Ballistic NG - Wipeout fan project

@bigsnake

I'll just put my progress here for simplicity ...

Attachment 9730

Attachment 9731

Previous version had flaws and I've improved things:

• we'll use 'Commands' that have 'Bindings' of various types (analog, digital)
• when polling a command, you can get value as digital or analog (for this one, pad input has precedence)
• we now have a command that reacts to multiple devices ! (a must btw, Unity and many games do that, i.e. a normal UX)

Unsolved / WIP

• shall we forbid combinations of signed axes / buttons ? it might be simpler as they're unrelated after all
• if we should ensure no.1 then whether to define new interfaces for half/full axes
• how shall we present things? actions -> key/buttons/axes or the opposite ? this has implications, I'd say no.1 ...
• keyboard axes ? tightly related to former point (help !)
• analog keyboard ? not too hard IMO and we could enhance it with nice easings, but is it really useful ?

Anyone is welcome to comment for improvement :D

ps. I've abandoned considering https://github.com/daemon3000/InputManager as IMO it is too bloated :blarg

more news !

fixed many things:

• now you can build a configuration of commands, each command can be an 'AxisCommand' or a 'ButtonCommand' and accepts keyboard/gamepad, one can't go wrong as constructs allows only proper types
• now there are devices that returns available bindings they do offer
• say if a 'ButtonCommand' is bound to a keyboard key and an Xbox trigger, you'll get the analog value for the trigger
• keyboard can act as an 'AxisCommand', i.e strafe, move, pitch, yaw etc ...
• preliminary UI
• also now it is very easy to add extra input methods

remaining:

• complete UI that maps configuration commands to bindings !
• detect user presses
• load/save
• etc ...

here's a diagram:

Attachment 9732

in short, we're getting closer ! :D

Nice work! We'll have to see if it can be completed and implemented for the next release. There isn't any date and it's definitely not anytime soon so there's plenty of time :)

Looks like there's some telepathic comms between us as I was going to reply :D

Many changes since last time and basically I guess I've pretty much nailed it:

• finest granularity for gamepad, e.g. left thumb +X is a button by itself (and not part of the X axis); this allows making any kind of combination but also simplifies UI/UX in the end (see picture)
• an UI that presents commands and allows button assignments, it is skinnable, scrollable and IMO gets straight to the point by presenting a simple but effective layout
• loading and saving a configuration ! this was a bit of a headache but it's done (using XML)
• devices we listen to for pressed inputs
• tech stuff: stripped generics as while clever it is not in the end, helpers such as IsPressed() / GetDescription(), implementing a new device/button is very easy
• tech stuff: the Command (abstract) class does host the real stuff, AxisCommand and ButtonCommand are here to implement their correct definition of GetValue()

There was a worrying aspect : UI navigation; but a quick test shown that the system works with it and without any changes, pfeww ... :g

Showcase

Attachment 9742

• there are 2 commands : "Strafe" (AxisCommand), "Jump" (ButtonCommand)
• each command's button end as a button in UI (AxisCommand has 2 obviously)
• whenever any is pressed, a popup asks for input ...
• (need to beautify/clean their description a bit, whole text after a key button is actually an Xbox button)
• (for the skin I expect the user to provide a prefab with a Text component, preferably that is selectable, that's it)

Basically I expect a 2-step process:

• give it a try and let me know anything to adjust
• I'll make a package and do the integration

(I'll probably send it to you by tonight or tomorrow)

:guitar

Hey everyone! Today I have a release that's an early test for a future feature, modding.

At the minute this is a template Unity project that you can use to setup ships and save them into Asset bundles that you will be able to import into the game later on (not now), there's a download link on the original post or you can download it here. Stand-alone tools that are much easier to use will be coming in the future, but for now this provides a quick and dirty way for me to test modding out and others to understand how it will work. Unity is completely free so there isn't any sort of price tag attached to being able to get Unity setup to test it out.

Right now it isn't documented at all other then what I will mention in just a second, but if you're feeling adventurous then it shouldn't take too long to understand how it works. I've included Wyvern's ship models as an example. In the root of the assets folder you will find a file called include.txt, this is where it gets more interesting:

Instead of searching through folders and expecting specific files, you have complete freedom of where you want to store assets and what you want to call them. This is done through a list of commands, here's an example of what it looks like:

Code:

---

START SHIP_HIGHPOLY
PREFAB MyShips/Example/Wyvern/Wyvern_HP
DISPLAYNAME Wyvern
FESPEED 0
FETHRUST 0
FEHANDLING 0
FESHIELD 0
END SHIP_HIGHPOLY

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When a mod is loaded this will be the first thing to be read and as you can imagine, each command tells the game what to do. So in this instance what is happening is we're first telling the game that what it's going to be setting up is a highpoly ship (basically the normal, non PS1 styled ships) and then the location of where it can find the prefab with all the settings and references to locators (where to place things like effects). After that it is given a display name, the frontend stats are setup (what is shown on the menu) and then we're done.

This little command system will only be present if you use Unity to create asset bundles, the future stand-alone modding tools will automatically set all of these commands up for you. The reason I have chosen to go with this instead of something such as an XML or JSON file is just because it's more lightweight in that it doesn't require an additional library to be bundled with the game to read and write to a specific format, these are just lines of completely human readable words that can be interpreted with just a few lines of code.

The way a mod will be setup is through a pack that can contain custom tracks, ships, HUDs and music. Now Asset Bundles will be just one way this will be possible, and I'll be using this to add more content to the game post-release, but the other will be through just a folder containing all the files with a reference file to tell BallisticNG what it's looking for, however this method will be limited to just ships and music (HUDs and Tracks are a bit more complex). The track editor will be purely for creating a mesh and relevant track data to import into the game (or in this case the unity project tools).

sounds great :+

Hey guys, I've been watching this thread for a while now and I have to say I'm liking where this is going. Good ol' callback to the classic trilogy in preview tracks and whatnot, and the handling feels very similar too.

Not exactly well versed in the physics and modeling side of things, my knowledge of building games is very limited. But, I couldn't help but notice that everyone who's been submitting suggestions for teams has been concerned with the 2280 entrants. So I was wondering, could I suggest a 'founder' company for the 2059 season on the backstory planning, or are the dev team already deciding on some 2059 teams aside from G-Tech?

@Thane
Yep! Feel free and go ahead posting anything in the Wiki. It'll certainly help.

I had this weird suggestion, and I want to hear from your opinions: Should we drop the realistic graphics of BnG and instead focus on the PS1 aesthetics?
I'm sure some will disagree but IMO making the game look like a 32-bit patato-racer feels much more ...correct for a tribute. Maybe toss in some post-FX like SweetFX-like tints and it'll look nice.

And really Snake, that magazine cover?
I swore I spent the rest of the day laughing at "What is a game? - BBC".

I don't know how to post on the wiki. Do I need to make an account or something? I've been stressing a rather complete backstory for a while and I kinda feel like I'm being ignored since its not on the wiki.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheXTR09

@Thane
Yep! Feel free and go ahead posting anything in the Wiki. It'll certainly help.

I had this weird suggestion, and I want to hear from your opinions: Should we drop the realistic graphics of BnG and instead focus on the PS1 aesthetics?
I'm sure some will disagree but IMO making the game look like a 32-bit patato-racer feels much more ...correct for a tribute. Maybe toss in some post-FX like SweetFX-like tints and it'll look nice.

And really Snake, that magazine cover?
I swore I spent the rest of the day laughing at "What is a game? - BBC".

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I'm going to be keeping the modern graphics but I do want to put a lot more focus on the PS1 styled side of the game, you can expect the PS1 styled content to be finished first and then the modern graphics finished much later down the line.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AGgamer

I don't know how to post on the wiki. Do I need to make an account or something? I've been stressing a rather complete backstory for a while and I kinda feel like I'm being ignored since its not on the wiki.

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Nah you don't need to create an account. Like all wikis, wikia wikis are open for anyone to edit. You should see a blue edit button at the top left of the page, you just need to click that and you'll be able to start editing. You might want to create a new page depending on how long the story you've got is :)