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Work in Progress / Race Track Editor

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paul5147
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 19:50 Edited at: 15th Oct 2012 07:41
Hi Everyone,you may remember this from a previous wip http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=158864&b=8
But its been so long since i had chance to do anything with this that the posts been locked.
I managed to find an old backup with some of the later mods i made before my hard drive crash,with a bit of a tweek to the texturing code and applying Evolveds brilliant shadow shader i thought it deserved a quick video made of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dqU44ESdHL8

Matty H
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 20:18 Edited at: 18th Apr 2013 23:23
Awesome, I have done something similar recently so I know it's not easy

Are you creating a racing game? Or even developing a tool you could sell?

Either way, good luck.

paul5147
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 20:54
Thanks Matty,its actually a set of 4 programs,3 are on the other wip,a spline based track editor,a landscape editor that blends the track into the landscape automatically and a loader/viewer,all of witch are slightly out of date compared to later ones i use know but essentially the same.The fourth is a scenery placement editor that i haven't released yet.All the textures and model date are proceduraly generated including the normal maps,so the only file it needs is Evolveds cubic shadow mapping fx file.Every thing else is saved out along the way so can be easily edited externally if needed.Looking forward to see what you have come up with too.
Chris Tate
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 21:46
That looks really good, makes me feel like driving on it.

Le Verdier
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Posted: 14th Oct 2012 22:52
Very nice one! I know how these kind of editors are long to program too....
But it's the price to pay for not having a racing game with boring 90deg turns..
I really like the scenery generator aside the track, in fact I am thinking of making one too!..

MrValentine
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Posted: 15th Oct 2012 03:46
I remember this...

Just adding the video here as it is easy to miss the link for people skimming..



Nice work and I hope you continue with it...

paul5147
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Posted: 21st Oct 2012 15:46
Just a quick code snippet to show how the textures are made,it needs Evolved`s cubic shadow shader to work,which is attached.Every time its run it produces a different texture and normal map for the track and landscape.The landscape has its texture heavily scaled so as to only need a small texture and speed up loading times.This is only a quick demonstration and other steps are needed but do take up a bit of time, which is why the whole thing is made up of separate applications so you can change the track layout without having to rebuild textures or vice versa.
A lot of the code used is from the code snippets sections,so if any one spots there code,id like to say thank you.I dont see the point of re-inventing the wheel.




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Fallout
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Posted: 30th Oct 2012 22:57
This is cool. With the right media in there this would be a very good basis for a racing engine with custom track editor. I hope you continue to work on it.

paul5147
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Posted: 28th Nov 2012 08:09 Edited at: 28th Nov 2012 09:36
Well i got bored and there where so many things that i didnt like about the original that i set about redoing the whole thing with a nice new BlueGui interface.I decided that after a lot of work had gone in to keeping each part seperate that it wasnt really that easy for anyone else to use but me,that it did need to be more of a complete package,even if it slowed me down a bit,the ease of use would make up for it.It also gave me a chance to fix alot of the niggles i had with the first one,that where so hard to change because of the dependance on another program to do the next stage it would have ment a big rewrite anyway.
so just a couple of screen shots for know,but ill post up a vid later of the new editor in action.





Still not as complete as the previous one,but i should only have the scenary editor part to add and a few more textures,these are only temp ones for now.
Fallout
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Posted: 28th Nov 2012 15:41 Edited at: 28th Nov 2012 15:42
Looks great. I hope someone with Dark Dynamix picks this up when it's done and gets a vehicle rolling over a landscape. That'd be the proof in the pudding.

Good work.

Le Verdier
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Posted: 28th Nov 2012 20:04
Great work too. I've already said this but I like the terrain/ track and terrain integration. Did you use some kind of Delaunay triangulation ?
it could also be interesting to add an orbit camera motion
(snippet here !)


Chris Tate
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Posted: 29th Nov 2012 01:57
Looking good!

paul5147
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Posted: 29th Nov 2012 06:49 Edited at: 29th Nov 2012 18:58
Le Verdier,no i simply cheat and lower all the terrain vertices a slight amount below the ones for the track,just enough for the textures not to clash,it was trial and error at first,but know it works about 99% of the time.The problems i get are when the car leaves the track there is sometimes a small step to get back on,this wasnt a problem with what this was originaly designed for,a wipeout type game with a curved track and know way off,but as its progressed its becoming more of a problem im going to have to solve.The solution so far is to simply reposition the car back to the last track waypoint after a crash,but its not very realistic.
Mr Kohlenstoff
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Posted: 1st Dec 2012 15:48
Quote: "The problems i get are when the car leaves the track there is sometimes a small step to get back on"


If I understand this correctly... can't you just disable the road's collision? Alternatively you could use two road models, one that is drawn to screen and has no collision, and a second one that is slightly below it (to avoid the "step" from the terrain) and used for collision detection.
Well, or maybe I just didn't comprehend the problem..

The editor does look really good overall and as if quite a lot of work went into it. I'm actually quite excited to see a racing game using those race tracks in action at some point.

BatVink
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Posted: 1st Dec 2012 22:22
Looks great, I appreciate the work in this as I have created (80% of) a track editor myself. You've done really well carving the track into the landscape. I had got to the stage where I had a bit of a bumpy track as I laid it onto the terrain.

Any chance of this becomning a track editor tool that you'll be selling?
Although it looks like we've used the same concepts (c-Splines sub-divided into multiple waypoints and polys?) I like yours far better than mine

paul5147
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2012 09:34
Thanks BatVink,never really thought about selling it,its been more of challenge just to see if i could complete this thing eventually.but who knows.Xmas is coming,i may just feel generous and give it away,if i get it finished enough for any one else to make use of it.
BatVink
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Posted: 4th Dec 2012 15:58
I have some other ideas that would work for you if you are using the C-spline method for creating the track. Drop me a mail if you'd like to discuss.

paul5147
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Posted: 7th Dec 2012 19:18
Small video showing how the track is now added to the terrain,in previous versions it was simply laid on top but separated by a small amount to stop the texture clash.But this caused me more problems with actually using this for a game.So i went back to an old method i had tried and dismissed due to speed issues which i think i have no solved.It relies on a test for triangle in triangle and then deletes the index data for those that clash.Its a bit like the csg commands but working on a terrain and allowing you to cut out triangles that are completely within another triangle,and so no texture clash when you set the track in position as there is nothing below it.


This video should show the principle and in a couple of days i should be in a position to show it in action on the terrains i use in the track editor.Its all ready up and running i just need to add in a bit of pre-processing so it only checks for updated terrain segments instead of the whole terrain being done each time.I seem to be more obsessed with the speed of this editor since i switched to BlueGui for the interface,i miss the old versions simple key press method but i know its for better in the long run!
paul5147
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Posted: 26th Dec 2012 16:06
Latest version of the editor with the poly removal code added to the sculpting part of the process.This now allows me to drop the track down level with the terrain so no more steps.The terrain and track are now saved as a one multi-limbed dbo object ready for texturing and physics/collision setup,but can just as easily be saved as separate objects if required.
Small video of the editor in use,as you can see its not texturing the objects at this stage or using any shaders like previous versions of this tool,because for now i´m focusing on speed and ease of use of just the editor.

All the fancy stuff is still there just turned off so i can focus on the editor.As I have a bit of time off for Xmas i may get a demo of this out shortly.
Chris Tate
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Posted: 26th Dec 2012 16:30
Looking comphrehensive; nice work!

MrValentine
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Posted: 30th Dec 2012 07:49
Not entirely sure, but found this gem of a site in Newsletter 7, and thought about your project...

http://www.victory-road.co.uk/

Scroll down a bit towards the end, maybe you might get some ideas or something of old to compare with or maybe get in touch with the developer and see about getting tips if they are still around

Hope this was helpful...

paul5147
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Posted: 30th Dec 2012 09:58
Thanks MrValentine, I remember reading that along time ago,it was before i even bought DBPro i think, unfortunately DBPro was only used to prototype the game and i think it was finished off in java, but it certainly got me thinking about the possibilities of DBPro at the time. Still going to keep going with this, just not sure what to do once the editor is up to scratch, I all ready have a small game demo running on the tracks it creates at present, letting you race around against the clock. I suppose once i release it the games are up to everyone else.
MrValentine
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Posted: 30th Dec 2012 13:35
yay

Happy New Year !

gwheycs62egydws
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Posted: 6th Jan 2013 21:16
hi

this is defiantly a update ;o)

I look forward to seeing how far this one go's

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
gwheycs62egydws
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Posted: 6th Jan 2013 21:23
sorry for the dubble post but

if all 3 thoughts get created then a level building tool
it would be and people would buy it or very much like it to have it ;o)

level creation by hand is very time consumeing as we all know
a tool that would speed things up would cut out a lot of the pain

even give the option for others to add to the game or project being created ;o)

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
paul5147
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Posted: 7th Jan 2013 06:56 Edited at: 7th Jan 2013 06:59
Thanks Resourceful,
I`ve uploaded a small cut down demo version of the editor for you to try out.Keep in mind this version is only an early beta and does have some features enabled that wont actually be in the later builds and are only there to let me see how some things work,like the poly removal.In this version you can move the track after the sculpting process to see that the polys where removed correctly, which if you then make another sculpting pass with the new track position it can through up a few problems,in the later versions it prompts you to make another fractal or flat terrain first before moving any of the waypoints.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 9th Jan 2013 04:13
Looks impressive. When drawing the track, what method are you using to interpolate the curves between points?

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
paul5147
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Posted: 9th Jan 2013 06:41
Hi Phaelax, In that demo its the spline commands from the 3dmath commands, but i do use other methods some pure math and some based on the curveangle command, it depends on the effect i want to achieve.
gwheycs62egydws
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Posted: 8th Mar 2013 05:31
@paul5147

I was wondering if there are any more updates ?

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
paul5147
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Posted: 10th Mar 2013 09:32
Hi Resourceful,quite a few changes but its all been in the pursuit of speed and optimization so there isn't really a lot to show that i haven't already posted,i do have a small demo of driving a physx car on the track and landscape,when i get chance ill tidy it up and post that.
chafari
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Posted: 13th Mar 2013 19:01
Hi there
@paul5147
This is really amazing. I see that you are using your own trees, which are very real. I will put an eye on your new update. This is a great contribution to the forum.

Cheers.

I'm not a grumpy grandpa
Mobiius
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Posted: 17th Apr 2013 22:39
Looking good.

I live for video games! (And beers, and football, and cars!)
See what I live for here: [url]http:\\www.TeamDefiant.co.uk[/url]
KISTech
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Posted: 8th Aug 2013 19:02
Is this project still going?

It just so happens I'm looking at making a racing game.
gwheycs62egydws
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Posted: 17th Aug 2013 23:33
@KISTech

I hope it's not dead ;o(

but it's summer and things seem to go on holidays

perhaps in like 2 or 3 weeks we will see activity 'p_

to move side ways - is to move forward
Since a Strait line gets thin fast
paul5147
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Posted: 1st Sep 2013 13:48
not dead just on hold for while,sorting out a few family issues

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