Kart-Racing Physics

Announcing a new Kart-Racing Physics simulation.

Kart-Racing Physics provides an easily tunable arcade-style physics simulation in the vein of classic racing games like Mario-Kart.

Try out the Web Demo to see how it plays.

Features:

  • Simple to setup - simply swap in your own models and be ready to race in no time.
  • Easy to tweak - no complex torque curves or tire friction values, just adjust parameters like top speed, acceleration, traction, etc to create just the feel you want.
  • Built-in support for arcade-style powerups - easily give the vehicle a speed boost, make it spin around and slow down, and several other simple to use effects.
  • Fully documented C# code - clear, readable and easy to modify
  • Fully working example scene with race-track and powerups

Available in the asset store here.

Looks very nice.

After testing this, my only observation is that in this kind of games i’m used to drive like this.

Keep accelerator pressed while pressing left and right. When there is a curve i release the accelerator and take the curve pressing left or right while the Kart maintains some speed. After the curve keep accelerating.

When i try to do this with your asset as soon as i release the accelerator the kart stop, so taking the curves with some speed is hard.

I hope you can understand my poor english.

Other than that i think is very cool.

Yeah he’s right and I would also make the demo lighter.

Thanks for the feedback. The deceleration speed can be easily tweaked in the editor, so you should be able to make it feel exactly how you wish.
I agree the demo seems a bit dark, I’ll tweak the lighting an upload a new one (maybe I’ll change the deceleration speed a little too).

I was so excited when I read the title and couldn’t wait to play. After playing I do have some concerns before I would buy anything.

-Is there any A.I.
-Do the A.I. use the power-ups.
-Needs a red shell/green shell or green rocket, red rocket Lock on and free fire missiles.
-Power up that makes every other racer slower.
-Power up that reverses the controls. Makes left go right and right go left.
-Sound for background.
-Cars seem to ā€œjumpā€ around if you take corners fast and skip around.
-Does it work with mobile.
-Do cars reset, if off-track.
-How easy is it to change models for the karts and the power-ups.
-Is there anyway there can be random power-up boxes on the track, like you see on mario kart.
-Is there anyway this could be set-up with photon multiplayer.

If all of this was done would be willing to buy for 150-200.

Ok, so at the moment it very much focuses on the physics of a single kart. I do have plans to build a more fully featured kart-racing template that includes things like tools for laying out track checkpoints, AI drivers, different race modes (time trial, versus etc) and so on, but those things are not there atm. What is there is a fairly robust driving physics implemented with a clear interface so adding things like AI controllers, shells etc should be possible to do in a clean and straightforward manner.

To answer your specific feature queries:
There is currently no driver AI
There’s no support for the visuals of targeting and firing missiles, but the physical effects of being hit are implemented (spinning around, slow downs etc)
I like the idea of swapping left and right - I’ll try and add this.
There is no built-in engine sound fx right now, but it shouldn’t be too hard to cross fade samples based on the current speed - I’ll think about adding an example of this.
I think the occasional ā€˜jumps’ are caused by my track mesh not being 100% smooth
It should work without problem on mobile (you’ll need to implement a suitable touch control scheme of course)
Cars will slow down when they leave the track, but they aren’t automatically placed back on the track.
It’s very straightforward to change the kart models. The power-up examples are simply sprites.
Placing random power-ups around the track should be simple, but it’s not part of this package.
I’d not actually come across photon multiplayer before - it’s probably outside the scope of what I’m intending with this package, but I’ll give it a look anyhow.

I realise those are probably not the answers you were hoping for, but I hope that clears up your questions at least. As I said, I will be starting work on a more complete racing template soon which should include a lot more of those sorts of features. It’s good to know that people would be interested in it.

Nice Kit, which price did you had in mind for it?

If it gets accepted it will be $40.

Kart-Racing Physics is now available on the store here.

Hi,

I recently bought this and its cool and all but due to the lack of any suspension the karts go flying off the tiniest bumps, I shouldn’t have to create an absolutely flat track for this to work, I’m building tracks more like mario kart so there will be slight bumps here and there and the car shouldn’t be jumping off these, anyway to fix this?

Another feature this is really missing in continuous play, if you hit a barrier it should spin or something and maintain forward speed (mario karts / angry birds go etc etc.) but here if I touch the barrier the kart stops and pretty much gets stuck, I have to force it to spin and mash buttons to get unstuck.

Yes you’re right, the behaviour when the kart collides with things is not ideal. I’ll try and take a look tonight to see if there’s any more that can be done to improve those areas. It may involve having to bypass more of Unity’s built-in physics to be able to get custom control over those things.

Ok, I’ve submitted a new version to the asset store. I’ve added some suspension to the physics so it should handle better on rougher ground now. I’ve also added a frictionless physics material to the kart, which helps it to slide off barriers more easily.

That update should be live within the next few days hopefully, if you need it sooner just pm me.

Thanks for the quick response, I’ll download the new one and have a play.

Hi Again,

The suspension is working well now however your visual over-steer no longer works, the car just ends on 2 wheels now and then spins in the opposite direction, looked much better before.

hmm, ok thanks, I’ll take a look.

Hi! Your webdemo isn’t loading for me on Chrome, win8. Tried other browsers, doesn’t seem to load either. Would love to try it out first before deciding to buy. Please let me if there is a way to try out the webdemo. Thanks!

That’s strange, I’m not having any issues loading it here, tried both Chrome and Firefox on Win8. I’ll investigate some more and see if I can reproduce.

Yea, site gets stuck in a ā€˜connecting’ state at deercat.host22.com/KartRacing.html and nothing seems to load. Tried a different computer but it also could not load the site.

Weird, it’s definitely up, and I’ve tried pinging it from various locations around the world and it seems to be fine. I’m not much of a networking guru, but is it possible it’s being blocked from your end somehow?

I’ve uploaded the web-demo as a zip here: https://www.mediafire.com/?xgxe0uomwld6co7
If you’re still having problems connecting you should just be able to grab that and test it locally.

@WJ
I’ve just submitted a new version to the store, which fixes the visual oversteer issue, and also improves the feel of sliding around the corners (which got inadvertently altered when I added the suspension).