Yeah, the water effects could be a bit of a headache. Maybe some kind of fairly basic particle effect would do the job, or are you keeping the game strictly mesh based?
Yes , it's all meshes so far, apart from a tiny texture to colour the vehicles. I want to avoid fancy particle effects but I'm sure I could come up with something fitting to the rest of the graphics style.
BTW, I notice on the race track level, there's a bunch of trees that seem to be connected by 'invisible walls' that you can bump into. Is this intentional to cut down on collision checks, or something?
Yes, I found that the collisions were the bottleneck. One of the variations of the trees ( as seen on the track ) is simply a cylinder enclosing everything. Once I get the racing going you'll not be able to drive around freeform anyway 'cos I'll be putting you back on the track.
Thanks for all he comments folks!! :) It seems that it wasn't just me having fun playing it!
Stevie