12.04.2022 Category: Site news
Episode 14: The start of VRC v4
Here we are, end of 2005. No longer any Serpent business dealings, a great VRC 3.5 kick-off with Kyosho, Horizon Hobbies and the VRC dealers. A bright future ahead of us, if not only I had already come to the conclusion that VRC v3.5 was not really the software platform which we could use to expand VRC into a lasting future. The gaming industry was developing with exponential speed, and so did computers, monitors, and graphics cards. The VRC v3.5 platform could maybe last for another 2 or 3 years was my estimation before it would become outdated. We needed something completely new.
Building the v4 team
Lothar Pantel had already indicated to me that he would shift his attention away from VRC and focus on his own ‘core’ business, developing hardware solutions for the electronics industry. He had spent a good part of the past 5 years on VRC and simply would not have the time to dedicate to VRC. Lothar’s role changed from game architect and lead programmer to a VRC consultant. Afterall, he had built up a lot of knowledge about VRC and had developed and implemented several unique concepts for VRC which would be carried over to v4. A project like VRC v4 surely needed a new game architect and lead programmer…
When I retired from Serpent the new owners had already indicated that they would build a new website, goodbye to myTSN, what a pity… And for some reason they also said goodbye to the Slovak team who had done such a terrific job for Serpent since 1994. Could they perhaps get involved in game development? They had already done the VRC website and worked on database structures for memberships, event results etc. Nor Marek, nor Lubo, nor Tomas had any experience with game development. But I knew they were very smart software developers, each with his own expertise. I had long discussions with Marek who was the ‘lead man’ of the Slovak team, he had employed Lubo and Tomas in his company Advanced. We would surely need to develop our own 3D graphics engine, but that is such specialized software technology, you would need somebody with a decent knowledge of and experience with modern graphics engines and hardware.
Marek introduced me to someone Marek knew from university who could probably do that job for VRC, Miro. He had built a graphics engine before, be it much less sophisticated and advanced than what I had in mind, what was required for VRC v4. So, we had the 4 Slovaks, Todd Wasson to further develop the physics engine, and Tony West as 3D and graphics artist, both of them had already committed to v4. My job had changed too. I was going to be much more involved in coordinating and supervising the project, and as before, writing the VRC v4 ‘script’, or so-called functional design. And I had to lay out all my ideas which I would like to see implemented in v4. And that was quite a list:
- Interactive 3D pit table interface
- Pit table commercial objects
- Commercial track banners
- 10-car Multi-player mode
- Replay mode
- Replay opponents
- True 3D experience with dynamic shadow and lighting
- New event structures
- New electric and off-road classes
- Interactive Graphical User Interface (GUI)
- Game management tools
o GUI editor
o Component editor
o Track editor
o Game publishing tools
The list is far from complete, but this is what I can think of now that I write this. It was a very ambitious set of ideas, and the list surely grew over time, as usual. In software development they call that ‘feature creep’, an ongoing expansion of new ideas to be implemented on top of the original plan. It’s a natural thing, you simply can’t think of everything on beforehand, and during the development process your insight changes. Feature creep is the developer’s nightmare, even more so for the software development manager who is committed to timelines etc. No wonder that the estimated 2 years were stretched to 6 years… I was solely responsible for this feature creep, but as I was also paying the bill, who cares?
At a later stage my son Tim joined the team after he had finished university as a Data Scientist. And in 2008 Rado joined the team, his job was focused on developing the GUI editor and assisting Tony and me how to use the GUI editor to create all the menu’s. So now we had a team of 9 to work full time on VRC v4, with Marek Simon partially involved in encryption and server security, which was a very important precondition for a sound VRC v4 business case.
V4 Development platform
One of the first thing Marek c.s. did was to develop an extensive development platform for the whole team and especially Tony, Todd and me, to be able to develop game content, tracks, cars and components before it was encrypted.
3 Different platforms were set up, Root, Test and Live, each with its own server. ‘Root’ is used to develop and test unencrypted content, tracks, cars, and components, which gives us the flexibility to develop independent of each other. Once the track or component is thoroughly tested it is then committed to the server, and automatically synchronized with all other team members. ‘Test’ is used to publish the content created in ‘Root’, and in the publishing process the content is being encrypted. ‘Test’ has its own test website which we use to communicate with the testers through the forum structure. We have invited VRC members to become a tester, they could then provide feedback in dedicated forums.
The Slovak team also developed a very advanced web-based communication platform where we can post new items for discussion and select who to involve in the discussion. This ‘Advanced Issue Tracker’ platform was essential for the project to have an efficient and transparent environment to communicate and share information. Don’t forget, we had the software team working from Slovakia, Todd from Minnesota in the USA, Tony from Spain, later Thailand, and me and Tim from the Netherlands.
I was not at all involved in this development platform. I can only say that, once we got working together on this project, I realized more and more that this development platform was absolutely essential for the success of v4! Although we had come a long way with v3.5 I wanted VRC v4 to be as realistic as possible, in graphics, in feeling, everything, but without knowing what it would take to get there, I know now. Ever heard of the ‘uncanny valley’ effect and what it has to do with v4?
I’ll explain, that’s next.
Comments
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(Total posts: 3)
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Carol H.
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Edited by author: 19.8.2022 0:55:44 GMT
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Pieter BFounder
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our body concept was not designed for this unfortunately. We have done a few projects to design your own paintjob, but I need to implement them, our encryption system requires this to go through us.
If you search News for Paintjobs you will find them.
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Ronald Blake
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Will be ever be able to paint our own skins and, Have them in game to promote our own sponsors?
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