Hey Sorcerer, thanks for the comments, it's very nice to see you over here, now i know we'll have a Gran Turismo Killer made with 3D Rad!!!! You won't be disappointed!!!

hey sorcerer,

* Are you having any problems with project? Any physics' problem?

not at all, collision so far is done and behaves exactly as described in the tutorials... if you noticed the car jerky at the slopes, thats because i haven't played with the physics settings all that much... I'm temporarily using a default Enzo Ferrari layout (that comes with the engine) and its too stiff for my liking... but with the wheel object i think i can get much better results... on the other hand the jerkiness may be caused by my collision model resolution >> check out this link for more details (check out Mic s collision mesh, and his videos in youtube)

* How is the FPS with that big level?

that's actually a good question, when i played with all the demos that come with 3D Rad i thought that the engine is not all that capable, because there wasn't anything detailed... so i approached it with a little fear, then started experimenting and honestly no matter what I've done (adding models) i haven't seen it run below 60fps on my home PC (Intel Core Duo E8200 @ 2.66GHz, GeForce 9800GTX)... so the scene in my racing test is completely UNOPTIMISED, lots of unnecessary back-faces etc.
There was this moment in which i thought Rad is immortal, so i tested the demo on my laptop Dell Inspiron 1501 and it ran at less than 0.5fps... note that no 3D game runs well on that laptop (i get 2fps at times in TR Anniversary)... so i had to optimize  the scene a little>> believe it or not with just a few adjustments in no more than 20 minutes i achieved 12~20 fps at maximum resolution!!!!
I don't know what will happen when we play various sounds+music+complex scripts, but what you see in the video is around 55000 polys with normalmap, REALTIME reflections for the main car set @ 30fps, buildings and blimps @1fps and simple envmap for the enemy cars and the framerate didn't suffer at all (60 all the time > the default framerate for 3D Rad AFAIK)

* Is it possible to set more velocity to the cars and still have a good drive feeling?

i'm planning for my game to be 40%~50% faster than the demo... i certainly believe that its possible from what i've played with, but i'll have to see the final gameplay to be 100% sure... Fernando or Mic could add their thoughts about this question!

* For big levels with big tracks, can we use separated track's parts with LOD or do we have use a entire big track?

while the 'plug-n-play no scripting required' object is not yet released, Fernando was very kind to write us a simple script when i asked the same question... the script calculates the distance from the camera and the object and displays certain frame (if your model is animated frame by frame and consists of a separate *.x model for each frame)... so YES we have LOD, but for static models... but come to think about it that's all we need... here is the script:
//LOD system manager for the SkinMesh object.

//Usage:

//See SkinMesh help file for details on how to make frame
//based animation sequences for the skinmesh.

//Make reduced-poly versions of the skinmesh model
//and save them as animation frames (001_mesh.x, 002_mesh.x etc)
//to the SkinMesh's data folder.

//Link this cript to the camera and to the SkinMesh object.

//In the script below make sure that OBJ_0 is the camera and OBJ_3
//is the SkinMesh to LOD-manage.

int DistanceThreshold = 30; //maximum lod distance, in meters
int LODMeshesCount = 10; //number of LOD meshes
void Main()
{
   Vector3 cameraLocation;
   Vector3 meshLocation;
   float distance;
   iObjectLocation(OBJ_0,cameraLocation);
   iObjectLocation(OBJ_3,meshLocation);
   distance = iVectorLength(meshLocation - cameraLocation);
   OUT_3 = iFloatInterpolate(distance,0,DistanceThreshold,0,LODMeshesCount-1,true);
}

There is even a setting for the texture mipmap, giving us the possibility to set the blurriness distance

* How many AI cars can you have running overther without affecting the fps? ( I just saw the youtube movie with AI cars.  )

i have no idea, so far i didnt notice any slowdown when adding the AI cars, in my demo they all use the same path, but with independant settings for each one.
What i did notice is that when i have too much points in the path, the cars get a little stupid and i felt (while FRAPS kept sowing 60) some hickups from time to time, but then again that doesnt prove anything. So Fernando should say if there is any limit?

* Is it possible to have a game interface ... change with mouseOver, mouseClick and mouseOut; Panels that can be moved around the screen?

yes!! While i havent made a menu yet, i see there are various functios that should be enough for a good looking menu (not sure about animations flash style though)

i hope that helps a little... watch some of the video tutorials to see hou things are done >> here

Thanks for all your answers, Clandestine. I always prefer to ask someone like you that are not from the engine developers and I know from other engines also.

What about the camera? Can we adjust it to colide with the track also?

What about the camera? Can we adjust it to colide with the track also?

sure, look below, i didnt have it set in the demo, because i was concentrating on other things and kept forgetting about it... but thank you for asking, that way i had to do it 

A little script is needed for this I'm afraid.

The first step is placing EventOnLocation objects at checkpoints. This will allow you to determine, in your little script, when a vehicle goes thourgh a checkpoint (there will be an IN_X variable which changes when this happens):

float timer = 0;
void Main()
{
   if (iInitializing())
   {
      timer = 90; //in seconds
   }
   if (IN_X > 0)
   {
      //this checkpoint was passed, add 10 seconds
      timer += 10;
   }
   timer -= 0.016667;
   if (timer < 0)
   {
      //game is over, do something here,like disabling all cars etc
      timer = 0;
   }
   OUT_X = timer;
}

In the script OUT_X is a ValuePrint object's internal parameter (so you can show timer on screen).


---

I have added, to the to-do list, the ability to read the Checkpoint object internal parameter directly from a script, making EventOnLocation (above) unnecessary. It will hopefully be included to the April 2009 release.

here is a little teaser of what i'm working on now ... nothing is final, just tests of shapes and colors (and yes the speedo needle should be below)
a video later...











and yes, this is actually 3D Rad, not a mock up