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Introduction

GRacer is a 3D motor sport simulator. It's state of the art physical simulation engine creates realistic behavior including drift, wheel spin, and even accel turn.

Current Feature

4 vehicles and one course
game is playable

( network play is not implemented in this release )

Requirements

OpenGL or Mesa
<http://www.mesa3d.org/>
Glut 3.7
this is included in MesaDemos-3.0
Tcl 8.0

For Texture:
+ libjpeg
+ libgif or libungif
+ libpng

For Sound:
+ libsl (included in plib)

<http://www.woodsoup.org/projs/plib/>

You may also need:
+ 3D accelerator card
+ Fast CPU

[(*): required (+): optional]

Build

configure
make
make install

Playing

Run GRacer > gracer When you run GRacer, it shows license term. in "About page". After license statement scrolled out, "Top page" is shown. To skip this, click mouse button or press any key.
Invoke "Make New Race" Button You can invoke button by clicking it or pressing space or return key. Tab and Arrow keys change the button focus.
Select Course and Race Condition Currently, you can not select any option in this dialog. Just invoke "OK" button.
Select your vehicle In "Entry" dialog, you can select your vehicle. Invoke "Prev" or "Next" button to change vehicle type.
Start Race Invoking "OK" button starts new race. Current key binding is:

        Left            turn steering counter clockwise
        Right           turn steering clockwise
        Space           acceleration
        z               foot break
        a               side break
        v               Shift up
        c               Shift down

        1               driver's view
        2               overhead view (near)
        3               overhead view (far)

        Esc             abort race

      * key binding is hard coded. If you wish change the binding,
        please edit "ui.tcl".

6. Option Setting

     You can change default setting in "Options" dialog. Invoking "Options"
     button in "Top page", You go to the dialog. By invoking "Save" button,
     options are saved in your configuration file. "OK" button enables your
     selection but does not save it.
     (default user configuration file is ~/.gracer/settings)

Client/Server/Broker Architecture

#
# This release does not include network play. Please skip this section. #

GRacer system is consist of client / server / broker.

`gracer' is client+server program. It interacts with player (you), and master gracer process also acts as server. One player runs on gracer.

              gracer[master] -- gracer[slave]
                          \
                        gracer[slave]

2. If you want to run server process on different machine, you can use `grserver'. It is striped down version of gracer. It is only provide simulation engine. grserver must run before gracer does.

               grserver -- gracer
                     \
                      gracer

3. Last member of GRacer system is `grbroker'. When grbroker is running, server (grserver of master gracer) registers itself to grbroker. Slave gracers which is already running can find server with help of grbroker.

               grbroker -- gracer
                     \
                     master gracer or grserver

Server or broker is specified by hostname and port number. Default server is `localhost' and default port is specified by `gracer' entry of /etc/services file.
These can be set by command line option (-s and -p).

NOTE: Currently, these three programs do not know in where data files are. So, you must be run in src directory, or set `GRACER_HOME' environment variable point data directory.

      > cd "gracer top dir"/src
      > ./gracer

      or

      > export GRACER_HOME; GRACER_HOME="top dir"/data/

      Warning: Last character of path must be '/'.

Development Platform

I'm developing this application in following platforms.

Debian GNU/Linux potato (IBM PC/AT compat)
Debian GNU/Linux slink + some library (IBM PC/AT compat)
Sun Sparc Solaris 2.5.1 (Ultra SPARC)