Even slow progress is progress

Hi,

I know it has been a while, but even rome wasn't built in a day. The LoD system is up and running and my work at the editors is finished for now. So I have started working on the actual game but progress is slower than expected.
One of the reasons is that Newton does not work as it should - no that is not exactly right, it is not working as fast as I would want it to. On ground with little detail it works perfectly, but on rough terrain (such as off road) with many bumps and therefore many polygons Newton has to calculate alot of collisions. The calculations are accurat, but the frame rate drops form 300 to 21 frames per second. And that with just one car. So I started to create a hybrid physics engine. The car's forces are still controlled by Newton, but the tires do not directly interact with the ground. I use raycasting for that. Or better to say: I want to use it. A rudementary raycasting engine is already implemented and suspension forces work as they should, but the tires often spin out of controll and I haven't yet found the cause.

Another thing I have been working on was the HUD:

(Most of the work was done by the designer of course, I only implemented a bit of code for this)
In the upper left corner is the time displayed. On the right you can see the current position and beneath that the current lap. In the right lower corner I placed the displays for speed, rotation speed and nitro. And on the other side we have the shady grey map overview with colored spots for the opponents.

Thats all for now,
see ya!

Out of the Sketchbook 2

Freedom!
With the final exams gone and passed (yeah!) I have more time available for Magnon. Most of the Car- and MapEditor functions are allready up and running. I am currently working on rudimentary a LoD system.

I know this post is boring so far, aside from the 'still alive' message, so I decided to publish screenshots of some of the cars done by PL-Fighter.
(The color can be customized by the player)


So long.

You should not care about physics...

... but I have to. The car somehow has to stay on the ground.Until now I have used my own physics calculations for that, it was work enough to handle correct orientation and gravity, but since I have been testing how my system reacts to none-four-wheel vehicles things got out of control. So I began searching for a physics engine that suited my needs. First I took a look at Tokamak, but the engine was not really able to do what I wanted and seems to be dead for a while now. Then I tried Ode and at first it seemed to be the right engine. Thanks to Brainsaw's IrrOde wrapper for Irrlicht I was soon able to use it properly. There was a catch though: Ode seems to be not finished yet. For example, such things as Cylinder to Cylinder collision did not work. Next on the list was Newton. There also is a Irrlicht Wrapper: white tiger's IrrNewt. It already has an IVehicle base class (ICar too, but that is to specific for my needs) that I can use and so far I have not found anything that would make me reconsider the choice.

So what's the screenshot about? 
That is the beginning of the Car-Editor. If everything works out, it will be able not only to make cars, but also motorcycles, three wheelers or even hover vehicles. I know, it basically looks like the Map Editor. That is because I simply took the gui of it as a basis for the new editor. However, I removed many things - the Car-Editor will not be as complicated as it's relative.


Bye

Trio Team

The long existing Magnon duet became a trio. We have a new programmer who should start his work soon. We are currently in a phase of integrating him into the project.
Because I was the only programmer until now, the whole system concept existed in my mind and I have to write it down for him now. That will take some time, but I think it is a good investment. However, the project will not continue with twice the speed at first, because my final exams are approaching and they have a higher priority.

greetings

Out of the Sketchbook

Nothing code-relevant this time. Just a few pictures from planned maps:

The Hoverworld
High  above the ground of Kapteyn in between the hovering fields where gravity seems to loose it's relevance lies this curley road.  The rocks floating in mid air gives a false impression: Gravity still applies and despite safe and peaceful appereance of  the landscape, the way down is a long one. The races in the hover fields are the most dangerous ones and for many champions it was their last race.




The White City
This modern city represents the new lifestyle of it's inhabitants: Order - Effectiveness - Cleanness. But sometimes a little thrill breaks the silence. Streetraces are getting more and more popular.







So, that's that. Bye

A light in the Dark

Thanks to Viz_Fuerte's "Simple Projects" Magnon now possesses the power of realtime light and projective textures. This is only one of the new functions. It is possible to write a description for the map, set different materialtypes for the meshes, adjust the color set of the gui, place objects with the new 3d cursur (i got that idea from blender3d) and the objects can finally be transformed along their local axis. Furthermore the editor got a fresh set of icons.


This is it, for now. See ya

The Map Editor

Hi,

a good game needs a good editor. I worked on it since the last post and it is close-to-ready for map creation. Sure, a lot of the extended functions are not yet implemented, but the core is up and running. I am now fixing the last bugs and glitches, but soon it should be possible to load maps into the main game.

See you next time.