CarGame - my game about cars

[MoffKalast]

That was the DLSR in the second picture for sure, it has the surface z-fighting artefacts typical for it.

As far as the stock renderer goes there’s not much you can do to make it work better, aside from adjusting these values:

dlsr.setEnabledStabilization(true);
dlsr.setRenderBackFacesShadows(true);
dlsr.setEdgesThickness(10);
dlsr.setShadowZExtend(800);
dlsr.setShadowZFadeLength(100);
dlsr.setLambda(1f);
dlsr.getPreShadowForcedRenderState().setPolyOffset(6, 3);

(these are my presets, ymmv)

But mostly whatever you manage to set it to it will always have some errors, artefacts or wrong rendering. It’s just how it is. Trust me, I’ve messed around with it for a few years and had a handful of arguments of questionable civility with the guy who wrote it.

[Teemo258]

Both results are a bit broken.
Here is what DLSR do with shadows:

Tried now MoffKalasts presets and it isn’t better. Well, someone of us should write new shadow renderer if we want nice shadows.

I rather won’t use any type of shadow for now.
Thank you for help.

[pspeed]

For games like this, sometimes drop shadows might be ok. That’s what I call the type of shadow where there is just a darker oval on the ground underneath… something to give the objects presence instead of looking like they are floating around everywhere.

SimFX has a simple drop-shadow filter:

Simsilica/SimFX/blob/master/src/main/java/com/simsilica/fx/shadow/DropShadowFilter.java

I creates an egg shaped shaded area underneath the object based on its bounding box. Essentially it does this for anything marked for shadow casting. You can thus even fool it for some objects by creating your own invisible box spatial and marking that to cast instead of the object. Though often the defaults work pretty well.

It works especially well when objects will only rotate around the y axis.

It’s producing the shadows in this picture:

…which is why the shadows aren’t giant ugly streaks down the side of the mountain.

Edit: another example of drop shadows in a more ‘real’ scene:

[pspeed]

Ooh… a comparison shot even:

Regular shadows:

Drop shadows:

Like two totally different styles of game with just different shadow types.

[Teemo258]

Very nice shadow filter. I will try to use it.

[Benoit_Dubreuil]

The windows executable doesn’t work on my machine because it can’t find the installed JRE, which is for Java 9. However, directly executing the .jar works.

By the way, the controls are really frustrating

Anyway, good job for having a game that works!

[Teemo258]

I have met this problem on few machines but haven’t fixed it yet.

Come, tell me what is frustrating for you. I can change it.

Thank you!

[Darkchaos]

What actually amazes me most is that despite the low poly style I can see what reallife cars they represent All 80-90s goodnesses. The green is probably the most obvious, espcially the rims are always nice

[Benoit_Dubreuil]

@Teemo258

Come, tell me what is frustrating for you. I can change it.

First of all, I didn’t know how to make the car accelerate. I tried with the classic WASD and it didn’t work. After that, I tried as many keyboard keys as possible to try just to move forward, but in vain. However, while pressing random keys, I exited the car. If I remember correctly, rotating the FPS camera on the yaw and pitch axes is done independently with one of the mouse’s axis and two keys. I mean, that really shouldn’t be the case. The yaw and pitch axes should rotation according to the X and Y mouse movement axes.

Also, a game menu that can show all key bindings would be really nice but I guess this is more when the game is almost finished

[Teemo258]

@Darkchaos

What actually amazes me most is that despite the low poly style I can see what reallife cars they represent All 80-90s goodnesses. The green is probably the most obvious, espcially the rims are always nice

I’m really, really delighted . I have few more cars in my head. Some from east and maybe some van or utility car. You will see!

@Benoit_Dubreuil

First of all, I didn’t know how to make the car accelerate. I tried with the classic WASD and it didn’t work.

You first have to unbrake the car with Q key and then use WASD for control. Yes, I know it’s a bit strange, but it simulates reality. You just have to read the control list before you do anything

I do not understand what you mean with camera. I used ChaseCamera, it rotates according to mouse movement.

Also, a game menu that can show all key bindings would be really nice but I guess this is more when the game is almost finished

Look, I use screen resolution of 1600x1200, so if all the list of controls is showing on my screen, on the monitor with 1920x1080 res, you won’t read few last lines. I didn’t find out how to create the list with scroling bar, so my game use only what I can do.

[MoffKalast]

@Teemo258

Look, I use screen resolution of 1600x1200, so if all the list of controls is showing on my screen, on the monitor with 1920x1080 res, you won’t read few last lines.

lol

Have you tried, I dunno, scaling the list by resolution like the rest of the gui?

[Teemo258]

Nope, I don’t know something like this exist

[Teemo258]

Reviving this topic. Hope nobody will be hurt.
Still missing shadows and proper lightning…

[Teemo258]

New version of CarGame is ready to launch.

Here is the changelog of 0.2.0 version:

• new car - Car11 Red with unique physics - driveable
• new cars in the world - Van1 Blue and two opponents for drag Car12 Black, Car5 Purple
• drag racing, you can win money or waste some fuel
• added wheel changer in the garage menu - but no wheels yet
• changed HUD - current gear and amount of fuel display in the same line
• new simply speedometer showing current cars speed in km/h
• edited and extended map due to need of drag track
• reworked refueling system, now it’s faster but also more expensive - around 1.32 OC/liter (was 1.20 OC/liter)
• also increased fuel consumption of every car by a smaller multiple
• edited saving of cars, may appear loss of power if you played before this update
• little brown house is finished with empty interior
• no other progress on in game environment yet
• new window when buying a car - informations about the car and its price
• added details to Car2 Red front spoiler - “foglights and grill”
• CarGame finally has its own icons - images right from the game
• very lightly edited lightning

game background changes:

• edited way of controlling vehicles
• improved buying car method
• fully automatic drag opponent control - you must only begin the race with key “E”

I will post the download link here after complete upload if you want to try my game.

And some pictures from the game

[Teemo258]

@Teemo258

I will post the download link here after complete upload if you want to try my game.

Download the game for your machine here.
Enjoy!

[Teemo258]

Hello guys!

CarGame is back after 5 years. Last year I have started recoding the whole game. My old code wasn’t too much good-looking and after some time even I lost in my own code So I spent a lot of time recoding and trying to make code with which I will be satisfied. Also with editing I make few new things and edited a gameplay feel. Although the game still looks the same, I hope you will find joy in the game.

Here is the change log for 0.2.1 version:

• improved walking with improved picking pointer
• 5 new cars
• 1 new trailer
• edited garage menu - added info about current car
• drag race menu, where you can set difficulty and your race win price depends on it
• some job have been deleted and some have been added, including ‘automatic’ job
• job when you have 0 money
• 2 new buildings
• remodeled Car3 Yellow - added a bodykit to the model
• edited shopping - pick the item you want to buy with left mouse button
• you can unlock to buy Car9 Green by racing against it - if you win 5 races then automaticaly on the 6th race it will race against you

Here is the link where you can download the builded game.

And some recent pictures.

Enjoy!

[zzuegg]

First of all, congratulations for the endurance on this project.

The exe supplied with project does not work on my pc. I was however able to launch the jar directly.

As a hint, it took me a while to figure out why my car is not moving. Luckily i found the help window. Maybe a small hint to press F1 for help would be nice

I have not found out how to race or where the garage menu shows up, or how to attach the trailer or how to get a job. So i guess i would need some hints

Some tweaks that should be fairly simple to implement:

• Set the camera near plane closer then the radius of the player capsule to eliminate some of the clipping.
• The camera angle is a bit too steep for my tasting (but that could be by design)

[Teemo258]

Thank you for trying!

What was the problem with .exe? The game was built using JDK 8, with JRE 8u431 I can run the .exe on my machines.

@zzuegg

As a hint, it took me a while to figure out why my car is not moving. Luckily i found the help window. Maybe a small hint to press F1 for help would be nice

Good point! I think about little “start tutorial”, where you will be informed about controls.

@zzuegg

I have not found out how to race or where the garage menu shows up, or how to attach the trailer or how to get a job. So i guess i would need some hints

So this will be the first points in the tutorial When you come in the orange garage with car, on the position where Red car is parked, it should display a HUD text, that with E key you can open the menu. Same on the track, when you came to the right lane close to start line, on the side where the two black and purple cars are parked. You can attach the trailer using T key but you have to came really close to the trailer hitch side (as in real ). Then with trailer you can do the jobs which location could be displayed in the “F1” menu. Come to the yellow circle with the trailer and it will load the trailer (the rotation of the trailer matter, I need to edit the loading to be proof of random trailer rotation). Then you have to find green square where you need to place the trailer with loaded cargo and again press E to get the job done.

@zzuegg

Some tweaks that should be fairly simple to implement:

• Set the camera near plane closer then the radius of the player capsule to eliminate some of the clipping.
• The camera angle is a bit too steep for my tasting (but that could be by design)

Will have a look on the camera.

Again thank you for trying my game !

[bloodwalker]

Hello and congratulations!

I checked your exe and I see you did not bundle the application with a jre (runtime environment). What do you use to create the exe file? Perhaps I can be of help

[Teemo258]

Yes, I didn’t packed the JRE with the game. You have to install it individualy. I’m using old version of JME 3.2.4 and it could not pack the JRE because the Oracle changed the links to download the JRE. Now I tried to put it manualy in the resources/desktop-development/ file but it still couldn’t launch the game with JRE packed .

If we can make this works without manually installing the JRE to your machine it will be great progress for anyone wants to play, but I think it require more than ticking the box in the settings