| Submitted by , posted on 01 January 2003 |

Image Description, by Inspired by many really impressive screenshots I've seen on flipcode over the last years, I started coding a small landscape this summer using opengl. Then, a few days ago I thought: why not making an engine out of it and start some game. Well, here are the first results:
I'm trying to make a speedy fun-to-play arcade-racing game mainly focused on network playing. Maybe there'll be computer players one day too. But currently I've other important TODOs to get ahead, as there are:

> - Optimize the rendering process: First I used brute-force rendering. Yesterday I refactored the whole rendering code and built in some optimizations (socalled geomipmapping for example). But I'm still fighting against cracks and gaps.
> - Do some dedicated server or something similar.
> - Terrain following of the car: Currently I've absolutely no clue how to do it. I've some formulas and I hope to get some working code out of them (I'll be glad to get some suggestions and hints on this topic :-)
> - Collision detection with other cars/props such as plants
> - A basic game-physics engine

What I already have:

> - OpenGL based (partially) optimized terrain rendering engine with multitexturing support
> - 3DS model import (btw: thanks to Psionic for this cool, fully textured low-poly car model)
> - A shadow precalculation program (this program takes 2 textures, blends them together depending on the height and adds shadows depending on the light position and returns a big texture for the whole terrain)
> - Really nice stencil-buffer based shadows (you can see them very well in the upper right picture)

A few comments on the four pictures:
Upper left: My engine in action.
Upper right: A close look to the jeep model with the shadows in action
Lower left: My track viewed from above
Lower right: You can see the optimization already working in progress
For more information, more screenshots and the progress of development feel free to visit my homepage.
If you've some comments or suggestions feel free to send me an e-mail.
Greetings from Austria
Michael Liedlgruber

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