MX Simulator

Stardate 2024-03-27-1663

Hey guys! This has been suggested quite a few times so I'll write about what I'm currently working on here.

Right now I'm finishing up the new terrain tessellation code. It used to create a nearly ideal tessellation that resulted in very few polygons but lots of draw calls and lots of data sent from system memory to graphics memory. This is what the old tessellation looked like:



Now, I think this is a beautiful tessellation. It focuses detail closer to the camera and on bumpy areas and also has no T-junctions. It's a lot of the reason why MXS could do big maps with no draw distance limits on ancient graphics cards. But it's slow today.

The new way does the same basic thing, except instead of tessellating down to 8 triangle fans, it works on 16x16 grids of those fans. So it's much less accurate and makes way more polygons, but everything now resides in graphics memory and is more uniform so the GPU can spend less time waiting for memory and also work in larger batches. Here's what the new way looks like:



Kind of sad to lose the more detailed tessellation but this is unquestionably better on modern hardware. Testing on a GT 1030 it went from 68 FPS to 127 FPS on the 4k thousandacres terrain.

Really neat stuff, always cool to see behind the scenes

This is great to read! Thanks JLV!

68 to 127 fps on thousand acres is an incredible improvement. Can't wait for this to be finished up!

Thanks for the update!

Awesomeness.

any update to what you’re working on?

Sorry, don't have anything yet.

Just wondering where the first person camera update is at on your to do list. I know a good bit of people that would love to play this game in first person once that comes out. just hard to handle all the motion there is with it now

taylorsmx wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 12:21 pm Just wondering where the first person camera update is at on your to do list. I know a good bit of people that would love to play this game in first person once that comes out. just hard to handle all the motion there is with it now

I think the best way to do that would be make the camera position part of the UI scripting when I do that. Then it'd be infinitely configurable.

jlv wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 7:23 pm

taylorsmx wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 12:21 pm Just wondering where the first person camera update is at on your to do list. I know a good bit of people that would love to play this game in first person once that comes out. just hard to handle all the motion there is with it now

I think the best way to do that would be make the camera position part of the UI scripting when I do that. Then it'd be infinitely configurable.

What's the plan for that if it happens? I must've missed it. I remember the gimble feature being added, wasn't that to fix the amount of shakiness? Or is it to stop the back and forth of rider body position?

aeffertz wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 1:37 am

jlv wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 7:23 pm

taylorsmx wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 12:21 pm Just wondering where the first person camera update is at on your to do list. I know a good bit of people that would love to play this game in first person once that comes out. just hard to handle all the motion there is with it now

I think the best way to do that would be make the camera position part of the UI scripting when I do that. Then it'd be infinitely configurable.

What's the plan for that if it happens? I must've missed it. I remember the gimble feature being added, wasn't that to fix the amount of shakiness? Or is it to stop the back and forth of rider body position?

The gimble just helps with the shakiness, but that's basically it at least from my perspective. Doesn't make it a dynamic camera

aeffertz wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 1:37 am

jlv wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 7:23 pm

taylorsmx wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 12:21 pm Just wondering where the first person camera update is at on your to do list. I know a good bit of people that would love to play this game in first person once that comes out. just hard to handle all the motion there is with it now

I think the best way to do that would be make the camera position part of the UI scripting when I do that. Then it'd be infinitely configurable.

What's the plan for that if it happens? I must've missed it. I remember the gimble feature being added, wasn't that to fix the amount of shakiness? Or is it to stop the back and forth of rider body position?

What's wanted is a camera mode where the camera up axis is locked to the world up axis. (In other words, the camera pitch and roll are locked with only yaw matching the rider's direction.) I don't actually think it'd work well since it'd make it hard to feel how far you're leaning over but it's something MX Bikes players want.

jlv wrote: ↑Sun Jun 09, 2024 3:00 am

aeffertz wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 1:37 am

jlv wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2024 7:23 pm
I think the best way to do that would be make the camera position part of the UI scripting when I do that. Then it'd be infinitely configurable.

What's the plan for that if it happens? I must've missed it. I remember the gimble feature being added, wasn't that to fix the amount of shakiness? Or is it to stop the back and forth of rider body position?

What's wanted is a camera mode where the camera up axis is locked to the world up axis. (In other words, the camera pitch and roll are locked with only yaw matching the rider's direction.) I don't actually think it'd work well since it'd make it hard to feel how far you're leaning over but it's something MX Bikes players want.

I was wondering if in 3rd person we could have a little thing like that too cause i swear in outdoors the game feels laggy as fuck but my fps stay locked at 125fps (i5 13600k + 4070ti so def not a pc issue) but i think with this camera shaking so much with all the little bumps and things like that, this is what causing this feeling of lags/stutters so if we could smooth out a bit the camera it would be so much better

RFX_corentin_12 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 09, 2024 7:57 am

jlv wrote: ↑Sun Jun 09, 2024 3:00 am

aeffertz wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2024 1:37 am

What's the plan for that if it happens? I must've missed it. I remember the gimble feature being added, wasn't that to fix the amount of shakiness? Or is it to stop the back and forth of rider body position?

What's wanted is a camera mode where the camera up axis is locked to the world up axis. (In other words, the camera pitch and roll are locked with only yaw matching the rider's direction.) I don't actually think it'd work well since it'd make it hard to feel how far you're leaning over but it's something MX Bikes players want.

I was wondering if in 3rd person we could have a little thing like that too cause i swear in outdoors the game feels laggy as fuck but my fps stay locked at 125fps (i5 13600k + 4070ti so def not a pc issue) but i think with this camera shaking so much with all the little bumps and things like that, this is what causing this feeling of lags/stutters so if we could smooth out a bit the camera it would be so much better

Didn't realize it was a problem in 3rd person.