Old BrownBot 1a currently has a cameo role in Dirchie Kart, he’s a placeholder model for the level decorations. These decoration models are just for show, stuff like bridges and buildings to give the levels detail.

He’s not real light weight… at almost 3000 polys he’s a good test for the performance, looks like I’ll be able to add plenty of detail in the actual models.

Been implementing this mesh instancing technique into the Ride the fury engine this week, thankfully the sample code is well implemented and documented as it’s a pretty technical feat to achieve, particularly across multiple platforms.

The results are pretty obvious in the screen shots below, a whole order of magnitude increase in the number objects you can render on the screen for little cost to frame rate (that number at the bottom centre of the screen shots is the frame rate, no it’s not v-synced).

What it looked like pre-mesh instancing

Mesh instancing on, it’s getting closer what I’ve got pictured in my head

It’s currently running at about 40fps with 4 player split screen on the Xbox, I’ve still got some visibility culling and threading to implement, I’m confident they’ll bring me up to a solid 60fps.

Now that I’ve got enough performance, it’s time to sort out a few more weapon items and the penalty system.

There’s been a little bit of progress on Dirchie Kart this week, I’ve got a rudimentary store implemented, you trade coins for various weapons between each race. These weapons don’t run out as such, they are abilities that you can use once per lap, they get recharged in the pits along with your health.

The state management is starting to bed in quite well, there’s no wager/penalty system built in there yet, that should work out after I’ve got the economy (how many coins are available vs how much stuff costs) sorted out.

Inspired by the dodgie movie Death Race which I watch on the flight back the other week, I’ve re-jiggered the mechanics in the game.

Each kart has a health meter (the hearts for now) separate to the coins, once the health reaches 1 the boost is disabled on the kart. Oh there’s a smoke emitter hooked up to the health as well (The red Dirchie is damaged in the pic below). I’m about to implement a pit lane for each track which will re-charge the health and supply ammo.

You’ll also notice the skid marks are much nicer now, I’ve integrated them into the track texture better using a multi texturing technique.