Carmageddon!

February 14, 2013 9:04 PM

Ever wondered what would happen if someone hacked Grand Theft Auto IV so that car tires had negative friction? Here you go.

Seems like they ought to have "Yakkity Sax" running in the background.

posted by Chocolate Pickle (49 comments total)

That is really hilarious. Video games have desensitized me to horrible violence wrought by impossible physics!
posted by axiom at 9:06 PM on February 14

I could swear I saw this before on the blue, but I couldn't find a FPP, so maybe it was just this comment.
posted by aubilenon at 9:09 PM on February 14

Here you go.
posted by hal at 9:15 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

I think they have a lot of negative friction in Midland, TX.
posted by mazola at 9:18 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

I have not wondered, but oh, how I LOLed.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:19 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]

Some dude slowly walking through a storm of flying, bouncing cars is going to be a scene in the next summer blockbuster now. Just you wait and see.
posted by Kevin Street at 9:21 PM on February 14 [5 favorites]

Seems like they ought to have "Yakkity Sax" running in the background.

GTA IV Carmageddon gone Yakety
posted by mediated self at 9:23 PM on February 14 [7 favorites]

The third one is like infinity times awesomer than those first two.
posted by dersins at 9:31 PM on February 14 [27 favorites]

Kind of like a world where comments edit themselves at 50 wpm.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:32 PM on February 14

That... was much more entertaining than I had expected.
posted by smidgen at 9:34 PM on February 14

Funny, but no match for the pure unadulterated comedy of poonikins the magic warrior princess.
posted by oulipian at 9:36 PM on February 14 [26 favorites]

They're Breakdance Fighting!
posted by mannequito at 9:42 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

I remember seeing the first one a while ago. Never saw the second. And the third one, not in the original post, was incredible.
posted by chemoboy at 9:44 PM on February 14

I love how something as simple as changing one number to another in one setting can so radically alter the environment. Further, how presentation can further alter that. The three Carmageddon videos were made up of roughly the same variety of footage, but the first two were hiliarious, while the third was eerily beautiful. I love the feeling of desperation, even in the strict use of the motorcycle (I'm assuming the friction setting only affects cars, that or the motorcycle is more agile), narrowly avoiding imminent death from a car flying out of nowhere, as countless people form a growing red smear in its wake. The cell phone shots in the second video made the world feel almost believable; like an everyday city in the world we're familiar with, only the laws of physics have broken in a strangely and dangerously specific way. Even the understated sigh he lets out when the phone is snatched from his hand mid-sentence by an airborne car screaming by at 200 mph could have been a Bruce Willis scene. Perfect.

IT's like that one Animatrix film Beyond, where kids (still "plugged in" to the Matrix) come across an abandoned house wherein program glitches manifest themselves as strange environmental phenomena, none of which bothers the kids, who do as kids do and play in the house where rain comes from nowhere, and bottles won't stay broken.

Conceptually, it's eccentric enough to be used for comedic purposes, but internally consistent and well rendered enough to be scary. Hot damn, I'll bet this is what understanding art feels like!
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:59 PM on February 14 [10 favorites]

Reminds me of Gran Turismo with 1000 identical cars.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:01 PM on February 14 [20 favorites]

Fascinating technical breakdown.
posted by tracert at 10:02 PM on February 14 [10 favorites]

I like this. It's like a post-apocalyptic world where the cars have become the zombies. I smell a terrible movie!
posted by mrnutty at 10:10 PM on February 14

I love the feeling of desperation, even in the strict use of the motorcycle (I'm assuming the friction setting only affects cars, that or the motorcycle is more agile), narrowly avoiding imminent death from a car flying out of nowhere, as countless people form a growing red smear in its wake.

Somewhere in the description for one of the videos was a mention of setting the friction for every car to -9, so I assume they didn't alter the setting on the motorcycle and it still works normally. The way GTA works, different cars have different handling abilities, probably represented by the variable that gets changed. So, they're not just changing one number somewhere that affects all cars, they're changing that number for every model of car in the game.
posted by LionIndex at 10:13 PM on February 14

If you're looking for nightmare-inducing game mods, this one is for Skyrim. (Warning: blood and explicit violence)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:16 PM on February 14 [8 favorites]

...they're changing that number for every model of car in the game.

They seem to have done all the trucks and busses, too.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:19 PM on February 14

Well, yeah, that's what I mean. They have to change that variable for every single type of vehicle in the game that they want to go screwy. They apparently just didn't change the bikes so they could attempt to get around.
posted by LionIndex at 10:24 PM on February 14

I smell a terrible movie!
There already is one. It's called Maximum Overdrive.

The videos look like a depiction of the first week of humanity having access to flying cars. Most probably humanity's last week...
posted by KMB at 10:25 PM on February 14 [3 favorites]

I feel this
posted by the theory of revolution at 10:30 PM on February 14

This is the first time I've ever wanted to play Grand Theft Auto.
posted by happyroach at 11:15 PM on February 14 [2 favorites]

Coming Soon, GTA 5: Moscow!
posted by Xoebe at 11:27 PM on February 14 [7 favorites]

The gravitons are mutating!
posted by tykky at 2:58 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

In Soviet Russia, cars jack you!
posted by drlith at 3:11 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

There was a game for the original PS, might have been called Driver; I don't exactly recall. The cop cars chasing you would frequently be struck by this physics and you'd see cop cars launching into space. It made a great party game because everyone was dying laughing from the physics glitches.

Sadly, version 2 they tried to make it a feature instead of a random bug and it felt very stupid.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:59 AM on February 15

You can also do this in Quake, in God Mode. You zip along and slam into things, usually ending up in a corner. If you do this and set gravity to be negative, then kill some ogres, you get floating ogre heads spinning forever in corners. The gibs never vanish, they just keep spinning.
posted by adipocere at 4:44 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

It seems like they altered more than just the friction coefficient. That, or the game's physics code is very weird. After all, bumping a car with 0 friction would cause it to slide until it hit something, not flip. Negative friction would imply acceleration in the direction of movement, as I'd understand it.

In any case, despite being frictionless, the cars are still very massive objects with a low center of gravity on a stable base of four wheels. They should not be as prone to flipping as they are in these videos. In fact, I'd think flips would be much less likely: a normal car flips because friction causes the car to "stick" to the ground, and an impact's energy bowls it over. These cars can't "stick," and should just glide away.
posted by explosion at 4:45 AM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Yeah, well...that's just, like, your opinion, man...

WAY TO RUIN IT FOR THE REST OF US, EXPLOSION.

i kid, i kid...
posted by kuanes at 4:52 AM on February 15

I have to get this game now. There are days when....I can say no more.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:30 AM on February 15

MICHAEL BAY PRESENTS: The third one is like infinity times awesomer than those first two.

Fixed.
posted by Fizz at 5:52 AM on February 15

It's like that car chase in that Matrix sequel.
posted by jonp72 at 6:01 AM on February 15

Needs more horses, giraffes, and elephants.
posted by dhens at 6:37 AM on February 15

The third one is like infinity times awesomer than those first two.

Oh man, the shot of the guy glancing over his shoulder at the player hitting a lamp post crotch-first: so good.
posted by straight at 6:45 AM on February 15

This really reminded me of the old mousetrap fission reaction.
posted by wormwood23 at 7:38 AM on February 15

I love how something as simple as changing one number to another in one setting can so radically alter the environment.

This is where many many hours of my life went in 1985.
posted by ElGuapo at 8:12 AM on February 15 [1 favorite]

> Funny, but no match for the pure unadulterated comedy of poonikins the magic warrior princess.

That was amazing, nay life changing! And in a rare instance of a sequel being better than the original, I present: poonikins the magic warrior driver.
posted by stubie at 8:22 AM on February 15 [3 favorites]

It seems like they altered more than just the friction coefficient. That, or the game's physics code is very weird. After all, bumping a car with 0 friction would cause it to slide until it hit something, not flip. Negative friction would imply acceleration in the direction of movement, as I'd understand it.


Friction in the context of a 3d game like that is a bit different than in the context of the real world. Friction in a game is more like a constant force that reduces velocity, weather or not it's actually touching something. The tires not only have a resistance to being slid ON the ground but they also have a resistance to sliding THROUGH things. The game is constantly checking if tires have clipped through the ground and applying a force to the tires to push it back up. The friction is what makes these adjustments gentle.

With negative friction, as soon as that adjustment is made, it ends up getting magnified, causing cars to suddenly leap off the ground and accelerate.
posted by kzin602 at 8:46 AM on February 15

Augh, poonikins did a number on my gut! That was hilarious!
posted by Chutzler at 10:00 AM on February 15

With negative friction, as soon as that adjustment is made, it ends up getting magnified, causing cars to suddenly leap off the ground and accelerate.

I'm guessing this is sort of also the explanation for why shooting parked cars causes them to start tumbling *towards* you rather than spinning harmlessly away.
posted by LionIndex at 10:30 AM on February 15

benito.strauss that's actually TrackMania, not Gran Turismo - which detracts not at all from how wonderful that clip is.
posted by radiosilents at 10:31 AM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Yeah, there are scores of higher-res TrackMania videos with 1000+cars, but none of them seem to get what is so cool about the one benito.strauss linked to. (Hint: It's not, as they all seem to think, the moody, minute-long introductory credits.)
posted by straight at 2:44 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

The "&t=0m50s" URL add-on is YouTube's greatest contribution to humanity.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:15 PM on February 15 [2 favorites]

Poonikins might be the pinnacle of human achievement.

That scene where she's (I assume it's a she?) parked in the laundromat and woman is yelling to get out and she tries to hide behind the car door ... I can't stop laughing..
posted by mannequito at 4:04 PM on February 15

Chocolate Pickle > If you're looking for nightmare-inducing game mods, this one is for Skyrim.

Oh god if I could install mods on the 360, that one might make me actually interested in playing the free copy of Skyrim I got with mine for more than five minutes. I am totally one of those Blue Skies In Video Games types.
posted by egypturnash at 10:51 PM on February 15

I think this thread might be my favorite thing
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:17 PM on February 16

I love these, I wish more games would add a theater mode.
posted by the_artificer at 4:01 PM on February 17