Univerb Gaming Studios

Making headway on the feature set. After meeting up with Herman and discussing the scope of my project it became very clear that I’ll need to taper functionality somewhat.

Exactly what will be in release #1 is not cast in stone just yet – the main goal would be to get some of you guys into closed alpha testing – to feedback on various aspects of the physics, sound and graphics – Beta is far off but let’s start somewhere.

So what awesome updates do I have on progress so far? Well AI is getting better, whether or not they make it into the game is unkown for now but as an update, they are learning a bit more – yes – they are actually learning 

To put things into perspective, originally AI had a hard time maintaining a good average of around 60kph around the twisty course. I’m up to about 110kph now. There is something satisfying about seeing progress like this – even if the bots aren’t truly human and require much input on which to base their decisions. ( wait – we do that too. )

In terms of rule system – not done yet, currently laps are infinite without a proper goal. These mini rulesets will be implimented as soon as I get a gap. Honestly – I’ve been fleshing out something far more important. Performance.

Previously average FPS was around 33 on my very slow dev machine ( I code like this on purpose… frustrating – but you get to see the bottlenecks very quickly ). Adding AI dropped this ( still needs investigation ).

I’ve now got the FPS up to a stable 65 – 68 on average with detail setting cranked high. That’s full anisotropic filtering, full detailed textures, lighting and 4x anti-aliasing running at 1440×900 on a slow AMD64, 256mb X1950 PRO and 1gb system memory. It’s alright I think

Don’t get too happy though ( or me ) – I’ve got a lot of scenery work to carry out and that number might be affected badly – let’s see. Keeping those polycounts as low as I can without making things look terrible.

It’s with much happiness (because it was a headache to find a suitable solution) that I share some great news with our followers. Basic implimentation of the networking layer is in and working!

I’ve managed to get LAN play on the go but not without hassle and would appreciate some comments from readers with a bit more experience on this topic. Testing carried out last night around 21:20 across two of my machines connected wireless-G. First tests reveal a bit of what can only be put down to ”lag” – something I’ve seen all too many times while playing Forza 3 online.

I’ve built in interpolation between clients on a basic level for just these sorts of situations but didn’t expect to have lag over local wireless connection. There again, dataspeeds are not near as much as wired connections.

Can anyone share their experience with lag in games over wireless lan (G standard) versus wired connections at home? In the end I don’t want to be chasing optimisations where they aren’t needed – if this is real lag and the norm, I can start focussing on other aspects of AVS 2.0

Positional tracking is completed (for now)!

There are a few ways to impliment this, most relying on triggers – I’ve devised a way to do this to get pin point accuracy without the pain of multiple triggers everywhere. If testing finds no bugs (none so far) I’ll share the idea and concept in the future after release of AVS 2.0

This means the system, dubbed ‘The Time Keeper’ is almost complete, currently tracking player positions and rankings, laps etc. I’ve got one or two other neat features I want to hand over to the class for managing but more about this in later updates.

It’s in! ABS code finished last night and very stable. I’ve incorporated a 4 channel 4 sensor type setup (read more about ABS here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system) and monitor pre-lockup charactersitcs - for example, rapid deceleration curves that don’t make logical sense.

With this new code in game, driving becomes a whole lot controllable in the sense that you maintain grip while braking which enables you to make use of the steering at the same time. In a non ABS equipped vehicle, slamming on brakes and steering is a very – very bad idea.

If you’re as passionate about motorsport as myself, you’ll more than likely enjoy the driving challenge with all assists off. Especially when using a vehicle like the 1969 Dodge Charger.

Focus shifted for a shortwhile towards an exciting addition to the end simulation. This addition is under wraps for now and details will be released when I’m further down the road on the development side.

The great news is I’ve got the lap timing system incorporated in game keeping track of current, previous and best laps. Sector timings will need a bit more investigation – not really a major focus point for the time being.

There are one or two kinks to work out in terms of positional tracking, I need a bit more time to think about the problem clearly. In the meantime to take a break from it I’ll spend some time polishing the ABS code – improvements required after a few hours gameplay testing recently.

After countless hours of watching tires being smoked on YouTube and some time behind the keyboard bashing away at code I’ve completed what I think is more than sufficient smoke for a mix of racing activities. Click on the image above and let me know what you think?

Tire smoke rendering difficulty is a bit under-rated in my books.

Spent last night trying to get this implimented in a realistic manner. I’ll need to tweak a bit of the code behind emitting the effects and perhaps limit a bit of detail because framerate takes a big hit with more than three vehicles on track.

The other feature bothering me at the moment is AI recovery after an accident. I’m just not happy resetting the vehicle back on track – I wan’t realistic recovery actions after a vehicle ploughs through a field or bounces off track. There are some good ways of doing this and will attempt one of my own ideas later this week.

In exciting news though, UGS Artist Toasteding and myself met up last night to discuss our game plan, stay tuned for some art updates from his side upcoming days.

You must have seen 1.0? Right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNodQ2FB1uE

I wrote that back incorporating Newton 1.x and TrueVision 6.3 – was a really cool project – had a lot of fun, but it sucked.

I present to you the thread documenting my progression on the Advanced Vehicle Simulator 2.0 project. I’ll be using this thread more so like a dev blog than anything else really, so feel free to comment, ask questions and I’ll do my very best to answer in good time.

- micro

DevLog March 24th 2010 –

Had a quick look at this spike last night, not something we can work with going forward.

A lot has changed in the car racing game genre in two years, the kind of graphical display, physics interactivity and general feel is far beyond what we had as requirements back then.

I’ll be looking at building a tech demo from the ground up while not on the E8 project – just to keep the skills sharp and enthusiasm there.

DevLog May 10th 2011 –

Some great news. A new tech demo is in the works. I’ve been coding away at a new semi framework to pick up where AVS left off.

DevLog May 17th 2011 –

It’s my birthday. I also battled a bit with some of the AI, still working on this but so much to get done.

On another note basic physics is working… let me re-phrase, not too basic at all really, true to life in many ways – vehicle performance is matching real life values.

There’s always a but however and this time the but is that the damn implementation relies on frame rate refreshes – meaning it’s coupled to FPS, simulation rates coupled to FPS is never a great idea (stepping differs from machine to machine).

For now I’ll hack around it, will need to find a fix and soon!

DevLog May 17th 2011 –

Still my birthday, no one has sung to me yet… this is good. I have however managed to give an example of the bezier implementation for AI paths. Still some bugs to work out but it’s progress. Huge thank you to the articles provide by Mr H. Tulleken (Senior Developer at I-Imagine Interactive)

DevLog May 25th 2011 –

We’ve done it! (The collective we) AI is in (first phase). 3 driver modes. They follow the track lines perfectly as expected.

DevLog May 30th 2011 –

I hope to have a small tech demo up soon with further advancement in the quest of super cool AI.

DevLog June 23rd 2011 –

Almost a month has passed. I am back with a massive update though.

Done list:

- Basic player HUD displaying current gear, speed, rpm and control systems are in place.
- Control systems that have been implemented are: automatic and manual transmission selection, traction control and stability control.
- Control systems that have not yet been implemented completely are: abs braking system and one or two other surprises.
- AVS is now making use of Pacejka’s “Magic Formula” for tyre simulations. If anyone want’s to read more on the subject, click here: http://ti.mb.fh-osnabrueck.de/adamshelp … e_home.htm
- Basic AI drivers have been added, working on an editor type system controlling some behaviour.
- Basic sound processing has been added. SOUND ENGINEER REQUIRED.
- Royalty free artwork has been used for all tests. ARTIST REQUIRED.
- NPC units are scriptable and can be added at any point to the game.

Stay tuned, progress shots will be showcased when the time is right.

DevLog June 27th 2011 –

Done list:

- Basic timing system introduced, very crued and no fancy lap system (still a thought at the moment, no immediate plan to incorporate yet – ideas welcome).
- Improved on the basic HUD with some g-force statistics (toggle on or off). Will be moved to it’s own telemetry screen.
- AI drivers are now not so basic, new behaviour controls available for scripting more on AI tempremant.
- Track layout has now become a whole lot easier full on track racing line editor complete with scriptable properties.

A meeting is required between Toasteding and myself this week so we can finalise specifications for artwork. Sound engineer still required, we pay in beers