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Moody Non-Photo-Realistic Driving
An anonymous reader points out a project called Drivey, which he describes as "a dark and fascinating example of 2.xD [not quite 3d] graphical rendering. This tiny, free [as in beer] demo gives you an amazingly compelling driving experience. To quote the author, 'It was conceived as a driving simulator for old farts like myself, who are kind of nostalgic for the "old days" [ca. 1985] but are not so thick as to believe that the games from the 80s were actually in any way superior to the games we play today.' Even works fine under WINE!"
here is a quick pic.
Simple cell-shading done with style. This is what's missing from most games. Real style.
If I wanted photo-realism, I'd get up from my PC and head out the front door. Games such as WoW, Rez, Killer 7 and Ico have shown that a little creativity in the design can go a long way. It can also be easy on the gpu.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
Rename the ".exe" to ".scr", right click on the file and select "Intall". You now have a Drivey screensaver;)
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Dude's driving on the wrong side of the road.
This is supposed to be the last software professionally written by Bill Gates.
Even though probably no one much ever played this primitive bit of DOS/BASIC demo software [purportedly the last piece of professional software ever written by Bill Gates!]
Good to see he ended on such a high note.
If you have driven halfway through a lightpole so that you can't see the top or the bottom, where would you draw it? Where you last saw it? When would you stop drawing it?
The problem is that it's trying to show 3 dimensions with only 2 dimensional objects. Here's another problem with a similar issue. Imagine a very flat wall. Take a large light source like the sun and bring it to a position above and behind the wall, now the wall face is dark and a long shadow is cast. Now move the light source to the front of the wall. The wall is lit up and no shadow is cast by the wall. Now slowly move the light source up directly over the edge of the wall. Get to the point just before a shadow would appear. Should the wall be lit? Should it be dark? Should half of it be lit?
> Imagine a very flat wall.
Ensuring that it's at least 25% flatter than your everyday, ordinary flat wall...
Exactly the same risks as downloading a tarball of sourcecode and compiling it. Oh, you read every line of source you download? Including the configure script, which may well contain a trojan? Ignore me then!
Then you, my friend, are missing the point.
Not all games/demos have to be at the burning edge of graphics.
15 years on, and loads of people still play lemmings. The emulator scene for old 16 bit machines, and even old arcade machines is bigger than ever. All these people can't be wrong.
All modern games have, is their graphics. Most of them don't even have enjoyable game-play. Graphics are not everything, calling a game with low-spec graphics, rubbish, is like saying Impressionists couldn't paint.
-Jar.
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Now take this project and combine it with Google Maps and it could be very interesting...
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Congratulations, you've just invented the new "imagine a beowulf cluster of