Rigs of Rods 2022.12 Released

Rigs of Rods 2022.12 Released​

Rigs of Rods 2022.12 has been released! This version has been 8 months in the making since the release of 2022.04.


Video made courtesy of @Gibbzy.

Download Rigs of Rods 2022.12
Directly from the itch.io launcher

If you've been playing Rigs of Rods 2022.04 through the itch.io launcher, you will be automatically upgraded to the latest version. If you installed Rigs of Rods 2022.04 through the Windows installer, we strongly encourage you to uninstall any previous versions of Rigs of Rods before installing 2022.12.

Note: This version of Rigs of Rods only supports RoRnet 2.44, it is not compatible with 2.43.

Changelog​

Added

• Added procedural road editing using AngelScript
• Added and improved AI
• Added the groundwork for Terrain editing capabilities
• Added misc. Selector improvements and changes
• Added polygon mode as cVar
• Added a switch for render modes in Tools
• Added AI scripted driving modes "drag" and "crash"
• Added key map Xbox 360 Wireless for Linux
• Added collisions debug UI under Tools
• Added zoom in and out of the survey map with a mouse wheel
• Added hydro flag `j` and restored `i` for backwards compatibility
• Added ImGui AngelScript functions, script monitor UI, and `loadscript` command
• Added actor buttons UI
• Added flexbody debug UI and view
• Added Conan packages for Conan V2

Changed

• Changed the parser to ignore 'v' beam option
• Changed Conan short paths for GitHub actions Windows build
• Changed prop animations with `eventlock` to remain active if character leaves actor
• Changed the mini survey map to be less cluttered
• Changed Xbox controller input maps to support Xbox Series controllers via Bluetooth
• Changed the UI behavior if the cursor is focused
• Changed to only use "nicemetal" materials
• Changed the top Menu to hide in free cam
• Changed and cleaned up the analog dashboard

Removed

• Removed hotkey `E` COMMON_TOGGLE_RENDER_MODE
• Removed color tags from actor names in top Menu
• Removed delay from EV_COMMON_RESET_SIMULATION_PACE and EV_COMMON_REPLAY_FORWARD
• Removed dead code in preparation for major parser changes

Fixed

• Fixed several crashes when in terrain editing
• Fixed an issue with scripting not being able to write to disk
• Fixed an issue with Controls not showing built-in defaults
• Fixed an issue with reloading an actor doesn't reload the dash
• Fixed Conan version conflict with libpng
• Fixed building with PCH disabled
• Fixed an issue when a character would not exit a hidden network actor
• Fixed an issue when spawning any actors with hooks
• Fixed an issue with hiding network actors
• Fixed cache-file version checks
• Fixed crash when reloading actor during race

What to expect next​

Upgrade to OGRE 13​

It's been a stated goal since 2016 to use OGRE 2+ (not to be confused with OGRE 1.x or 13.x, see the differences) which provides eye candy out of the box. However, while trying to update our current (and outdated) version of OGRE, we came across many conflicts that made updating to OGRE 13 nearly impossible without rethinking our graphics situation. We evaluated the eye candy that OGRE 2 provides with the capabilities of OGRE 13 and found that the real bottleneck is the use of legacy components of older versions of OGRE without truly exploring the capabilities of the latest version of OGRE 13.

With OGRE 13, it provides a powerful and robust shader pipeline Run Time Shader System (or RTSS) that allows for realistic lighting and next generation shading capabilities such as PBR which we have yet to fully explore. You can track our progress here. You can expect to see even greater results sometime in the spring or summer.

RTSS with PBR. Photo by @CuriousMike. Click to enlarge.

Upgrade from OIS to SDL2​

Since the beginning we used OIS as our input handling component. At the time it was the go-to solution for OGRE, nowadays it's an abandoned piece of 90's which we must manually package and map to modern game controllers. The world has moved to SDL which is a proven (game giant Valve relies on it) and de-facto standard solution with a comprehensive community-maintained database of controller mappings. OGRE itself moved to SDL several releases ago. We already have a proof-of-concept dev build with SDL and are ready to move onwards.

Port to macOS​

We last had builds for Apple computers more than a decade ago, in the 0.3x version era. Since then, we lacked a macOS maintainer and those who volunteered reported issues with the OIS component. OGRE itself moved to SDL and runs on Apple computers smoothly, and with the latest developments described above, we're prepared to follow the example. You can see a full report on a recent macOS port attempt here.

Customizable characters​

Throughout the time we used several character models, but always one at a time, hardwired into the game. Not long ago our main character artist (@Vido) wanted to provide extra animations and our project leader (@only_a_ptr) wanted to grant him the most freedom possible, and so a fully generic character definition system was born. This system allows binding any character model to the game situations and makes characters a full-featured asset, installable from our content repository.

Custom character model. Photo by @only_a_ptr. Click to enlarge.

You can follow progress here. You can also read the tutorial by @only_a_ptr on how to create a character mod from scratch. The content repository now supports the new character mods but will not work outside certain development builds.