Hello all those who are interested in the projects the SRS team has been developing in their spare time.  The team was brought together by a passion for racing, and the Live For Speed simulator allowed each of us to meet and learn about eachother.  As time continued a few of the members have started developing side projects, the current one being a Tire Simulator that had much more interest then we were prepared for.

The Tire Simulator project was a small project that I, (Tim Beaudet), start programming in my free time back in December of 2008.  The Sim Racing Society team stood by and watched the development of this deformable tire, until I put the project on hold while I completed a life long goal.  After finishing that goal in October 2009, the Tire Simulator was started again, hoping to provide a good demonstration project to find the next job in my career as a game programmer.  Meanwhile, the team pitched in and started helping with the development of the Tire Simulator.  John Floyd took the role of the artist, building a model for the rim and a texture for the tire.  Other members helped out in various ways from playing with scripts to allowing me to bounce ideas off them.

You can watch the TireSim Video on You-Tube to see the tire deforming.  Shortly after the video was made a few more improvements were made, the spring positions were rearranged so that lateral deformation can be tuned separately from longitudinal deformation.  Also a small increase in performance was found since now only the center-line PointMasses collide and act with the ground.  The tire simulator has a handful of ideas that are yet to be developed.  The following is only a list of ideas that may be added in the future, but in no way is it a promise.

First the tire can look visually more appealing by adding a normal map for the tread, making it seem like the tread has some depth to it.  The visual deformation of the tire can be improved as well.  Currently the side wall does not curve outwards, if the tire was flat it would not look so good.  A large issue to fix is the deformation being based on a sine-wave is extremely hacked, and not based on forces as it should be.  Last night it was discovered that the point masses had extremely large mass values, and that the spring force constants were outstandingly high to compensate.  Unfortunately this was not noticed during the initial development, so it needs to be fixed.  During this fix it is important to check that the spring code is actually correct.

Imagine a spring hanging from a beam, or some solid structure.  Add an object to the spring and it is mathematically possible to predict the length the spring will extend to knowing the force constant of the spring, the mass of the object and the force of gravity pulling the object down.  It is important that the code extends the spring the proper length, otherwise the values of the point mass and spring constants don't actually have meaning.

So, welcome to the Sim Racing Society Development Blog.  Any projects the team works on will be discussed and updated here for the public to keep track of.

- Immerse Yourself