The online racing simulator
Speed boat simulator - Oculus Rift
(81 posts, started )
A little too much IMO, but I think if you turn it down it looks nice.
Thanks. I'm glad to hear that, actually. Doing it that shiny and clear in real time hits the frame rate really hard, maybe too much for the Oculus Rift. Can you check it again? I posted another one in the comments that would run better.
That's a little too matte for my taste. Maybe it's the angle of the screenshot though. Perhaps a value between the first and second screenshot would be nice?
Thanks. There's a property that basically controls the amount of blur (smoothness of the material) and unfortunately there's nothing really inbetween. I've posted a new set that's clear like the first one, but with different reflection intensities so it's not quite so mirror-like.

If you'd be kind enough to take a look at the post today entitled "Which of the four reflection intensities (25/50/75/100%) looks best?" I'd be thankful. Smile

https://www.facebook.com/designitdriveitspeedboats
25% looks good to me.
Thanks, Bose321. I settled on 20%. Here's a new trailer showing it off along with some more lively music.

New trailer:

Looks good! Can't wait to try it out.
This company contacted me yesterday about adding support for their motion platforms. Definitely interested!

http://www.simcraft.com/
Three minutes on the Oculus Rift:

That looks great, but you need to make it look more fun!! Smile

Physics are the hard part, surely. Make a game out of it.
Yeah, you're right, it's not going to have widespread appeal until there's more stuff to do in it. The customers so far are predominately boaters, boat designers, prop people, etc.. They don't need or care that much about the rest, they're just happy to play "let's go drive a boat around and tweak the hull to see what it does."
Added support for twin and triple outboard setups today. Here's a new trailer showing that off:

Leaderboards for top speed shootout runs have been added. Here's a blast down the mile on the Rift:

Quote :The physics code/vehicle simulation model driving all this is a proprietary system that solves thousands of hydrodynamic, skin friction, buoyancy, and aerodynamic forces separately on almost every triangle in the boat mesh as well as the individual propeller blades.

So, does the water body have some kind of fluid dynamics model solved in real time or is the boat interacting with a baked flow field? Can we get some visualizations of the water model?
The hull has some real time fluid dynamics at the surface, but that does not propagate out into the water. I.e., it's more like a baked flow field where velocity is always 0. It'd be cool to do more but even with this relatively simple approach, having a handful of boats out there with just a few hundred polys each is enough to bring the CPU to its knees.
Can this be played without a VR headset? Smile
Yes. I play with triple monitors when I'm not running Oculus.
ELI5 Jackplate?

I can't seem to figure out what this control does, it doesn't effect my speed or handling capabilities at all.
It raises the entire engine up and down. You can watch it move in the design screen, the controls work there too (except the throttle).

On the tunnel boat it doesn't do much, the adjustment range is only about three inches. On the vees it's more effective and moves over a foot. Raising it reduces the amount of the lower unit that's in the water which reduces drag, but if you go too far the prop will be partly out of the water which creates a paddlewheel effect that you have to counteract with right steering, so be careful there. Think I might have made the lower unit physics mesh on this new engine model just a bit too thin though because indeed it doesn't have much of an effect currently. I'll look at increasing it for the next update so it does a little more.
Thanks! Big grin
And thank you! Smile

If you're having fun with it and get a chance, leaving a quick review on Steam would help. Those little up and down recommended votes make a big difference. And if you don't, that's ok too. Smile

Speed boat simulator - Oculus Rift
(81 posts, started )
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