Racer v0.9.0 RC8

[VELOCIPEDE]

Racer v0.7.2 for Windows released

An inbetween version to have a taste of shaders.

Get it at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer072.zip.

If you get an 'installation incorrect' error when trying to run racer.exe, try download & running: www.racer.nl/download/vcredist_x86_vc2008sp1.exe

v0.7.2 (22-01-09)

-----------------

- Flipped car light image projection (while there are still almost no cars with lights). The image was vertically flipped.

- Added 'fog density <x>' script command. Fog beginning to change to general atmosphere functions though.

- Added global shader material properties which are passed to Cg; see http://racer.nl/reference/shadereng.htm#matglobal

- Added an atmosphere to Carlswood. For general info on atmospheres, see http://racer.nl/tutorial/gpushader.htm

- Added Cg shader parameters: lightAmbient, Ka, Kd, Ke, Ks, shininess and a bunch of others, see http://racer.nl/tutorial/gpushader.htm

- Added car.ini projected light 'far' falloff variable (lights.light<n>.far), see http://racer.nl/tutorial/car_lights....ojected_lights

- Modified car light Cg shaders to include Some1's coloring (thanks!).

- Tracked: load track now keeps the camera in the same location.

- Added Ctrl-Shift-F key which resets the car, only forward a bit.

- Added lightly animating trees to demonstrate Cg in Carlswood (data/renderer/shaders/animate_test_v.cg).

[VELOCIPEDE]

v0.7.3 beta http://racer.nl/dl_beta_win.htm

control setup crashes, sun direction for non-Cg shaders

[VELOCIPEDE]

To kick it off, here is Racer v0.8.0. Warning: all things are set to target relatively high-end graphics card. nVidia 7950+ somewhat. Onboard cards will not do.

The download is at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer080.zip (42Mb).

If you have an ATI card, Cg shaders may not work due to a bug in Cg 2.1. Try the patched racer.exe from http://www.racer.nl/download/racer081a_patch.zip (1Mb).

Hope you can enjoy it!

Ruud

The patch (really a preview of v0.8.1, so interesting for nVidia users as well) changes these, although no data files are included you can check out some things already:

- Added envmap.live_track.sides_per_frame to set update count of live envmap

- Car.ini camera<n>.view variables were read, but never used. Removed loading them, they are (and were) obsolete.

- LOD (level of detail) for objects is now adjusted to take into account the camera FOV (normal FOV=50).

- Split fullscreen_shaders directory into LDR and HDR variants (data/renderer/fullscreen_shaders_hdr and _ldr).

- Added car.ini engine.idle_method to avoid throttle being slightly open all the time. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/engine.htm

- Now enforcing engine.stall_rpm to be at least 100 rpm less than idle_rpm to enable the new idle_method 1.

- Added engine.braking_torque_curve to specify a curve for the engine braking instead of the linear parameters.

(the Lambo now uses such a curve for demonstration)

- Modified smoke particles to have no velocity. Also increased the brightness somewhat.

- Bloom map was 16-bit, now 8-bit.

- Added car.ini audio.skid audioset based on skid amount (around 0..2). This allows subtle scrub sounds before

going to screeching & screaming.

- Added 'gearwhine_off' audioset for gearwhine under deceleration circumstances.

- Fuel consumption was based on engine output torque, added internal friction (engine braking torque) in fuel use calculations.

- Renamed racer.ini variable 'collision.report_car_trk' to 'collision.report_car_track_collision'

- Added car.ini's reboundstop_len and reboundstop_k for much the same as a bumpstop, only to prevent wheels falling through susp<n>.maxlen

see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/suspens...m#reboundstops

- susp<n>.restlen no longer needs to be smaller than maxlen. It ignored precompression that way.

- Added fuel.rof to overrule the fuel grams/liter parameter. Normally it's around 700 for regular petrol.

- Added views.ini 'invert' field (0/1) which inverts the variable (like 'factor' which multiplies it)

The list of changes since v0.7.3:

- Bugfix: OpenGL3.0 drivers would crash Racer due to a mistake in getting some extension function pointers.

- Bugfix: track's with special.ini gfx.time below 1000 (10am) were not interpreted correctly.

- Bugfix: turning on projected lights no longer kills some 3D dials

- Heavily modified Cg shaders. Also added a lot more. See http://racer.nl/tutorial/gpushader.htm

- Projected lights used alphafunc, which made lights on semi-transparent object pixely.

- Added car.ini's model_reverse_l/r models for true rear lights. This should do away with the views.ini hack to add reverse lights.

- Modified live track envmapping to not do all sides every frame. Lots faster.

- Removed dbg_stats tree in racer.ini (it was obsolete).

- Added 'clouds' script command for Cg-shaded skies, added 'clouds' uniform float parameter for Cg shaders (0..1).

- Also added 'clouds' in a track's special.ini (env.clouds)

- Added resolution.vsync to sync to display frequency or not (0=max fps, 1=sync, >1=set interval)

- Added moving helmet (+pilot body) model option in car.ini. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/helmet.htm

- Raised the number of possible flares for each car to 20 (was 10)

- Simple (single-polygon) shadows for car views without a body model are now turned off.

- Removed 'fx.sky_enable' option. The sky is always on.

- Removed 'gfx.reflections' option. Was/is obsolete.

- Added graphics.show_names to be able to indicate driver names floating above cars.

- Added mirrors.texture.fbo setting to render into an offscreen framebuffer object (faster)

- Added mirrors.texture.fbo_samples setting to enable anti-aliasing of the mirror.

- Added HDR rendering basics (renderer.hdr.enable=1). Uses data/renderer/shaders_hdr directory if enabled, shaders_ldr otherwise.

- Added Bloom rendering for HDR mode (renderer.bloom.enable=1).

- Split data/renderer/shaders directory in two: shaders_ldr and shaders_hdr. HDR is the way to go. LDR will be deprecated.

- Added ini.auto_lights setting (0/1) to determine with time-of-day controls a car's light automatically

- Added shader 'reflect' material property for reflective Cg shaders (in the same line as diffuse, ambient, specular etc).

Use this in conjunction with [dyn_]shader_reflective_v/f.cg for example.

- Added car.shd/track.shd 'motion_blur' variable to turn off motion blur velocity map generation for certain shaders (wheels mostly).

- Added auto-exposure settings for HDR rendering (racer.ini:renderer.auto_exposure.*)

- Added fx.sun.auto_time_of_day to track real current (PC) time for the time of day in Racer

- Added fx.sun.fast_time_factor to set time speed. Normally 0 for no time change, 1 for realtime, >1=faster than realtime

- Added fueltank in cars. See data/cars/default/car.ini (fuel.* settings). Currently in alpha. No fuel means no throttle.

- Added fuel view variables for views.ini files (for cars). See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/fuel.htm for details.

- Added formatting option for views.ini; 'float_1' displays a value with 1 decimal (for example: 123.4).

- Added 'sample_hold' option for view elements to get slow-updating dials (mostly useful for digital dashboards)

- Added fx.sun.flare option to remove sun flare. It doesn't match with the Cg sun position.

[VELOCIPEDE]

Racer v0.8.2 released

It's been out for a small while, but always good to have a separate thread.

The full download: http://www.racer.nl/dl_beta_win.htm

Tracked patch: http://www.racer.nl/download/tracked082b.zip

The changes since v0.8.0:

- Bugfix: projected shadows could lead to a crash in certain situations.

- Added envmap.live_track.sides_per_frame to set update count of live envmap

- Car.ini camera<n>.view variables were read, but never used. Removed loading them, they are (and were) obsolete.

- LOD (level of detail) for objects is now adjusted to take into account the camera FOV (normal FOV=50).

- Split fullscreen_shaders directory into LDR and HDR variants (data/renderer/fullscreen_shaders_hdr and _ldr).

- Added car.ini engine.idle_method to avoid throttle being slightly open all the time. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/engine.htm

- Now enforcing engine.stall_rpm to be at least 100 rpm less than idle_rpm to enable the new idle_method 1.

- Added engine.braking_torque_curve to specify a curve for the engine braking instead of the linear parameters.

(the Lambo now uses such a curve for demonstration)

- Modified smoke particles to have no velocity. Also increased the brightness somewhat.

- Bloom map was 16-bit, now 8-bit.

- Added car.ini audio.skid audioset based on skid amount (around 0..2). This allows subtle scrub sounds before

going to screeching & screaming.

- Added 'gearwhine_off' audioset for gearwhine under deceleration circumstances.

- Fuel consumption was based on engine output torque, added internal friction (engine braking torque) in fuel use calculations.

- Renamed racer.ini variable 'collision.report_car_trk' to 'collision.report_car_track_collision'

- Added car.ini's reboundstop_len and reboundstop_k for much the same as a bumpstop, only to prevent wheels falling through susp<n>.maxlen

see http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/suspens...m#reboundstops

- susp<n>.restlen no longer needs to be smaller than maxlen. It ignored precompression that way.

- Added fuel.rof to overrule the fuel grams/liter parameter. Normally it's around 700 for regular petrol.

- Added views.ini 'invert' field (0/1) which inverts the variable (like 'factor' which multiplies it)

- Nullpoint is now also painted with 'show carpoints'

- DDS file support; but ONLY in .shd files, and ONLY A8R8G8B8,DXT1/3/5 formats, and ONLY 2D textures. Useful for improved mipmapping perhaps.

- Removed skid.wav from default/car.ini, since it interfered with the new method for skid sounds

- Views.ini settings 'orientation', 'min_offset' and 'max_offset' were not described on racer.nl. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/dials.htm

- Added 'var=time_of_day' option for views.ini files. Use format=time_of_day to get a string like 00:00 upto 23:59

- Updated Config with a few graphics settings (low/med/high/extreme) to easily select HDR/bloom/motionblur etc.

- Also added 1920x1200 & 2560x1600 resolutions to Config.

- Fixed show_splines=1 and show_car_points which were invisible when bloom was turned on.

- Added standard_bump_v.cg/standard_bump_f.cg to the installation for HDR.

- Optimized a few bits to get slightly better performance. Running Racer with 8 cars is too slow still though.

- Added a sort level for shaders; the major ones are now: opaque, blended+alphafunc, alphafunc. Useful for blended+alphafunc'ed trees.

- Set physics.async to 1. Better for multi-core machines, and who knows it doesn't have too many race conditions (pun not intended).

- Cg 2.2, which supposedly fixes the problems with ATI cards and 'MaxInstrSlots=-1' type of errors.

[VELOCIPEDE]

Version 0.8.3 is now downloadable at http://www.racer.nl/dl_beta_win.htm

Some interesting new stuff: I'm using the Newton physics engine now (although I can switch back & forth in the source quite easily). This gave a much lighter path to movable track objects (try Shift-P on Carlswood, then drive into the cones). It also meant convex hull collision models for the cars (Lambo's collision.dof).

It also has ghost cars; a great way to compete with yourself.

Check it out!

Ruud

PS Known issues: the trackcams for Carlswood are a little jumpy. Probably because at some point I modified some spline functions.

v0.8.3 (7-7-09)

-----------------

- Modified sky_daynight*.cg shaders to correctly include 'night' parameter and night texture cloud coverage

- Removed dbg_stats.frame_line option. I never used it.

- Bugfixes in the AABB tree for collisions; the tree was not really optimal.

- Bugfix in splines for looped tracks; there was a problem at start/finish after some optimizations.

- Ctrl-Shift-F didn't always jump forward. Now jumps at least one spline forward.

- Added more possible load in Pacejka player to simulate truck loads for example (30kN).

- Added car.ini engine.idle_throttle to set non-zero throttle for carburator engines when coasting (for idle_method=1).

- Integrated views.ini painting into the scene graph, so interior dials shouldn't disappear anymore

- Added inidiff.exe tool to compare 2 ini files logically (based on the variable tree, not textually)

- Added .shd file shader<x>.layer<y>.alpha_to_coverage option to use alpha-to-coverage. Useful for unblended grass without sorting.

- Added track special.ini's gfx.fog.extinction_factor to set atmosphere fog 'density'. Normally 1, >1=more haze

- Added 'extinctionfactor <v>' script command to manually set the factor.

- Added *.shd shader<x>.tangents setting that determines whether tangents are used. Normally 0 but set this to 1 for bumpmapping for example.

- renderer.use_vbo=1 works again. Slightly faster on my machine.

- Added mirrors.texture.lod_factor (set to ~0.1 for example) to set LOD factor in mirror

- Track spline tangent handling has been slightly modified for just a bit more smoothing

- Added 'lights on' and 'lights off' script commands to turn on/off car lights.

- Added ghost car support; see racer.ini's ghost section and http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/ghost.htm

- Added 'standard_wave*.cg' shaders for waving flags based on texture coordinates.

- Experiments with Newton physics library (you need a specially compiled exe though).

- Tracked modified to offset movable objects using 'offset_dyn' instead of 'offset' (for Newton collisions with dynamics objects)

- Removed data/cars/default/car.ini engine.inertia.final_drive; it's obsolete.

- Added geometry.ini movable flag: add 1024 (Newton only) - also settable in TrackEd

- Added gfx.show_movables_bbox option (Newton only) to show collision shapes of movables.

- DOF reading skips GHDR flags; there were some very old models with bugs in this field.

- Added car.ini body.model_collide for collision 3D model (Newton only)

[VELOCIPEDE]

Racer v0.8.4 for Windows released

Version 0.8.4 is now downloadable at http://www.racer.nl/dl_beta_win.htm

Known problem: the movable track objects are being worked on (animation). They don't work in this version.

The changelist:

- Ghost cars didn't work in LDR mode (missing Cg shaders)

- Cg compile errors are now shown in a dialog with full details

- Got rid of ATTR8/9 in the dyn_standard_bump_reflect_v/f.cg shaders, so the Lambo runs on slightly older hardware

- Fixed bounding box offsets so older cards can now drive without getting stuck on the road.

- Added car.ini engine.min_warn_rpm and max_warn_rpm; also added view variable 'rpm_warning' which gives 0..1.

Useful for digital rpm shift indicators. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/dials.htm

- Added loading.bar_y option to move loading bar

- Car bounding box wasn't drawn correctly (at world origin) with bloom enabled.

- Added directory name in car selection screen.

- v0.8.3 might have left a large pile of temp files undeleted

- Multiplayer timing revised; using time_per_update=100 and linear_interpolation=0 should work better (over internet)

- Revised road spline functions to be smoother and fix problems with some corners

- Dials in live track envmap no longer appear (buffer is cleared before painting the envmap so it may be a bit slower)

- Carlswood: steer noise reduced for some surfaces

- Improved quaternion slerp which fixes some 360 degree flips (replays/multiplayer).

- Collision boxes now painted in green.

- Newton 2.07 used (seems to fix some high-speed collision crashes).

[Guest q-Lo]

Qualcuno che ha provato le ultime versioni mi sa dire se

[VELOCIPEDE]

una Ferrari 288 GTO per Racer

[VELOCIPEDE]

Racer v0.8.5 for Windows released

v0.8.5 is out at www.racer.nl/dl_beta_win.htm.

The main change is that a new car is added, the Baja moving suspension demo car. It features a bunch of generic models to show moving arms, springs, dampers, steering rods and a solid rear axle (visually only).

Might be useful one day as the basis for joint-like suspension designs.

Enjoy!

Ruud

The changes:

- Bugfix: wheel Pacejka damping for the last wheel was applied to all other wheels (!)

- Unculled polygons (cull=none) in tracks could be driven through on one side - remove data/tracks/<trackname>/cache to regenerate collision mesh

- Stencil buffer support for FBO's; that fixes see-through projected shadows for cars (renderer.motion_blur.method=4).

- Generic models are working again. See http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/generic_models.htm

- Generic model transformation matrix generation has been improved (no shearing, stable axes). Orientation is still an issue (what is up?)

- Increased number of generic models to 50 (from 10)

- Added live track FBO's (much faster): set envmap.live_track.fbo to 1

- Live track FBO bits can be set to 8 or 16 (envmap.live_track.bits); 16 is HDR.

- Live track FBO size can be set (envmap.live_track.size). Default around 512.

- Improved bloom a bit.

- Menu pimped up with background images.

- DDS DXT5 alpha was not flipped correctly; fixed.

- Modified a bunch of Cg shaders slightly. HDR only really; LDR will be obsolete at some point.

- motion_blur.blur_alpha now works again for method=4. Better motion blur sofar than with motion blur Cg shaders. Try 0.75.

- Added spline.ini lines.use_mesh_hits option to ignore the spline for road smoothing (only used for AI/minimap etc).

This doesn't drive on triangles (which was unsmooth on even Speedest2) but on the spline quads, which feels much better.

- Added a new damper force correction method (2) which is slightly better than before. Selectable in dbg_car.damper_correct_method

- Added bumpstop/reboundstop damping (car.ini, susp<n>.bumpstop_damping, susp<n>.reboundstop_damping). Try 10000.

- Added ARB force correction, although it doesn't seem to be used much and doesn't correct much.

[VELOCIPEDE]

Racer v0.8.6 for Windows released

Hi all,

It's been a while, and lots has changed. Here's a new version with a lot of niceties. There are fixed LSD's but the Salisbury diff doesn't do preload yet (not sure how to derive it from defs like 60/30/2).

Download at http://www.racer.nl/download/racer086.zip

or through the download page at http://www.racer.nl/dl_beta_win32.htm

Enjoy!

Ruud

Changelog:

- Cleaned up the Baja - 1 Pacejka set, bumpstops, collision model

- The Baja didn't work in LDR graphics mode (missing Cg shaders)

- collision.report_car_track_collision didn't work for Newton. Fixed.

- Added 'analyse all' and 'analyse wheels' script commands. Now runs text editor to show resulting file (data/dump/analyse.txt)

- Movables are working again (flag 1024 in geometry.ini, see also TrackEd)

- Added tire damping for load next to tire rate (car.ini: wheel<n>.tire_damping). Try 1/100th of tire rate for starters.

- idle_rpm with idle_method=1 now really makes the engine run at idle_rpm, instead of slightly below it

- Keypad-5 now immediately resets to the default camera settings, instead of moving slowly

- Added 'on_allfinished.rex' script which is run right after all cars have finished

- Improved control noise detection - sometimes control movements were never seen if the initial position was off

- Force feedback joysticks now use a background option which seems to keep forces running when switching windows.

- Ctrl-1 Mz view is now shown from the wheel, not the steering wheel (to match with caster/kingpin units)

- Magic Formula 5.2 support (car.ini, model=1, see http://www.racer.nl/pacejka.htm) - including combined slip!

- Pacejka player improved (slipratio variation reduced, slipangle passing had a RAD2DEG factor bug)

- Pacejka player now supports MF5.2 tires.

- Partial .tir file support (industry standard Pacejka format) - for MF5.2 import only (wheel<n>.pacejka.import_file=myfile.tir)

- Added limits.world_size to be able to set the max world size. Bigger=less performance, but some tracks seem to need it (development).

- Added debug screen subpages; pressing Ctrl-1 upto Ctrl-9 multiple times toggles through the subpages (if present)

- Added stats.default_info_sub setting for subpages of every debug page (tires for example has 2; press Ctrl-1 twice)

- Removed explicit wheel lock force adjusting (pointing the force in the reverse velocity direction) - the friction circle

methods (and MF5.2) handle this internally already, so it was a double effect.

- A slightly pitched car could make it roll forward automagically.

- Keyboard (digital) controls were framerate dependent; made independent. Keyboard controls are still not recommended.

- Improved failing FBO detection to avoid crashes when your driver doesn't support framebuffer objects.

- LSD's were very buggy; completely revised, they now seem quite spot on. Someone prove me wrong. ;-)

- Salisbury diffs added as LSD's, with the power_ratio and coast_ratio calculated from the angles/clutches. Preload is bad though...

- Info on diffs updated on http://www.racer.nl/tutorial/differentials.htm