to check for unread car.ini parameters. See also http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/development.htm
- Color grade shader improved.
- The wind could get stuck in growing infinitely, making particles shoot away after a while
- Differential reworked, since it had a bug (it accepted ratios <1.0).
- Clutch wasn't restored after shifting when autoclutch was 0 in racer.ini and the car.
- Flare colors could dip below 0 (weird colors) when using non-klux flare color values
- Flare default color is now '40 40 40' (was '1 1 1'), see also http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/car_lights.htm
- TrackEd would save splines where lines.paint_end would always be the number of splines, even if you specified less
- TrackEd would overwrite the gfx.sky values in special.ini with generated values (when saving)
- TrackEd still used Newton 2.26, so loading any track would recreate trackcollision.bin. Upgraded to Newton 2.29.
- Flare billboarding now screen-aligned by default; see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/car_lights.htm#flares
- A multiplayer client pressing Shift-R would get stuck waiting for a race start. Now modified to let Shift-R behave as Shift-F.
- Smoke/grass particles no longer spawn when a wheel is off the ground.
- Traction control gives a warning if a ratio is <=1.0 ; that gives serious jitters.
 
Indeed - just tried and if you set console.enable=0 in your racer.ini you can still hit the ~ key and enter your commands.
Don't know why this isn't the default behaviour? I know it shows some output but it's reported in QLOG too...so I don't see why we really need it at all.
 
after driving a short distance with an ai car I pressed F2 (replay) and then after it ran I clicked on the film icon and made a video.

The video worked but the sound (replay.wav) didn't!

Anyone having the same problem??
 
The console still pops up over timelines/triggerlines even if you disable it in racer.ini, after you bring it up manually for a script input. Ie, during development we often use reload car/track/shaders and so on, thus the console - despite formally being disabled - is still getting drawn when we cross a line.
 
Another bug -
'reload car' resets the camera to view 1 only partially. If you're in view 3 when you use it, '3' does nothing until you switch to any other camera (including 1, which visually does nothing)
 
Making a movie in ver 0.0815 works, both replay.avi and replay.wav, but not in 0.0831. Anyone else have this bug?

Turning off console.enable=0 in racer.ini eliminates viewing it when going over triggerlines. Haven't tried Cosmos comment, but will.
 
^^ Pretty sure that's possible. Probably through track scripting...For sliding doors you could just skin them with 2 (assuming double opening) bones in max and animate them then do it that way. Object leaping out in front...pretty sure you can do it the same way. If it's a person it'll also react with ragdoll once hit. Though I haven't tested any of this yet...


Ruud, is it not best to assume the elts are in shadow in their shader? Most of the time they're in their little hidey-holes and IMO linking the "shadow" to "sunny" is a bad idea. Makes my dials glow in the sun since they don't recieve shadows correctly.

line #65 in viewelt_f.cg:
Code:
const float shadow=0;//sunny;
should do it.
 
I still don't get what 'sunny' does, except scale sun diffuse from current value >> 0

Is there a longer term reason for it Ruud?

I'll admit it's useful, but why not just have the variable scale sun diffuse from current value >> 0, rather than have it as a variable inside shaders alongside the existing diffuse parameters?

Hmmm

Dave
 
Just gone from v0.8.29 > 0.8.31, and I'm getting weird road noise behaviour.

It's like the car reacts to it more occasionally than all the time, and I don't think I can feel it coming through the FF quite as clearly as it was before either.

The change is quite weird really.

There is also a new section in racer.ini

physics.tracks.use_road_noise


Has there been any change at all in the way road noise or FF reaction to it works, Ruud?!


Will have to do more testing, back to back with 0.8.29... seems ok with some cars though, hmmmm...

Hmmm, more...


Maybe it's these dodgy diffs that spin up for no reason in neutral and won't ever stop :D


Dave
 
I still don't get what 'sunny' does, except scale sun diffuse from current value >> 0

Is there a longer term reason for it Ruud?

I'll admit it's useful, but why not just have the variable scale sun diffuse from current value >> 0, rather than have it as a variable inside shaders alongside the existing diffuse parameters?

Hmmm

Dave
Isn't it just the inverse of cloudy? or cloudy the inverse of sunny? the way i see it if cloudy is 1 or 0.9, then u want sunny to be 0 or 0.1
 
Well, it depends if your cloud map obscures the sun or not I guess.

You can have a cloudy day with bright sun beaming through. The presence of clouds in that situation has more impact on our sun ambient value more than the sun diffuse value.

Hmmmm...
 
So the sunny/cloudy variables are actually a huge generalisation on reality. The real problem is is that the clouds don't cast a shadow or have any influence on the atmosphere/lighting, as they do IRL, if they did then these wouldn't be necessary.
 
What will become of OpenGL accumulation buffers for motion blur? I really like the effect, but it messes up all the new type shaders. I expect for the commercial application of Racer it's surplus to requirements, and may eventually just be cut as an option. What're the chances of it sticking around?
 
What does road noise do exactly? Does it only influence force feedback, or does it have any play in the surface to wheel dynamics? As I understand it, it only influences FF.
I've been thinking about the 'realistic smoke' thread elsewhere, where I commented that maybe the smoke is very uniform unlike IRL where it is a lot more random. I think this is because the surfaces we drive on are uniform, i.e. we use a constant average value for the grip of a surface, whereas IRL the grip varies along the surface.
If road noise influenced the surface grip the same way it does for FF, maybe it would help the smoke, and generally be a closer to realistic simulation of surfaces.
 
What does road noise do exactly? Does it only influence force feedback, or does it have any play in the surface to wheel dynamics? As I understand it, it only influences FF.
I've been thinking about the 'realistic smoke' thread elsewhere, where I commented that maybe the smoke is very uniform unlike IRL where it is a lot more random. I think this is because the surfaces we drive on are uniform, i.e. we use a constant average value for the grip of a surface, whereas IRL the grip varies along the surface.
If road noise influenced the surface grip the same way it does for FF, maybe it would help the smoke, and generally be a closer to realistic simulation of surfaces.

Road noise actually gets driven on.

"graph -0.1 0.1 wheel0.road_noise" in console, and you can see the wheels movement because of it.

You can even watch the wheel move up and down for bumps that don't even exist in the mesh if you set the noise high enough.

It's essential for any road/track in my view. It's far from perfect, but for most of our 'cars' it's easy to set.

Longer term the issue is cars with smaller tyres feel more bumps than those with bigger tyres because of the contact patch shape etc, but by and large you should be ok with the noise tweaking for one car feeling about right for all.
In theory, this 'noise' gives enough grip variation because of wheel loading variation. Get a stiff car on a bumpy course and it's really hard to keep control. Get a road car suspension car with moderate power and it's lots faster because it retains grip better.
Real surfaces probably don't have that much variance in grip, the issue is probably more to do with the bumps and stuff, and the suspension working to keep a good contact patch at all times.

Hmmm

Dave
 
Making a movie in ver 0.0815 works, both replay.avi and replay.wav, but not in 0.0831. Anyone else have this bug?

I don't recall how it was done...you mean extracting the avi/wav from the movie/rpl file ?

So the sunny/cloudy variables are actually a huge generalisation on reality. The real problem is is that the clouds don't cast a shadow or have any influence on the atmosphere/lighting, as they do IRL, if they did then these wouldn't be necessary.

You could create your own clouds planes, typically that's how it's done. I originally had the idea to animate them with bones/skeletons around the scene & trigger them with triggerlines for example. That way, they would become dynamic & increase the realism of your scene/track map.

Road noise actually gets driven on.

"graph -0.1 0.1 wheel0.road_noise" in console, and you can see the wheels movement because of it.

You can even watch the wheel move up and down for bumps that don't even exist in the mesh if you set the noise high enough.

It's essential for any road/track in my view. It's far from perfect...

It's cool to virtualize noise which doesn't exist in your road model, but I think it needs more tweaking possibilities where we would get a better control on how those road noises get spread over it. Maybe some kind of a graphical debug ingame...

Still, I don't use enough the graph command, for now I have an error message :
Unknown graph var 'wheel0.road_noise'

====================
What about flags/geometry.ini file ?
It seems broken, even though I deleted the bin file for reset...
 

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