StuntRace Editor now has lightmapping!!
Community Forums/Graphic Chat/StuntRace Editor now has lightmapping!!
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| At last after putting it off for ages I've added lightmapping to my SRX Track Editor, and boy does it help ground the track and scenery objects. It's not complex, just a simple top-down lightmap, but it's generated in the editor so now the entire track-building process can be done in one place, from empty space to lightmapped AI-pathed track. Now just got the rest of the game to complete....   |
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| Beautiful. |
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| Excellent - I thought this great project of yours was dead, as we hadn't heard anything in eons! Glad to see it alive and kicking! :) |
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| very nice and keep good work up :) |
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| Looks really good, reminds me of the desert in GTA San Andreas. |
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| Nice. A simple blur to reduce the jaggies would look even better though. |
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| "A simple blur to reduce the jaggies would look even better though." Yeah I suppose I could try that - the LM is only a 1024x1024 texture and it's covering a huge area (wthout the car present it's difficult to tell, but the track is wide enough for about 8 or 10 vehicles side by side). I might add an option to make a 2048 lightmap also if you've got the VRAM. |
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| It's making things more realistic (one can only imagine the flatness of the scene without those shadows). The second screenshot almost feels like there's some HDR at those peaks. Oh, and I second the motion of implementing blur :) |
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| "The second screenshot almost feels like there's some HDR at those peaks." Yeah there is a sun flare sprite thing there, although that's the only effect that the editor shows - in the game it's using the Fastlib sun-rays effect also so you get beams of light cast around, which looks quite nice. |
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| Well, if anything, it looks like I wonna play it! :o))) Congrats, excellent snapshots! |
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| Very visually stunning, looking great, good to see it is still progressing. |
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| Thanks, it's still progressing (slowly)!! I'm currently working on the AI system so the cars can actually have an interesting race rather than just blasting the player into the weeds, which is what they do at the moment - for some reason a simple pathfollowing AI system has led to opponents that can lap the track faster than I can (and I've been playing it for about 10 years now) despite them using the exact same physics and control system....they even opposite-lock power-slide around the corners showing off. I'm trying to build a proximity system and a sort of "mood" system so they can change line to overtake and block, and also react over a longer period of time depending upon how they've been doing in the race, so if they get overtaken or hit etc.. then they get more aggressive and defensive, and if they're out in front then they get a bit relaxed and more likely to make mistakes. Last night I finally got it sort of working and watched as for the first time one semi-intelligent AI car outbraked another one into the corner banking and got the inside line and passed while the other had to go wide to give him space. My wife says it's very sad that I was cheering him on!! |
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| Looks good, Sounds even better. When the AI continues to progress like this then call me up in 4 weeks, I need somebody to fill out my tax declaration form. |
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| it would be cooler if the track actually went through one of the columns perhaps to use the columns as a visual obstacle. just a thought. looks nice overall |
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| Yes I've already got plans for stuff like that but more complex track layouts need to wait until the AI is working properly. Also I need to figure out how I can detect Tokamak collisions with different parts of the static collision mesh - ie. allow the cars to drive on the track but detect when they've hit some of the scenery. Currently it seems you can have only one static collision mesh, but it looks like it may be possible to add multiple materials. |
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| Still looking fantastic Vorderman, hows it going ? |
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| Very nice! |
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| This looks too sweet. Is it B3D or Max? |
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| It's Blitz3D, now using FastLibs to get the realtime shadows, bloom and texture filtering, FastText for text(!) and FastImage for the frontend rendering etc... |
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| Any updates Vorderman? |
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| Yeah, still working on it, on and off. Currently redoing the main vehicle as I've never really liked the old ones, so it's lacking the speedo/tacho dials and engine/exhausts at the moment as it's still WIP. However I much prefer this open space-frame look so you can see through the car to track below. The front suspension is functional now so the double-wishbones move as the wheels bounce, which adds a nice sense of the vehicle being linked to the track.    Last edited 2011 |
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| looks good carol |
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| WOW Impressive....Stunt Racer 2011? :) |
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| End the torment, man. Just tell me where to mail the cheque. |
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| :) working as fast as I can... trouble is, the more complex the game gets, the more things that really need doing stack up... - I still don't have a front-end that I like, despite numerous attempts. - still haven't sorted the bug where hitting a vertical wall can force the front wheels' tokamak objects through it. - keyboard controls still suck. - still don't have an engine sound that I like, and that's a key thing in a racing game. On the plus side... - AI is really working well - they slipstream, move out to overtake, powerslide the cars etc.., and are good enough to easily beat me in a race at their normal settings. |
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| Cool. I like the depth of view effect... :) Very nice. |
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| - still don't have an engine sound that I like, and that's a key thing in a racing game. Yeah about that, I suggest you have multiple samples for ranges of velocity, instead of one single sample that you stretch in all the range the player is capable of accelerating. You need to find three different sounds, all from the same car, but at different speeds (if you want I can help you with that). You can crossfade them depending on the velocity of the player. Last edited 2011 |
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| I've got some test sounds borrowed from some old games, and the best ones have an ON throttle and an OFF throttle sound, that seems to work pretty well. I tried with various sounds going up and down the rev range, the problem was that you need to have a whole load of sounds playing at once and for some reason after a few seconds play some of the sound channels would go silent. If you have some royalty free / your own creation sounds that I can use that would be fantastic. |
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| Stunt Car Racer was just about my favorite game ever on the Amiga 500 - it was close call between SCR, Speedball 2000 and Pinball Dreams. Speedball 2000, I was too slow finding out that the Bitmap Bros released this on XBox - it's no longer available :( But this "port" of stunt car racer looks awesome. If it plays anything like the original then you've got a sale from me :) Looks awesome. An xbox live version of this would be great - the multiplayer (null modem cable on Amiga LOL was fantastic) would be even better. I'm guessing two cars on the track was probably pushing the Amiga pretty hard, could you imagine this game with 4 or 8 players on the track? It would be mayhem and heaps of fun - esp. if you have a drink :) Use to love playing this game and seeing how progressively worse I got as more and more drinks went down :D Pretty juvenile I know ;) Last edited 2011 |
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| Glad you like what you're seeing - currently it has the capacity for up to 8 vehicles on the track. I've tested it over a LAN with 2 player vehicles, and it can currently do 2-player splitscreen, so far I've only had full 8-vehicle races with the AI controlling 7. I think I've FINALLY sorted the issue with the car's wheels being pushed through vertical walls in a really fast crash - in my tests if I add 4 extra polygons to the collision behind the vertical, with each poly being set back a little further, then the car successfully bounces off the wall even when at full speed and full boost. It's a bit of a bodge, but I'm completely out of ideas apart from this one, so if it works then I'm happy. Now I just need get my track editor auto-building the mesh in this way, and fingers crossed that will be the end of the car being stuck in the wall. Currently got it making one extra poly (the untextured one) and on the wrong side atm so I can see what it's doing.  Last edited 2011 |
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| Another new development : instead of loading a differently coloured texture for each vehicle it's now updating the UVs for the rollcage and wheels for each car so they can all have different colours with only 1 texture in memory. Here's 8 of the new WIP vehicles coloured and on the start line, the black one looks really evil:  |
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| I wouldn't normally suggest synthesised engine sounds, but listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic750lQPWMo It's by DrPetter (the sfxr guy) and he explains the sound system under the video. |
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| But this "port" of stunt car racer looks awesome. If it plays anything like the original then you've got a sale from me :) Looks awesome. ditto. Looking pretty awesome! I'm volunteering as a beta tester, although from the screenshots I think I'm too late. |
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| The 8 player LAN and other pics looks great Vorderman. My hand is up in the air to play test this for you at any stage :D |
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| The synthesised engine sounds are really quite good in that video Blitzsupport - the description is not too revealing though, and i've no idea where to even start writing such as system. |
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Now sporting a front-mounted v8: |
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| looks cool i like it |
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| Getting back into this now, so experimenting with the FastExt fogging modes to get a bit more of a desert atmosphere. I need to change the skybox though as it has trees all over it. The glitchy black rectangles in the first screenshot are the drop-chains that need remapping.   Last edited 2011 |
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Created a new desert skybox and the effect is much nicer.   And an overview of my first track, at the moment called "Big Ramp" :)  |
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| Please stop torturing us.... :o) |
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| ...if only I had a game that was good enough shape even for a demo!! |
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| Vorderman, Like most of the forum, been tracking this one for a long time - does seem to be getting better each time you pick it up. As Grisu said, please stop the torture!!! Anyway - know how hard these things are to finish, but wishing you all the best in your endeavors! |
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| Another update, this time some improvement to the track editor - I thought that the track meshes themselves are looking a bit plain and boring, and seeing nearly half the screen is filled with tarmac it might be a good idea to add some interest to it, so I've started getting the editor auto-generating dirt / skidmark overlays. Currently it's mapping only a single texture centred across the whole track, next step is to get it selecting from a t-page of a variety of overlays and let the user offset the skids so that a darker racing line can be created around the track. Might try adding some other overays also, such as cracks in the track.  Last edited 2011 Last edited 2011 |
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| Looks great! Tiny feature request: Could you please at thinner track pieces to the editor too? normal (4 lanes): ======= ======= ======= ======= thin (only 2 lanes, you would need also 2 exrta pieces ">-<" to make it look natural at the end and beginning): ======= ======= Might make the tracks even more interesting?! |
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| The editor can already do that, I haven't used it yet though. It's all dynamically built, no fixed or pre-made pieces are involved. In the editor you click on a segment of the mesh to select it, then you can adjust the various parameters in real time with the mouse and the editor rebuilds the whole track as you do this. You can adjust the yaw, pitch and roll angle of the segment, and also adjust the width and the segment length or make the segment a gap (the editor then adds in the end polys).  Last edited 2011 |
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| No idea if anyone is interested in these updates, but here's another one. Added particle / sprite weather - currently got rain and snow. Raindrops or snowblobs splat on the camera lens depending upon the vehicle's speed. The game also alters the loaded track textures so I can have a wet road , snowy road etc.., and it sets up the colours, lighting and fogging to match. I know its not very accurate that its raining and snowing in the desert but this goes back to when I first started this project and had tracks with muddy areas with less grip, so you could drift the car around. It was great fun so now I have an excuse to have lower-grip tracks again.   Last edited 2011 |
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| Dammit man, make it playable already! |
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| No idea if anyone is interested in these updates, but here's another one. Yes we are all very interested!! Oh - new pics look great too! Last edited 2011 |
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| I have four semi-serious words for you, Mr Vorderman: Vertical slice. Do it. That is all. :o) |
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| Looking ever better... ;) |
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| Glad you're still working on this, looking forward to playing it. |
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| Hi Vorderman, the screens looks very nice. I hope in the next time comes a playable demo. |
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| Hi Vorderman, I remember the original back in the Amiga days, and I played it for months back then :-) This looks like a cool updated version. It does look great. Hope you get to finish it. I'd buy it. Good luck Dave Last edited 2011 |
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| Yep, I'm looking forward to buying this if it's as playable as the Amiga version. I know porting to Xbox would be difficult, but I'm sure if you did it would be a great seller. Would be heaps of fun multiplayer, especially with 3+ on the track and the skinny sections of road :D Don't forget some mobile cranes around the track to lift the unfortunate drivers back when they fall off :D Looking awesome. |
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| Also, will there be people driving the cars that dont have invisibilty suits :-) lol to see the drivers in the cars would be the 'icing on the cake' for visuals for this game :p Last edited 2011 |
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| This is really looking very good, although you say there's lots you need to do, and things you're not happy with, Vorderman, it's clear just from the screenshots, that the time taken so far has been very well spent. Just a question, how is it for speed (i.e. processing/rendering framerates etc.) There's some screens that have particle effects up close, does this make much of a noticeable performance hit at all? |
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| Since I haven't said anything yet.... AMAZING! Don't know how you have managed to find this time, but nice job. One comment on the rain/snow/desert. It does happen, but not often. And when it does it's hard and often wind driven (at a slant). |
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| No idea if anyone is interested in these updates, but here's another one. Eagerly waiting in anticipation of your next update! I'm also an ex-stunt car racer fan, I might crank-up the old Amiga (its in the attic) and see if it'll still produce the stunt car racer goods. Easier to use an emulator, I know, but thats like, cheating! Last edited 2011 |
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| Beautiful screenshots! |
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| Hi Vorderman, Just a quick question, how hard do you think it would be to create a 'track' from co-ordinates imported from an external file? Still looking great, do you need a beta tester? I've XP on a variety of hardware (3 PC's & 3 laptops) & Windows 7 on my latest machine and a laptop. How is it going ? BlitzPlotter ;) Last edited 2011 |
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| When you say "creating a track from coords from an external file" I assume you mean loading a list of points for the track spline shape rather than a complete mesh from 3dsMax or a similar program? It should be easy enough - my track editor saves to a simple file, each track segment has a list of parameters that are saved - length of segment, roll angle, pitch angle, width etc..., so it just loads that and builds the track mesh from that data, nothing complex. The editor exports to b3d so as the game itself is just loading a b3d with child objects for things like start positions etc.. theoretically it could load a track built in an external modelling program. As for how its going - slowly, not done much recently due to being busy at work etc.., so thanks for the beta tester offer but it's not really ready for that yet :) I have done some quick tests yesterday with a new style of road texture, trying to get more variety into the track surface as you end up looking at that a lot, no real breakthroughs but it looks promising. Last edited 2011 |
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| Another big fan of Stunt Car Racer here. This looks awesome. |
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| @Vorderman, yep - thats what I was angling at, a list of positions for the spline of a track. I've written a program that extracts Latitude & Longitude from a GPS running watch I have. Then, the route you have ran is plotted using vertical towers, the height of which is determined by how far was travelled between the logged GPS points. The size of the plotted route is always the same to the user, what I mean is that a 6 mile route has a formula applied to the co-ordinates giving the same size representation as a 2 miles route, just with 3 times as many co-ordinates! I suppose the length of each segment as detailed within your track data file could be calculated dependant upon how far the co-ordinates are apart. There I go, presuming that this could be a possibility, when most folk would rather I wouldn't distract from your main task, finishing what already looks like a great rendition of Stunt Car Racer. So, will people be able to generate tracks externally by examining a typical data file related to the generation of a track - or will this information be envrypted within the main program? I just think it'd be cool to create race tracks from 'real' roads by using data from a GPS watch. Obviously I'd have to do a little character manipulation upon the data file that your B3D track generator would use to make a track - a lot of questions I know, keep up the good work ;) Last edited 2011 |
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| I don't know really - the game itself loads a single b3d file for the entire track (including track, scenery, waypoints, AI, start positions, cameras etc..) so really you need to produce a single b3d file that the game can read, which is what my editor does. No reason why the editor couldn't import a series of coords for the shape of the track though I suppose, although it's probably more complex to add than it sounds. |
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| How about a teaser movie. It looks stunning so far. How many years has it been in the making? |
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| +1 for a teaser movie :) |
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| Last time I tried to make a movie of the game running it ended up as either 800mb or really poor quality. If someone can tell me how I can get a recording of a good standard but a sensible filesize then I'll happily record some gameplay. |
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| You could use hypercam (http://de.hyperionics.com/hc/) to record an uncompressed movie and afterwards compress/scale it via SUPER (http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html) according to your needs. |
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| Hi Vorderman- Just wanted to add my name to the list of people who will buy this if/when it's completed! I've been working on my own version for my own fun- don't have the time to polish everything up though.. Likewise, I wasted many fun hours with the Amiga game. The graphics look beautiful here- love the car design. I'm thinking about what made the ugly/jerky Amiga game so addictive- there was a kind of reality in the interaction-suspension/ bouncing of the car that made you brace yourself for landings! Whereas there are a lot of great looking but boring racing games where the car just slides on the track like a puck - no flipping/ rolling/ disintegration or any motion that's difficult to program. Likewise with the increadibly dissapointing MS flight simulator where the entire ground interaction is simulated by the word "crash!" Good luck with completing the project, if the physics are as good as the graphics, it could be the most addictive game in history! |
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| I had stunt car racer in CGA on my pc. It ran smooth even on an 8086. It was one of my favorite games. As for sound try and get a sample of a V8, they sound lovely. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRU2lDCSfBU&feature=related Last edited 2011 |
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| Vordeman.. www.livestream.com - its app pro caster will LIVE stream your gameplay to the web, a free account with them cant hold 10 gig of video I think and a long video of good quality is very small thanks to their compression so you can record a ton of footage. I have been using it to record stuff for my site, like me drawing art, or playing retro games or playing clan matches etc. its good. although recently its started to have adverts every fifteen minutes so im moving away from it, but that aside, its perfect for you if you wana stream video with audio to the web without taking up any local diskspace. |
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| I agree in that V8s sound so awesome when they are revved hard !! :-) So looking forward to playing this one day Vorderman. Last edited 2011 |
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| So looking forward to playing this one day Vorderman. Agreed. I can't believe I missed the original first time round. Thankfully played it on an Amiga Emulator recently and it was fun. This looks like great fun. |
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