Ramblings - 2009/52

I am always amazed by how flexible Git is. For every aspect it has a proper answer, a way to do it and those are not hacks but built-in features. Simply amazing.

I've recently found an article by Ryan Tomayko about handling tangled working copies with Git - and it struck me that Ive been following this technique myself for quite some time, only difference I use git-stash often, too. Ah and another article, by Ariejan de Vroom about Git patches, the most clear explanation I've seen so far.

We have a beta out for Speed Dreams 1.4.0! Check it out here - it is really so heart-warming to see so many work materialize. Well there is some things to do till the final release, expected about late January or early February, but nothing really serious we know of. Of course beta testing can help any still unknown problem to appear so we are looking forward to this period.

Ramblings - 2009/51

I decided to write some random rambling one per week, to collect my thoughts on TORCS/SD development-related issues, like ideas, what-are-you-doings, recent happenings, milestones, any new information I've come around. I plan to name them with the week number - of course there will be weeks when I skip this so don't rely on it very heavily :)

With Speed Dreams (hosted at SourceForge.net) we use Subversion as versioning system. Now 'svn ignore' - kills me, I think it is so damn un-intuitive. However recently I've stumbled upon a blog 'BogoJoker' where Joseph Pecoraro discussed it so nice and clear that it immediately made me understand how it works (but I still think it is un-intuitive...) Here is the link if you need advice.

I'm getting close to make public a new track, Knockhill. As usual, it would be v0.4 as there is no 3D editing done at all yet. Quite a lot to do track-wise: learn Blender through Salty, pretty Longday a bit, then Petit, then Knockhill. And there are lot more tracks in my head to do...

Speed Dreams is approaching a beta release - there will be a meeting on Saturday to discuss the details. We fought a lot with track selection previews - now the game displays a preview background image and superimposes a track map over it (done by JP and Brian). Wolf-Dieter has finished a lot of Simplix setups, while Xavier added more weather-related stuff to sdl-port-branch. Haruna made sure there are no more TORCS-related textures, and JP has also polished the menu system while Brian added more code to the networking part.

I plan to merge the most recent Kilo robots into Speed Dreams' next release. Todo: make it not crash when there is no setup for a track, simple fuel strategy, prepare for timed sessions.

Track releases - Salty, petit

I've released the next version of Salzburgring, named v0.4. It includes quite a lot of eye candy already but expect to see more coming...

I've also uploaded a new track, named 'petit' that renders a very famous track in Braselton, GA, USA. It is also v0.4 but has much less 3D stuff in it, but sure it will be the next target of my Blender fun.

You can download them here. Install them the usual way (they should work with both TORCS or Speed Dreams). Please tell me what you think, in the comments or via email.

BTW I have lots of plans for tracks, enough to fill my next 2 years or so :)