History / Development of BeamNG ?

I'm wondering has anyone written a full development history of BeamNG?

For example we all know this game has its roots with Rigs of Rods , but how much of it is new , and I heard a few times it was based on the CryEngine but now its all T3D , but what are the facts and how / when did those changes happen and why?

Would be cool to have that information in the Wiki ...

It could be online somewhere already so if it is, excuse my ignorance and link me , would love to read more about it !

 

The main page states that the project was started in 2011 with two artists and two programmers, who, to this day, are still the only known working staff members on the project.

It also lists May 28, 2012 as the release date for the first video, and, in turn, the first hint to the public toward BeamNG's existence. It portrayed the freshly-finished Gavril D-15 in a test level in Cryengine 3, and garnered an substantially large number of views in an equally substantially small amount of time.

The second video was released the 7th of July that same year, portraying a fully custom, fully fleshed-out level (still in Cryengine 3, most likely Dry Rock Island), two extra vehicles (the then mostly-completed Gavril Grand Marshal and Ibishu Covet), and collision between vehicles. On September 24, two brief videos portraying smaller crashes were also released. Three days later, yet two more videos were unveiled showing an unmodified Covet being used for rallying, and a D-15 rolling down a hill.

Around early August of that year, the forum seems to have opened up (based on the dates of certain posts), and vehicle shells were frequently created. Mods, such as donoteat's PenguinvilleNG, began to appear. LFHutch revealed his first map, Dry Rock Island, in mid-November. In the final days of 2012, a poll was opened up asking the community which vehicle should be incorporated next. The Gavril H-series won by a landslide.

It was at or just before this point that the team seems to have moved over to Torque, citing royalties and performance concerns. By January 26, 2013, a video was released showing the fruits of the engine change. A little beyond a month later, tdev created a post demonstrating the editor in Torque to prospective mapmakers. As a result of the engine change, PenguinvilleNG was cancelled and vehicle tearing lost most of its support for the time being.

In mid to late June 2013, two videos came out showing the then-newly completed Civette Bolide, and the destructive rampage of the Cliff Map. In mid July, the last pre-release YouTube video was uploaded, showing a Gymkhana with the Grand Marshal in Industrial's port. The release was also preceded by (but not revealed in) at least 3 streaming sessions in July, previewing the H-series, Pigeon, several maps, and AI. In the last days prior to release, the devs went hush-hush, and the streaming tab was changed to 'Drive,' without any explanation and only a countdown timer to show for any efforts to inquire.

On August 3, 2013, the full Alpha and Tech Demo became publicly available, along with the first fully-incorporated, downloadable community mod, Mythbuster's 1949 Cadillac Series 62. On September 11 (very patriotic), the Moonhawk was at a state of completion justifying its release, and the AI functionality was reincorporated.

Several new features were teased between September and November, including UI-based color switching, improved performance, and, primarily, race lap timing. The difficulty of incorporating the leaderboard feature without exposing it to engine mods, and a completely new GUI vastly delayed the "Race Update." Its delays gradually allowed it time for new planned content (the Pigeon, maybe the T75 and East Coast map) to be created, and the update was finally released on...

That's all I got.

 

Great job Occam's Razer

 

thats awesome, maybe we can keep adding that to that information because im sure more people would be interested to know the history. I was a big fan of rigs of rods but never had time to read and lurk the forums so I wasn't sure what was going on there , but obviously a few people thought the game was dated enough to take it to another level... that interested me to find out more.

Pretty good info tho so far

 

I'm pretty sure they actually started the game in late 2011. That's all I have.

 

I don't doubt that they did; games, especially physics-based ones, don't become video-quality overnight. But I basically just scanned over all of the readily available data that I could find. As such, most of the above is from the perspective of public eye.

Edit: If you have a source for this, I'd be happy to include it in my timeline.

Edit, below:

There are many points at which one will call into question both their sanity, and their intelligence. I am at one of such points for missing that info. Thanks.

 

Thank you, that was a great read.

 

Who we are
BeamNG is a young startup company developing a state of the art real time physics simulation engine. We are currently a team of two programmers and two artists that founded the company in 2011.
The home page. I don't know where I got the "late" from. Maybe I just imagined that.