Requires GLUT DLLs: http://reality.sgi.com/opengl/glut3/glutdlls37beta.zip

camaro.zip (430KB) - El simplistic OpenGL demo. Physics, lighting, texture mapped ground, and joystick control. This is just something I did ages ago and is pretty much here as a relic.

ToDo List

• Represent tires in physics model. Want the capability to blow out tires, which would result in loss of control and/or speed.
• Adjust rotation for better accuracy. Right now, the rotational aspect of the physics isn't 100%, must remedy this.
• Add some firepower. Guns, guns, guns.
• Additional car models. The white police car is losing it's magic. Definitely need other game objects.
• Implement buildings and structures. This is supposed to be occuring in a city after all.
• Work on implemention more AI models. Going to need escape models for people on the run, bystander AI for extras, and other forms.
• Add EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity). You gotta get out of the car todo other stuff. Like shoot-outs and chases on foot.
• Combination CD and MP3 player with nifty car stereo interface. I'm no musician, so I think I'll just let you bring your own.
• Networking! Going have to go over socket programming again. I want to avoid using DirectPlay as it is quite platform dependent. Just imagine a server (called a City) where people can hook up, play as cops or rival gangs and do battle in the streets. Games like Cops'N'Robberz (just thought of this) where... well you get the idea.

History

May 17, 99

The physics and chase AI have matured considerably. Rotational motion and inertia have been mostly complete. Main concern now is to accurately model the ground & tire interactions. This would give alot better action in high-speed turns and such.

No demo today, still much I'd like to iron out before I make another release (like anyone visits this page).

Also seriously examining sockets programming for use in networking the game. Early prototypes would probably be a glorified demolition derby to iron out some details.

May 14, 99

Work has progressed. The physics/driving is mostly done (still working on the engine aspect) and I've started work on the AI. Right now the demo is you, and 4 AI cars. Best way to describe them: simple and vicious. They will chase you down and try to send you spinning.

Imagine driving along full steam. All the sudden you see blue & red flashers on your six. The cop moves up starts bumping your ass. Then he moves up along your side inches away, pulls in front, slams on his brakes. You crash into his rear and both stop. Then his buddies come up from behind and slam you at 80mph. Not bad for 20 lines of code.

May 12, 99

Been working on TF (my new acronym) a bit (mostly enjoying hardware accelerated OpenGL). Two new screen shots: fuzzy004.jpg and fuzzy005.jpg. Both show smoke effect, with the 2nd the better of the two. Nice thing about the smoke is that it is alpha blended over the background so it covers up stuff. Also the particles swirl around giving a very nice looking turbulence effect. Also note that the police lights themselves also illuminate the smoke. Pretty nifty huh?

I have a whole page of (mis)features I want to implement. But I think it would be wise to focus on two things first. First, static objects like buildings and other structures. Second, give it some form of AI. Maybe a high level A* algorithm or related, with a lower level driving algorithm so it can make turns.

May 11, 99

I think me and my new Banshee ICD are going to get along just fine together. Now with in window OpenGL acceleration, I've decided to switch from straight Win32 to using the GLUT library. With GLUT 3.7 and it's game mode, it's ridiculously easy to handle the windowing aspect of it. As a plus, it should be fully portable to Linux. Maybe when I get a new hard drive, install Linux (hopefully by then they would have perfected the necessary X server and such for my card), and have a cool OpenGL Linux workstation I'll port it to Linux (ie. recompile).

May 9, 99 (II)

Collision detection and physics work! I should write up an explanation of how and post it to my page later. Suffice it to say, it can detect where the collision occurs (with-in reason), calculate and execute accurate changes to each object's momentum and angular momentum. So if you hit a car just right, it'll spin out of control. Very cool. You really can't tell from this screen shot. Oh heck, here's a demo. Fellow Voodoo users can use the 3Dfx Beta OpenGL with it (it's what I'm using, seeing as I'm still waiting for the Banshee ICD). Press Alt-F4 to quit the demo.

May 9, 99

Back to 2D for a while. I think I'll make a 2D version for 1.x and then switch to 3D for 2.x (aren't I optimistic). Still using OpenGL, but I am also using MIDAS for sound. DirectSound is nice, but MIDAS is a heck of alot easier to use, more efficient, and the code more mature. Here's a screen shot (you can see the obvious GTA similarity). Now if I could find a multi-platform window and input library, I'd have the ultimate portable game platform.

No demo yet, right now I'm working on the collision detection and physics engine. Essentially combining some past demo work.

Feb 8, 99

Now you REALLY need hardware accelerated OpenGL for the camaro demo. It uses a texture mapped ground. I experimented with mip-mapping and got that working. Also I added joystick control. Enjoy! Oh, and here's a screenshot.

Feb 7, 99

Did some work on the Camaro demo. First off, I got a better 3D model. The polygons were actually facing the right way this time. Second, I made the camera follow the car around (there ya go Scythe-X). Third, I added a simple physics model. It may seem like driving on ice, but you can do more stunts.

Feb 5, 99 (II)

Ok, something resembling a demo. Take the model below, pop in some controls, and you get the idea. Arrow keys control the car, space is a Pathetic Braking System©, escape quits (or Alt-F4 works too). Best results with hardware accelerated OpenGL. For you fellow Voodoo users, get the 3Dfx beta OpenGL from 3dfx.com, copy the .DLL to the same directory, rename it OPENGL32.DLL, and run the program in full-screen. Some of the doors 'n windows aren't properly lit. I'm to lazy to modify the polygon orientation by hand to fix it, so suffer through it.

Feb 5, 99

Decided to whip up some demos for a little side thing I'm contemplating. So out comes OpenGL, I figure out lighting and how to load a DXF.

Feb 2, 99

Got the modelor resembling something like a real 3D modelor. Although the interface leaves MUCH to be desired! After about 4 rewrites, the last one I wrote entirely today in C using OpenGL and GLUT. Vertex insertion & selection, basic polygon insertion. Next step will be probably vertex transformations like: translation, scaling, and rotation (should take all of one more night, the core is already there). Then tackle more advanced stuff like polygon detail: normals, RGB values, and texture. That's all I have planned for the initial version. After that slap in some file format stuff. Then I can start thinking about more features and effects.

Jan 27, 99

Started work on a 3D modelor so I can start constructing models to play with. Should have it working enough to generate model data to play with simple demos hopefully by the end of the week assuming coding progresses at the same rate. Also ignore the screen shot below, it won't bare much at all resemblence to the complete and final target.

Jan 21, 99

Screw DJGPP/Allegro, I'm switching to Visual C++, OpenGL, and DirectX for sound, input, etc. This OpenGL thing is just too damned fun with hardware acceleration (Voodoo Banshee). This eliminates some of the problems of using Allegro, and gives the advantage of more possibilities. (Mental note: flip-flopping design can be hazardous, stick to this plan or kill the project.)

Dec 15, 98

Switched back to DJGPP and Allegro, got some shit done. The lack of a rotation function in DirectX really bites (it's in the API, but was never implemented), plus a lot of the functions already in Allegro have already proven useful.

I added the first screen shot! Okay, it isn't much, but it's something. In the process of working on the prototype graphics engine, I arrived at the idea to use shadowing for showing elevations and slopes. Notice the headlight effect, this could be very useful in night time driving, an effect easily achieved by altering the palette. This could also apply to other light sources like street lights. Also if I can figure out how, maybe this could work with red & blue lights to simulate the police car's flashers. Also the smoke effect will be very nice with explosions and when the cars take damage.

I came across a work in progress porting Allegro to Linux. If this works, then porting The Fuzz to Linux should be a matter of recompiling the binaries with the Linux library. Also, if I ever get Linux installed and the Linux Allegro working, then development could switch to Linux. But the game will still be able to run via DJGPP under DOS or Windows 9x.

But now I have to study for my linear algebra final.

Nov 23, 98

Switched from DJGPP and Allegro to Visual C++ and DirectX.

Nov 20, 98

Launched development home page.