Cruisin UCSD

Grant Van Horn

Connor Worley

2 years in the future, a conflict over the results of a previous conflict escalates into a nuclear war,

ending the world as we know it. At the same time Al Gore's predictions come to fruition as global

warming comes into effect, and the world begins to experience an unparalleled ice age.

Devoid of food, water, and shelter, and without anyone to sue for damages (the culprits of the

war died in the nuclear fallout), the crippled American population clings to it's one remaining pass-time:

racing. By some miracle of nature, a single go-kart survived the war, though not unscarred. It is now

radioactive, allowing it to occasionally phase through thin metal objects and float over radioactive

patches of snow at times, and making it extremely hard to drive. The few remaining

US corporations quickly convene on the wreckage of UCSD to create a single race track,

and cover it with advertisement banners. Now in this snowy wasteland, one lone car drives on the track.

The sun has gone down, behind a cloud of nuclear debris and torn ozone. And long ago, a bomb destroyed the

last existing racing cup. The arena is empty, except for one man. But he's driving, and striving, and hugging

the turns. He's going for speed and distance. He's driving around in circles for the salvation of mankind.

 

Track

the track is designed as a set of Bezier patches

in the first quadrant that touches the y axis at one

end and x at the other. It is then reflected across

each axis and redrawn. The track itself is designed

from a set of premade road patches. All track patches

are drawn as vertex buffer objects.

 

Car

The car is an object imported from Google

Sketchup. It is designed such that a camera follows and

snaps to it. It uses its position do designate its front

and back height. It has been designed to be controlled

in a method similar to video games.

Controls:

up arrow: accelerate

left, right arrows: turn wheels

 

Snow

The snow is a particle system. The particle system

implements the snow effect by loading the identity matrix

and randomly generating with their own speed and gravity

to simulate wind. The matrix is then restored, allowing

the effect of always seeing falling snow in front of the

scene.

 

Terrain

The terrain is done in several sections. The outer grounds are

procedurally generated based on the outer track's bezier

curve to plateu the curve to a flat plane at a given height in 2

sections. First flattening the curve along the x axis and then

the z. The inner grounds are generated by flattening along the

y and z axis inwards to a predefined box, and then flattening

along the z axis to the center.