"STK w/Irrlicht": Previews in the menu

Hi fellow SuperTuxKart fans, time for another update on the current development version. Don't get too excited yet; the developers are working on some cool new features, but most of the features of earlier versions needs to be rewritten as well.
And I'm not covering everything that happens on the development side.
But I'm starting off with one well-known feature.

Kart preview

Tux is spinning around in a smooth animation, showing off his great kart, like in 0.6 and earlier. The other karts aren't ready for this yet, but it looks promising. BTW, the black rectangle behind the kart isn't supposed to be there; just a bug showing up on my computer only as far as I know.
As you can see here as well, the old background picture (the checkerboard background) is now replaced by the one made by elisee.

Track preview

This pops up when selecting a track, showing a proof of concept. "High Scores & Track Info" will obviously be replaced with... guess what: high scores and track info.
"Track 1" will be replaced with the actual name of the track.

I was asked to mention that "there is now support for deciding which edges are smooth and which are not, allowing for better shading". Not completely sure what that means, but modelers wanting to create for 0.7 should bear this in mind when they are making models.

Most places in the world have mid-summer now, and vacation, so that might impact somewhat on the speed of STK development. Whether it'll be in a positive way or not, time will tell, but it might turn both ways. Personally, I'll be away for a couple of weeks now, but as I'm not a developer, just a "reporter", it'll only mean that you might not see another update here in a while.

"Sun is shining,
weather is sweet.
Makes you wanna move
your dancing feet."

Happy summer to everyone! :D

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Note: As the "STK w/Irrlicht" branch is still in a very unstable state, the general public is recommended to use the latest stable version (0.6.1a) of SuperTuxKart.

"STK w/Irrlicht": Racing

Hi, and welcome to another update on the Irrlicht branch of SuperTuxKart.
While screenshots of the menu is interesting, most of the time you'll probably be racing in STK 0.7. So this time I'll show you a couple of in-race screenshots.

Racing at the beach

As you can see, AI karts have been reimplemented, and work has been started on the new driveline system as well. The screenshot above is unfortunately quite skewed due to lagging; the computer I'm using isn't the best. But you get the general idea. ;)
Btw, the kart I'm driving (the closest one) is the improved version of Nolok.

"Street" burning by the lighthouse

Work is underway for different particles for different terrain. Here, the sand/grass texture shows smoke when skidding on it. It's just a proof of concept; in the end skidding here will most likely show sand or grass particles, while the smoke will be used when skidding on the road. Splash effect when driving into water is among the goodies this feature will bring.
Btw, the kart I'm driving here, is Pidgin, the replacement for Penny. Penny will probably end up as an add-on.

Another thing I want to mention, is that compiling the Irrlicht version is somewhat tricky, and driving around is currently very unstable. So if you don't plan to contribute and/or you're not comfortable with compiling on your system, it's strongly recommended to wait until things have settled more down. One of the developers compared the current development version with a building site, where the materials are slowly being put together, forming a larger and better building than the previous. Continuing the analogy: if you are going into the building site, expect some falling objects and unsafe areas. But if you have some knowledge, it can work as a safety helmet, protecting you from the worst disasters. And... um... what was I talking about again? Better get some sleep....