Racer v0.8.32 released!

[Ruud]

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

 

[Mr Whippy]

I'm stomping ahead with some content. In that regard Racer is ok now... it's closer than it's been for a long time anyway.

I don't think there will be any big change in gfx style now really. At least the underlying method feels good and solid.

Main thing I'm still thinking with my content is how much to use the blend materials to get nice transitions from edges into grass or whatever... hmmmm...


I think Ruud and co are busy hence the lack of updates. Ultimately Racer is a commercial entity now wrapped up in Cruden's needs, so it makes sense that that will be developed first.
The plus side is that if they are really busy, there is a good chance that developments, features or bug-fixes during this busy time will work their way into the free version...

All good stuff really. I still argue that the biggest issue is content for Racer and WE can be doing something about that. The standards for gfx have kinda re-settled now so there is nothing stopping people getting content made.
Worst case when Racer is finalised things might change a bit more, but I don't think they are going to change that much now that it'll mean back to the drawing board on whole areas of a track or car... it might just be shader/texture tweaks etc...

Dave

 

[MitchVL]

Yes, Racer has lots of new cool features now, just wait and see ! I think you all will be pleasantly surprised ..

 

[KS95]

Mmm you're getting me excited.. (ignore the innuendo)

Hope we won't have to wait much longer!

 

[Mr Whippy]

I have a feeling that there will be some nice stuff in this update... mmmm...

Traffic will be in I suspect, and maybe more references in the scripting for controlling cars

Dave

 

[Alex Forbin]

This is the reason Racer has taken 10 years to get this far.

Alex Forbin

 

[QuadCoreMax]

That gives us some more time to test 'hidden' stuff or just create more solid stuff for upcoming future !

So, did anyone for example played with skin tracks & color grading ? Haaa, in Shift 2, they were wondering why the atmosphere looks so great, lol, I told them, we here, had that feature way before ....

I've tested it & it's great ! Maybe the same for AI cars, where we would use 'custom' liveries when 'AI racing'...

Ok, here's another tip, if you have some 'issues' in smoothing curves/AI splines for your tracks :

Condition

Your road should always have the same nb. of vertices on both border edges to make a quick & clean job in Tracked when A pressing. So delete any vertex which hasn't no 'corresponding' vertex on the other side/edge border. Eventually 'filter' the track/road when creating those splines. Use Tracked from lower versions.

Usage

Ingame, hold Shift + F to go far enough to the end portion of your track. Type 'ai learn on' & drive 1 round (a good one without touching track borders too much). Once done, re-hold Shift + F (for quick setup) & approach the start line just behind & type 'ai smooth 10'. After that, type 'ai learn save' & finally 'ai learn off'.

Escape track & re-enter it, type F3 (bestline for debugging purposes) & visually check the whole, the bestline should interpolate colors (green - red) depending on your drive when AI learning.

Once you're satisfied, duplicate the generated ini file & named it 'default.ini' for other cars that never drove on the current track.

Hope will help...

 

[Mr Whippy]

Are track skins in?

I'll have to read how they work. I'm generally not happy with some systems in place. Ruud mentioned having geometry.ini, and perhaps then making it so any supplementary geometry.ini files (ie, geometry001.ini 002.ini 003.ini...) would be loaded too.

This means you can have your base track, and then swap in different configs of movables, objects, trees, whatever, by just adding in extra files.

That means maintenance is simple. The alternative is to have to edit the file and have many versions with subtly different details to represent the combinations you might want. So you duplicate LOADS of information.

Duplication = inefficient.

My 2p. Skins are ok, but lets allow loading of all geometry*.ini files... or maybe even have a load list in special.ini that lists the files we want to load, or maybe have fragments of geometry.ini in the skins folders that are loaded as well as the base geometry.ini file contents in the root?!

Hmmm

Dave

 

[DavidI]

Yes, Racer has lots of new cool features now, just wait and see ! I think you all will be pleasantly surprised ..

Methinks dumbstruck will be more like it...

I'm sorry but that's too vague; We want names named, dates err... named, a countdown timer, lavish preview movies & screenies etc etc.


Ok, I'd settle for an upcoming feature list & some suitable screenies.

 

[Christopher Junkins]

as of right now I don't see anyone in the lobby for multi player... are most of the people using another server besides the default one?

Also, I notice that the ai cars are not able to go above 30kph or even get out of 1st gear. I've looked at the racer.ini and don't see any issue(s) other than the short look ahead distance, so I fixed it to 50.0 and it still didn't make em do anything.

 

[camsinny]

If there's no AI line recorded for the track the AI cars will drive the course at 40km/h.
I'm hoping that when traffic comes the AI will become smarter and we'll be able to set a line per track, not per car.

 

[Christopher Junkins]

Actually I think I stumbled upon a temp fix... up the scale_velocity in racer.ini up to 1.25 or so and they drive pretty nicely... though they don't even see you and will drive right under you to get their corner lol.

 

[Ruud]

If there's no AI line recorded for the track the AI cars will drive the course at 40km/h.
I'm hoping that when traffic comes the AI will become smarter and we'll be able to set a line per track, not per car.

Actually, that is more or less possible; see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/newtrack.htm#default_ai
The default.ini AI line can be used by all cars, scaling the max velocity in car.ini. So you drive a default AI line with an average car, then use that line for all cars that don't have a specific AI line...

 

[KS95]

Oh my god, he lives!

 

[QuadCoreMax]

I've tested 'crossing' splines yesterday that means just a basic quad at the crossing, correctly vertex snapped/merged & the AI goes crazy, not the first time but the second time you pass thru it. Have tested on a simple 8 looking closed track. Please, make it for us available, I'm actually doing some procedural 'city' modeling with lots of crossings & I'm actually wanting to AI spline the big cities I'm procedurally constructing.

A temp solution (dirty one) would be the overlapping of "both" middle quads in a 8 track & see what happens, unfortunately I haven't tested, still I believe 'flickering/Z-fighting' will occur on those polys/splines...

@Dave

And what if you script the whole ? You could create an array of 'hardcoded' positions & apply them randomly for example for each category you've set. That means a tree would move along the tree array positions ONLY & the rest do the same, depending on the type of each object.

For building & stuff, I would 'bake' the whole detail into the textures...& assign windows to 'traditional' Racer shader instead & apply some emissive for 'virtualizing' illuminated night buildings.

Anyways, I'm focusing more how to 'smartly' build up a 'real town' like GTA 4 / NFS Carbon / Mafia 2 etc...& from first testings, it looks great & incredibly fast to 'generate'. More details soon...

Watch this space !!

 

[camsinny]

Actually, that is more or less possible; see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/newtrack.htm#default_ai
The default.ini AI line can be used by all cars, scaling the max velocity in car.ini. So you drive a default AI line with an average car, then use that line for all cars that don't have a specific AI line...

But the cars still go 40km/h no?
I know carlswood has a default.ini but I know the 458 went 40km/h (or at least SLOW) until I recorded a custom line for it, no matter what speed was recorded in the default.ini.

I've tested 'crossing' splines yesterday that means just a basic quad at the crossing, correctly vertex snapped/merged & the AI goes crazy, not the first time but the second time you pass thru it. Have tested on a simple 8 looking closed track. Please, make it for us available, I'm actually doing some procedural 'city' modeling with lots of crossings & I'm actually wanting to AI spline the big cities I'm procedurally constructing.

A temp solution (dirty one) would be the overlapping of "both" middle quads in a 8 track & see what happens, unfortunately I haven't tested, still I believe 'flickering/Z-fighting' will occur on those polys/splines...

@Dave

And what if you script the whole ? You could create an array of 'hardcoded' positions & apply them randomly for example for each category you've set. That means a tree would move along the tree array positions ONLY & the rest do the same, depending on the type of each object.

For building & stuff, I would 'bake' the whole detail into the textures...& assign windows to 'traditional' Racer shader instead & apply some emissive for 'virtualizing' illuminated night buildings.

Anyways, I'm focusing more how to 'smartly' build up a 'real town' like GTA 4 / NFS Carbon / Mafia 2 etc...& from first testings, it looks great & incredibly fast to 'generate'. More details soon...

Watch this space !!

I think the traffic that's coming will come in handy for your city simulation, in the meantime you could make your lines in 3d and use the "use_mesh_hits=1" option and that should work for crossing splines. That way you could make the second crossing on your figure 8 100m underneath your first line and the AI shouldn't get confused...

 

[MitchVL]

Traffic ?? wait for the next release i say !

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Yay Mitch & Ruud !!

Hmm Cam, the use_mesh_hits purpose is to drive on polys instead on splines (I thought). My idea, now that I can seed & generate real huge cities maps in seconds, is to AI spline the whole & surely overlap/intersect splines on crossings on a single quad (or 2x poly face).

What I don't get in your explanations, since the road has a surface property set in Tracked & applying some AI splines to it, if you spline the road 'without' intersecting/merging the crossing, the car will collide by default in 1 of the cases (like my example on a 8 track) ?

Haven't done the test, but I'm almost sure about this.

+ also there is some 'implicit' conditions on creating AI crossing splines, because of the interpolation it needs to actually make a nice rounded left/right turn with a certain curvature...

Really interesting this traffic idea, from other played games we can understand a lot & say what's best & what should be avoid, theoretically this new feature with animated generics could potentially bring 'full chaos' in our maps...

 

[Christopher Junkins]

I do say though, this AI that we have currently needs working on fairly badly. I mean it works to a degree with tweaks, but the AI doesn't see the player's car and just rams him right off in going around their own bends... unless it's been coded to knock your ass off the track every time? lol. :hammer:

 

[Ruud]

But the cars still go 40km/h no?
I know carlswood has a default.ini but I know the 458 went 40km/h (or at least SLOW) until I recorded a custom line for it, no matter what speed was recorded in the default.ini.

No, in car.ini, set ai.max_velocity to something bigger than 50. It should increase it's speed; what it does really is:
- normalize the default.ini velocties
- multiply all velocities by ai.max_velocity
So max_velocity is really the top speed that the car will (attempt to) drive when using default.ini.

I think the traffic that's coming will come in handy for your city simulation, in the meantime you could make your lines in 3d and use the "use_mesh_hits=1" option and that should work for crossing splines. That way you could make the second crossing on your figure 8 100m underneath your first line and the AI shouldn't get confused...

Crossing splines is really a no go - Racer will at best alternately see one spline quad, then the other. We got that a few weeks ago when spline sections overlapped at start/finish and it would see the first (s/f) and overlapping spline sections randomly.

 

[Ruud]

Yay Mitch & Ruud !!

Hmm Cam, the use_mesh_hits purpose is to drive on polys instead on splines (I thought). My idea, now that I can seed & generate real huge cities maps in seconds, is to AI spline the whole & surely overlap/intersect splines on crossings on a single quad (or 2x poly face).

Traffic in v0.8.33 looks like this (traffic.ini in the track dir):

waypoints
{
  count=1321
  waypoint0
  {
    pos=41.132526 0.000000 -77.610931
    forward=1
    left=-1
    right=-1
    flags=0
    velocity=13
  }
  waypoint1
  {
    pos=53.025162 0.000001 -77.171837
    forward=2
    left=-1
    right=-1
    flags=0
    velocity=13
  }
  waypoint2
  {
    pos=72.930321 0.000171 -80.560707
    forward=-1
    left=-1
    right=3
    flags=0
    velocity=13
  }

Much nicer than trying splines. The problem is a bit that the velocity is set per waypoint. Also making turns requires you to add a few waypoints in the turn.