What can and can't be worn out?

[Maxaxle]

I remember distinctly in the Street Rod games that you could never actually wear out your chassis, or the wheels, or the axles, but many other parts including the engine, transmission, and tires; will there be more parts that can wear out? Will you be able to wear out or damage a car's bodywork or chassis?

[cdoublejj]

it just doesn't really make sense... it does but, you have to draw a line some where. perhaps things like the rear end differential and shocks will wear out over time.

[Battlewagon]

A "quality" rating of 1-10 might also be interesting, although controversial.  More expensive stuff could last longer, etc.  For example, the tires could vary a lot.  There were also several engines of the period that didn't last very long but which were very common.  The original engine used in the Vega (it's an obsession of mine on these forums by now), for example, wasn't very well made, and some engines like the 426 HEMI and the Chevy ZL1 427 were monster racing engines that ran far less well on the street.  There were also different quality levels of transmissions, with the Muncie M22 and THM-400 generally being tougher than the M20 and the THM-350, for example.  Obviously, like I said, this could get controversial fast, though.  Is there an update yet on the actual game as it is now?

[cdoublejj]

perhaps. definitely makes sense with stuff like cheap tires that wear out sooner. etc etc


kind of but, not really. I'm still working on my article and i've installed unity and plan on reading the "car" tutorial on unity to get basic demo working... or at least i will try.

[Battlewagon]

Wow.  That's actually better news than I was expecting.  I still have the models I was thinking of porting, but I'm itching to make more.  Life is obviously complicated.  Porting would obviously be the fastest and most practical option.

[cdoublejj]

i have no idea how scaling is gonna work. Before he left Mr.Chris re scaled my garage model and installed a large rectangle for scale, set in place of very large American car (i forget which model and year).

[Battlewagon]

I guess we could either use the same scaling as in the demo, or use the scale of the game engine.  Obviously, in computer gaming everything is a construct, so scale only refers the size of objects relative to each other.  The player otherwise won't know the difference. 

I don't even know what the "scale" was in Redline.  What I did to scale my models was compare the models in-game to the crash boxes, which were done in real scale.  Probably the units of the crash boxes used by the game engine would be the simplest thing to base the model scale and positioning on, and hopefully the game engine is already designed to make this clear.  In addition, if models are one-piece, they can be rescaled as necessary.  The body should clearly be one model except for the hood, the wheels should be modelled completely separately since in the SR universe they're distinct from the cars anyway, along with the exhausts, and the engine, transmission, and differential will likely only be relevant in the garage view. 

If I have a vote in this, my position is that we should choose whatever scale the engine is designed for to make development as easy as possible.

[Maxaxle]

1. We could always scale things based on reality, i.e. a car that's A feet B inches long in reality will be A feet and B inches long ingame. It doesn't matter what real-unit-to-ingame-unit conversion factor you're using (like "1 inch equals 1 unit"), so long as you're consistent.
2. Stupid question: wouldn't it make more sense to model everything you could possibly see on/in the car, so instead of having an interior model, a garage model, and an exterior model, you'd have a single unified set of models?

[cdoublejj]

i don't fully understand #2.

For number 1 when i think about it might be best to just go with the unity demo scale though i'm not sure if i can accurately and even scale my garage model.

[Maxaxle]

For #2, I was thinking that we could handle cars the way TF2 handles held weapon models: have the first-person and third-person models be exactly the same (when the two are often handled separately for most FPSs).

Think of it this way: When you reload a gun in Deus Ex, you get a nice animation of the old magazine being removed, the new magazine being loaded, and then it's ready to fire. If you see someone else doing exactly the same thing, all you see is their hands coming together with the gun for a few seconds. When you reload a gun in TF2, no matter what perspective you're using, it always looks the same.

[cdoublejj]

1st person and 3rd person would only be matter of camera angles. I think you are over thinking it. AFAIK it's worked this way for as long as i can ever remember modding and tweaking games and doing 3D models.

[Maxaxle]

Regardless, I know that many games have deviated from this "standard", with the oldest example I know of being Doom multiplayer (i.e. it always looks like you're holding a shotgun), and the oldest non-Street-Rod example I know of being Carmageddon (your car model can deform, but the "interior" camera does not show the damage accurately, having only a "non-damaged hood" and a "damaged hood" model/texture).

[cdoublejj]

Doom is not 3D but, instead is 2.5D

Now i understand what you are talking about, it make sense now however back in those days they did that to cut down on resource usage. Kind of hard to render an interior AND external damage textures deformations with sucking up more ram.

Even the first 3D incarnations of SR3 used the standard with only one model for all camera angles. Also why the 2D version of SR3 was scraped. (well at least part of it)

[TSJ]

perhaps. definitely makes sense with stuff like cheap tires that wear out sooner. etc etc


kind of but, not really. I'm still working on my article and i've installed unity and plan on reading the "car" tutorial on unity to get basic demo working... or at least i will try.

Good plan.. I have installed unity yesterday and I have created a test project... I am currently adding free "assets" from the official assets page to my test project... I will also try to experiment a little to see whats what in unity... But so far I really like the unity editor 

I have tried making a 3D game using irrlicht back in 2004. I think I might have some car models from Mr.Chris sitting on a harddrive somewhere. Also my modified '32 and '40 is also there somewhere...

[cdoublejj]

perhaps. definitely makes sense with stuff like cheap tires that wear out sooner. etc etc


kind of but, not really. I'm still working on my article and i've installed unity and plan on reading the "car" tutorial on unity to get basic demo working... or at least i will try.

Good plan.. I have installed unity yesterday and I have created a test project... I am currently adding free "assets" from the official assets page to my test project... I will also try to experiment a little to see whats what in unity... But so far I really like the unity editor 

I have tried making a 3D game using irrlicht back in 2004. I think I might have some car models from Mr.Chris sitting on a harddrive somewhere. Also my modified '32 and '40 is also there somewhere...

HOLY HELL!!! I barley got the racing demo to compile. I need ot look up how to add assets or rather import my own 3d models.