A Flash 8, 5 track rally game with a choice of 2 different cars and 3 AI opponents.
Enjoy playing it here:
http://www.3drallyracing.com
If you can’t be bothered to unlock all the levels and want to see the full game then please view it here:
Developed by http://www.letsdesign.co.uk and http://www.percypea.co.uk
Here are the technical details for all those interested:
3D rally racing uses a 2nd generation mode 7 engine, based on Fred Heintz’ flash 8 mode 7 engine, the 3D rally racing engine uses new flash 8 bitmapFill features to draw the race track, which offers far greater performance over the older engine that used masked bitmaps.
The freed processing power allows for far more visual effects over previous games that use similar engines. Tracks can now include real time weather effects such as the snow level, and real time reflections as found in the rain level.
The game also features an unprecedented amount of objects on the track. The forest level features an astounding total of 2207 trees!!!
The entire game is housed inside one single swf, as opposed to external swfs/files for individual levels/audio. Yet the 5 track game comes in at under 2.3MB. This is even more impressive, when we realise that over a third (770KB) of the 2.3MB is audio!
To minimise waiting, the game uses a multitude of preloaders. Most of which a typical broadband user will never see. An initial preloader loads a mere 35KB prior to showing the GamersEnterprise bumper animation. Whilst this is playing the 40KB title screen is seemlessly preloaded. The submenus from the title screen are then next to seemlessly load with the track selection screen accessible after another 40KB. At a total of 935KB the first desert level is completely loaded and able to be raced. By the time the player has completed the desert level, the 2.3MB game should have been completely downloaded.
Graphically, the biggest objects are the cars, which take up a combined 250KB. The 2 car models each feature just under 100 frames for the mulitple viewing angles, aswell as individual wheel graphics.
So how big are the actual tracks?
Using flash 8 bitmap drawing methods, the tracks ground image is in fact generated via code, rather than being stored as 2880x2880 pixel jpgs. As soon as the player picks a track to race, the game engine starts drawing the ground image. This drawing takes place while the player then chooses their car along with colour. If the player chooses quickly, they’ll be taken to a screen that shows a percentage for the remaining track generation, otherwise they’ll be seemlessly taken to the start of the race.
Most tracks use just simple 64x64 pixel textures designed to tile in generating. These textures are tiny in file size, for example the night tracks grass and tarmac textures are just 612 and 398 bytes respectively. Meaning the largest individual track item are the high quality scrolling backdrops.
Infact, negating any file size differences for changing the track selection menu, new tracks, which reuse existing textures and backdrops, yet have entirely unique layouts, complete with drive routes for the AI cars, collision barriers and object locations can be added in to the game at a mere 15KB!!
The complete datasets that make up all the data needed to generate the 5 Tracks comes to just 72KB.
Next step is to do this in AS3 and improve performance. Enjoy the game and comments and questions are welcome, however, you’ll find the article on this game was released a few weeks back on flashkit here and you might find further info there:
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=732725
Thanks again.
