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My personal taste: I love fast races. I do think, though, that it's very important that all cars have a chance sometime, but if we're going to just rotate one, then I'd definitely vote for a fast car.

About the second score table, NoRH with shortcuts sounds amazing to me. I've never tried that. In any case, if you'd like to keep GAR running as well, my site and its system are at the service of Stunts community. Say, for example, if Marco would like to maintain a GAR tournament next year, I offer him my code so he can use the platform as an administrator. I can set up the whole system for him. The reason I think this makes more sense is because last year both GAR and shortcut-based races were running on a same track and it's unlikely for a track to be amazing for both things at a time, whereas RH/NoRH is a minor difference in terms of how a track should be designed. By using my platform, Marco (if he'd like to be admin of GAR) could have his own tracks, designed for GAR. The platform could be added to Stunts.hu hub and the two sites could also link to one another more visibly. This is just an idea, of course.

EDIT: Oh, I have one more idea I would like to add. What if every car were classified as either "fast" or "slow" and instead of just rotating the whole list, one month were fast, the next slow, then fast again, etc.?  This would allow designing a track to be fast or slow.

That's a very interesting one. I know that there have been many different approaches to recreating Stunts. Many of them have been mentioned in this forum. Maybe the best known is Ultimate Stunts, but all are too different from Stunts.

In this particular case, it appears at first sight that the game is much more similar to Stunts because it uses its original 3D models, but it's actually entirely different: the physics are more like that of other car games and the engine is both hardware and software demanding, since it uses 3D hardware effects and if I understood correctly, it's built upon third party libraries (too many dependencies). These things are nice, but I think that, for a recreation of Stunts to stick, it has to be... well... "Stunts". Only a few things can be changed that people would accept such as:

- Make the game run natively on newer OSs
- Allow higher pixel resolution
- Maybe change the collision and physics engine as long as they still appear to be the same (that is, it's not that important if replays are incompatible with the new one, but it is important that the game still feels like Stunts). Changing the engine would allow more practical car design, making the game more flexible
- Allow mods

I've made a triangle drawing function that I could translate to assembly to make it lightning fast, but then comes all the 3D and collision and I fear that will kill me, ha, ha.

Wow!  Looks like a whole lot is known about the internal workings of Stunts. I would gladly start writing a Stunts-like game if I were more comfortable with some things (namely, triangle collision, 3D triangle-based rendering). My idea is that, if one kept some concepts simple like in Stunts (textureless single-coloured triangles, no shadows, no gradients), one could produce a very fast 3D engine with high resolution and without the need to rely on 3D drivers and graphics acceleration. A tweaked Newtonian engine could incorporate the elements we see in Stunts physics to recreate the feeling of driving in Stunts, while not necessarily producing the exact same results. A portable engine, with no dependencies, would be amazing. If this much is already understood, maybe we could put forces together to create it.

New track: New Year - 2017
Waiting for you, guys!

[Bliss]

Hi, guys. I'm here announcing that we can now consider Bliss to be complete, although some bugs might be detected in the future, that I would have no problem to fix and maybe some feature would become important one day and requested, but other than that, it already does all it has to do. You can download the latest, final version from here:

http://www.dimioca.com/bliss

I would suggest that you guys download it and keep the zip file and if you can also replicate it to your sites, to have an alternative download source, it would be even better, in case my server would ever fail. Following are some changes you're going to find in this final version:

• Time estimates are now based on the results of the Race for Immortality event held in October and November of this year
• It is now possible for a user to calibrate with any track, not just 4am.trk
• Bliss.trk and napalm.trk are now also included. Replays from R4I are, too, built-in in a subdirectory
• Bliss is now free software under the GPLv3. You can take a look at the source code if you wish
• Shortcut keys now try to follow the path being drawn
• You can still select a track element by pressing space and typing, but now what's being typed is highlighted in the panel
• Background landscape images have been replaced with public-domain landscape graphics
• There were a couple of bugs, one regarding cutting with the mouse and another having to do with scenery generation, both fixed

Thank you all guys for your support on this project and special thanks go to Duplode, for his amazing feedback!

I'm back! Soon to be checking replays!

Thanks, Duplode, for creating this topic and thank you guys for joining again. I haven't been checking the replays or writing here or racing in ZakStunts these last days because I'm on a trip. I'm currently in Puerto Madryn, in the Patagonia, South of Argentina. I will be returning home this Sunday and I'll be active again. I tried to post a message in R4K and discovered a bug. It looks like the session system conflicts with NoScript (a Firefox plugin that I use) and even when I enable the site IP, I still can't remain logged in (which did work from my home computer). When I tried to write a message, it not only logged off, but also deleted another message Leo had sent, so I have to make my code blocker-proof. Another thing I want to do is develop a NoRH verification system so that a handicap can be given to benefit NoRH replays.

This track, Dubai, I made very quickly, so any comments on it are welcome

[OWOOT]

Less than two weeks remain till the end of R4I (which is due next 28 November, at 00:00 UTC, that is, non-inclusive) and I'm very happy that many of you guys have participated. I'm thinking about what I should do once the race is finished.

• I would most likely continue in an OWOOT-based style, although the particular rules may change. I can be more or less strict on it, but I would like to know your preferences.
• As regards NoRH, I want to implement a system so that you don't have to use two pipsqueak names. I could create two scoreboards for now. I would like to make a single scoreboard and grant 10% for NoRH replays, but in order to do that, I think it's essential to first provide a method of verification. What do you guys think?
• In the previous thread about R4I, I proposed a variation of OWOOT called NAWOG. Also, Alan Rotoi proposed a hunting concept. If there would be interested in these things, I would consider it too, same as any other concept that would be proposed.
• I could retain the name Race For Immortality despite the fact that only this particular race will go to Bliss estimation scoreboards. Otherwise, I could come up with a new name. Opinions?

So... has the hunting competition project never been implemented?   The deadline for R4I is only a couple of weeks ahead and I'd like to define what would be best to have for this summer... (winter for the guys in Europe).

Another thing I had been thinking is that the project to restart the permanent competition records is something I could help in doing. I could start with OWOOT records for the original tracks, or handle OWOOT, OWOOT+NoRH and Free/Zak-style records for each of them.... or I could just take care of the OWOOT records and leave the others for the ZakStunts site. We can arrange that with Dreadnaut.

Yeah, I'm really a newbie with websites. I more or less handle PHP because I'm a programmer, so anything that's algorithmic is comfortable to me, but if you want more design and less scripting, then you may actually find helper tools comfortable, only I wouldn't know what to recommend you. But again, plain HTML and CSS are so, so simple, that it really is worth it to learn them. Embedding a video is as simple as putting the address between the corresponding tags.

Leo, I don't know about software for developing sites, but in my case, I write the HTML, CSS and PHP directly and it's not hard and you can easily embed videos. Take a look at w3schools.com. HTML5 with CSS3 give you virtually everything. I just need practice with designing, but the capabilities are great.

Remember that the sole purpose of the NAWOG basic rule is to be able to forget about penalty time. A strict OWOOT could be used instead with similar results. NAWOG, in my opinion, is the least restrictive way in which a race can be held with penalty time being ignored. It's the no-penalty-time rule that gives the race its interesting aspect and this is not possible in ZakStunts, for example, on a track built on water, since say, jumping from a path to another would almost always result in penalty time.

That is indeed a very good concept. Yeah, I would like to implement whatever racing style really attracts the interest of pipsqueaks. The objective of my NAWOG idea would be that one could ignore penalty time completely, but in order to do this, some degree of OWOOT is necessary (so that one doesn't just go around the finish line) and wrong way driving must be forbidden (so that one doesn't just turn around). Without penalty time to worry about, one could take every possible path, including turning in crossroads or jumping from a path to another one near. Maybe a set of rules like this could be used instead of ISA for chasing.

Only thing that I'm concerned about is that the red track section would have to be very, very simple, to ensure the opponent will not crash accidentally. So, for the track to be fun racing, the length of that section should also be carefully calculated. I would say the red section is actually divided in two parts:

• Red section before the yellow section rejoins: This part can be boring, because the pipsqueak will never drive it. It should be as long as possible, but not so long that the pipsqueak can reach the second section before the opponent.
• Red section after the yellow section rejoins: Ideally, the pipsqueak should reach the prey within the first tiles of this section. It should consist mostly on straightways and simple turns, to minimise the chance of the pipsqueak jumping over or otherwise accidentally passing the prey, unless this is precisely what we want.

Anyway, many things, we won't know until we try this. It'd be good to estimate how much faster a human pipsqueak can be than a CPU opponent.

Thanks for your understanding, Alan. I already deleted the replay from the list. I still would like to write a complete set of rules on the page. I'll do that when I finish today's work.
So basically, the rules for this race are based on two principles: semantic OWOOT (i.e.: exactly what it means) and "all stunts to be performed". Everything else derives from those two.

My plan is not keeping this same set of rules for future tracks. I have a new modality in mind, which Duplode already knows about. A much, much more free one, still OWOOT-like. Now it's an experimental idea, so discussing it would be good!

For future tracks:
Mi idea, is (perhaps temporarily) called "NAWOG" = Not All Wheels On Grass. Meaning exactly that. As long as not all four wheels are touching grass, you're OK. So, if you're in the air, you're free. If you manage to drive on water, that's OK. On top of that, penalty time would be irrelevant. If you get penalty time, it would not be computed. The NAWOG rule would take care of your not shortening the track too much. No penalty system is necessary. Finally, to make sure no trivial solutions are found, driving wrong way is not allowed. Tracks would be created with the effects of these three rules in mind

Any thought about this concept will be appreciated

Hey!  Sorry, guys, I hadn't seen then thread lately.

I apologise about the public-replay issue. I originally developed the ability to make replays public in case they really should be public for some reason. Rejection of a replay, instead, currently causes the deletion of the replay from the list and from the server. Then when I checked Alan's replay I realised by rejecting, I might be making it also unavailable to himself and that the system should have something to allow one to see their own replays and receive a private message in case of errors. At that point, mistakenly, as I see, I thought the best I could do was making it public. AbuRaf's original replay was also made public, but when he submitted the second one, I manually deleted the older replay. Only about a day elapsed and apparently, nobody got to see it.

I'm currently working on a better interface that will include private messaging, ability to see your own replays or make the public if you wish, better handling of rejected replays, among other things. I'm sorry about the inconvenience. I'll now remove the replay from the list.

About the under-the-tunnel rule, I'll explain myself too:

• I originally thought of OWOOT the way it was in Paleke's WSC, where among other things, driving over a tunnel roof was allowed
• On last track, when racing GAR, I used this assumption to drive over a tunnel roof, which caused my replay to be invalid, as Marco pointed out
• While driving on the roof is textually "over the road", I understood Marco's point as that "performing all stunts" would include tunnels, since the way of executing them would be to drive under the roof. For this reason, I decided to apply that rule to this race
• Still, I personally don't have a problem with not using that rule, but since other pipsqueaks have already submitted their replays with it, I just couldn't take it back. For future races, I will consider what's really best and make it totally clear in the rules

Again, really sorry about the confusion and discomfort.

EDIT: I'm currently working. As soon as I finish, I'll update the table and clear out the rules on the page. Slalom blocks are not to be passed through either, but speed-ups are allowed as long as you don't go off-track. This is because going through a slalom makes you not "perform the stunt", even though you're still on the road. Speeding up on a boulevard does not prevent you from executing a stunt. As long as a wheel remains or or over the asphalt, it's OK. You can't, however, drive with all wheels on the middle of the boulevard.