Lightning Wheels-UPDATE Pg 18

Hey guys,

I'm still working on my stand up coaster, Stingray, but it's moving real slow. But lately I have been wondering about NL's inner workings. How in the world does it save and extract all that data from the track files? It's driving me nuts! If anyone has any idea on how to free my mind from this enigma, please let me know![:D]

It's the same thing as other games' level editor.

Yes, but how is that?

The track is stored as a series of bezier curves.

its all math and stuff, it remembers the x, y, and z of eveything plus the angles and track type and its all encoded into some code that only NL understands and its saved on your hard drive as microscopic bumps. that help?

Actually... yes it did. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of saving every single xyz co-ordinante, but it would tkake massive amounts of memory. However with the additional idea of bezzier curves, I was able to create a VERY primitive editor and sim. Perhaps one day I will evolve it into a fully fledged competior for NL .

you made your own sim? cool, are you gonna keep it for yourself or give it out or sell it.

cool, you made a sim? can you post a few screenies?

Yea, y'all actually beleive this guy?

if I see screenies, yes...

Hey,

First of, let me say that normally I'd be posting more often then this, but my T1 line recently got fried, so until I can get a new one, I can only use this public access terminal. That being said, yes, I did actually make a sim. However, I stress that it is INCREDIBLY primitive. I work for a video game design firm called Green Light Development. www.glightdev.com. I am the vice-lead-programmer you might say. It's a fairly new company that makes PC games (we're working on our first, an FPS, right now), so you probably never heard of them. So anyways, one day, while hard at work on the weapons system for that FPS, I was getting bored. I decided to just take a quick break and dive into programming a simple coaster sim. Thus, "Lightning Wheels" was born. I started making the menu, then got to the actual sim part, when I realized I had no idea how to go about doing this (why I started this topic)! Then I got these answers and started the sim.

I am programming it in DarkBASIC Professional. www.darkbasicpro.com. If you can picture it, so far, this is what I have for the sim: the screen is a plain blue. Two long, thin, extended cylinders represent the track. A cube represents the coaster car. There is no editor so far, you just open up notepad, type in a sequence of numbers, then save it as "trackname.lwt". If I decide to continue the project, I will of course make a fully blown editor. For now, there are 7 numbers per line, seperated by colons. The first number is a special XYZ and Vector value that tells the sim the general location on the grid where that piece of track is. The second is the length of the piece of track if it were straight. The third is another special value expressing the angle/height-off-ground of control point 1. The fourth number expressing the same for control point 2. The fifth number expresses the distance of handle one from control point one. The sixth expresses the distance of handle two from control point two. The seventh expresses the distance of handle one from control point two. Finally, the eigth expresses the distance of handle two from control point two.

The sim then reads this file, and bends and positions the track cylinders to match the numbers in the file. The "train" (aka cube) then dispatches. Phisics are quite simple. Using a clever form of collision detection, the cube "sticks" to the track, and slides along it. As it heads in a downwards motion, towards the base graph, it will accelerate, and vice versa. There is also a slight friction applied to the train, but other then that, no real phisics.

At this point, I am still deciding whether or not to continue this project. If I do, I will put together a small team to assist with graphics and soudns etc. Hopefully my description convinced you, but if not, I will try to post some screens ASAP. Also, just incase I do continue Lightning Wheels, give me your input! The point of me making this would be to make it the best out there, so I want YOUR ideas on what makes a good coaster sim.

Thanks,
Nick Small.

Edit: By the way, it took me $20 to write that cause I'm on a public access terminal and all[:p]

Hey, quick update.

I finally have internet access, and will try posting some screens over the next few hours. (It's 1 in the morning already, I've been working on the thing since 6 PM. Cut me some slack.) The editor is starting to advance. The sim and the editor are now combined into one, somewhat like Scream Machines. Using a serious of controls, you can manipulate "control points" I have created by a creative use of limbs. Limbs are well, pretty much what they sound like. A "bone" of a 3D mesh. First you select exactly what to edit (i.e. Track piece, left or right side of track, control point etc.), and then you can basically move it anywhere. The cylinder is then moved and adjusted accordingly. Also, there are now "track pieces", instead of just to long cylinders. You can control the length and amount of the pieces. Also, you can just move a certain side of a piece of track up or down. This helps a lot with banking and things.

Consider this a rewrite of the entire engine, or "version 2". I pretty much did start from scratch. So for the moment, you can not actually "dispatch" a train yet. However, in this version 2, I plan to actually implement some phisics. So I will be working long into the night, and will try to post some screen shots in a few hours.

Thanks,
Nick.

Sounds cool, I have a ? though. How much does dark basic pro cost?

DarkBASIC Professional is $99.99 through www.thegamecreators.com (the company who makes DarkBASIC) or www.darkbasicpro.com (simply a redirection to www.darkbasicpro.thegamecreators.com). That is, as far as I know, the only place to purchase it. However, deals and bundles are avalible from that site.

Ok, thanks! I don't know if I should spend my money on it though. I only know how to use 3ds max. I don't know any thing about programing

DarkBASIC Pro is incredibly easy to use. It is basically a programming language for making games! It's a "BASIC" (an akronym for Beginners All Puprose Symbolic Instructional Code... what a mouthful!) language, meaning its very simple. What is extremely complicated and makes no sense in C++, DarkBASIC can do with ease. For example, to make a simple cube and rotate it on screen:

Sync On : Sync Rate 30
Make Object Cube 1,100
Do
XRotate Object 1,Object Angle X(1)+0.2
Sync
Loop

That's it! (That's actual code from the language). Let me explain all that code. Sync On : Sync Rate 30 is basically setting the refresh rate of the screen, or "sync" rate. Sync On and Sync Rate are actually two seperate commands, I just put them on one line and seperated them with a colon (it's little things like this that make the language great). Sync On is telling the computer that you want to manually control the screen refreshing, and sync rate is telling it that you want it to try to refresh the screen 30 times a second.

The next line reads Make object cube 1,100. That should be pretty self explanatory. Make a 3D cube on screen! The first number (1), is like the cubes name. All objects in DarkBASIC Pro are referred to by a number. So this cube is reffered to as object 1. The second number (100), is simply the size of the cube. DarkBASIC Pro uses its own scales, so just think of it as make a cube 100 units big.

The third line is do. This is simply the start of a loop. I'll come back to this in a second.

The fourth line is also pretty self explanatory. XRotate object does just that, rotates an object along its x axis. The first number (1), is telling the computer which object to rotate. Remember how we made that cube and called it object one? Well now we're telling the computer to rotate object 1, or that cube! The second value (object angle x(1)+0.2), is what we call an expression. It is telling the computer to take the current x angle of object one (thats what the 1 in parenthesis means), add 0.2 units to it, and then rotate object 1 to there.

The fifth line is "sync". Sync is very straight forward, it is just saying "refresh the screen right now no matter what". The final line is loop. This loop will then go back to the line "do", and create an infinite looping program. It will keep repeating the rotate object and sync lines until the program is exited, therefore creating a spinning cube. Could it really get any easier?!?!?

And it really helps that you can create your own 3D Objects. With the command "load object", you can load them into your game! Then there are command sets full of ways to manipulate your 3D objects inside the program. I could not recommend it more.

On another note, I think I am going to continue this project. If I do, I will be looking for a team, and you may have a spot! If you are interested, post or PM me some samples of your work. Whether they be coaster related or not.

Thanks,
Nick.

Ok, new info. Version 2 got real old real fast, so I skipped it and am now on version 3 (also my third cup of coffee). This one has an actual menu, WORKS, and so I will post some screens within the hour.

Also, some feature updates:
I am trying to combine the best features of all the other sims plus many more to make this the best sim around.

Planned Feature List so far (in no specific order):
Ability to play music on your rides.
Multiple rides in one "park". These "parks" are called "fields".
Enough track types to satisfy all for quite a while.
Super accurate phisics.
Wonderful graphics and graphics acceleration.
The ability to theme your ride in every imaginable way.
The ability to edit your ride outside of the editor.
Water rides? (That's a most definite maybe).
Complete freedom. From everything. The game will use common file formats like .wav and .3ds. So if you want to make your own train design, you can! Not just car textures anymore!
Your name will be hardcoded into your fields so nobody can steal them.
Accurate g-force, speed, etc. representation.
Many more.

Again, if you have any suggestions, please, share!

Nick.

Alright, well it's 5:08 am here, I'm finally off to bed. I've got this nice little screen shot (2 actually) already to be taken, but don't have a screen shot program. Does anyone know of a good program? I'll take it in the morning and post it up here first thing.

Thanks,
Nick.

hmm just hit Print screen tab ( above the insert botton) then go into paint and press paste, then hey presto you have a screen shot of it. Remember to save as jpeg tho [;)]

That works.[:D] Screen one:


The angle I took this screen at is kind of akward. It looks like the track is just straight, but in fact, it is curving upwards, into a hill.

Screen two:



Again, angles are slightly akward. The track pieces are NOT crossing, I can assure you. This is when the "train" is dispatching from the station.

cool, lol, we get to play with a box!!! Anyway, it does look like a begining of a game at least!

cool deal, keep up the work. I can tell from the screen shots that it is in a very primitive stage but keep at it.

it looks like someone beat IntaminAG to the game, lol, good job for atcually doing it!

LOL Shortkid!!![:D]You had me laughing for like 5 minutes straight!