Development Development of
TORCS began in 1997 by Eric Espié and Christophe Guionneau as a
2D game called
Racing Car Simulator (
RCS). It was influenced by and based on
RARS (
Robot Auto Racing Simulator). When Espié and Guionneau acquired a
3dfx graphics card for game development, they made the first
3D version of the simulator with
OpenGL and renamed it
Open Racing Car Simulator (
ORCS) so as not to be confused with the
Revision Control System. The early versions of
ORCS did not include cars with engines, making the game a
Soap Box Derby-style, downhill racing simulation. When engines and engine sounds were eventually added, the simulation was given its final name,
TORCS, as the name seemed more relevant to automobiles given its similarity to the word
torque. Later, Guionneau added multiple camera angles during game-play. Guionneau developed much of the original graphics code in
TORCS and eventually added
texture mapping to give more detail to the cars. Espié then worked on piecing together and finalizing code for release.
Future goals The current main developers of
TORCS are Bernhard Wymann (project leader), Christos Dimitrakakis (simulation, sound, AI) and Andrew Sumner (graphics, tracks). Aside from bugfixes and maintenance of
TORCS code, the next features planned include
network multiplayer mode, improved
physics engine, enhanced car interior detail, and replays. ==Reception and impact==