27.05.2022 2 comments
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
13.05.2022 2 comments
Episode 18: First steps into offroad – Short Course Trucks
After we had finished the electric on-road classes our focus changed to off-road. A new challenge for us because we were now entering an discipline where we had zero experience. I am disregarding the few years back in in the early 80-ties when we had a short off-road adventure with the Serpent Cobra and Spirit. There was zero data, zero experience, so where to start? And what chassis class to take on first?
What I did know was that we had to develop physics for off-road from scratch, model new cars and create new tracks. And I had no idea how close we could get to a real ‘off-road’ feel with such a new chassis, and would the undulated off-road tracks be of the same high standard as we had reached with on-road? In other words, could we make that giant leap to cross the ‘uncanny’ off-road valley so off-road racers would embrace this new effort as a true and realistic off-road class? Al lot of uncertainties. Speaking to Todd (physics) and Tony (gr... read more
07.05.2022 1 comment
Episode 17: Electric on-road development 2008-2011
VRC v3.5 was the last release of the v3 based versions, 2006, but that didn’t mean that development had stopped. On the contrary. In fact, early 2006 I took a very important decision to start working on VRC v4, a completely new platform which we worked on till end of 2011 when it was released as VRC PRO. I will start writing about VRC PRO in a later episode as it was the beginning of a completely new adventure.
So, what did we work on? It was mainly new content development, in particular 2 new classes for the new VRC v4 platform: 1:10 electric Touringcars and 1:12 electric Sportscars, plus a number of specific indoor tracks for these cars. We felt these 2 classes would be great additions to our on-road offering as we would then cover the 4 most important and popular on-road racing classes.
1:10 Electric Touringcars
At Serpent we didn’t have a 1:10 electric chassis, so to continue the chassis development path we had followed with our nitro cars we ne... read more
04.05.2022 15 comments
We are making good progress with the new 1:10 electric Basher and the Crawler trucks class and are ready to invite members to become a beta tester.
The reason we have developed the Basher and the Crawler is that we expect to reach a totally different group of R/C enthousiast that probably never have done any racing, but just having fun bashing their off-road tracks on open terrain, in the back garden, just anywhere. It could well be that once engaged with VRC that they will try other classes, like short-course trucks or buggies on proper race tracks, or even give on-road a try, only time will tell!
We think that especially the multiplayer option is of interest for bashers as they can now really 'bash' each other cars without having to worry to break your or the other car. The harder you crash the more fun it is. Imagine a mid-air crash on a high jump...
The main purpose of the beta testing is to do a critical evaluation of the Basher and Crawler chassis, these chassis are of course not meant for compet... read more
01.05.2022 0 comments
Episode 16: Creating a graphics engine from scratch…
We had already decided that we would need a whole new graphics engine for v4 and that our new man on the team Miro was going to pull that off, starting from scratch. Maybe a year, year and a half at most. Todd and Tony working on electric on-road and off-road, so we would probably launch somewhere in 2008 the successor of VRC v3.,5 now to be called VRC Pro. It wasn’t to be, it turned out a far more complex project than I had envisaged. We launched end of 2011, 6 years later…
In game structure terms, the graphics engine is part of the Game engine, which also include the physics, the sound engine and the GUI engine. Obviously with all the terrific work done by Todd on the physics engine we were not going to re-write that part, but in stead build on it to support electric on-road and off-road. The same for all the 3D artwork that Tony had already produced for v3.5, we wanted to re-use as much as possible!
Windows and DirectX
We started this developm... read more
