Answering questions about my vehicle physics work

I've received a lot of emails over the past few months as well as have been asked on the forums about my work with vehicle physics. This is my attempt to answer those.

As some of you know, I am the individual that wrote the vehicle physics code being used in deepscratch's AVK and that I have returned to advance my work further primarily as a hobby now as I have a full-time job as a programmer these days.

1. What am I working on?
The work I am putting together includes a updated version of my raycast vehicle code for Bullet with a currently in the works PhysX version. I still have a few kinks to knock of of that.

I am also adding a hover vehicle class that has true hover physics, just ironing out a couple things in damping on that. There is also the flying vehicle class I did before with the addition of variable hover physics for use with aircraft like the Harrier. Again, the hover physics still need some tweaks. Both Hover and Flying vehicle classes are also in PhysX right now.I'm also doing the Helicopter and Tread(Tank) Vehicle classes in Bullet and PhysX. I should be done with those shortly.

Next, I am adding buoyancy physics in with the vehicles and expanding upon it in my work with water vehicles to include submersible types. I've already gotten the buoyancy added and it is nearly where I want it. For a kick I expanded my work to the rigid shape class included with the engine.

I'm also doing motorcycles using gyroscopic style balancing instead of the old invisible balancing wheel trick. This is something that is still in my development documents and hasn't been put to code just yet as I've been hitting the other stuff.

Adding hitches and a trailer class to the wheeled vehicles and perhaps water and hover classes. a pretty simple thing using joints to provide realistic towing physics with a raycast connect to hitch ability. Also, still just on paper but very easy to create.

Finally, wheeled vehicles using articulated suspension systems. That means real rigid body wheels with joints and very realistic physics. I've gotten tons done on this already, for both Bullet and PhysX. It is all networked as well, which means it will work in multiplayer, although I wouldn't recommend such a thing with a large number of players in a game, that is a lot of network traffic. I'm still addressing a few sections on this, but it is coming along nicely.

2. Will This be an upgrade to deepscratch's AVK?
Definitely not. However, since many of my classes are based upon old resources and existing T3D vehicle class code, I'm sure anything his kit had beyond the my physics code could probably be integrated. I can say his tank model can as I am using it to test with, I found the model design more elegant that what was available in the Combat Starter Kit. The AVK aircraft will likely also be compatible since his code is compatible with my original work in that area.

3. Will this be made available to the public?
Probably, but I cannot promise a timeline. As I mentioned before, I do this mostly as a hobby these days so planning projects around my timeline would be a bad idea.

4. Am I interested in having someone collaborate with me in that they provide me 3D models to sell with my kit in exchange for access to my code?
I am going to have to politely decline on that. I'm afraid I have trouble trusting others with my work.

About 4-5 years ago I agreed to the same kind of thing with someone else. I was still active duty military at the time and was forced to deploy to the desert for an extended period. When I returned, I retired from military life, moved to my new home and worked to finish my Master's degree. When I was nearing the completion of my degree, I decided to come back here, to pick up my work again and see what advances had been made. When signed in and looked around, I was surprised to see that individual was selling my work as his, let alone ever getting my consent, and had shared some of it with with another individual that was selling code I had to pay for with my work included. The other removed my code after they learned the situation, but the first continues.

They have openly admitted it was my work, and since it was a much older version of my work, I'm letting it go. However, I'll not be collaborating with anyone again in that manner unless they have something of equal value to bring to the table and I certainly will not be working to upgrade my old code. Back then when I collaborated with that individual, I was too trusting and was needing to build a resume/reputation. Neither are the case anymore.

I apologize for the rant/bitter sounding response to that final question, but it struck a nerve.

I'll try to have some progress blogs showing some of what I am working on shortly, but we are in the final stages of a major release at my regular job, that with QA testing, I've been pulling a lot of long hours.