Yes it would have a great use in testing layouts before shelling out to build the real one, but not really a substitute for the real thing when it comes to racing. Seems to be a bit of a delay between finger action and car moving, would take some getting used to! Perhaps it's a feature that could be incorporated into a track planning tool. Sport World allowed you to drive a circuit you'd designed in 3D but only on auto-pilot as I recall, so this is just a step on from that.

 

Have you given this a go yet? Played it using the mouse wheel. I can see the potential if this go's on to be developed into a track designer.

http://www.alabsoft.com/Unity3D/slotcar_f360.html

 

Perhaps Scalextric should release Sport World again as it seems there are people out there that would appreciate the features that it had.

 

sportworld does allow you to use the hand controllers and test drive the track.

wolfy!

 

Hi all, well you beat me to it! I posted the youtube last night, and was about to add a new topic here!

I am glad you guys see its potential, and I like your ideas about test driving.

I am a bit of a slot car enthusiast, and have owned both SCX Digital and Scalextric Digital, and have run race nights with my buddies every few months for the last 3 years.

However, with both systems I have always had lap counting problems, even when I had my scalextric 6 car powerbase converted to a PB-Pro.

Another problem I face is time, I have a young family etc, when I held my race nights, I could spend almost an hour and a half setting up, and about 45 minutes packing away.

So I thought about the idea of a virtual solution, where 4 or 6 laptops could be connected via a network hub/switch, and me and my buddies could do some racing!

Since that early idea, I have seen the potential for producing this as a web based or standalone application, where a single user could race on digital layouts with computer controlled opponents, or multi-player racing against there friends, possibly over the internet.

I also like the idea of adding 4 or 6 lane analog layouts, for club type racing.

As stated in the notes on youtube the demo is just proof of concept, and needs quite a bit of fine tuning, however it gives people a chance to see what could be done, using either the wheel mouse control, or using my USB joystick and digital controller setup.

I had a electronics friend of mine create this for me, and he thinks he could produce a separate box to allow for up to 4 controllers to be connected via one USB joystick, kind of like a powerbase for the PC.

Although this could never replace the real thing, it has its benefits, for instance users could race on huge layouts that either they could never afford, or have the space to setup. And again time, sometimes I just want to have a blast around a layout, and do some hot laps, and I could throw in some dummy racers just to make things interesting, having to change lanes to avoid them.

Checkout http://www.virtualrc.com/, this is possibly where I see my product going, these guys have whole race meetings online in cyberspace, and for prize money!!!

I will keep you guys posted on my progress, I plan to add computer controlled opponents shortly, and then I will also create a better test layout. I also need to work on the camera options for viewing the car during racing, i.e have a camera that is locked in position and rotates left and right like your head does on your neck when your playing the real thing, with options for zooming display when the car is further away on the layout. I have a few ideas around this area.

Anyway thanks again for your interest, should have a new demo for you to try in a week or so.

All the best!

Greg

P.S Also whilst I remember, I could also publish this on an iPhone or iTouch, could use the touch screen as a throttle, so it may appear in the AppStore one day, who knows...

 

Hi Greg,

After watching a couple of the videos on VirtualRC I think it'd be great to have a similiar Scalextric's based piece of software. I'm more interested in it as a virtual track designer , that allows me to test and setup my layouts but I'm all for having something more

. Hope Development goes well and good luck.

Cheers.

 

Ok just to develop one aspect.... The idea of a USB box for plugging in throttles. With PB-Pro 2 way interactivity with the PC it would take very little to use a USB controller interface to actually control cars.

 

...and we all know there are a lot of wirelles possibilties with USB controllers....Or plug in my G25 steering wheel ! Serious though, great thinking Riko.

back on topic; I am very interested to see where this is going. I would love to create a track first in a virtual environment, test the locations of the lane changers and than do the real thing. Or, for fun, create a track I will never be able to lay down in my garage and race on It in a virtual environment. Always wanted a 1:32 Spa Francorchamps ! And if we also could in Gran Turismo style test the influence of changing tyres, gearing etc, now that would be something!

 

Thanks for all your feedback, I have posted another version, in this version the yellow car is running at a constant speed, recording its own laps.

See if you can chase it down, and change lane to pass it...

Again, all still proof of concept, so has some features, such as you can push past the yellow car on the same lane, quite entertaining!

http://www.alabsoft.com/Unity3D/slotcar_f360_v2.html

Thanks again for the interest.

Greg

 

Here's a photo of the combined Scalextric Digital Hand Controller, and PC USB Joystick.

All the best!

Greg

 

Can you assign any DirectInput functions?

XBOX controllers are popular peripherals and contain fairly nice triggers and buttons that would be usable 'out of the box'

 

Yes, any USB joystick can be used with my program, and each button or joystick/pad can be mapped to your choice.

I know there are custom drivers available for the XBOX controller on PC's.

I assumed players would prefer to use a real slotcar controller with my program, but that's not entirely the case.

Thanks again for all comments on this topic, it is all helping in the development of my software.

Greg

 

a wired X360 controller on XP or above is very much plug and play, wireless needs a dongle. Given this I might have a look later.

I like the Unity engine too, very portable (and cheap!)

 

I miss the online racing that Sports World provided. It would be great to have some system that you could use online to race people from around the world. Also like the idea of being able to create a track online and test it in the virtual environment first. So many times have I used one of the track designers and what looks good on paper was rubbish to race on.
Good luck Greg - keep us updated.

DRowlett

 

Hi all,

Just to keep you posted on my progress, here are 4 screenshots of some layouts I am creating for my software, I have tried to make the track and borders look as real as possible.

At present I am focusing on scalextric type track and borders, however I plan to add some of the other slot manufacturers track, such as Carrera, SCX Digital and Ninco, plus I am also going to make my own generic digital track, however I may have to stick with my own when I release my software due to licensing restrictions of the different manufacturers.

Watch out for some more youtube videos coming soon, showing some layouts with cars running around etc...

All the best!

Greg

 

Greg,

Looks like you are making some real progress. As you say the licensing could be a problem but I use a track designer call TrackPower and I doubt if they had permission to create copies of Scalextric Track.

Might be worth a chat with Adrian to see if you would run into any issues - if so you can either deal with them or choose another direction - i.e. using your own design. However if you chose the latter it would not allow people to design their track online so would this not lose some of this products appeal?

DRowlett

 

When I say create my own, I mean creating my own track sections, and borders, so users would still be able to create layouts of their own using my software.

Greg

 

Yes, but the layouts would have less of a point, since they wouldn't be able to build it themselves. The appeal to a lot of people is being able to "test drive" a layout idea before putting it together, usually because they don't have all the parts yet. If you made your own pieces, they would have to be different enough from Scaley to avoid infringement issues, and therefore not compatible with the real thing.
Admittedly, that's only part of it, but I see it as a BIG part of it for a lot of people.

 

I understand what you are saying, and the idea of creating and test driving a track layout is something I had not appreciated users might like to do, so this is a feature I am keen to incorparate.

With regard to my own track sections, they would still share the same dimensions, and radius options, R1, R2, R3 and R4 etc, look at original SCX and classic scalextric, they are actually compatible.

I would just make my borders, and track surface look different, so as not to infringe any licensing implications, should they arise.

As Dave says TrackPower has options for the four main manufacturers, and rather than them complain, I suspect they welcome the inclusion of their product as it helps promote and sell more of their products.

Thanks again for all the comments!

Greg

 

Hi all,

Just to update you on the progress of my project, here is a nice little offset oval layout for you to play with, to see how the car and track physics are coming along.

The car now crashes realistically, and also interacts with its environment, i.e the track barriers etc...

Have a play yourself at
http://www.alabsoft.com/Unity3D/vSR_physics.html

I will be creating some more involved layouts over the next few days to really give the car physics a good test, which I will also post online for you to test drive yourselves.

All the best!

Greg

 

As promised, I have created a bigger layout, in fact the home of the British Grand Prix, Silverstone!

Here's a link to the youTube video of it.

And here's the link to play it yourself online.
http://www.alabsoft.com/Unity3D/vSR_Silverstone.html

Enjoy!

Greg

 

Ok, clearly I need some kind of special mouse, or I need to change some setting in windows. I realize it was intended to be used with a modded joystick or whatever, but you keep saying "wheel mouse". Well, I have a Logitech Trackman Marble with a center wheel, but it would appear that doesn't qualify.
When I run the game, moving the mouse (track ball) changes the camera viewpoint, which is really cool, but nothing else I click or do has any effect other than right-click which brings up the context menu for the plug in.
Help a guy out?

 

I can get it to work by rolling the mousewheel - down increases the speed, up decreases the speed.

Brian.

 

That's what I expected, but mine doesn't work. I wonder if there's a setting I can change that will make it work, but it's already set up as a "scroll up and down" wheel, which I assume is what the game is looking for.

 

Is this what you have?

If so, this is a trackball, not a mouse, however does the track ball work like the scroll wheel when in a word document for instance, allowing you to scroll the doc up and down?

I think I have one of these in a cupboard somewhere? I will see if I can find it and test it out.

Thanks for the feedback...

Greg