VW Scirocco race simulator

[nicolas]

I didn't have time to do more modelling, and certainly not to install & port to TV3D...

But here's a screenshot from the current model version in Milkshape:



If you look closely, you can see a road sign.

In the distance, you see 2D hills which help in making the transition from 3D world to skydome.

Except for (commercial) signs and clouds, every texture is still drawn by hand instead of using photographic material. That is mainly because during the day, I don't have time to work with a camera and stuff, but I do have time to draw textures by hand in paint.net using the mouse. A struggle, but anyway.

[nicolas]

I've got VB6 and TV3D up and running now. I still need to export the (unfinished) track model to TV3D and load it into the project before I can show the result rendered in TV3D.

[nicolas]

I've got a TVM exporter working. I do need to rotate my model XYZ 90 0 0 in milkshape however, otherwise it is not facing correctly in modelview.

I've played around with modelview a bit; it looks like the expoert is perfect.

Next step: loading it into my own project. Not for today.



*rendered in modelview, no shader used*

I used bilinear filtering because trilinear and up made the distant textures all blurrry (no DOF used). As if he wasn't using enough mipmaps or something? Bilinear looks nice.

[Zaknafein]

Looks like that went well! Glad to hear it.

About filtering... When you view textures at a grazing angle like you do in a racing game, traditional linear filtering is usually not enough. You'll need to either tweak the LOD bias in the engine (such that lower MIP levels are used farther away or never), or use anisotropic filtering and suffer some performance loss. Anisotropic also has a detail setting (usually called the "number of taps"), high is better but also slower.

[nicolas]

OK, I'll try the more advanced settings when I load it into my project (apparently you can't set these settings in Modelview).

But that won't be the first thing I'll do as I need to learn everything first. Will be OK, it doesn't look that much different from 3DState.

[nicolas]

btw, is there an easy/elegant way of adding shadows (in vb6) using TV3D? That would add to the scene nicely. I didn't find clear information about it (maybe I'm looking in the wrong places) and I don't have shadows experience from 3DState.

[nicolas]

OK I've got the model loaded into my project, I get physics interactions with it, I even get shadows. Even low FPS when using shadows. (I'd need to check some rendering settings).

Anyway, what I don't get is textures. The reason is simple: I had no idea how to make the call(s) as my TVM circuit mesh uses many textures and loads of groups. In Milkshape these were spread over different groups, but I don't know whether these groups are kept in TVM format.

Anyway, how to load many textures for one mesh containing many groups? ModelView could do it, but again I can't find it in the documentation.

I can load a single texture to one group of the mesh and also to the complete mesh (using -1 as group identifier), but not multiple textures to multiple groups of the same mesh in an elegant way (read: not stating for 100 groups explicitly which texture they should have)...

I also learned that I'd need to regroup my circuit to create less groups. I can only do this when the model is completed. So in the mean time, I'd like to know an elegant way of loading all textures to a tvm mesh.

[nicolas]

I was analysing some examples, and I think / hope that this code will do the trick:

TVMesh Circuit = Scene.CreateMeshBuilder("circuitbuilder");
Circuit.LoadTVM("circuit.tvm", true, true);

the textures are in the \textures folder, so that should be ok. If not, I'll add a searchfolder.

I'll try it tonight!

I still need to reduce the number of groups when the model is finished, but at least this will give me a start.

[nicolas]

It works!

Nest: finding the rendering options.

[nicolas]

I've found all rendering options, I got the camera to chase the car, everything fine.

Well, except for the vehicle physics; Main problems are:

-car behaviour is really bad, can't tweak it right
-car jumps over certain obstacles on the tarmac that simply aren't there in the 3D model 
-sometimes the car doesn't want to accelerate anymore. Usually followed by FPS drop, then back to normal
-on parts of the track, the FPS goes to 1 or 2 even though they're graphically light. I suspect the physics engine is at fault.

Should I hope on getting this solved with Newton Physics, or write my own car physics?

[nicolas]

I've tried making simply vehicle dynamics using standard (non-vehicle) Newton commands. The FPS seems to be OK (though sometimes it is 30 instead of 60...), but I still have the problem of the physics detecting ridges on my road surface which aren't there in the 3D model as made in Milkshape...

Any ideas? I wouldn't like to have to program the car-terrain interaction in its entirerty from scratch...

[Hypnotron]

Is your entire race track and trees and signs and stadium a single mesh with a ton of groups?  If so, that's not good.  Try breaking it up into many separate models.

[nicolas]

about 40 groups in total. But even when I load the tarmac as a separate mesh and make only the tarmac a physics object, it still makes bumps on some polygon edges that are as far as I know perfect in milkshape...

Anyway, I'm writing my own physics now in VB6 using standard TV mesh and collision commands, without using any Newton physics. Quite some work, but anyway.

[nicolas]

I've found errors in the 3D model. I've solved them, and now the physics works without FPS drops, jumps and the like.

Next: getting the car to behave realistically. The main issue at the moment is that the wheels sometimes spin in place after they got up to a high rpm. Can't find the cause...

[sciophyte]

if you are using newton, did you create physics materials to apply to your meshes?

[nicolas]

Yes, I've adapted the VB6 Vehicle starter kit code.

I must say that the code isn't entirely clear to me.

For the suspension, you've got suspension height, damping and springiness. All clear. Not clear what suspension length does.

For the engine, you've got the "power", being the torque released on the driven wheels, clear. (though incorrect in the example, as you'd have one engine per driven wheel ).

Then you've got a sideslipcoefficient and maxlongslide value. Not so clear to me.

Finally there's the physics materials. On the one hand, you've got the material of your terrain, on the other hand the interaction between car (chassis) and terrain. It's not clear to me which friction I need to change in order to change the behaviour of the car. The terrain or the car-terrain interaction? Static or dynamic friction?

Finally, all of these do not seem to solve the problem of the wheels that sometimes spin uncontrollably. The code has a huge negative damping of the wheen torque when off the throttle, yet still they sometimes keep spinning.

Is there documentation on Newton (the physics engine, not the man ) anywhere?

Other than these issues it's starting to work nicely now: constant 60FPS. And that's with too many groups on an old PC. Can't do shadows on the whole terrain though on this PC, as it causes FPS to drop to 17.

[nicolas]

I'm still looking for answers/documentation about the above points.

As for a wheel somemtimes spinning uncontrollably, maybe I could add some code that actively limits the angular velocity of the wheels? Don't know whether that would really help the "not listening to the throttle anymore" part though...

[nicolas]

First gameplay footage! Still in the very earliest stages of development, so don't judge me on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut9zMAEHE9k

And some screenshots:







The car is the first 3D car I've ever modeled. Dont kill me.

[nicolas]

The screenshots are dated already . I've remade the straw blocks such that they are less blocky (72 polygons each now), and with a texture based on photographic material. They look niiiiice compared to the earlier ones.

[nicolas]

The grass texture is also replaced with photographic material and the transition with the curbs is improved.