01.09.2022   2 comments   Category: Site news

Episode 22: VRC racing modes

Basically VRC Pro has 3 racing modes, practice, events and multi-player. The practice and event modes are based on what we had already developed for VRC v3, but much more sophisticated and more depth in the reporting, for multiplayer we had to start from scratch.

Of course, we were going to include multi-player in VRC Pro. Gaming and multiplayer had evolved immensely fast between 2005 and 2010, especially since superfast internet had become widely available in most of the developed countries, and it looked certain that this was only going to accelerate at a faster pace in the years to come.

Our multi-player development was started somewhere around 2008, we had opted to use the Raknet open source library rather than to develop everything ourselves, we had more than enough on our plate already. It was a promising platform illustrated by the acquisition of Raknet by Oculus VR in 2014 (and Oculus was later acquired by Facebook).

The Raknet library provides the underlayin... read more

13.07.2022   0 comments   Category: Site news

Episode 21: special racing features

We really wanted to step up the racing features VRC Pro would have to offer in order to make up for the ‘loss’ of the famous AI-cars. That feature was simply not sustainable as I explained in an earlier episode. I anticipated that we would easily have 80 to 100 tracks in VRC Pro, multiply that by 8 for all the classes we were planning, by 2 for spec and modified, by 2 for normal direction and reversed direction and finally by 3 for the 3 racer levels we were planning, Club, Sport and Pro. And each AI-car recording and implementation would take at least 1 or 2 days if not more. Simply undoable.

So let’s take a look at what we came up with in the cause of the development process. As always it started relatively simple but along the way it expanded and expanded. Feature creep, remember? Let me sum up the basic structures we developed for VRC Pro without going into too much detail…

Spec and Modified chassis
From the outset I wanted 2 different levels of cars, Spec a... read more

01.07.2022   3 comments   Category: Site news

Episode 20: More commercial features

In the previous episode I told you about our efforts to involve the ‘r/c industry’ in VRC Pro, and also why that concept turned out to be not sustainable on the long run. Manufacturers simply weren’t willing to update the 3D models of their products year in, year out. I had apparently grossly overestimated the commercial value of VRC for the r/c industry, much to my disappointment. I have really tried hard to build close relationships with the industry and explain, but it did not pay off. But we went even further with our commercial concept…

Interactive pit table
On top of all the ‘commercial’ chassis and components we also developed an interactive pit table, a simulation of how pit tables look in the real world. A high-res version of the chassis which you can lift and rotate to look from all sides and all angles, with and without body, all the components used in that chassis are also positioned on the pit table, can be picked up and viewed from all angles, with a l... read more

27.05.2022   2 comments   Category: Site news

Episode 19: Going commercial with VRC Pro

I was encouraged by the close collaborations I had developed with several major r/c car manufacturers like Kyosho, Associated, Serpent, Xray, LRP. It made me think if it was a good idea to put their products in as ultra-realistic 3D models. In all my optimism and enthusiasm, I thought yes, at hindsight it wasn’t such a great idea probably, it was simply not sustainable. More about that later.

So the idea was to create super realistic models of chassis and components for a number of manufacturers. I discussed this with Tony who had to model them. With the very first model he created for VRC, the Serpent 950R with the clear Lexan body on it, he had already proven to me that it was really possible to model it in true 3D and make it look ultra-realistic. But it raised a few more questions. Where and how are we going to present these ‘high resolution’ models of the chassis and can we actually use them in VRC Pro to race with.

2 Models needed, hi-res and lo-res
T... read more