That looks really amazing...All it needs now is for the Queens of the Stone Age song "Go with the Flow" to repeat in the background. Like alot of (OSS included) projects of this type though, it stands the risk of just being abandoned for one reason or the other (probably because it's just a hobby project in this case), which would be a shame, since this is a nice case study for simplicity and would be nice to make a game of some sort with. Burnout in the dark maybe?
One of the best projects I did at school was a networked tank game in my computer graphics class, on (now quite ancient) IRIX workstations. Battlezone kind of game, very simple, but lots of fun to play -- especially when the professor was manning one of the tanks:-)
Simplicity is a virtue, and not just in coding. Now take this project and combine it with Google Maps and it could be very interesting...
I say combine it with mapquest and drive those directions out before ever leaving the house...I'd pay for a service like that since I have the worst directional skills ever.
Also, this reminds me of that show they used to have on CITY-TV where they'd take cameras through the streets (and the underground walkways) of Toronto late at night, all set to jazz music. It was simple yet mesmerizing... people would literally watch it for hours.
I am quite certain that the show in question was on Global TV, not CITY-TV. There was also a 'night drives' show, where the camera was on a car that would drive through the streets of Toronto late at night.
And - because the entire production, crew, station, not to mention the music and the performers, were all Canadian, Global racked up serious CanCon points for that show!
This is not off topic - this really does look like that show!!
Not all games/demos have to be at the burning edge of graphics.
15 years on, and loads of people still play lemmings. The emulator scene for old 16 bit machines, and even old arcade machines is bigger than ever. All these people can't be wrong.
All modern games have, is their graphics. Most of them don't even have enjoyable game-play. Graphics are not everything, calling a game with low-spec graphics, rubbish, is like saying Impressionists couldn't paint.
I'm not missing the point. The game has nothing going for it, compared to other racers, except stylised graphics, and you said yourself graphics don't make the game.
You are missing the point, it's not even a racer yet, it's a demo of a bezier graphics engine at the moment.
It barely even has rudimentary collision detection yet...
Hold on while I just go ahead and download an executable called Drivey through a link that was submitted by an anonymous author. What could possibly go wrong?
Exactly the same risks as downloading a tarball of sourcecode and compiling it. Oh, you read every line of source you download? Including the configure script, which may well contain a trojan? Ignore me then!
Exactly the same risks as downloading a tarball of sourcecode and compiling it. Oh, you read every line of source you download? Including the configure script, which may well contain a trojan? Ignore me then!
Well, except that almost every program on windows expects to be run with elevated priveleges, to the point that it's about impossible to install any program otherwise. So if a user is duped, your machine is rooted. Not true of unix, unless you're installing it as root, which you probably shouldn't d
Age of Empires (a Microsoft-produced title) requires full Admin rights to run. It's not just third-party developers doing a lousy job of coding within acceptable security standards.
Simple cell-shading done with style. This is what's missing from most games. Real style.
If I wanted photo-realism, I'd get up from my PC and head out the front door. Games such as WoW, Rez, Killer 7 and Ico have shown that a little creativity in the design can go a long way. It can also be easy on the gpu.
Its one of the very few genres were maximum realism really is wanted, because everybody known how it look to drive and have expectations how it should look like when driving, well, faster...
You've obviously never played games like Burnout, Outrun, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, Wipeout, F-Zero, or any of the other myriad of racing games where realism is most definitely not the goal...
And to the "style" of this "demo". Well, i cant call it style, and i cant call it a demo. Its more like a short looping flash movie, and the "style" is using only one colour and making everything so dark you cant see there isnt anything too see.
And from this, I can tell you've obviously never played any of the prior art listed on this page, such as Night Driver or Speed Freak.
Racing games are not a genre that requires any more realism than any other genre. The point of a racing game is to have fun. There is no need for them to be realistic - there is only a need to make you feel like you are driving something.
This guy does call this a "driving simulation", which implies realism, but even that's a misnomer. There's nothing about the word "simulation" that implies realistic visuals - the dictionary definition that applies in this case is "Representation of the operation or features of one process or system through the use of another: computer simulation of an in-flight emergency."
And to further that example, modern commercial flight sims (you know, the ones that cost $2 million each) have less realistic graphics than commercially-available flight simulators available at your local GameStop. Because simulating the inner workings of something is not really about texture-mapping every single crack on the asphalt.
The "action" goes smooth under wine, just had problems to find a way out of the demo again (used a root shell to kill wine, read manual before running the demo might help). Just to add a bit of light effects from the lightposts will make it really great.
Nice project, now lets back to Gran Turismo and see what still needs to be done (-:
That reminds me of the old way of getting access to WinNT 4.0 admin account if you had forgotten the password. You just back up logon.scr, and then copy cmd.exe to logon.scr, reboot, and wait 15 minutes. A DOS prompt with admin rights would pop up and you were on your way.;)
Most games overdo stuff with graphics when they could focus on content.
Yah--it's like TV. The problem with my TV can't be solved with a Wide Screen, HD Plasma Monitor, it can only by solved by the producers hiring some writers.
Towards the bottom of the page, the author says this about a screenshot:
Interesting thing here is the big black blob in the top left, which is the bottom end of a light pole. Why is it floating in the air? Because extruded objects can't currently be drawn correctly unless one end is visible to the observer. The reason for this is remarkably interesting, specific to the weird 2-and-a-half-D rendering system, and pretty much impossible to explain to anyone without a strong background in both 2D and 3D graphics.
*sigh*
oh well, I find it interesting anyway.
It sounds interesting to me... but I don't have a background in both 2D and 3D graphics. Would someone care to explain it?
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Wednesday August 10, 2005 @07:05AM (#13284929)
If you have driven halfway through a lightpole so that you can't see the top or the bottom, where would you draw it? Where you last saw it? When would you stop drawing it?
The problem is that it's trying to show 3 dimensions with only 2 dimensional objects. Here's another problem with a similar issue. Imagine a very flat wall. Take a large light source like the sun and bring it to a position above and behind the wall, now the wall face is dark and a long shadow is cast. Now move the light source to the front of the wall. The wall is lit up and no shadow is cast by the wall. Now slowly move the light source up directly over the edge of the wall. Get to the point just before a shadow would appear. Should the wall be lit? Should it be dark? Should half of it be lit?
it has real style and is smooth. I'm píssed off with photo realism and píssed off at games that have great graphics but suck to play. I end up playing simpler games with crapper graphics to enjoy their better gameplay (Sensible soccer, pacman) spring to mind.
Even though it's only a demo, ideas like this show what's missing in modern games too often... style.
drivers approach down each other's right-hand side, which makes a lot of sense considering how much of the population is right-handed.
This page [pandora.be] gives an interesting description on driving traditions.
Basically, driving on the left comes from the need to protect yourself with your sword arm from oncoming attackers, and driving on the right comes from needing to whip a train of horses with your right hand while riding on the left-rear horse (this was before seats, and if you're on the left hand horse, it's easier to pass people on the right). So both systems are rooted in the notion that most people are right handed, it's just that the use of the right hand for either reigns or swords determined the protocol chosen.
This [drivey.com] is supposed to be the last software professionally written by Bill Gates.
Even though probably no one much ever played this primitive bit of DOS/BASIC demo software [purportedly the last piece of professional software ever written by Bill Gates!]
For anyone else reading this and that is not clicking through, the parent is not referring to the demo in question, but rather a game written by Bill Gates and Neil Konzen to show off the capabilities of Basic and the IBM PC. Wikipedia entry (pops) [wikipedia.org].
Fatal Error: Driving on the wrong side of the damn road.
Frivolties aside, if realism isn't the goal, why stick to our boring terran transportation? I think the game would be really cool if some ideas were stolen^W^W^W inspiration was taken from Wipeout, letting some big air jumps enter the game. Why not take a little from Tribes aswell and add the jet boost-thing? Mix well and the result is a toe curling orgasm^W^W^W hit for sure.
I drove Drivey after an hour long commute in my BMW.
Know what?
I prefer the BMW! #1 reason: Predictable body roll physics. I turn the wheel left, and the car follows. Not so in Drivey, where I turn the car right, and the horizon tips over to the opposite side. Does Drivey think it's a boat?
Drivey has fine acceleration however, and I dig the everlasting twilight/dawn.
It reminds me a lot of the Ford Simulator [dosgamesarchive.com] that existed in the oldenne days (1987). Not as much instrumentation, but who really needs a tach or speedo anyway?
Try this one: hold down B to brighten the palette. The blacks stay black, but the road lines, sky, and steering wheel highlights get brighter (and easier to see).
If you hold it down for a while, it'll get to a stark black and white—very artsy:)
It's not really a game. Minimally interactive demo really...
Arrow/WASD keys control steering and accel/brake, but the car drives itself to stay on the road so you really can't steer. 1-4 selects a road/scene, C adds 8 cars, K toggles palette rotation.
With palette rotation this would almost make a good screensaver... =Smidge=
I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the best projects I did at school was a networked tank game in my computer graphics class, on (now quite ancient) IRIX workstations. Battlezone kind of game, very simple, but lots of fun to play -- especially when the professor was manning one of the tanks :-)
Simplicity is a virtue, and not just in coding. Now take this project and combine it with Google Maps and it could be very interesting...
Eric
See what your browser's sending with the HTTP header viewer [ericgiguere.com]
Re:I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:5, Funny)
Congratulations, you've just invented the new "imagine a beowulf cluster of
Re:I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:3, Funny)
I might get the roof-bars fitted to my Mondeo tonight and strap a webcam to them.. all I'd need is my laptop set to record straight to mpeg...
Re:I cannae see shit, cap'n! (Score:3, Informative)
And - because the entire production, crew, station, not to mention the music and the performers, were all Canadian, Global racked up serious CanCon points for that show!
This is not off topic - this really does look like that show!!
Re:Burnout ruled (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all games/demos have to be at the burning edge of graphics.
15 years on, and loads of people still play lemmings. The emulator scene for old 16 bit machines, and even old arcade machines is bigger than ever. All these people can't be wrong.
All modern games have, is their graphics. Most of them don't even have enjoyable game-play. Graphics are not everything, calling a game with low-spec graphics, rubbish, is like saying Impressionists couldn't paint.
-Jar.
Re:Burnout ruled (Score:3, Interesting)
You are missing the point, it's not even a racer yet, it's a demo of a bezier graphics engine at the moment.
It barely even has rudimentary collision detection yet...
Trojan? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, gee whiz (Score:4, Insightful)
why ? it works on Wine... (Score:4, Informative)
You'll realize that all the "standard" offsets most viruses use for exploiting buffer overflows are almost always not valid in Wine.
Also this has been featured on tucows.com
Re:Uh, what? (Score:4, Funny)
Seeing as how he's spent time in federal prison, I'm just gonna hafta take his word for it... : p
Re:Well, gee whiz (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, gee whiz (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, except that almost every program on windows expects to be run with elevated priveleges, to the point that it's about impossible to install any program otherwise. So if a user is duped, your machine is rooted. Not true of unix, unless you're installing it as root, which you probably shouldn't d
Re:Well, gee whiz (Score:3, Insightful)
MTV (Score:5, Interesting)
Style (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple cell-shading done with style. This is what's missing from most games. Real style.
If I wanted photo-realism, I'd get up from my PC and head out the front door. Games such as WoW, Rez, Killer 7 and Ico have shown that a little creativity in the design can go a long way. It can also be easy on the gpu.
Re:Style (Score:5, Insightful)
Its one of the very few genres were maximum realism really is wanted, because everybody known how it look to drive and have expectations how it should look like when driving, well, faster...
You've obviously never played games like Burnout, Outrun, Daytona USA, Ridge Racer, Wipeout, F-Zero, or any of the other myriad of racing games where realism is most definitely not the goal...
And to the "style" of this "demo". Well, i cant call it style, and i cant call it a demo. Its more like a short looping flash movie, and the "style" is using only one colour and making everything so dark you cant see there isnt anything too see.
And from this, I can tell you've obviously never played any of the prior art listed on this page, such as Night Driver or Speed Freak.
Racing games are not a genre that requires any more realism than any other genre. The point of a racing game is to have fun. There is no need for them to be realistic - there is only a need to make you feel like you are driving something.
This guy does call this a "driving simulation", which implies realism, but even that's a misnomer. There's nothing about the word "simulation" that implies realistic visuals - the dictionary definition that applies in this case is "Representation of the operation or features of one process or system through the use of another: computer simulation of an in-flight emergency."
And to further that example, modern commercial flight sims (you know, the ones that cost $2 million each) have less realistic graphics than commercially-available flight simulators available at your local GameStop. Because simulating the inner workings of something is not really about texture-mapping every single crack on the asphalt.
Re:Style (Score:4, Insightful)
Please.
It's just a fun little project. You're going to give yourself a heart attack trying to find fault.
Drivey Crashes (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem is I get crashes before it even starts.
It appears Drivey does not like my Dual Screens.
It flashes some kind of grahics test across both monitors and then exits.
Durn.
Pretty good (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice project, now lets back to Gran Turismo and see what still needs to be done (-:
Howto Make it a Screensaver in Windows (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Howto Make it a Screensaver in Windows (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Howto Make it a Screensaver in Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
copy cmd.exe to logon.scr, reboot, and wait 15 minutes. A DOS prompt with admin rights would pop up and you were on your way.
Re:Howto Make it a Screensaver in Windows (Score:5, Informative)
You now have a screensaver which doesn't exit on mouse movements or key presses
Also, a standard
Renaming
Re:Howto Make it a Screensaver in Windows (Score:5, Funny)
Not only is it a cool screen saver, it's secure too.
tried it (Score:5, Interesting)
Most games overdo stuff with graphics when they could focus on content.
Now all we need is some cows, logs, perhaps some water, dual player, 2x tac2 and rear view of a mockup car with lotus logo.
Re:tried it (Score:3, Funny)
Yah--it's like TV. The problem with my TV can't be solved with a Wide Screen, HD Plasma Monitor, it can only by solved by the producers hiring some writers.
2.5D graphics rendering (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting thing here is the big black blob in the top left, which is the bottom end of a light pole. Why is it floating in the air? Because extruded objects can't currently be drawn correctly unless one end is visible to the observer. The reason for this is remarkably interesting, specific to the weird 2-and-a-half-D rendering system, and pretty much impossible to explain to anyone without a strong background in both 2D and 3D graphics. *sigh* oh well, I find it interesting anyway.
It sounds interesting to me... but I don't have a background in both 2D and 3D graphics. Would someone care to explain it?
Re:2.5D graphics rendering (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that it's trying to show 3 dimensions with only 2 dimensional objects. Here's another problem with a similar issue. Imagine a very flat wall. Take a large light source like the sun and bring it to a position above and behind the wall, now the wall face is dark and a long shadow is cast. Now move the light source to the front of the wall. The wall is lit up and no shadow is cast by the wall. Now slowly move the light source up directly over the edge of the wall. Get to the point just before a shadow would appear. Should the wall be lit? Should it be dark? Should half of it be lit?
Re:2.5D graphics rendering (Score:5, Funny)
Ensuring that it's at least 25% flatter than your everyday, ordinary flat wall...
it's only a demo but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I found a rather obvious bug... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I found a rather obvious bug... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:it makes sense really (Score:5, Interesting)
This page [pandora.be] gives an interesting description on driving traditions.
Basically, driving on the left comes from the need to protect yourself with your sword arm from oncoming attackers, and driving on the right comes from needing to whip a train of horses with your right hand while riding on the left-rear horse (this was before seats, and if you're on the left hand horse, it's easier to pass people on the right). So both systems are rooted in the notion that most people are right handed, it's just that the use of the right hand for either reigns or swords determined the protocol chosen.
Bonus Code Fu Courtesy of Bill Gates (Score:5, Funny)
Even though probably no one much ever played this primitive bit of DOS/BASIC demo software [purportedly the last piece of professional software ever written by Bill Gates!]
Good to see he ended on such a high note.
Correction and Note (Score:4, Informative)
Fatal error: (Score:5, Funny)
Frivolties aside, if realism isn't the goal, why stick to our boring terran transportation? I think the game would be really cool if some ideas were stolen^W^W^W inspiration was taken from Wipeout, letting some big air jumps enter the game. Why not take a little from Tribes aswell and add the jet boost-thing?
Mix well and the result is a toe curling orgasm^W^W^W hit for sure.
Waiting... (Score:4, Funny)
And dont forget to.. (Score:4, Informative)
http://intepid.com/2005-05-08/13.49/ [intepid.com]
It is really good!
Way, way too unrealistic... (Score:4, Funny)
Bunch of different keyboard commands, too (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bunch of different keyboard commands, too (Score:3, Informative)
Body roll physics (Score:3, Interesting)
Know what?
I prefer the BMW! #1 reason: Predictable body roll physics. I turn the wheel left, and the car follows. Not so in Drivey, where I turn the car right, and the horizon tips over to the opposite side. Does Drivey think it's a boat?
Drivey has fine acceleration however, and I dig the everlasting twilight/dawn.
It reminds me a lot of the Ford Simulator [dosgamesarchive.com] that existed in the oldenne days (1987). Not as much instrumentation, but who really needs a tach or speedo anyway?
Easter Eggs! (Score:3, Informative)
- Left, Right, Up, Down: Steer & Accelerate/Brake
- A, D, W, S: Same as above, respectively
- T: Toggle Info
- G: Grey Scale
- H: display random palette
- K: palette cycle (Pretty cool)
- C: adds Other Cars (8 at a time)
- N/M: Zoom in/out
- F1: Shows all key functions on Screen
- F2: Toggle WireFrame
- F3: Toggle Dashboard
- F4: Show Rear View
- F5: Toggle Manual Control
- F6: Toggle Sound
- F7: Change Sky Gradient
- F11: Toggle Full Screen
Play around with it!Note: you can seriously slow down the game by hitting C a whole bunch of times.
Re:Easter Eggs! (Score:3, Informative)
Num Keys 1-4 Change the Scenery.
- 1: Sparce Road
- 2: Tunnel
- 3: City
- 4: Industrial
numbers 5-9 just change it back to "very sparce road". The game defaults to 4: IndustrialRe:Easter Eggs! (Score:3, Interesting)
If you hold it down for a while, it'll get to a stark black and white—very artsy
Re:Anyone tried it yet? (Score:5, Informative)
Arrow/WASD keys control steering and accel/brake, but the car drives itself to stay on the road so you really can't steer. 1-4 selects a road/scene, C adds 8 cars, K toggles palette rotation.
With palette rotation this would almost make a good screensaver...
=Smidge=
Manual steering (Score:3, Informative)
For added bonus, hold CTRL to make things really fast and SHIFT to slow to a crawl.
Re:Anyone tried it yet? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Anyone tried it yet? (Score:5, Funny)