Faux Car

[Hapax]

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Intro

It may be obvious to some that I've become interested in faux/fake/pseudo 3D. I think it shows in the Spinning Card class that I created. I began to investigate more pseudo 3D usage and stumbled upon the old car games that used it.

I felt the need to attempt to see if I could also make this pseudo 3D track effect - using SFML, obviously!

Faux Car is what I came up with.

I'm not sure if I'm going to turn it into a complete game yet, but I do intend to evolve it.

The altitudes and positions are calculated using perspective algorithms but all turns are fake. There are no technically no rotations. Bends are simply accumulations of offsets.

I'm willing to discuss the code and show parts of it too. It's a little impractical to show it all; it's in many files and is reliant on my own library (full version of Hx).

Version Info

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Version 0.4.0

Another overhaul of the engine, separating out the sprite and track definitions and sprites from the engine and linking them in later. The engine now dynamically updates from the current state of definitions. Track definitions are now 'building blocks' of pieces and patterns and the engine builds the scene from those.

Added new scene features.
The scene can now be viewed forwards or backwards. That is, the 'camera' can be faced forwards or backwards. 'Sprites' can have separate front and back faces which are shown dependant on which view direction is used (and which way the sprite is faced).
The background scenery at the horizon can be looped and different for front and back views; it can also have scenery below the horizon.
The background sky can show special sprites that match the background scenery but can be moved and animated.

Added A.I. opposition.
The A.I. is admittedly rather simple but it's better than 'trees that have position based on time'. Currently, they stick to their lane and change their speed based on the curvature of the track. Each opponent has differing speeds for both straight track and curved track (some opponents are better on bends and some are better on straights).

Added collision.
The player now collides with the opponents. The opponent is not affected so the player is forced to be affected severely - slowed heavily and turned away from the opponent.
The player also collides with other sprites or 'billboards'. They also have individual settings as to how they affect the player: no collision, 'no-pass' which stops the player dead, and jump. Jump causes the car to jump upwards into the air and the height is dependant on the player's speed.

Added speed boost.
The player can now boost their speed for a short time, similarly to "nitro boosts" in some other games. This boost causes the perspective depth to change and it 'feels' even faster! It's difficult to get a chance to see this in action with the current track however but it is visible in the example video.

Added menus.
A state system was added to the game so this allowed menus to be implemented. Some game settings can now be set via these menus. This includes preference of KPH or MPH, global audio volume, video settings and a few 'dev' flags (a couple are shown in the example video).

Here's an example video (1920x1080 60FPS):


Here's the download (Windows only, sorry) (zip file: <3MB):
http://www.mediafire.com/file/1glbahp7u3g27ko/Faux+Car+v0.4.0.zip

If you're missing the Visual Studio libraries, you will need to install the Visual Studio 2015 redistributable from Microsoft. I believe the one required is this one:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53840

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Version 0.2.5

Overhauled track engine.

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Version 0.1.0

I added a few things by progression and also by hacking some features into it to make it slightly more interesting:

• The track is now created from "pieces" of track, which are currently generated at random. Information on the pieces are shown in the console. This means that the track is different every time. It can also be randomised in-game (F2).
• I've rendered the car sprite myself from a 3D model so that the angles of the sprite match the camera angles,
• The HUD now uses a bitmap font to display the text,
• The HUD now includes a simple "mini-map" to show the shape of the road to come,
• The overall speed of the car has been increased,
• The "game" can now be paused/unpausd by pressing F1. When paused, it shows all of the possible controls. It starts paused,
• I've modified some of the road-side objects to move along the road based on the current time. This allows opponent-like visuals. They are still the trees/bushes though - not vehicles. Logic has been added to compare your position amongst them,
• It now "ends" when you cross the finish line. It displays a finishing message,
• The road fade and object fade don't begin to fall off from the very first segment of road as in previous versions,
• You can now toggle anti-aliasing (F3) and full-screen (F8). Be aware that fullscreen mode uses the current desktop resolution.

It shows the entire control list when the window is first opened so feel free to have a look through them and play around.
Probably the most notable will be:

ARROW KEYS to control the car,
F1 to pause / show controls,
0 (zero on numpad) to reset and race the same track again,
F2 to reset and race a new, random track,
SPACE to reset the car to the centre of the road (useful if far off the side of the road), and
BACKSPACE to change the camera (there are 3).

If you want to just watch it drive itself to look at the track, use cruise mode (F9). You can still change the camera in this mode.

Here's a couple of images of what the latest version (v0.1.0) looks like (click to see full size):



Here's a basic video (1920x1080 60FPS):


Here's the download (Windows only, sorry) (zip file: <4MB):
http://www.mediafire.com/download/c1824862oou289i/Faux+Car+v0.1.0.zip

If you're missing the Visual Studio libraries, you will need to install this redistributable from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40784

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The background scenery is cut from this photograph - which is from this page - and edited to tile. It was also scaled inside the program so it's quite pixelated.

The tree scenery sprite sheet (3 trees) was found here.

Steering wheel sprite found here.

Engine and tyres sounds from opengameart.org

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Here's a couple of images of what this version (v0.0. looks like (click to see full size):



Here's the Windows binary (zip file: <4MB):
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6xxq9il4ljq97j1/Faux+Car+v0.0.8.zip

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The car sprites are (quickly) custom edited from a video of a spinning 3d model of a car, found . The grey at the bottom is shadow that wasn't masked out.

The background scenery is cut from this photograph - which is from this page - and edited to tile. It was also scaled inside the program so it's quite pixelated.

The tree scenery sprite sheet (3 trees) was found here.

Steering wheel sprite found here.

Engine and tyres sounds from opengameart.org

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Here's an image at the starting line, showing how the objects look:


This is also at the starting line but using the alternate "first-person" camera:


A little bit into the track and it shows that the track and objects can even be seen from a following corner:


Here's a video of it in action:


And a Windows download:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/pbdt3fidkd7vr1t/Faux+Car+v0.0.5.zip

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Here's a video of the oldest version:


Some screenshots from the oldest version:



Here's the Windows download for that oldest version:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/3jbzd9w2ttuie53/Faux+Car+v0.0.2+first+tests.zip

The images and sounds used are for testing only and found online.
Car sprites by Felsir, found here.
Steering wheel sprite found here.
Tileset (used for road-side objects) found here.
Engine and tyres sounds from opengameart.org

[achpile]

CHAAAAASE HQ  I love this game 
And I love the preudo 3D (when I was 13, I wrote a maze game in QBasic with pseudo 3D graphics and first person camera view)

[Hapax]

Added video 

[Hapax]

Here's a runnable (playable?) version for you to try:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/3jbzd9w2ttuie53/Faux+Car+v0.0.2+first+tests.zip
It's Windows only, sorry 

Controls:
Up/down: accelerate/brake
Left/right: steer (left + right holds steady)
=/-: change speed of time
+/- (numpad): move forwards/backwards by one segment
0 (zero on numpad): reset car (reset track position, speed, steering, and horizontal position)

[MiShu]

Nostalgia ... Just remember "Top Gear"

[AFS]

Nostalgia ... Just remember "Top Gear"

Oh man, Top Gear 2. I have fond memories of playing this game with my brother when I was a kid. Also, dat music.




Anyway, interesting project, Hapax, hopefully it evolves into something great... like a Top Gear remake

[Jesper Juhl]

I loved Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge when I was a kid. This brings back good memories.
Nice work Hapax.

[ChronicRat]

I loved Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge when I was a kid. This brings back good memories.
Nice work Hapax.

Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge - my favorite. It is ideal! =)

[Cirrus Minor]

It looks very good, Hapax !
I've downloaded it, but I cannot try (MSVS libs are missing) 

My favorite pseudo-2D racing game was Death Track (but it was First Person view).

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[marchred]

awsome O_o

PS : what about a minimapor something to peek what's next  ?

[Dark2Dragon]

F-Zero!



I love this game 


Great work!

[Hapax]

Thanks for the kind responses! I always appreciate feedback 

I've downloaded it, but I cannot try (MSVS libs are missing)

I don't know what this means or how to fix it. I assume MSVS means Microsoft Visual Studio but I don't know why it should require Visual Studio. Any suggestions?

what about a minimapor something to peek what's next  ?

This is a HUD element for a game. I'm not even sure if I'll be making this into a game. I probably should but who knows? 
The track (up to about position 2000) is created from a couple of sine waves so the corners alternate equally right then left 
I've added a track position marker to the latest version so at least you'll easily know how far you are from the end...

F-Zero!

Looks like fun but I have to say that the track looks like it's "actual" 3D 

[Hapax]

I improved this somewhat and added road-side objects. This became a technical nightmare because of the way I was drawing the road in segments. To get the objects to appear behind the road (when over a hill), I had to integrate them with the road into a single vertex array. Texture smoothing was also required as the scaling looked terrible without it.

The images used for the objects are random (as are their colours and transparency) from a random tileset which, again, I found online. It was downloaded from here. I use a modified version of that tileset (I added to it).

Here's an image at the starting line, showing how the objects look:


This is also at the starting line but using the alternate "first-person" camera:


A little bit into the track and it shows that the track and objects can even be seen from a following corner:


Some tweaks have been made here and there, including adding extra controls. F1 now display all the controls available.

Here's a more recent video:


The first-person camera is still broken, as you can see in the video. I haven't paid enough attention to it.

I wanted to texture the road but I hit that age-old problem of not being able to stretch textures of a quad equally. I really should investigate how to use shaders as I believe that I need a bilinear filter shader. I may be way off the mark but that's what it looks like I need 
I might just stick with plain coloured polygons for the road...

Here's the Windows download for this version:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/pbdt3fidkd7vr1t/Faux+Car+v0.0.5.zip

[eXpl0it3r]

Nice project!

It looks very good, Hapax !
I've downloaded it, but I cannot try (MSVS libs are missing) 

You most likely need to install the VS redist which can find over at Microsoft's website.

[Hapax]

Thanks 

Does it need to be a specific version of the redistributable depending on which version I used?

EDIT: It looks like it matters so I'm going to include a link to the redistributable (in the original post).