CS-4431 Advanced Project, 2008W
Students worked in teams to build a multiplayer (IP / LAN) driving simulator and free-form car racing game using OpenGL in a C environment...
Getting started with a "quad" terrain mesh. The terrain included rolling hills, trees, and secondary objects such as houses, lamp-posts, fences, etc... Heads-Up-Display HUD includes compass & speedometer.
The terrain after application of a grassy texture... Note the alpha ie transparency of the compass and speedo.
A bird's-eye view of the track. To maximize the range of driving experiences, track sections include a small curve, hair-pin bend, and a curve of larger radius that opens to the straightway - vroom vroom!
Skymap has been applied to the world. Car windows are see-through. We treat the road and the terrain as distinct objects, and drape the road as a ribbon upon the terrain to assume the contours of the land. This way the same track can be applied to different terrains.
Helicopter Camera View: Here the camera is positioned in front of and above our race-car.
Givin'er around the final bend... Anisotropic Textures: To extract maximum performance from the Open GL engine, objects further away from the camera are painted with less detail, case in point: the dashed center line appears to "fade" off just behind the car.