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{MSX}
05-11-2004, 11:16 PM
Hi! I've decided to make a demo for my work in progress game.
It is a car game that uses ODE as physics engine and SDL and Opengl as graphic libraries.

This is just a demo where i've been playing adding stuff in it, It doesn't have a track to run on, but has some other things to play with, including a big swirl to climb :P
(and you can change the car skin :P)

I've included 4 executable: 2 linux (kylix and fpc) and 2 windows (delphi and fpc) so you can see differences :P

The executables are compressed with UPX to save space. It was quite impressive: the delphi version is now 50k :P The fpc-linux version passed from 400+ to 170 k

I've used almost all open source programs to do this (mainly fpc, gimp, blender) and it was developed mostly on Debian linux.

I'll probably release the source code (if i don't find someone to sell it :P ) so if any of you want to help :P
Also, if you can draw good 3d stuff, you're welcome :P

You can download it here:

http://www.lugato.net/msx/zip/cars-demo.zip

Please read the readme.txt before starting

WILL
06-11-2004, 01:06 AM
Excellent. If you have a webpage for it somewhere with screenshots I can make a news post of it. :)

{MSX}
06-11-2004, 02:24 PM
Excellent. If you have a webpage for it somewhere with screenshots I can make a news post of it. :)

Ehm maybe i'm a bit out of date but.. where will you post a news ? :P
Currently i haven't any webpage for this anyway.

Thanks :P

WILL
06-11-2004, 06:46 PM
Wow, I guess ou are pretty out of date indeed. www.delphigamer.com of course(You do know that we are merging DGDev and DelphiGamer, right?) The new site is almost ready soon.

It has been more active then it's been in years. And a ton of news on everything Games, Development and Pascal have and will continue to be posted.

{MSX}
06-11-2004, 07:18 PM
Oh i see.. Yes i've read about the union of the two sites.. I'm looking forward for it btw! But i'm still a bit confused.. :P

Anyway, now web site is ready, so if you want you can take some screenshot by yourself for the news..

Bye :P

WILL
07-11-2004, 12:47 AM
Whats the URL?

{MSX}
07-11-2004, 09:52 AM
Oh i see.. Yes i've read about the union of the two sites.. I'm looking forward for it btw! But i'm still a bit confused.. :P

Anyway, now web site is ready, so if you want you can take some screenshot by yourself for the news..

Bye :P

Pardon, i mistyped it..
"Anyway, no web site is ready, so if you want you can take some screenshot by yourself for the news.."

Sorry for this :P

BTW any other tryed the game ? Any feedback ? :)
Someone interested in helping me with it?

balog
07-11-2004, 10:14 AM
Hey MSX.

The demo looks great. I found one little problem though. The tab key to flip the car didn't work. I haven't had a chance to see if it works on my other PC yet.

If your looking for some help with it, I would definately be interested. You can emaiL me at brockl@gmail.com.

Ciao

Ultra
07-11-2004, 12:44 PM
It's definetly a cool project. :P

Tested only on Windows.

I did find one bug in the fpc version (may exist in the Delphi version as well). I raced against the cubes and then the game suddenly crashed. No error or anything. So far I've not been able to re-create it.

The car seems to get stuck to the ground when I use the 'road'.

Why is the fpc version a console application?

Anyway looking great so far, can't wait for the full game to be finished. :D

Traveler
07-11-2004, 01:37 PM
Indeed a cool project! It ran perfectly without any bugs.
Well, except for the one balog wrote, about the car that could not be flipped but that was only when the car wasn't on the (tiled) floor.

Hope you will continue with this demo, because it has a lot of potential.

{MSX}
08-11-2004, 08:01 AM
Thanks all! now i'm working on cleaning up the code (that was quite a mess :P ) than i will release it, so that anyone can look at it and eventually help.

The bug with the car flipping is now corrected. That was an empiric way to flip the car.. :P No surprise that it didn't work.. Now the program detect if the car is flipped and auto-flip it in a nice way. (anyway this need more work i think).

The fact that the car get stuck depends on that i used plane surfaces instead of solid 3d body. That's the case with the road and the swirl.

I must think now of a way to do the tracks :P

Bye!

BTW i noticed that i was missing backface culling at all :shock:
Now i added it.

{MSX}
10-11-2004, 07:02 PM
I've finally managed to put up a site and release the sources. :D

You find everything here:
http://funkycars.sf.net

Any comment and feedback is appreciated :P

{MSX}
19-11-2004, 07:52 AM
I've released a new wip version, so that you can see the improvements :P
Now it features a mountain, a track, the "mighty follower car", auto-flipping, new cool skins etc etc.
Ive also opened a little forum on the site.

http://funkycars.sourceforge.net

PS I've also found a volonterous modeler :P

As always, feedback is appreciated :mrgreen:

Momor
20-11-2004, 01:35 PM
OMG That's TOP work MSX !!!

I've never been able to make a decent car model with ODE (my car was either too bumpy, and spent most time on its roof than on its tires). At least you show me it's possible !!! Thanks a lot !!!

{MSX}
12-12-2004, 03:05 PM
I've uploaded a new version (0.3) on the site (http://funkycars.sf.net).
It shows how i'm going with opponents AI and with the track.
Includes all sources, media, blender models and exporters.

Feedback wanted :P

Edit: released version 0.3.1. I fixed some missing file in the previous release that made the program crash

savage
16-12-2004, 11:25 PM
Nicola, did you get my email about the AI used in Colin McCrae?

tux
17-12-2004, 02:24 AM
that is really fun to play :)

you might want to try softening the suspension a little so the car doesnt go on 3 wheels as easy :)

{MSX}
17-12-2004, 08:13 AM
Nicola, did you get my email about the AI used in Colin McCrae?

No i didn't.. :cry: :scratch:
Send it me again at (removed against spam :P)
God knows if i need some advice :P
Thanks :)

savage
17-12-2004, 11:12 AM
Instead of sending you an email, I decided to post the information on your Car AI thread over at http://www.pgd.netstarweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=1683

savage
05-04-2005, 10:37 PM
As discussed,
I think the process of track building should be more modular and to achieve this Funky cars needs a Track Editor.

So using Blender or some other Modeler you would create the models ( with or without animations ), then export them to the Funky car format. Then the funky car track editor would allow you to import them and place the objects anywhere you like.

I think the parts of the track need to be more modular ( similar to Scalectrix ), rather than one big model. So the exporter or the editor, will need to tag certain bits of the track as either track pieces ( piece that make a race track ) or track decorations ( like trees, people, obstacles etc ). Obviously some "decorations" will be static ( trees, buildings ), while others can be hit and moved.

Using this kind of modular approch should allow users to create both normal type racing games and also micro-machine type games within the same editor.

Then obviously the game engine needs to be able to read this merged format.

Anyway, just a few thoughts as I had a rush of blood.

{MSX}
06-04-2005, 04:52 PM
Umm in teory this is a good system. The problems are:

- The editor is not that easy to build :P Surely harder than the one for the Turn based game :P
- Using pre-built track components (scalectrix) will give less freedom to people to draw their own tracks..

The possible solutions are:

- Work hard and do the editor :P
- Dive the user not only the editor but also the exporter so they can make their own models as well..

Well in the end i think that this feature will surely be avaiable somewhere in the future :P

Actually i've spent all day to refactor the code so that it works with "game states" as my other project. Now it has an intro screen from where you can start the game and then exit back to the intro.
I'm always surprised how much time it consumes to do this kind of work. One usually starts coding with a single "level" hardcoded in the program.. Having the program to unload a level and reload another is a harder task than one think :P

{MSX}
08-04-2005, 08:12 AM
I've came across another problem with the Scalectrix mode..
The problem is that pieces not always connect seamlessly..
It's all ok as long as you have straight pieces, but if you have a curved piece, it's hard to connect exacly..

It must be exact becouse if it's a little disconnected you can see a gap in the middle when you play the track, and if two pieces overlap than ode can behave badly.

What nice way can i use to place the pieces? Considering also a possible future editor..

savage
08-04-2005, 12:37 PM
I think the editor has to be able to import the models and then "tag" them. The track pieces have to fit together like the real thing. So once the track model is imported into the editor, the editor will allow you to tag the model and that model would need to be tagged as male on one end and the other end as female. It's the same concept as Lego.

Actually there is a Lego CAD program that was written in Delphi many years ago that did something similar. I think http://www.ldraw.org/ ( not sure if this is still related to the Delphi guy's work ) may provide some clues about how it could be done.

{MSX}
11-04-2005, 05:33 PM
I've posted a new release of funkycars :P

There are some nice improvements.. Also a new track that uses some kind of "scalectrix" (well, it's just that the track is made up of different pieces).. I've had hard time to make connected correctly :P

As always you can find it @
http://funkycars.sourceforge.net/

Feedback wanted :mrgreen:

L505
31-08-2005, 03:26 AM
Any idea what causes so much slow down on an older computer. I can't get passed even the introduction screen.

Is it SDL, openGL, or something specifically that causes this?

computer is only 400mhz. But still.. CPU pegging at 100 percent just to run the intro screen?? Who is the cause of this.. opengl?

FusionWolf
02-09-2005, 10:47 PM
Any idea what causes so much slow down on an older computer. I can't get passed even the introduction screen.

Is it SDL, openGL, or something specifically that causes this?

computer is only 400mhz. But still.. CPU pegging at 100 percent just to run the intro screen?? Who is the cause of this.. opengl?

I have same problem. I use Dell Latitude D600 1.6GHz/512MB laptop and there's something like 5 fps / sec. or so. In my desktop computer which is much, much better than my laptop everything goes fine.

L505
04-09-2005, 01:26 AM
Some of the games I've tried like lentil wars work.. does lentil wars use a different graphics engine?

I mean I could see it if the game didn't work smoothly. But the intro screen? How much really does an intro screen have to process?

An old game like "Driver" works okay on my PC (really fun game), but of course that's commercial and not sure what they use fro graphics engines.

{MSX}
11-09-2005, 10:46 AM
well the game is not so optimized so it needs a good pc. but your's good.
Maybe the program is not using hardware acceleration for some reason (drivers, etc, etc).
Anyway it is normal that it uses 100% cpu all the time. it keeps rendering continuously no matter if it's in the title screen.
Also, to pass the title screen you must press the space bar. (in the case you didn't :P )

bye!