Stunts sequel projects

[Cas]

Yes!  You've pointed out exactly one of the best examples. This is why I think some sequel attemps have diverged from Stunts so much. Stunts's physics engine is, strictly speaking, full of bugs, or more honestly, made out of bugs. And yet, the result is amazing. The developers of Stunts just tried to patch things quickly... They didn't expect these things to become the personality in Stunts, but actually wanted to make them less noticeable. After all these years, we've come to love these things and now, if I'm to develop an engine, I'll try to reproduce this... but I wouldn't do it through quick patching, as that would result surely in a new, totally different set of bugs, much unlike those of Stunts. What I would do is start by trying to create something more faithful to real physics and then, make the necessary touches to it so that it results in something that feels like Stunts.

I've tried stopping completely while upside down in loops and pipes. When you reach a certain low speed, the car detaches front-first from the ceiling and falls to the ground. But it is very clear that this "gravity" does not become active until you lower your speed considerably. To see this, drive into a long pipe and as soon as you enter, roll until you're upside down on the ceiling. Then remain on the ceiling for the rest of the length of the pipe. You'll find that, no matter how long, as long as you maintain a reasonable speed (not too high), the car will stay on the ceiling.

[Daniel3D]

I actually remember reading about this a couple of years ago (probably here). I believe that this approach in physics was deliberate (driving upside down in the pipe is a feature, not a bug) but it was probably a challenge to program within the boundaries that computing power and memory had to offer.

And based on the time of creation I think that the bug's are 'minor' in regular gameplay. And the general effect is very good.

[Daniel3D]

I've found an other abandoned sequel project.
https://unitylist.com/p/2ap/stunts-Unity

This is a toy project to import assets of the original Stunts into Unity, and possibly turning it into a functional demo.

[Cas]

That project is very interesting. I had read about Unity3D at some point. My renderer does not use the original track objects because not just the format, but the kind of data is different, so new elements have to be constructed. Same goes for cars. Still, analysing Stunts original 3D object structure (not the format), I could find a way to adapt it, so that one can import the parameters that both systems have in common dropping the ones that are exclusive to Stunts and then editing the 3D object to incorporate the parameters that my system uses. I'm going to be researching on that. I'll download Blender and reinstall Stressed.

About the physics in Stunts, I believe they made them to work just as intended for the track elements that were present instead of creating something more general, which would've taken a lot more time. It's not that driving on the ceiling is a feature, but was indeed made on purpose to avoid having to calculate centrifugal forces in terms of constant collision, that is "following the round surface". Same thing goes for loops, but it's less noticeable because you can't drive them sideways. So all of physics is simplified. Even gravity is not really represented. When you fall, you only accelerate to a certain speed and then fall at constant (low) speed. Momentum is not there either. There is a "falling" status in which the car always points directly toward the ground it stops rotating once it is oriented that way. This could also have to do with a gimbal lock. I don't know. I have the feeling that Stunts uses Euler angles for its rotation. If you go on a ramp only with one side of the car, it will tip to the side and then leave the ramp, but it will not be inclinde in its X axis if I remember correctly. Looks like you can't be both rolled and pitching at the same time.

If one thing can be learnt from Stunts physics engine is that you don't need to go at all realistic to make the player feel comfortable and that many things, however far from reality, still feel natural.

[Daniel3D]

Stunts Mania project is dead

I found this article (in French, so thank you Google Translate  )

Those of you who have known the era of the 486 will certainly have your eyes light up when you say the following words: 4D Sports Driving.

Mindscape's 4D Sports Driving is a fully 3D car racing simulation (remarkable for its time) that pits you onCustomizable circuits strewn with obstacles: on the program, stunts and mad pursuits.

And that's what made this game a mythical title: survey your own circuits, perform countless stunts, always go faster, further, higher! Even today it's a real pleasure to replay 4D Sports Driving, even if we have to admit that in our time, the display seems completely hideous to us.

It is this enthusiasm that pushed Thomas Harte, independent programmer, to give a second life to 4D Sports Driving by creating Stunt Mania:

This adaptation then aims to reproduce the sensations encountered with the original game, but this time by exploiting the possibilities of 3D acceleration offered by current machines. For this purpose, Stunt Mania has a circuit editor compatible with the original circuits of 4D Sports Driving. The game is open source and is developed using the SDL library and the OpenGL API, which allows it to run on Windows, Mac OS, and Unix systems. Unfortunately, according to the game's website, the last update was on 6/12/2002.

And since then, nothing...

Nothing more until Focus and Nadeo announce TrackMania:

"Original, fresh, innovative, with an ambitious concept TrackMania is more than just a car game, it's a real video game. To pure driving and to the fun procured by circuits traversed at full speed, through insane blocks and gigantic jumps, is added the pleasure of creating your own circuits in a simple and intuitive way, of testing them in real time and of modify them block after block, for ever more sensations, technique and spectacularity.

Proposing your latest personal TrackMania circuit to opponents on the net, pampered down to the smallest detail, is a pure pleasure at least as intense as beating them at the end of a fierce round. »


As you have already seen, the concept is not so original, nor so innovative as that. Nevertheless, TrackMania is likely to be a great success, provided that the quality of the realization is at the rendezvous.

https://www.tomshardware.fr/apres-4d-sports-driving-et-stunt-mania-voici-trackmania/

Trackmania is a year later (2003). Could it be a coincidence?

[Ryoma]

No need to translate lol

[Daniel3D]

No need to translate lol

I know, the link was especially for you 

[alanrotoi]

Another project of Stunts Remake using OpenGL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EhJxc9mxs4

[dreadnaut]

It'd be great to have an OpenGL- or SDL-based engine that can load and render Stunts resources. It could then be reused as a library by multiple experiments and projects, with different game engines. The holy grail for me would be that + the current physics code, giving us a high resolution Stunts, with a door open to implementing fancy visuals using GL shaders.

[Cas]

If we can get to a level of understanding of the current physics engine, it could be translated or rewritten (in a fully compatible way, instead of having to do something new that acts similar to it). The physics engine, the graphics engine and the environment (say, menus an so) could be modularised so one can have varieties of any of them and use whichever one wants or modify them. Well... that's dreaming, but who knows.

In any case, 3D graphics isn't that hard. It does take time to do the work, but then, it works. Doing from scratch like I've been doing is a lot more educational, but I could easily plug it into OpenGL too. Anyway, I think that now the priority is to either learn to understand the original engine for the purpose above or otherwise, if it'll take too long, to write a new physics engine sufficiently close to feel like Stunts. There is little to no documentation about physics engine development compared to graphics. The ones that claim to document this actually just tell you to use some other pre-existing engine, which is not good in our case. Still scratching my head, but at some point, I'll break through the glass

[Overdrijf]

Nice find. It's been four years and it looks like there weren't a lot of updates on the project, but it's pretty cool.

[GTAManRCR]

I'd play a PS1 version...

[Daniel3D]

Another project of Stunts Remake using OpenGL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EhJxc9mxs4

It uses bullet physics just like the lambdacube demo a few years ago.

OpenGL would solve the rendering layer depth issues I reckon.

[afullo]

It'd be great to have an OpenGL- or SDL-based engine that can load and render Stunts resources. It could then be reused as a library by multiple experiments and projects, with different game engines. The holy grail for me would be that + the current physics code, giving us a high resolution Stunts, with a door open to implementing fancy visuals using GL shaders.

Several Doom ports allow it for that game, but of course its source code has been released a long time ago, contrarily to Stunts...