AGR2280 - A Wipeout inspired racing game

[bigsnake]

Hehe thanks!

I should hopefully have a build ready quite soon (I use soon loosely). I'm currently just now writing everything in C++ which is pretty much just a copy paste task from my Unity code to UE4 (kinda)

[possesed13]

awesome work snake... fantastic!

[bigsnake]

Thanks possesed!

So I have something small (and I mean small) to test. I've been working on my own Launcher that I will be putting it with builds that are running on UE4. I currently have some very basic features that pretty much already show that there is going to be a lot of online based stuff. There's a readme with all the details inside.

Here's the link to anyone who wants to check it out https://db.tt/F4S9G34C

I wont make it a requirement that this launcher will have to be used, but it will be the first exe you see. I want to make it more of a hub to access the game, tools and online stats (plus updating) then it is a forced method of getting to the game. The launcher will however need to be used to create an account that will allow you to access online features (everything until the games actual release will be local until I can go server-sided). Also on the account side of things, an account will only be used for online features. Anything to do with singleplayer will be stored in a local profile (which if I can get server space, can have a cloud solution to go with it).

So that's the plan if I can get server space, otherwise everything will just be local.

Here's an image of the main launcher window (downscaled for the forum):

[superjeepboy]

It works, but is the track and ship editor different windows?

Record: 30.27 I think, but i can get the tenth and hundreth right.

[bigsnake]

The track and ship editor will a different program aside from the launcher and main game, they are currently no where near completion. My plan is to make those 2 tools in Unity which save the data UE4 then reads

Development is also going a bit slow at the moment. I'm playing around with UE4 to see what it can do, plus I'm looking at starting a project I can make a profit from while still developing AGR2280.

[superjeepboy]

Like starting a Kickstarter?

[bigsnake]

Hehe no nothing like that
As for AGR2280's development though, I've taken a break the past week and will start working on it again in the next few days. I've gotten to play around with UE4 quite a bit and am more familiar with how it works now so I'm hoping it shouldn't be too long until I have a build out. My main concern is collisions for the track, from my understanding I just need to do the collisions in Maya as I normally do it but just use a certain name for the collision mesh that UE4 will then pick up.

[bigsnake]

I am back on working on AGR2280 after a short break and I've got multiple things going on.

Firstly I am sticking with Unity (which I have already plastered everywhere now :3). As for UE4, I'm still using it for another project but I find the workflow of it just doesn't work for racing games. Secondly a new build is available and there are some huge changes to my physics and camera which I feel like is a large step towards the Wipeout HD feel I've been aiming for, I rewrote everything from the ground up for this update so I've spent quite a while on this. One of the things you should straight away notice is the support for analogue input, both for steering and for airbrakes (only digital inputs will allow you to use the airbrakes to slow down your craft and SS at the moment though). I am also now looking into making the airbrake sensitivity be based off your ships speed, so that should hopefully be in the next build! The download for v0.02 is on the first post, there's a video aswell.

I have also started to work on a documentation for how I've made everything in AGR2280. At the moment it only talks about 3 topics and they don't go into a huge amount of detail but I will be working on it much more in the future.

And finally for the biggest thing. This isn't going to be happening for a little while yet but after I've fixed up the rest of my physics I will be working towards making the AGR2280 project folder downloadable for anyone. I will be keeping the project folder updated regularly but before I even begin think about releasing it I first must clean up my code, do loads of optimizations and create some Unity editor extensions to make the entire project more user friendly...plus I will need to write a documentation for those editor extensions. Since I am doing this I think it needs to be said that the game will still obviously have modding and those tools will even be available in the project folder for anyone who will want to see that. This is however still quite a while away but it's going to be happening

Oh and if you want to help develop AGR2280 in any way then feel completely free to let me know because I would love to help people's anti-gravity racing ideas come to life

[WikEv_512]

Well... This awesome man ! I'd love to help develop but I don't know anything about programing etc. I can only help you with my ideas ! ^^

[bigsnake]

Hehe I didn't mean programming anyway because I'm doing that part :3

I have something of interest for anyone who will want to get into the track editor. This is currently the "developer" version of it, but this is an editor extension I making for track node placement (it has 3 modes where are the node placement, node editing and AI navigation setup). Now before you see the image this extension is still under heavy development and the actual in-game track editor version will not be using the Unity editor GUI for obvious reasons.

[bigsnake]

I've got another AGR2280 update! I've finally cleaned up the project and got it on Github so the source is now available to everyone Here's the link.

At the moment it's very basic because I've been redoing my entire script to make it friendly for others, legacy scripts are still in the code folder though. I'm still working on editor extentions so there's only a semi-functional node placer and a basic tool for placing speed pads on the track.

So for anyone who wants to play around with the Unity project, enjoy!

[pichuscute]

Hi! So, I checked out the game, and I really like what I see. This is pretty well-made. However, I tried to open up in Unity and got a ton of errors. I assume this is because I didn't load it up in the most recent version of Unity, but I don't know for sure. Is that what you use?

[bigsnake]

What version of Unity are you using? I haven't updated the github repository with the newly updated version for Unity 4.5 just yet so as long as you have 4.3 or above it should work fine. If you send me a PM with the errors then I should hopefully be able to help you

[pichuscute]

Hm, that's strange. I'm using 4.3.2. I'll send you the errors but it's something like 9000, soooo, beware. xD Also, I've only been using Unity for a week or so, so I'm pretty lost with what the error messages are right now haha. Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Scratch that, there's just a few that are repeating. I hadn't looked at it closely when I tried it like a week ago.

[bigsnake]

Just sent you a reply I had to re-login as I sent it and I always forget to tick the option to track it so if it doesn't send then at least you have this post to certify that an attempt to send it was made :3

[pichuscute]

I got it and responded. Thanks!

[Trilby]

Hello! As a primarily Mac user, I do have to ask you if a Mac version will come out. Seeing as it's being made in Unity, this can't be too difficult.

[bigsnake]

Yeah it shouldn't be a problem at all, I've never compiled for Mac in Unity but it is quite literally just the click of a button I'll give compiling for Mac a shot when the next version of the game is ready.

[bigsnake]

I've got some news regarding 0.1!

The past few days have been spent implementing loads of new stuff both graphically and in the backend. For graphics the game now has Physically Based Shading, if you are not aware what PBS is then what it is a method of calculating how light should react with a surface. I won't bore people with explanations because most people aren't interested in that, all you need to know though is that Physically Based Shading is what you're going to be seeing in pretty much every game using a modern game engine now. As for the backend, the game's physics are very rapidly improving. The past 2 weeks I have been focusing mainly on wall collisions and making them less intrusive. I will be saving making them completely functional for later as I am jumping between everything to make my physics better and better. Hovering is now much better, it's now getting to the point where it's near impossible to collide with the track surface so you will not have Unity automatically throwing you around for landing too hard.

I have also been working on a new, functional menu. The menu is very simplistic and is controlled with the keyboard/gamepad instead of the mouse. To the right of the menu is the ship that you currently have selected to race with, the game will remember which was you last used ship so that is always the ship that is on the menu until you choose a ship. The ship is not just static however, you can rotate it around by dragging it (mouse only) and it even has a hover animation with is coded from sine waves. The level selection screen also lists levels dynamically which opens an opportunity to have user created tracks included in this list (it also saves me and anyone who's playing with the source a lot of time registering tracks on the menu, hehe). On top of this I have also created a loading screen, for the time being it is boring and you won't really see it but it will provide you with the level that is currently loading and you also get a spinning circle just to show you the game is responding.

Content wise...well I'm open for anyone who wants to help. I'm not an artist and I can't try to be one (with the exception of track textures) so any help content wise would be awesome. Obviously I don't have any set ideas on paper so if anyone does want to help with that then it's of course your own ideas. I'm not sure what you can expect from 0.1 for content just yet, I'm getting better at making more solid feeling tracks and I'm consistently editing my ship model so just expect better everything that isn't track designs and ship models.

[SZEIKAN]

I'm kind of curious why people aren't ecstatic about this. I know we already have SSGX which also looks great, but there's room for more than one WipEout game. Anyway, just wanted to stop by and say that this project is looking better with each update! I can't wait to see more, keep it up!