Tokyo 21 September 2004

What an amazing week last one was.

nKpro’s course has diverged from the original plan a bit since I spent a full time week on physics.

I brought many things into the tire math model and worked on many little things to make code and behaviour more consistent and easy to read and understand.

I’ve also started to use the new data files structure to simulate “extreme” vehicles, from gokarts to trucks! It is a very good exercise and it gives a lot of insight into possible inconsistencies of the physic engine.

Work on one of the nKpro’s “official” cars has started, and I found myself hooked driving around looking for a quick lap many (maybe too many ;-) ) times this week since this car is so addictive to drive on the limit, amazing, usually I don’t really spend a lot of time driving.

New releases for the Vermin and GT70 MOD team came out too, the 2 teams are getting up to speed nicely and their experience gives me an invaluable source of ideas and.. ehmmm.. bugs :-P .

I am planning to introduce the automatic aerodynamic calculations in nKpro v1.0. The original plan was to include CFD in v2.0 to calculate lift and drag from the car 3D body. I’ve been spending a lot of time going through aerodynamics books lately and I might just try to have a go at it before, or just after (release as an update) v1.0.

We’re a bit behind schedule on the graphics department, suspensions rendering is taking a lot of time to design correctly. The big problem is to decide between a system where nKpro is responsible of the suspension 3D geometry generation and rendering as opposed to a system where these 3D objects are imported with the main body 3D object.

Importing from 3D has the advantage of being able to create a much more complex suspension element. The big disadvantages are the complexity in setting up positions and dimensions so that the 3D perfectly matches the “virtual” elements of the physics simulations and the fact that, doing so, the “graphics guy” becomes 100% responsible of the suspension geometry layout. This could really become a problem, this means that, if the “physic guy” will to modify a geometry for whatever reason he will have to interact with the “graphics” guy to make a 3D to match the new layout, and this is not as easy as the opposite (that is, matching the layout to the 3D).

I am going for both of the options, but I really think the “full 3D” solution is not the way to go. nKpro is now able to generate suspensions elements with set dimensions, texture, bump mapping and so on, it should work just fine for 99% for the cases, for the remaining 1%, good luck with the full 3d approach ;-).

Documentation and manual is also taking a constant time everyday, we plan to release a nice and BIG manual for nKpro, as the ones that used to come out in the early days of flight simulations and racing simulations.

The documentation will offer a deep insight into nK’s physics simulation and also into real racing physics, car setup and so on; I like to think about it as an “added value” to the offer.

I was able to experience a full week @ full time dedicated to nKpro and I was amazed by how many things you can get completed when you have the possibility to concentrate for an entire day with no interruptions, I am so confident for the future but I will have to wait one more month before this “full time” potential can be delivered.

Ayu rulez

Stefano