Nascar - WIP

A project that I started in May, began to lose interest after getting stuck designing the track. Decided to give it another shot!
Now that I have nothing else better to do, figured it’s the perfect time to work on it! Maybe posting the game here will give me a little extra motivation.

First look:

https://youtu.be/S6CSV4heS7k

Again, sorry for the piss-poor quality :[ I oughta mess around with Bandicam’s settings or somthin’

The only car I’ve gotten around to texturing, I managed to get this one off of Google images… gonna have to draw 42 more to make this game as authentic as possible

Wow! That’s really cool. One thing that might make you feel more motivated, by way of progress satisfaction, is improving the lighting. A brighter sunlamp, blue hemi-lamp and some shadows can go A LONG way :smiley:

Keep it up, though. Your AI is impressive.

That is a great idea, I was pretty satisfied with the current lighting, but everything is so much nicer now.
Though I was trying to avoid GLSL… (my laptop is no good)

I can’t figure out how to use shadows in large areas,

This Sun is only reaching 1 car, a bit of the second one. How do I increase it’s distance?

Good luck on the game :wink:

In shadow minitab of sun lamp, set clip end to higher value. may want to set quality as well since that doesn’t look good…too pixelated shadows

Also turn up the Frustrum Size.

Dang it, didn’t get any email notifications. Kind of already solved the problem, I’m using a Spot lamp over the cars, it’s only casting one material, and that is the invisible car mesh that deals with collisions and motion.

Looks good, but I don’t know how effective this will be in the long run.
I read that one giant lamp would suck your GPU like a leech, can’t really bake shadows of a moving vehicle either.
Hope this works fine!

@Marvin: Thank you : ]
Hope this game gets finished!

Update:
-Now using Sun Lamp, it doesn’t affect far away cars, which is good.
-Made a texture for a new car, mapped it out last night. Applied it this morning.

In a bit of a pickle here (lol)
…should I continue with making an oval track (Daytona) or should I go ahead an change EVERYTHING around (drivers + the track) and make something similar to Destruction Derby 2 on the PS1?
It’d be a lot easier, in every aspect possible. Ex: Less drivers, no banking, I don’t have to find + make textures for pre-existing cars. I can also add in ramps like the one in the pitstop (as seen in the video)

Let me know what you think!

I think whatever you decide would be nice. Your past games, although simple, have been enjoyable, and I always look forward to your next game. Oddly enough I expected a “cube racer” type game from you :smiley: . Its good to see you pushing yourself. If you a demo derby game you will probably have to redo all of your AI stuff as the expected behavior would be different than that of a track. But just see what you can come up with either way. No opinion here. Whatever happened to your RPG game you were making a while back??

Ah yes, Cube Racing… I’ve been debating whether or not to revive it. Probably not gonna happen, but it served as a good learning experience for making racing AI. It’s also much harder to make ‘kart racing’ physics,

As for the RPG, I started that one with a friend from school. They had no experience, and I thought they could contribute more than they did. Slowly lost interest as I was doing all the work. I should’a known xD

If I were to make something closer to Destruction Derby (which is not only a demolition derby game, btw) then the car behavior would be pretty similar to what it is now. Only more jumps and crashes. It’s tempting…


I made two more cars: Keslowski(2) and Kenseth(20)
I’m still debating whether or not to change everything, I need people’s input on this.

EDIT: Created a very crude track in 2 minutes (not completed, but a jump and turn) and it’s official. Gonna change 'er up. No more oval track. I will probably leave the cars as is, so it will sorta be like Nascar Rumble (also on PS1) where they just add in the Nascar name for the hell of it.

That being said, I’d like to (if it’s not against the rules) to start a new thread, I don’t know if you (the mods) can remove this one, or lock it… I may not start a new one right away, want to get some significant progress on the new one before posting. I’m definately not going back to an oval track, and will be changing the name of the game. Starting anew, and I’d also like a new thread… this one has nearly a page of me contemplating, and all the comments following would be irrelevant.

Thanks!

Hey man, this reminds me so much of nascar on ps1 :), i was used to play too, if u need some help for the tracks, i’d be glad to help you, since i’ve been practising some period on that, and i’m good in making tracks, but not in building cars and their physic :wink:

cu keep up the good work

That was the plan, but with a modern-day roster! The old NASCAR games on Ps1 were the best, especially 2002.
Nascar Thunder 2004 was on Ps2, but was also very good. Had to have been my favorite.

OT: I would have liked to continue with the oval track, but couldn’t get the banking to work right. I believe what I’m making now will be far more fun. The vehicle physics also didn’t fit very well, the turning was too fast, etc…

Currently working on a road course like Watkins Glen or Infineon , but with more jumps!
Combining my two favorite racing games from the Ps1 Era: Nascar and Destruction Derby 2!

Still using the drivers, though!

How did you setup the racing AI?

I set up invisible ‘ghost’ walls that the cars stay in between, they have an empty that detects the walls on either side, that causes them to steer slightly in the other direction.
There are also gates they pass through to maintain their speed, so if they ever wipe out, they lose all momentum and remain on the track dead.

Looks nice! Good luck! And again I am repeating my often used words: I’d like test it:)

You might want to try using “blob shadows” (at least that’s what I call them). Make a horizontal plane around the center of your car, and map it with a material set to ‘shadow’ face orientation, with the texture image a ‘blob’ representation of your object (a blurry rectangle in this case). You may also want to increase the Z offset a little also to avoid z-fighting between the shadow and the ground.



Having a simple blob of darkness between an object and its surroundings does wonders for the human brain trying to place an object within a 3-dimensional space, and sets the object within the depth of the environment he occupies, rather than looking like he’s being pasted over the top of it. All you need is the suggestion of a shadow, and your brain will put together the rest of the details for you.

@Adrian: Quite an old thread, been a couple months since I’ve worked on this… was so close to finishing it too.
Almost forgot this existed. Thanks to you, I’m going to continue working on it! :smiley:

@Nines: I had actually looked at a tutorial not too long ago that showed how to use Shadow Face Orientation.
Tried using it for a platformer, but it crashed Blender everytime the shadow touched an object with physics. The lighting is good for now, thanks though!

Here’s whats been done since the last time I posted:

https://i.imgflip.com/gwi6b.gif

Air time in NASCAR? Maybe the creators of NASCAR should play this…

Hey this looks really cool. Keep working on it. Maybe later if you have all mechanics in you might want to add powerups like in mario kart, but a little more special :smiley: