10.02.2023 Category: Site news
I want to close off the discussion about the Lifetime subscription with a short evaluation of the many many comments I received.
It has become obvious to me that the VRC members have a wrong perception of what VRC is all about, how it was developed, our team of developers, cost and most of all what you can expect of VRC in the future. Here it is in a nutshell.
HOW VRC CAME ABOUT
I have pointed this out in my many columns (which aren't finished yet...) 'VRC - the inside story'. If you would have taken the time to read it you would understand much better how this whole project came about.
It was started in 1995 with the idea of developing a 'game port adapter' to control full size racing car games like Indycar Racing and NASCAR, in an effort to break into this fast developing new market with a radio control transmitter, trying to connect r/c with racing games. In those days mainly joysticks were used to control the cars.
NEXT STEP VIRTUAL RC v1-v3
By sheer coincidence I came in contact with Lothar Pantel who had developed a similar device but not working through the 9-pin port but through the parallel or printer port. He had some r/c background and had developed a very simple r/c game, more ore less a top-view 2D thing. I asked him to develop this into a more realistic r/c game, which he did, that was v2. We sold that game on a 3 1/2 inch disk with our gameport adaptor. In 2000 finally the USB port had arrived which had made our and Lothar's game port adapter obsolete. Lothar developed a new USB game port adapter for us. Gaming was developing quickly and I saw chances to do a proper 3D version of the game, this development was started in 2000. But I wanted the cars to behave realistically, as real r/c cars. But then we needed a proper physics engine. Through Lothar's father, a physics professor at Heidelberg University, I got in contact wit Todd Wasson from the USA. He was looking to develop something in this field and he started working on the first stage of the physics engine which used 2D suspension geometry models, and worked closely together with Michael Salven, he had absolutely no idea about r/c cars... But we also needed to develop physics models for the engines, motors and tires, so quite a job ahead for him. Tony West came on board for all the graphics work. VRC v3 was launched in 2005, with 2 big companies on board, Kyosho and Horizon from the US.
VRC PRO
Because of the 'warp speed' pace of developments of hard- and software in those days I knew that the v3 platform wouldn't last long so I decided to start from scratch to develop VRC v4, later called VRC Pro. Another 5 people were added to the team. Lothar decided to step back from the project and acted just as a consultant to get everything going. We decided to develop our own 3D graphics engine, projects like Unity hadn't even started at that time.
I expected the VRC Pro development to take 2 years, how wrong can you be. It took until 2012 until we were able to launch VRC Pro, with just 1:8 and 1:10 nitro onroad, and 1:10 and 1:12 electric on-road.
From 2012 till 2015 we worked on offroad, starting with 1:10 short course trucks, and later 1:8 nitro and electric buggies. This required also a full set of offroad tracks! The physics engine was rebuilt to work with the more complex suspension geometries of buggies, going from 2D to 3D.
PHYSICS DEVELOPMENT
Early 2015 Todd Wasson, who had worked on the physics for nearly 15 years, decided to leave this project and to look higher up and offer his vast experience and knowledge to professional racing sim developing studios. A physics engine that is worked on by just one person reflects his ideas of how to solve complex problems, about vehicle dynamics and suspension geometries, aerodynamics, nitro engines and electric motors, and most important of all tires. There is no literature on tires for r/c cars, so everything had to be developed based on extensive tire test programs. Tires are 50% or maybe even more of the 'feel' of the car! And configuring each new chassis, suspension, driveline and finetuning the parameters to reach a level of realism that we never though possible.
There is no handbook how to develop a physics engine, let alone a physics engine for r/c cars, totally unchartered territory, no literature, no tests, nothing. Our VRC physics engine follows Todd's logic, his experience, his solutions, built up over a period of 15 years...
When Todd left the VRC team we had long discussions about the implications. In the end he insisted and convinced me that his physics engine better became a 'closed box' than to leave it open for others to screw things up, unrepairable. So that's what it is, a closed, black box.
1:10 SCALE BUGGIES?
But the consequences were very serious, especially concerning the development of complete new car classes like 1:10 2WD and 4WD buggies. I of course realized that these 2 classes would be missed in VRC Pro for ever. But I had no other option than to accept this fact. It would have required at least another year to develop these 2 classes, plus a full beta test program, totally a year and a half I estimate. Todd had made up his mind and left VRC behind him to pursuit new challenges.
It also meant that VRC Pro would be stuck at where we were at that moment. I managed myself to configure RallyX and the soon to be developed 1:10 scale Basher and Crawler (both based on the electric buggy chassis) and the nitro GT3 class, based on the 1:8 nitro onroad chassis. But that's it, believe me, however much I would have loved to continue developing new classes. So please stop asking.
Todd leaving also meant that I had to scale down the whole development team to control the vast development costs I had incurred since 2005. By 2018 I was on my own.
It's not really rocket science to figure out what sort of investment was made in VRC. The team was reduced to just myself, with 'on demand' assistance in fields I have no knowledge of, like database, website, back- and frontoffice issues, and of course the all important server maintenance.
OPEN SOURCE
I hope that by now you understand that VRC was never set up as an open source project and that trying to turn it into open source project now would require a huge investment, both in time and in money. And the most important part, the physics engine would, by the complex and un-transparent nature of it, never be able to be turned into open source.
THE VRC FUTURE
So there you have it, the full story is 'VRC - the inside story' but I thought I explain it here one more time, hoping that you finally understand the limitations we are facing.
I am very much on my own besides 'on demand' assistance of ex-VRC developers, and for new tracks I work closely together with Tony West, the VRC graphics goeroe, artist, designer, whatever you like to call him. He has done ALL, I literally mean ALL the graphics for VRC, the 3D models of the components and tracks, the texturing, the website graphics, all. Tony also works 'on demand' for VRC and will continue to create new content upon my request.
Yes that's very much the future of VRC, releasing new content within the limitations we have, mainly tracks. This will very much depend on the available net revenues, running the VRC operation as is not for free as you will understand. I have made a huge investment in VRC and it can't be a surprise to you if I say that these investments haven't paid off, on the contrary. I have absorbed these losses, tough luck on me. But you can't expect me to continue investing in VRC and hoping for the best.
I am 73 now, my time is not unlimited. Luckily I am in good shape and love what I am doing and as so often said, am very proud of what we have achieved with this small team (of which I was the only one with an r/c background...). VRC Pro therefore reflects very much my experience in and my view at this hobby/sport.
I will continue to dedicate all the time needed to keep VRC running and growing it, for as long as I can. Of course my main concerns for the future is how VRC can be continued when I am no longer capable or available to do this.
I hope you will continue to support VRC by participating in our events and promote VRC to you r/c racing friends and grow the VRC community.
Enjoy the ride!
Pieter Bervoets
Comments
Only active members can post comments
(Total posts: 3)
|
Pieter BFounder
|
Posted by: Nick Bova (US) on 3.5.2024 0:44:11 (UTC)
Thank you for these awesome post and I would love to continue supporting VRC Pro, I will do my best to continue growing the community. It is a shame we will not be getting any new classes, the physics creating by Todd will forever be a bottleneck, it’s a shame, it’s a curse and a blessing in it self. Made so well for all of us to enjoy but made so well by a single person that no one else can compete with. Did he ever finish 3D suspension for all cars we currently have? Will there ever be a new development team created when you feel the need to hang up your hat and call it a day ?
3D suspension geometry has only been done for off-road chassis as the suspension needs to be animated. On-road cars also use 3D geometry but not animated as the suspension itself is not visible. Only the wheel/tire is animated in it's movements and angles.
|
|
Nick B
|
Thank you for these awesome post and I would love to continue supporting VRC Pro, I will do my best to continue growing the community. It is a shame we will not be getting any new classes, the physics creating by Todd will forever be a bottleneck, it’s a shame, it’s a curse and a blessing in it self. Made so well for all of us to enjoy but made so well by a single person that no one else can compete with. Did he ever finish 3D suspension for all cars we currently have? Will there ever be a new development team created when you feel the need to hang up your hat and call it a day ?
|
|
Stef B.
|
Thanks to you to keep this fantastic simulator alive !
|
