My Impression
Hello Developers!
First off thank for to everyone especially "thelusiv" on helping me on some installation problems. After some tingkering I am able to play the game. (I've also tried it on a Windows machine, pretty easy).
Now keep in mind I am only using a mouse and keyboard to play this game, I don't know if a better gameplay can be expericed with a steering wheel & pedals.
On to the game!
I have to ask; is this mainly a pure simulation or a game? I ask because this would be under the category of simulation, something that racers, drivers ed would us in prime time. If the purpose is at game, I think a lot of people will get bored quickly (I am no gamer, so I'll leave it at that).
Physics
The car physics are there, not all of them but most are there. It's a Grand Tourismo 2-3 physics. I am glad to see there are some key difference on cars such as the BMWGTR and the Toyota GT4 Rally car.
Oh I think I found a bug, I hit a mountain side of norclief (sp?) and my car just kept on rolling into an infinate loop; I was only seeing Sky and grass, had to terminate the game.
Tires
I know this is a "Drift" simulation/games, one cannot assume that drifters rely on tractionless tires. This is entirely false. In drifting, the driver relies on the adhesion of the tire, find the limit of the tires and go beyond that.
It seems like theres not a lot of work has been done on the tire physics. I was using the S2K car and I was understeering straight to the wall at 20MPH. It seems as if I was not using rubber tires (more like train wheel; just iron and no rubber).
I would also suggest to create a menu selection screen for tire selection (soft, hard & intermediate).
Brakes
The car seems to stop like it hit a wall as soon a you press the brakes. Even without ABS a car gradually slows down to a stop, a car will lock its brakes if it lost traction (eg; hit a smooth surface or water puddle).
Basically when I hit the brakes, the tires (which does not have any traction) just locks up and I go straight to the wall.
Acceleration/Traction control
Unless every car have an F1 engine in it. A 4 cylinder S2K will not peel out from 1000RPM. Peeling out (or lost of traction) is achived by bringing the RPM up high (like 5-7k rpm) and letting go of the clutch. In Drifting the principal is the same; at mid-drift the driver have to keep the RPM up to initiate a "Clutch Kick". On VDrift, as soon as I press the accelertor (even gradually) I start peeling out.
Graphics/Animation
Since this is development, I wont get into details, I am more into the physics of it rather than eye candy stylings.
VDRIFT definately have some potentials! I'll admit that. My only suggestions is adapt the acceleration, brakes and tire physics from Grand Tourismo4. So far it's the best one that I've seen.
Please do not take my opinion into offense. I am only trying to adapt reality into Virtual Reality.
PS: I have not successfully drifted with any of cars yet=) I think I need more practice on the controls.
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