GAME DEVELOPMENT UPDATE July 2010

Thursday 22nd July 2010

Main game software and game structures

This part of the game is fully finished but is still being debugged and optimized now that the complete game and the content has come together. There are some multi-threading issues that still need the attention of the software engineers.

Graphics engine

The Xandra graphics and render engine has been completed but development of special shaders is still continued. ‘Shaders’ are small sub programs of the graphics engine that do specific jobs. Dynamic shading is fully implemented. The focus is now on developing special pipelines to accommodate different system configurations, so the graphics are adjusted to the system it runs on. It is still very much a matter of fine tuning and optimizing performance.

Physics engine

Some wonder what’s new about the physics engine. The basic core of the engine as we have used for v3 has been maintained. That part is mainly about chassis configuration, how the suspension and shocks work etc. and there was little to be added or improved on that level. However, some very significant parts were totally re-written.

We now have a full blown nitro engine simulation running using more than 150 parameters to define the nitro engine process. This engine physics engine works parallel to the main physics engine and allows us to simulate real nitro engines much better, including fuel mixture setting (carburetor), compression ratio with head shims, glow plug selection, pipe length etc.

The tire model (how the physics of a tire works) has been completely re-written based on extensive tire testing that was done 2-3 years ago together with tire expert Doug Millikan. This new tire model will have a dramatic effect on the car behavior and brings the feel and realism a big step forward. Some fine tuning is still to be done especially on rubber tires for 1:10 electric.

The collision system has been completely re-written as the old one would not work properly with off-road cars flying all over the place. The collision system is now under testing especially in multi-player environments and is being optimized to increase performance.

Recent physics engine developments also include the completion of the engine capability to detect car-to-car collisions, car-to-object collision, and their impact velocities.

Multi player

This part of the game is close to completion although there is still work to be done especially on the prediction algorithm that tells the game where an opponent car would probably have been considering the latency of the internet. In multiplayer every player in a session sends and receives a stream of packets to and from the session host. The session host computer looks at all the positions etc. and calculates if a collision took place and sends that information back. Although the internet works with the speed of light, sending these packets back and forward takes time, from 30 up to 200 milliseconds. In the meantime the game must predict where the car is going to be in between these packets and make corrections if the prediction was off, without this being noticeable to the user. This is quite a complicated matter, the approach we took for dual player in v3 was not suitable for VRC Pro. This is a very sensitive issue for our kind of application, much more than in a first person shooter game or a real car sim as the ratio between object size and the speed is so extreme. Some work still to be done here.

3D content

A lot of 3D content was created by our graphics artist Tony West in the past 5 years, but requires adjustments to cope with the new graphics engine and the game structure that has evolved since. The creative focus is on electric tracks, cars and components. Soon after launch this will shift towards off-road. The basic content for launch is almost ready though.

GUI

The graphical user interface (GUI) was completely overhauled last year and is now very much ready to go. Just a few minor adjustments and fine tuning needed.

Alpha testing

We are preparing the server database with all the content and software needed to do a full blown internal (alpha) test. This will precede the beta test for which we will invite outside testers. They will be recruited from our VRC v3 member base. We will no longer give any dates because we have learned that this project is just too complex to predict launch or even beta testing dates. So forget about anything we have promised in the past. We will launch VRC Pro when it is ready, and there is no one more eager waiting for this day than me…

Pieter Bervoets