torcs-devel Mailing List for TORCS - The Open Racing Car Simulator

We are pleased to announce the 2011 Simulated Car Racing
Championship, an event joining three simulated car
racing competitions held at:

    * EVO*-2011, Torino (Italy)
    * ACM GECCO-2011, Dublin (Ireland)
    * IEEE CIG-2011, Seoul (South Korea)


** GOAL **

The goal of the championship is to design a controller for a racing
car that will compete on a set of unknown tracks first alone (against
the clock) and then against other drivers. The controllers perceive
the racing environment through a number of sensors that describe the
relevant features of the car surroundings (e.g., the track limits,
the position of near-by obstacles), of the car state (the fuel level,
the engine RPMs, the current gear, etc.), and the current game state
(lap time, number of lap, etc.). The controller can perform the
typical driving actions (clutch, changing gear, accelerate,
break, steering the wheel, etc.)


** BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY **

The 2011 Championship will not introduce any major change with
respect to the previous edition. In particular, we will not
introduce any change to the APIs, such that it will be possible
to build a controller based on the entries of the past year.


** RULES AND REGULATIONS **

The championship consists of nine races on nine different tracks
divided into three legs, one for each conference, involving three
Grand Prix competitions each. Teams will be allowed to submit a
different driver to each leg.

Each Grand Prix consists of three stages:

    * the warm-up
    * the qualifying
    * the race

During warm-up, each driver races alone for 100000 game ticks
(approximately 30 minutes of actual game time) on each track.
Drivers can collect useful information about the tracks and can
tune their behaviors for the next stages. Accordingly, the
performance of drivers in this stage is not taken into account
for their scores.

During the qualifying stage, as in the previous edition, each driver
races alone for 10000 game ticks on each of three three tracks of
the leg (approximately 3 minutes and 20 seconds of actual game time
per track). The eight controllers that bridge the longest distances
qualify for the actual Grand Prix races.

During the final races, these best eight drivers race together. The
races consist of eight times three lap races on each of the three
tracks. At the end of each race, the drivers are scored using the
F1 system: 10 points to the first controller that completes the race,
8 points to the second one, 6 to the third one, 5 to the fourth, 4 to
the fifth one, 3 to the sixth, 2 to the seventh, and 1 to the eighth.
The driver performing the fastest lap in the race will get two
additional points. The driver completing the race with the smallest
amount of damage will also get two extra points. The starting grid
of the first race will be based on the performance obtained in the
qualifying stage. Each subsequent race, the starting grid will be
shifted by one so that each driver starts from every position of the
starting grid exactly once.

As in the previous edition, the tracks used in each leg are unknown
to the competitors.


** IMPORTANT DATES **

EVO* Leg
 - Submission deadline: April 15, 2011
 - Conference: April 27-29, 2011

GECCO Leg
 - Submission deadline: July 1, 2011
 - Conference: July 12-16, 2011

CIG Leg
 - Submission deadline: August 19, 2011
 - Conference: August 31-September 3, 2011


** COMPETITION SOFTWARE **

The competition software, including servers for Linux & Windows,
and C++ and Java clients, can be downloaded from the competition
webpage:

http://cig.dei.polimi.it/?page_id=175

For inquiries send an email to sc...@si... or visit
the Car Racing Google Group at

        http://groups.google.com/group/racingcompetition

Please notice that you are *not* required to either attend or
register to the conferences in order to enter the competition.


** ORGANIZING COMMITTEE **

    Daniele Loiacono (Politecnico di Milano)
    Luigi Cardamone  (Politecnico di Milano)
    Martin V. Butz (University of Würzburg)
    Pier Luca Lanzi (Politecnico di Milano)

 http://www.spacotendas.com.br/cool01.11.php?SID=383

-- 
Miroslav Batchkarov

Hey Everyone,

I had a question about Licensed Cars. Is it against copyright laws to 
model a real world car and use it in a Game/Simulation like TORCS? For 
example, If I were to model a Lamborghini, Would I require special 
Permission(a.k.a License) to use the car in TORCS?

Regards,
Fahim

On 02/15/2011 03:33 PM, Enrico Mattea wrote:
> Hi Fahim,
>
> 1) Are you sure that you have disabled ASR? Because that is the system 
> that automatically controls throttle and decreases it in order to keep 
> wheels adherence. Check your keys definition to find out how to work 
> with it.
> 2) Probably the same as for 1)?
> 3) Well, this depends on how you pass from the asphalt to the 
> ground/grass, and at what speed you do so... check out
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kigMzmoyDY&feature=fvsr
> as an example.
>
> Cheers,
> Ocirne

Hey Ocirne,

Disabling ASR did change the way the car accelerates out. The wheels 
still dont spin out if the clutch is held and released on full 
acceleration. The car control is also much harder with ASR disabled, 
probably a realistic feature. The car spinning out still seems pretty 
unrealistic to me, as Even If I move out slowly on the gravel, my car 
spins out of control!

Thanks for the help anyways,

Regards,
Fahim

Il 15/02/2011 10:03, Fahim Imaduddin Dalvi ha scritto:
> Hey,
>
> I observed a few things about the control of the cars in torcs, that I
> feel are not accurate representation of the real world counterparts:
>
> 1) If we turn the wheel to any side and accelerate at the same time, the
> car moves very slowly, and acceleration appears to be very close to
> zero. This is definitely not realistic behavior, as the car would
> accelerate and spin out, rather than not accelerate at all.
>
> 2) If we are using Manual Transmission , and we hold the clutch and
> accelerate all the way out, on releasing the clutch, the tyres connected
> to the engine to spin rapidly(a.k.a. Burnout), but this is not the case.
> The physics do seem realistic in this case, so only a visual
> representation is missing.
>
> 3) If we were to go over Gravel/Grass, our car spins out at a very, very
> fast rate. This in my opinion is not realistic(I do not have experience
> in this regard, but the car would definitely not spin out as soon as the
> tyres touch the ground).
>
> The above observations were made using the latest stable version of
> TORCS(1.3.1), and using an analog controller. The simulator does have a
> very good feel to it, and probably has a very bright future!
>
> Regards,
> Fahim
>
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Hi Fahim,

1) Are you sure that you have disabled ASR? Because that is the system 
that automatically controls throttle and decreases it in order to keep 
wheels adherence. Check your keys definition to find out how to work 
with it.
2) Probably the same as for 1)?
3) Well, this depends on how you pass from the asphalt to the 
ground/grass, and at what speed you do so... check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kigMzmoyDY&feature=fvsr
as an example.

Cheers,
Ocirne

Hey,

I observed a few things about the control of the cars in torcs, that I 
feel are not accurate representation of the real world counterparts:

1) If we turn the wheel to any side and accelerate at the same time, the 
car moves very slowly, and acceleration appears to be very close to 
zero. This is definitely not realistic behavior, as the car would 
accelerate and spin out, rather than not accelerate at all.

2) If we are using Manual Transmission , and we hold the clutch and 
accelerate all the way out, on releasing the clutch, the tyres connected 
to the engine to spin rapidly(a.k.a. Burnout), but this is not the case. 
The physics do seem realistic in this case, so only a visual 
representation is missing.

3) If we were to go over Gravel/Grass, our car spins out at a very, very 
fast rate. This in my opinion is not realistic(I do not have experience 
in this regard, but the car would definitely not spin out as soon as the 
tyres touch the ground).

The above observations were made using the latest stable version of 
TORCS(1.3.1), and using an analog controller. The simulator does have a
very good feel to it, and probably has a very bright future!

Regards,
Fahim