Anyone Racer folks wanna work on a modern open source sim?

[MJQT]

Little while ago, I got intrigued about whether a free and open source driving/racing sim is feasible. See this post:

Open source community sim?

TL;DR A modern open-source racing simulator would be great. Maybe we in the community should do it! But maybe it’s just not feasible. This post has been brewing in my head for a few weeks now. Would love to hear any thoughts and responses people have! The positives Look at what people like...

www.racedepartment.com

I then became aware of Racer, because it was at one time open-source, and still has a fair amount of documentation of its internals online. So I've been poking around this forum a little, even though I don't have the game, and sounds like it doesn't really work anymore.

Anyway, I've seen several comments from people who were big into Racer (like @Mr Whippy for example) discussing whether bits and bobs from Racer could be repurposed into something modern. Would anyone here possibly be up to work collectively on that?

As I explained in the post linked above, I have few relevant skills or experience (and not very much time, for now) – although I'd do whatever I could to help out. However, there are definitely some options out there to use a base for an open source, free sim project. Best one might be Project Chrono, which has 3D rendering capability and a seemingly very solid vehicle physics simulator module. You'd have to fork it, tweak it for real-time simulation, and add on some steering controls, FFB, UI, and AI – not an insignificant task, don't get me wrong! However, seems more doable than ground-up custom vehicle physics for Unity or Unreal or Godot or Panda3D. I suppose you could also mod Project Chrono for vehicle physics into any of those engines (esp. the open source ones).

Project Chrono: Overview of vehicle modeling and simulation

Project Chrono: Chrono::Vehicle Reference Manual

Thoughts?

 

[Harey]

Racer does indeed still work, though it has always been a little picky when it comes to your computer specs (mostly down to wanting an external graphics card from Nvidia or AMD). Some of that issue I believe stems from the reality that Racer is probably the oldest driving sim out there currently. That is also where some of its limitations come from as well.

The only issue I really specifically recall, mostly because I found it out when converting Bumper's Model T to Racer, is that with scripts I can control the gas and brake pedal but strangely not the clutch. I do remember Whippy pointing other things out as well but can't recall what it was.

A new version of Racer (basically) based on what you have linked would be interesting. I do have some skills that could be of assistance, however, not the time really. I always felt that Whippy was kinda the expert with car physics and things like that.

I would say your idea is possible the issue may be getting enough help on it really. As for the 3d engine there are pros and cons to either way, a pro to creating your own 3d engine would be that it will be custom designed for your own needs. The con would be its not exactly an easy task to create such a thing. Not sure how would hard it would be to get the physics engine and 3d engines to work together if you went with a free 3d engine though.

 

[Mr Whippy]

There is a lot of work in doing this sort of thing.

Ruud originally invested loads of time in stuff like networking, sounds, graphics engine, and tools to get work into Racer, alongside all the physics and car specific stuff.

Systems like Unity3D and Unreal do all the former work now, and a lot of the latter, so you can work just on your specific bit.
I know Ruud/Cruden now use Unity3D for a lot of their work, and I assume lots of the coding/time now goes into making their motion simulators and specific high end physics needs interact with Unity3D.
I bet Ruud spends about five times more time now doing physics and stuff, and that the core needs of the business are met at much lower cost... than when he was having to deal with rendering GFX and dealing with audio and networking etc... especially graphics... I know in the 10 years Racer was changing a lot from 2001-2012, he went properly through shader model 1, 2 and then into 3 (iirc)


From what I've read, if you make something entirely for free inside say Unreal Engine, then it can be free. So if you make a Free Racer, and then the community makes cars that work inside it, then it can all be free.

As long as the main program steers away from promoting copyright infringement, and just has some great fictional content tracks/cars etc, and then great tools to help people make their own, then you should be fine.

That is a bit what the original rFactor did and that was hugely popular, despite the core engine being a commercial project.


I've been meaning to just put one of my Racer cars and tracks through Unreal Engine and just drive around and 'get things started' so to speak... but I've had very little time in recent years due to having started a family, lockdown and so on.

It's definitely something I'm still really interested in though.


I think doing a formula type car, a rally type car, and a road sports car, gets interest from the widest audience for physics help, and then a race track, a road track, and a rally course (gravel/off-road).

All the GFX, audio, networking, etc etc, are all done already... so it really is a case of just making three cars and three tracks that are really high fidelity and going from there with help from others to enhance things.



Easier said than done eh

 

[MJQT]

Nice to hear from you!

Systems like Unity3D and Unreal do all the former work now, and a lot of the latter, so you can work just on your specific bit.
I know Ruud/Cruden now use Unity3D for a lot of their work, and I assume lots of the coding/time now goes into making their motion simulators and specific high end physics needs interact with Unity3D.

Yeah, this must be a massive time saver. I'm a total noob when it comes to game dev, but I do wonder whether it would be easier to create and integrate custom vehicle physics in a MIT-licensed game engine (e.g. Torque3D, which BeamNG uses) where you can see and modify the source code without fear. Then again, it might be no harder to just use APIs etc. from Unity or Unreal. Who knows... (I don't )

I've been meaning to just put one of my Racer cars and tracks through Unreal Engine and just drive around and 'get things started' so to speak... but I've had very little time in recent years due to having started a family, lockdown and so on.

It's definitely something I'm still really interested in though.

Wait, I thought if you did sim racing you weren't allowed to have a life? I'm joking, of course. Congrats on the family and best of luck with everything else in your life!

I think doing a formula type car, a rally type car, and a road sports car, gets interest from the widest audience for physics help, and then a race track, a road track, and a rally course (gravel/off-road).

All the GFX, audio, networking, etc etc, are all done already... so it really is a case of just making three cars and three tracks that are really high fidelity and going from there with help from others to enhance things.

This seems like the best (and most manageable and realistic) approach. Start small, use a off-the-shelf engine to handle most of the basics, and then create just enough content to show off what the sim is capable of.