- Introduction
- Support The Project
- Features
- Background
- Status
- Documentation
- What's new
- Downloading the game
- The Multiplayer Server
- Parental Advisory
In 2007, as I was watching "Top Gun," I thought to myself: "How cool would it be if a blind person could fly a fighter jet?" Until this time, there had been no fighter jet simulators that blind people could play. So, a handful of friends and I embarked on the journey to create the world's first ever fully accessible fighter jet simulation.
We succeeded. In 2010, my company at that time, BPCPrograms, released Three-D Velocity. It was complete with a story line and a minimally realistic fighter jet that the player controlled.
Over time, we improved the simulator, and then in 2012 decided to redo most of it to make it more realistic. We also remastered the sounds to make them more real. This is how Three-D Velocity version 2 was born. Unfortunately, we were not able to release TDV 2 as planned, and the company was later dissolved.
I decided to make TDV available as open source for two reasons. First, I feel that people can learn from what it has to offer. There is full support for flight controllers in this game, along with many other things that developers can benefit from. Second, flying a jet at mach-2 is a unique experience for blind people, and now that the company no longer exists, this is my best option to get TDV to people who will enjoy it.
This project is open source, so it'll remain free. If you'd like to show your support for it, please consider donating!
Three-D Velocity is a real-time fighter jet simulation designed for blind and visually impaired people. Your craft is designed to get you out of the tightest of situations, provided that you are willing to try daring maneuvers. Your jet is able to go at a top airspeed of mach 2, and is equipped with afterburner jets to give you that extra boost in speed that can mean the difference between a success or a bust.
The simulator features directional sound to let the blind player know of their current environment. Hear missiles rocketing toward your aircraft, the fire of surface-to-air guns, other aircraft speeding past, and completely engage yourself in a sky-lighting fight taking place fifty-thousand feet above sealevel.
Blind players can use auditory cross-hairs to lock on to other aircraft and land on runways and aircraft carriers. The radar reads out information using human-recorded speech, making for a clear, verbal readout of the surrounding objects which allow players to make split-second decisions.
Three-D Velocity even features a Radio Intercept Officer (RIO) who gives the player vital feedback during missions, allowing them to roll just in time to avoid being slammed by a missile or suffer damage to the aircraft because of a strafe from an enemy.
Best of all, the game is completely real-time!
Here are some of the features in the game:
- A realistic aircraft which you will pilot.
- Afterburner jets to assist your aircraft in achieving its top airspeed.
- Support for combat flight controllers.
- Force feedback support.
- Completely self-voicing (no screen reader is required.)
- Surround sound support.
- A variety of weapons, including guns, missiles, and active-radar-guided missiles which will follow their targets.
- A weapons radar to view all missiles coming towards your aircraft.
- Racing, Death Match, and Auto Play modes.
- Mission Mode to follow the story.
- A comprehensive manual in HTML format.
The goal in Three-D Velocity is to shut down the Cloning Malice project, which is a privately funded project whose sole goal is to harness the power of today's scientific advances to build a new breed of superhuman soldiers, each clones of one another. The first attempt to shut the project down failed, and the world finds itself faced with the horrors of this project once again as the scientist behind the project builds his army quicker than ever, and has become a formiddable thret to the world, making known his plans for world domination using his army of superhuman soldiers.
Three-D Velocity picks up after the first attempt failed. The player acts as Lieutenant Orion, a pilot at the center of an effort led by the United States to crash the project once again. The game follows Orion as he's sent on a mission to stage airstrikes on the project's headquarters.
"Is it abandonware?" No. It's open source, not abandonware. I'll be working on it as time permits. If you have suggestions for future improvements or find bugs, post them on the issues page and you might see the fix or feature in a future update!
There's a training mode in the game that will help you get familiar with the basic concepts of TDV. Full documentation can be found here.
The latest version is 2.44, released on 09/10/2019. If you'd like to check out a list of new features, you can view the change log here. When you download the binary distribution, you're always getting the most recent version noted in the change log. The Master branch might incorporate code that hasn't made it into the binary release yet.
TDV comes with an auto updater. If you're running an older version, the game will download and install the latest update for you. For this reason, I advise against extracting TDV to a write-protected directory.
If you're not prompted to install the update after the logo plays, delete settings.tdv in the data directory in the TDV root directory. The updater checks periodically for updates but not every time you launch the game, so you can delete your settings file to reset the timer.
To get feedback during the update process, turn on "progress bar announcements" in your screen reader; otherwise, the update will download silently.
There are several ways to download TDV, depending on your situation and what you want.
If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, please post them on the Issues Page.
TDV uses XAudio2 to output sound. XAudio2 is not guaranteed to exist on all systems, no matter how new. If you get an XAudio2 or DirectX error at startup, please download and install the DirectX Web Installer from Microsoft. TDV also requires .NET framework 4.7.2 or higher, which you should already have as part of regular Windows updates.
If all you want is the executable and supporting files and you're not interested in the source code, you can always download the latest version here.
The zip file contains the TDV executable, all sounds, and the server executable. Run the file tdv.exe to start Three-D Velocity.
If you just want the source code without the TDV executable and media files, use the git clone command, like this:
git clone https://github.com/munawarb/Three-D-Velocity.git
Three-D Velocity is written in C#.NET. You will need an IDE that supports Visual Studio 2019 solutions, and .NET Framework 4.7.2 or higher to compile the project. You can get a copy of Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition from Microsoft. This is the recommended IDE. Visual Studio Community Edition is free. Open up the TDV/Three-D Velocity.sln solution in your C# IDE of choice and the project files will load. If you want to successfully run TDV, you must fetch the binaries submodule to include all dependencies and sound files.
Now we're talking! If you want the whole thing which includes the source code and the huge binary release, use the git clone command, like this:
git clone --recursive https://github.com/munawarb/Three-D-Velocity.git
The --recursive option will tell Git to fetch the binaries submodule. It will be placed in TDV/Three-D-Velocity-Binaries
Three-D Velocity is written in C#.NET. You will need an IDE that supports Visual Studio 2019 solutions, and .NET Framework 4.7.2 or higher to compile the project. You can get a copy of Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition from Microsoft. This is the recommended IDE. Visual Studio Community Edition is free. All other dependencies such as SharpDX and Ogg Vorbis libraries are downloaded with the binaries submodule, which was downloaded for you already. The project solution already points to them. Open up the Three-D Velocity.sln solution in your C# IDE of choice and then build the solution. The executables will be placed in TDV/Three-D-Velocity-Binaries.
Yes, you read that correctly! TDV contains a multiplayer server so you can fight other aircraft online. If you want to run the server, run the file TDVServer.exe in the binary distribution. For those of you who have the source code, the source code for the server is located in TDV/TDVServer. If you compile the server, the executable will be placed in TDV/three-d-velocity-binaries.
To connect to someone else's server, launch the game and select "Multiplayer Mode" from the "Mode Selection" menu. You'll be asked for the IP address or domain to connect to, along with the call sign you wish to use on the server. You should allow ports 4444 and 4445 through your firewall, since these are the ports TDV will attempt to connect on.
Controlling the server is documented in the manual under the section "Running The Server."
Three-D Velocity contains adult-oriented cut scenes and is not suitable for minors; parental guidance is advised.