VTrike: Commercial OGRE-based game goes on sale

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sinbad
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VTrike: Commercial OGRE-based game goes on sale

Post by sinbad »

VTrike, the first commercial game (that we know of) using OGRE is going on sale in Brazil this month. The authors are William Mallouk and Daniel Reidler, and not only did they produce a full commercial game using OGRE, they created an arcade cabinet for it too! Congratulations to them both.

You can view screenshots in the VTrike Album.
Last edited by sinbad on Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Antiarc »

Looks fantastic, guys! Congratulations!
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Post by bad_camel »

That looks awesome

1. Is it commercial as an arcade game(will it be found in arcades in cabinets, or was the cabinet a gimmick for their release)?

2. Did they honour your license?
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Post by Jezze »

Congratulations guys,

I think it is great that a game has been made using Ogre, often the things I see are beeing shown in this forum are often just examples. It must take alot of will and devotion to go from just an example into a full game. And in what a way they did it! With an arcade cabinet! I think this is pretty unique when it comes to an Open Source engine. Truly nice work!

I wonder, is it many projects that uses Ogre that we never get to see?
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Post by Patrick_Kooman »

Indeed, it's motivating to see an OGRE product reach it's final stage. Well done!
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Congratulations!

Post by schlaegel »

It is great to hear of a fully complete Ogre project, and it has hardware too.

I would love it if they could do an article on their project or be interviewed.

I have questions like: what was their background; what was hard; what was easy; what version of Ogre did they freeze at; how exactly will it be distributed; what hardware sits behind the cabinet; what did they use for sound; what OS is in the cabinet; what will they do next...?

Way To Go.
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Re: Congratulations!

Post by macross »

really good work!
ogre goes to hollywood :)
schlaegel wrote:I would love it if they could do an article on their project or be interviewed.
This is definitely a good idea!
It would be an extremly interessting article.

cheers!
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Post by sinbad »

I've passed the url of this thread on to them, hopefully they can answer these questions themselves. :)

bad_camel: on the licensing side, the only things they changed in the core code were 1 bugfix (which they pointed out here in the forums) and they merged in a bugfix from 0.12 into the version they were using (0.11), so yep, they're within the license.
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Post by Bugga »

Very Impressive, Congratulation!

Looks Great! It is very exciting to see a plan come together.
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Post by SpannerMan »

That is cool indeed. Sure gives me, and Im sure others, a pretty hardcore motivation boost!
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Thanks!!!

Post by mallouk »

Hello all!

I am so happy to have such a nice feedback from you all. This is really rewarding!
bad_camel wrote: 1. Is it commercial as an arcade game(will it be found in arcades in cabinets, or was the cabinet a gimmick for their release)?
The game will be found in arcades in cabinets, just like the one that was shown in the pictures. In fact, the idea of creating VTrike came from another product that was developed by Presas: a rollercoaster simulator. They created a rollercoaster simulator about a year ago, and they sold many units. Then someone had the brilliant idea of reusing the “moving cabinet” technology for something interactive – then they (Presas) asked us to create VTrike.

Just in case, Presas is the name of the company that hired us to make VTrike.
bad_camel wrote: 2. Did they honour your license?
As far as I understood, we do not have to release the full source code for the game, but just the modifications that were made to the engine. We did not make many modifications to Ogre, but we did extend it in some ways.
I am planning to release some of its source code that everybody can have an idea about how we extended Ogre – but I just need a little time, because I don’t want to just select some random classes and publish them. I want to release something that compiles :wink:
schlaegel wrote: I would love it if they could do an article on their project or be interviewed.

I have questions like: what was their background; what was hard; what was easy; what version of Ogre did they freeze at; how exactly will it be distributed; what hardware sits behind the cabinet; what did they use for sound; what OS is in the cabinet; what will they do next...?
If you really want to interview us, we can schedule a time and do it by chat or by phone… It would be a pleasure and really fun to us. My email is mallouk at ig.com.br

I thank you all for the nice feedback again!

And congratulations to the Ogre team for such a nice engine and for being so supportive.
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Post by bad_camel »

How about we all post a lshort list of questions we would like asked, we select a set from those and email you, then we can post your replies here?
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Post by mallouk »

bad camel wrote: How about we all post a lshort list of questions we would like asked, we select a set from those and email you, then we can post your replies here?
Sounds cool!
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Post by bad_camel »

lol, doenst seem like anyone else is paying attention, so I'll just shoot.

1) What hardware is sitting in that box, and what resolution parameters do you use?
2) What did you find hard to do, and easy?
3) What libraries did you use for the subsystems(sound, coldet, etc)?
4) What frame rates are you getting?
5) What tools did you have to write?
6) How much of Ogre's general resource management did you use(ie: did you extend ogre to handle custom resources, or did you do it seperate)?
7) What advice do you offer to anyone making commercial games with ogre?

I'll probably think of tons more, but there are some, and I do understand if some can't be answered due to licensing.
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Post by Bren »

Great questions. Looking forward to seeing replies.

Congrats guys!!!
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Post by temas »

mallouk hold off on replies and we'll get together an email with all of the questions and send it your guys way.
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Post by sinbad »

I've written up what I think is a pretty reasonable list of interview questions, feel free to add to it.

http://ogre.sourceforge.net/devwiki/ind ... VtrikeTeam

NB the Wiki is not official, it's just a tool for this kind of thing.
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Post by joproulx »

Nice screenshots. I'd love to play that game :D

I have added a question about their background in programming and what other projects they have done before vTrike.

Thanks for your time guys!
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About the V-Trike...

Post by Daniel_Reidler »

Hi guys....

Since Mallouk did all the programming on the project, I´m sure he will be giving you all the technical information about it, but I can tell you a little bit about me and the project itself.

I work as a BLOCKED (freelancer) and lately I´ve being experimenting a little bit with 3D animation programs. I made some (really poor) interactive blueprints on shockwave and thought that I could see if someone was interested in my work. Then I got an old mailing list from a friend and sent out about 4000 emails to different Brazilian companies. In the beginning that gave me more trouble than profit because I almost lost my web host (smtp server overflow) and more than 2300 e-mails returned to me, either because their owner had blocked the list or they felt like cursing me for the ‘spam’ I had sent them. I got only one phone call for that trouble, one Spanish talking man that asked me if I was interested in using shockwave to make a game for him. That man was from Presas and here is when the story begins:

First the idea was of making a Hang Glider (named Delta Xtreme) simulator using shockwave, but since I knew ‘nada’ about programming, I asked Mallouk to join me on this project and also if we could learn Lingo together. Luckily, it didn´t take long time before Mallouk talked us over to use OGRE for the game. (I believe I don’t need to tell you why he did it)

After a whole lot of modifications in the project, Delta Xtreme became soon Virtual Trike in Rio. We contacted Trike Icaros, who is the lead trike producer in Brazil, and they took almost everybody for a quick flight on a trike (awesome!!!). So Presas took their rollercoaster simulator and gave it to Icaros to give it a beautiful trike look. The result is that awesome cabinet that you´ve seen in the pictures.

Now, to the questions that I can answer:
1- So guys, What is VTrike about?
It´s a trike simulator with 3 stages. In the first stage we are using almost the exact topography of Rio de Janeiro. The second is called “Tijuca Dunes” and the third is called “Gavea Caves”. The goal is to take your trike all the way through the stage and land safely at the end, for that you need to pick up checkpoint and gas tanks. Sounds pretty simple, but not when the entire hardware moves with you.
2- What is your favorite aspect of the game?
Everything! I just love the combination of a nice looking game in that awesome cabinet.
3- How did each of you get involved in the project, and how much time did you have to put into it to get it to this stage?
I think the first part of this question has already been answered. But about the second part: Work, work, work, sleepless nights and some more work. I don´t know for sure how many hours we have spent on this project, but if have to guess: something between 1000 and 1200 hours each. (I´m only talking about Mallouk and me here, there were a whole lot more people working on the cabinet and the marketing of the game)
4- What kind of experience you had before doing this project? What other projects have you done before VTrike?
I had never done a game before, only worked as BLOCKED. Before that I was a DJ in Sweden and Spain, so I still have a lot to learn about games.
5- What format will the game be distributed in? Do you have any plans for distribution outside Brazil, perhaps electronically?
The game will be distributed in Linux, Mallouk can tell you more about that. There are plans for distribution outside Brazil, it (the whole cabinet) may be taken to England and Spain in January, but we can´t confirm it yet. There are also plans for PC distribution, but either that is confirmed.

I´ll skip some questions because I think Mallouk is best suited for answering them.
12- Looking back over the project, what do you think went particularly well?
Everything! We had trouble with different things during the entire project. It took me a month before I could install and use properly the OGRE exporter for max and that was only the beginning… Somehow we always solved or learned how to avoid our problems and we have learned a LOT with that.
13- What lessons did you learn from this project which you think will help you next time around?
I learned to never under estimate my creativity and my capacity to learn new things fast, that the closer the deadline is, the faster you come up with good solutions. Also: never forget to have fun on the way…


I hope I told everything that you wanted to know (besides the technical information) and feel free to ask more.
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Post by DaZMaN »

Hey Daniel,

That's a great story there mate, and congratulations for completing the project! The game looks great, and the cabinet - well, it wouldn't look out of place next to big-publisher cabinets, that's for sure ;-) Execellent work all round.

I'd love to hear about the cabinet's exploits in England/Spain too, if that goes ahead!
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Re: Thanks!!!

Post by ahmedali »

mallouk wrote: I am planning to release some of its source code that everybody can have an idea about how we extended Ogre – but I just need a little time, because I don’t want to just select some random classes and publish them. I want to release something that compiles :wink: .
woo :shock: 7 or more months have gone and still there is nothing that compiles :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :cry:
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Post by Kencho »

Well, you can't force people to release their code. I'm sure if they haven't done, it's because they have good reasons :wink:
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Post by Michael »

Almost a year has passed since VTrike had appeared. Does it have any commercial success?
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Sorry for the delay

Post by mallouk »

Hello guys!

I'm really sorry for the (eons) delay. I wasn't monitoring this thread, and I have just read the last messages.

I didn't release the source-code because I quickly got involved in other projects after VTrike was finished and making a "compilable package" without all releasing the full source code was going to consume much more time than I intended when I suggested it. I was just browsing this forum by chance when I read the messages. I am so sorry about this!

VTrike was built on Ogre v0.11, and months ago Sinbad told me that 0.11 sounded like AGES ago. I haven't worked with Ogre for a long time now, and 0.11 may be very different from what we have today. Our code didn't compile on 0.12 at the time, and it probably won't compile on 1.0 either.

If anybody wants to take a look at what we did, I can mail the most interesting files of the project. We cannot release the full source code because we have an agreement with Presas. We basically reworked the interface with ODE to support mesh collisions and extended the RefAppLayer (I can be wrong about the name, it's been quite a while!). If anybody is still interested in the code, mail me, and I can mail you the files. Thanks for the interest!

VTrike wasn't as much of a commercial success as it was a technical and professional success for us. I remember it was quite a challenge building the game at the time, and we had to face a few bugs in the early code. It is probably much easier coding on Ogre today than it was at that time. Now the engine is packed with cool features, and there are some new tools as well. I also remember that I received almost instantaneous support from the team, and that really gave me a good impression at the time, being this a non-paid product. This also shows the dedication that they had from the beginning. We really have to congratulate them. What's next?
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