Approaches on 2D top-down track racing visualisation

Question

I'm considering writing a very simple management style game with the theme being motorsport racing.

I've got a good idea how to do the 'management side', but the issue I'm having is how to visually render cars and move on a track (something a bit like):

The key points (keeping it simple):

• the user won't control the vehicle directly, they are the 'manager' (think football manager) - they can decide on a strategy but cannot control the vehicle
• the car should stay on track (visually) - they may 'crash' (along with other events) though
• the speed it goes around the track is determined by vehicle performance
• a car will be aware of other near-by cars around the track - for example, if they're about to be overtaken, they may actually do a slower lap as they are defending - they may collide, along with other events

My initial thoughts are there are two key design elements here, the track and the car.

The track:

• a track is composed of many segments
• each segment is stored in an array
• a segment (I'm not entirely sure here) but one thing it might contain is a 2D array:

(From [this](https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/149966/approaches-on-2d-top-view-racing-game-track-design) answer gave an approach of using multi-dimensional arrays)
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| d d x x x d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d e e e d d d |
| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| d d x x x d d d |
| d d r r r d d d |
| d d d r r r d d |
| d d d d r r r e |
| d d d d r r r e |
| d d d d d d r e |
| d d d d d d d d |
| d d d d d d d d |
| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |

Above is a straight and a 90 degree corner - x exit, e entry, r racetrack and d dirt. Maybe I could create a bunch of these and create a track.

Or maybe a simpler version where I define just an entry and exit:

_ _ _ _ _
| d e d |
| d r d |
| d e d |
| _ _ _ |

_ _ _ _ _
| d x d |
| d r e |
| d d d |
| _ _ _ |

The simplified version where I define an entry e and exit x. I can add additional points r and then construct a curve/straight-line based on the x, e and r coordinates?

My idea is that the vehicle will then move across each segment and I can calculate the time it takes to complete that segment. I can then add up all segments which will give me the lap time. With this approach, I can also check the previous/current/next segment to determine if there are other vehicles it needs to defend/attack against.

The car:

• store all vehicles in an array
• each vehicle will always be in a segment
• speed it completes the segment is determined by its performance (and segment characteristics)
• vehicle can 'see' if there are other vehicles in previous/current/next segment and decide whether to overtake/defend.

I think I could make this work, but I'd be really interested to know if there are better/simpler approach - bearing in mind it's mostly a visualization and the speed and events are determined by my program.

Answer 1

Defining the track segments in some type of data structure may be necessary if you are using procedurally generated tracks that are built at runtime from assorted segments.

If you don't need the tracks to be procedurally generated, the solution is probably much simpler:

1. Create each track as a single 2D image
2. Define waypoints around the track that the vehicles will follow. These can be simple x-y pairs. If you're using an engine that has a visual editor, you might be able to place the waypoints in the visual editor (even if not, you'd probably want to build a simple visual interface for this purpose).
3. Animate the cars from waypoint to waypoint. You may need to do a bit of path interpolation around turns to keep the motion smooth, but if this is a simple top-down representation then you might find that the extra smoothness from interpolation isn't necessary.