Plan for Brett Fattori

On my way to IGC...

Well, I didn't think I was going to be able to make it this year. But after some pulling, prodding, and general goodliness of the people I deal with, I'm on my way. We don't have a lot to show with dRacer, but we might try to put something together to show it off. Visually it isn't all that different from last year's IGC. Under the hood, it's a whole different story. With all the pieces that have been reworked or rewritten, people who've played it will notice a difference.

The majority of the rewrite was for multiplayer racing. Clark's done a fantastic job with it. He's just one amazing fella when it comes to things of a mathematical nature. He's great at analyzing the options and isn't afraid to try some things. The MP code is super solid now. Collisions feel rock solid (they used to feel slushy and kinda not all that real). It's really been written to work for fast moving objects. You might think that the code that is in the engine for vehicles is good enough, but you should really do some research. It's okay for buggies and slower moving vehicles, but get a sportscar on a flat-out section of pavement, and the old code becomes very apparently inadequate.

Everything from the net code, up to the rendering code has been tweaked and changed. The underlying systems are almost 100% different than last year. In fact, the only thing that remains the same is that it's written on the TGE, and even a lot of that has been modified. The component system, the camera system, MP code, AI code, track rendering code, and many other systems have been touched -- and in some cases they were evicted in favor of better systems.

Anyways, I'll be at IGC. I look forward to seeing the friends I made last year. Stop by and we'll have a beer together and catch up. Until then...

- Brett