Racer v0.8.32 released!

Ruud · Feb 11, 2011

After a small break (where I broke nothing except 1 snowscooter), a new Racer.

Get it at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer0.8.32.zip

Changes:
- The Lambo differential ratio was a bit low (1.75) - reverted to 2.53.
- Differential could become unstable when the 2 wheels got opposite reaction forces.
- Removed obsolete wheel<n>.friction_road values from data/cars/default/car.ini.
- Replay audio (replay.wav) was empty when recorded.
- Multiplayer fixes (billboard nodes/car names)
- Smoke tweaks (soft particles, improved motion)
- Shadowmapping normal dependency improved for shadow acne reduction

KS95 · Mar 31, 2011

Hit a wall. Screen went gray.

Qlog:
Thu Mar 31 07:43:26 (ERR ): [racer/8732] PRigidBody:Sync NaN in position - repairing (this error only reported once)
Thu Mar 31 07:43:32 (INFO): [racer/8732] Physics engine: NEWTON v2.29
Thu Mar 31 07:43:33 (INFO): [racer/8732] Safety changed: SAFE

*sad trombone*

QuadCoreMax · Mar 31, 2011

@Alex

Been playing also with reverbs (in scripts), unfortunately in replay mode, there seems to be a lot of things not working properly...physics => animated objects also...

@Mitch

Hope you'll track down the bug, I'm animating a new babe for tracks...duh had some struggle because Modeler didn't say anything to me...
Just a crash :

Code:

Thu Mar 31 04:12:13 (FATAL): [modeler/3376] Exception 0xC0000005, flags 0, Address 0x0043F503

After re-checking my mesh for n times, I discovered that it wasn't 'properly' closed....lol

Talking about those, here's a link about 'quaternions interpolations' with Cg code

:
http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/projects/DualQuaternions/

Also, since you & Ruud are preparing the movables into cars, I'll definitely begin working on my car & add 'thickness' to my hood, doors, trunk etc...=> damage system integration...:wink:

Quite excited to 'skeletalize' my whole car & see how it will loose parts when 'hitting' collision objects...

All good, quite exciting stuff !

QuadCoreMax · Apr 1, 2011

Hm, crash when loading the anim file in Modeler :

Code:

OS-Version: 5.1.2600 (Service Pack 3) 0x100-0x1

0x0043F577 [modeler]: (filename not available): (function-name not available)

Code:

OS-Version: 5.1.2600 (Service Pack 3) 0x100-0x1

0x0043F50B [modeler]: (filename not available): (function-name not available)

idk how to fix the prob & what's the issue in my 3D app with the my skeleton & mesh. Completely nude she will generate an anim file, with cloth, hair & bikini, she's crashing...

Strange my first babe had the same structure approximately.

QuadCoreMax · Apr 2, 2011

About cams (TC / TKC / DiscoCam)

Since the disco cams gets mixed up with the TC 'randomly', I would propose to get rid of them & just use the TC instead of disco when you iterate thru your cam types.

Hope Ruud/Mitch hearing me....discos cams were created (I think) long time ago way before TKC were introduced, so hope to get something updated since I generally AI debug the game using most of the time TKC, but I would be happy to get my other TC work along when changing cams !

===================
Also, as most of you knows, Shift 2 is out, & I've been thinking a lot about Racer, because most of the things, we already have, bugs included, haha !

So, they (EA/SMS) unfortunately have problems with shadows like we have & also have shaders problems in the HUD for example, where the street gets projected into the alpha channel of it, lol :wink:

I wanted just to point out, that since Racer can handle time, & night racing, we absolutely would need a light shader, an update also on the projected lights where we would see the brake lights on the street like Shift 2 does, same for backfiring ....for example

Mr Whippy · Apr 4, 2011

Cams are not so good right now generally.

Spline cams can only be used in isolation, and then when you leave the splines you get disco cam = horrible.

The old cameras are the best system imo. I can get the nicest looking camera tracks/pans with them, and they are easier to author too. The only thing you can't do with them that you can with spline cams, is a fixed view camera that doesn't track the car.

That said, the spline cameras REALLY struggle with car tracking, which is what you want most of the time.

Imo, sack off spline cameras, and go back to cameras that can follow the car, or simply can follow a fixed point in space (for fixed cameras)

Disco cam should be able to be turned off in racer.ini imo... it's only really good for spectators/replays but as you say QCM, most of the time we are doing development work and it's annoying to have to cycle into a camera mode you don't want at that time (bit like heli cam too I guess)

Hmmm

Dave

Some1 · Apr 4, 2011

Mr Whippy said:
Cams are not so good right now generally.

Spline cams can only be used in isolation, and then when you leave the splines you get disco cam = horrible.

The old cameras are the best system imo. I can get the nicest looking camera tracks/pans with them, and they are easier to author too. The only thing you can't do with them that you can with spline cams, is a fixed view camera that doesn't track the car.

That said, the spline cameras REALLY struggle with car tracking, which is what you want most of the time.

Imo, sack off spline cameras, and go back to cameras that can follow the car, or simply can follow a fixed point in space (for fixed cameras)

Disco cam should be able to be turned off in racer.ini imo... it's only really good for spectators/replays but as you say QCM, most of the time we are doing development work and it's annoying to have to cycle into a camera mode you don't want at that time (bit like heli cam too I guess)

Hmmm

Dave

I second that. The old system was almost perfect, only lacked the fixed camera function and perhaps some camera shaking effect for handheld cameras.

QuadCoreMax · Apr 4, 2011

Thanks God someone answering, I thought you were all dead haha !

@Dave

I feel you, I do know about how hard it is to set TKC (Track Keyframed Camera = Spline Cam) & I'm really convinced that it needs to be mixed with the TC (Track Cam => simple cam with radius trigger area), so yeah once the car leaves the track, the TC (all correctly set on ALL your terrain/drivable areas) should be triggered just after.

I agree with disco + the heli cam, the last one could move with some randomness, just to avoid to get bored, haa !

===========
Some1 you're right about that shaking effect, who knows maybe scripting that cam effect once we get the cam object as new script types ?

Mr Whippy · Apr 4, 2011

Yep, the spline cams have their place, and work 'ok' for certain effects, but they miss out on Soooo much flexibility and niceness for 90% of cameras that the old system did.

IF they could simply be mixed, then I'd be happy, but using just ONE spline cam, and the old cams don't work... which means they are totally useless for me

Dave

QuadCoreMax · Apr 4, 2011

The trick when you create those TKC is to do a manual check in special.ini, most of the time, the 1st cam is set incorrectly at 0,0,0 for all variables & needs to be removed. Then the 'count' variable should be set accordingly. If not done, Racer screws almost the whole TKC...that's what you're experiencing ?

Also, you might need to use your 'g' key to go quickly to your position & orientate the cam for the keyframing process.

Alex Forbin · Apr 4, 2011

The main thing that bothers me about the disco cam is the one that whips around at 9000deg a sec (a.k.a. the vomit cam). I really think a decent keyframe system would be fine if it had the option of following the car or not, and was independent of the spline.
I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to set the camera in Tracked by simply positioning the camera, set the zoom, and click "keyframe" and move on to the next keyframe or select "end".
If the camera is set to world coordinates why would it need to be associated with the spline? Fixed cameras should be nothing more than click "fixed" ,place and point the camera then set the zoom.

NFS Shift has the most annoying and busy cameras I've ever seen outside of a transformers movie. Their effects are the worst, they are WAY overdone.The camera shake is like trying to drive an RC car with a poorly mounted webcam on it. The camera shake when the cars goes by simply looks silly. And probably the worst thing of all has nothing to do with cameras but it's the goofy explosion sound the cars make when they go by, I actually laughed out loud when I heard this. The only reason I mention this, is to point out that there is such a thing as too much.

All that being said I do like some of the discocam shots but I dislike others and wonder why we can't make our own.
I'm glad this is being talked about anyway.

Alex Forbin

Mr Whippy · Apr 4, 2011

Yep, deffo such a thing as too much!

I like some of the discocam angles too, some look really nice, but the spinny one is rather horrible

I'm mainly thinking track cameras right now though. All I want to see is the old style ones (which were kinda keyframed based on car distance from camera location) able to NOT focus on the car, so they can just be static.

That is the only thing I really feel is ever missing.

If KF cameras can track the car, rather than the spline vs spline being driven on, then that might be nice. BUT, these types also need to be able to be mixed with the old style ones still imo!

Dave

camsinny · Apr 4, 2011

To be honest I'd rather see cameras more like the iRacing setup (I think it's basically the same as GTL or something...which I think Ruud's implementation is based off of) [essentially I'd like to see it simplified a bit]
IMO if Racer is aiming to be a sim we don't really need to keyframed cameras (sure there are instances where they're useful - i.e. dollying cameras etc.)

A good set of defined cameras are more the way to go IMO.
iRacing uses 3 "TV" cameras, basically well calibrated track cameras - from what I've seen they're all static
Then an assortment of car based cameras, i.e. bumper, chase, far chase, F/R susp.
Finally there's a blimp camera, kinda like our heli-cam but much higher and slower moving - perhaps just circling the track
and the Heli cam, much the same as ours.

To be honest keyframe cameras tend to be more trouble than they're worth. Sure, they add that sense of motion and fluidity but more of the time they'll be done badly and induce some sort of motion sickness.

If viewed in 720p you should be able to see the camera types.
Their replay system is also pretty nice to use, you can jump laps, pause and go frame by frame (or is it tick by tick? not sure) as well as your usual FF and RW

Stereo · Apr 7, 2011

I'm having trouble with texture mode=linear... there seems to be some differences between the channels. And maybe it's compressing the red/blue channels or something, cause it's getting nasty 4x4 solid chunks that are definitely not in the original texture.

Using a simple shader to test (texture.rrrr vs texture.gggg) shows the problem fairly simply. (blue channel looks very much like red)

Red and green layers are the same (direct copy, the exact same brightnesses) - top picture shows red (split into quartiles), bottom shows green.
If it's doing linear properly, it should be 1/4 black, 1/4 25% grey, 1/4 50% grey, 1/4 75% grey. Obviously with the red channel, it's not accomplishing that - most of it is 25% grey, there's a fair amount of 50% grey, there's almost no 75% grey at all. (it's rounding down - so black = 0~24%, 25% grey = 25~49%, 50% grey = 50~74%, 75% grey = 75~100% from the texture)

Red doesn't show up so great in jpg, but this is what the channels themselves look like (using r,0,0 and 0,g,0) / accidentally swapped them around.

It seems like green ranges 0 to 1, while red only ranges 0.2 to 0.6 or so.

What I'd expected from mode=linear is a direct correspondence from texture r,g,b to a linear [0,1] value in each channel with 1 corresponding to 255 on that channel.

Mr Whippy · Apr 7, 2011

tga or dds?

Stereo · Apr 7, 2011

Using tga, should find a gimp plugin to handle dds files.

QuadCoreMax · Apr 7, 2011

@stereo

which shader you're using ?

About dds vs tga, I've experienced some differences, with dds, you can compile to higher resolution without any issue...

P.S.: Stereo you could give a try at those shaders, since you know exactly what you're doing when Cg scripting :

http://developer.amd.com/gpu/radeon/pages/RadeonSDKSamplesDocuments.aspx#opengl

Parallax mapping could be awesome, along with the displacement & water shader. Note that they have the same file extension as we use in Racer...

Stereo · Apr 7, 2011

In that case, it's standard_v/f, with one additional line in standard_f (and mode=linear in the shd)

Code:

float4 baseCol=tex2D(baseMap,IN.tc0);
baseCol.gb = float2(0,0);

To replace green/blue channels with 0, just to see what is being done with red. Switched up with baseCol.rg and baseCol.rb to find the other 2 channels.

QuadCoreMax · Apr 7, 2011

idk why Racer uses mode=linear for some shaders which use a greyscale texture as a detail map for example. Bump, normal & detail maps are managed thru their rgb channels & their binormal, normal & tangent vectors really....

Mr Whippy · Apr 7, 2011

I guess it's used as linear, so that 128 is half as intense, to the shader, as 255. So for a shininess amount, you can say half, and it's half, rather than some gamma function of 128 vs 255

Ultimately for me, I tweak the map to get the result I want anyway, so the only real important linear mode map is normal maps where the colours ARE important to be mathematically right, rather than perceptionally adjusted to be right

Dave

QuadCoreMax · Apr 10, 2011

camsinny said:
...Sure, they add that sense of motion and fluidity but more of the time they'll be done badly and induce some sort of motion sickness.

yeah, motion sickness is a recurrent problem with TKC, but I think it comes from a bad configuration of the TKC, so when you set keyframes, you should check their numbers along the track distance & take into account the maximal velocity of the car to avoid too 'fast' transitions.

Hm, it's almost an art 'keyframing' cams & needs some practice ; I have been working 5/6 hours before getting something that is convincing enough !