(SSGX Origins) Let's make a Wipeout game! This time for real!

Demo feedback :
- What speed settings is this? Phantom? I can't ride without bumping into walls lol.
- Wow, the physics is much better! :clap
- Oooh and I get to watch how AI ride after I died. Should have a post-race replay mode where you get to choose which craft you want to watch. :D
- Is repeated floor scratching supposed to happen? I don't think Wipeout HD ever come close to this.
- Is there going to be multiple HUD to choose? tbh I don't like this HUD. xP
- When the player fly off the track and got reset into position, screen should flashes once. To get suddenly warped back into the track can get a bit confusing.
- I think the explosion when you ran out of energy shoot my craft up too high. My preference is like the Wipeout HD version where there's just short explosion, camera goes outside and then your craft really gets violently thrown around leaving the husk behind. (But the remaining husk should be heavier though.) But that's just my opinion. Do what you think it's good then. ;)
- [Anddd I found a bug]. I don't know what's going on but I just randomly pitching my craft and then I slided into some wall and ended up sticking headfirst into the track. If I tries to steer it'll just spinnnnnnn. It doesn't seems to reduce my energy. Can't get off from this heads-down state either.

Yeah, I have to fix this bug although still I'm not sure how xd Now, speed is phantom indeed (maybe a bit slower than in WOHD), floor scratch... hmmmm, yeah, figuring this out is a bit hard for me right now not mentioning that I have problems with analyzing WOHD tracks and how to achieve same effect in my tracks (scale of ship to track thing, not environment). Xpand's track doesn't make me feel same as in WOHD although I've tried different scales and in the end I left this scale which is in actual demo... and previous ones xd
Multiple HUDs, yeah, but they need to have same gauges, nothing more or less (Oryx's HUD is going to be in)
When player fly-off the track there will be flash, no problem :P
thx for feedback :)

You have an excessive ship speed. I rescaled the track (scale 1.2 from the 3ds file) to the original size and made the ship speed around 12000 and turning speed around 150 and it looks just like the demo, though more controlable. Only the AI keeps going out of the track because they move too fast...

Also can you tell me how to change the position of the sun? You placed it on the opposite side of where it should be, lol...

For the lightmapping what kind of material must I use on the objects? And should I select all of them? And what if they have self-illum maps too? LOL, sorry, I'm really new at this lightmapping thing...

I'm not sure I like the new physics - I'm crashing into heaps of walls I wasn't before. Also, it seems like the craft has terrible throttle response; you lift the button for a split second, but the ship will slow down for a good second or so before it begins accelerating again; and it seems like when you touch a wall it puts an artificial damper on the craft that forces it to slow down for a few seconds after you have left the wall (very annoying).
I don't like that. :<
But the rest of it really pretty, particularly the HUD. Hopefully you can fix those gripes :)

Starting monday I'll redo the ship physics engine almost completely to be more accurate with the real behaviour of a wipeout ship, though using only the ship's mass, airbrake/turning torque and engine power, all the other variables will come from those three. Of course if that doesn't work propely I can always cheat a bit! xD

I already made a change in the script so the ship doesn't loose too much altitude when it banks, but for some reason the extra lifting force kicks in too fast and the ship bounces a little when you turn...

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Sure, compared to you I'm like a first grader in Unity! xD

By the way, how can I update the AI ship 3D models? For example: I rescaled the Helios ship but the new one doesn't show up on Unity. I usually reimported it into the game, but because it's set as invisible I can't locate it.

In Resources folder find En_Helios, put it somewhere on the scene and inside of this pre-fab you'll find children named "Body" and inside of it is your model, put the updated one there. Hope it helps :P

Cool, ok thanks.

I need track designs people! Anything you have put it here. From today at 5PM to mid September I'll be putting my 200% on this project so come at me bro! :rock
Also building examples if the track is placed in the city, stuff like that, not just the track itself.

Yeah, if you have a nice design of track on paper or digitally then making it in 3D is just a pure pleasure :)
btw. New navigation system is on its way into SSGX, much faster and accurate for AI but less accurate for "player place check" so I'll have to think of new way to check this xd
Comparison of nav systems:
- previous one: 23 nodes and 23 colliders
- new one: 61 nodes and 10 colliders

EDIT: My idea on how to make placing system:
Every ship will have an additional collider attached to itself, using it I'll detect which faces of additional "track wall collider" were hit and add them to an array so they won't be detected again till next lap. What it will give me is number of hit faces and based on that I'll be able to tell who is further and btw say on which place is my ship... heh xd

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xpand

I need track designs people! From today at 5PM...so come at me bro! :rock
Also building examples...

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I been working on one yesterday, I'm just running a pen over now, I put one up in a hour

3:24 AM: Cassandra progress: 96%
Attachment 6266Attachment 6267Attachment 6268

Cassandra looks really awesome!!! I like that blinky-shiny-thingy at the top of the roof on the building in the third picture. Details like these are important :)

I see you getting the best out of it now that you have free time for the mod, huh? It's awesome!! Are you working on other tracks aswell? What's with this Tristanis Inferior [something like that] track which was in the demo. It has no AI.....

Today I can finally start working on the story. Got a short question already: Should the story be about a special league or should it be something for it's own, apart from Wipeout. Like... How it came to antiG-racing etc. ?

I'm finishing Cassandra and Draco Cavernae, since they're both already in 3D, then I'll move on to new ones.

I'll finish Tristans Inferior and Delcor City myself cos only I can read my drawings xd

Wow, those screens are amazing. :O

Xpand I was thinking since my gpu cant seem to handle the amount of info in the basin park model anymore I could maybe send it over to you? and make individual building models and send them as I go? Because like I said my gpu cant handle it and that makes it extremely hard to finish it.

@Oryx: I guess that can be done, though I basically had to rebuild it from scratch due to a problem with texturing the track. If I don't make the spline track in 3ds max I will never be able to map it correctly.
@zero: Hmm, ok, but I'm afraid we will lose modeling/texturing consistency. I thought I took care of converting everyone's model ideas to the actual in-game models, like I did with some of Oryx's designs and with Raptor's Amphithere and DC.

Hey, if you need more tracks, would I be able to design one?
I use Blender, is that fine for what you need? :) I also have Unity so I can test it out properly and fix any problems (like materials)

You don't need to import it to unity. If you can make a 3D model that's cool. Remember that our (or at least the ones I did) track's bounding box is a rectangle of about 1.5x1.1 km. Smaller than that and the track's gotta be either oval or with very little turns. Above that is ok, but just assure it has some challenging spots and stuff like that. We wouldn't want a NASCAR like track, right! :D

I'm guessing you guys can't do mag-lock yet? :P

Zero has that section in his code, but I never tested it, maybe he can explain to you how it works.

Also if you want to get on skype to ease communication my skype account is ricardo.xpand

It works great now, but Xpand... I'll have to divide tracks onto track walls and tracks surfaces cos of my rays which sometimes detect track walls and do unpredicted things. No worries, you don't have to do anything, I'll do it cos it's easier in Maya :P

btw. My skype is zero3growlithe

Roger... If you do that its easier on me if I have to make changes in the track
Also:
Attachment 6336

And we seem to have a bit of competition to spice up the things! :)

We definetively have to get a glow shader...

Well, here you go. If the Ascent was too steep, make it wider... (very small scale) :)

I'll be back...

You think you can get me a top view of the track? it's easier to work with. I can use perspective views like that when I add height and details.

Hmm, aparently, even custom built shaders aren't supported by Unity Free...

200th page already? How time flies!

Unity is quite annoying in what it allows in the free version, its why I stuck with Blender.

Update from me:

I have started to use the sun shadows in Blender (so I have shadows now).

I had a friend on BlenderArtists redo a portion of my steering code (vectors are not my strong point) and now movement is extremely fluid. This also means ships can fly faster.

In addition to the above, I have made a simple breaking mechanism that kicks in when the ship overshoots a node, reducing the time for an AI to recover.

I have now made several animation 'hooks' so objects have values to work from (i.e. using vector values to work out how far a ship has banked left or right (or braked).

The weapon /ship parenting works better now, when a ship explodes the weapon now spins to earth, although I have to make the weapon disable itself on release. In demos I have seen ships collide in mid air and bits fly everywhere. Damaged ships now trail smoke (well, spheres at the minute).

My defensive cannon is fun to watch in action- it will now track to and fire at the nearest ship that is underneath the ship carrying it. When the cannon is not being used it will turn its barrel back to its 'neutral' position.

I have ironed out some bugs in the menu system that spawns ships, although I am thinking of changing how this is done in game. Now I need only one copy of any object to spawn objects in game, and they are all treated individually rather than sharing properties and variables. All I need to do now is change five variables to make a new 'spawn' button in the GUI.

A few minor bug fixes (spawn points being incorrect due to scale issues).

Sounds like lots of good work is done! Great!

You guys are really starting now, I see :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xpand

You think you can get me a top view of the track?

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yeah, do you want detail or just the track?

doc: try to go around FX-150 area :)
P.S. any need for a track description, I can make a few today ^_^

Do we have these prepared?
Background story that links this with the WipEout Universe
Track descriptions/information
Team Information
Weapon Information
Mode information
Gimmick information

Gimmick information? What gimmicks?

Maybe he is talking about unlockables or stuff like that...

Or pickups like shield or turbo, since this can't be cathegorized as "weapon".

@feisar_rocket: Just the shape of the track. You can add elevation values at some points to make it easier to know how high the track goes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xpand

...add elevation values at some points...

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What are my limits (never know, 1000u on Z axis can come to mind ;)) , and can I split the track in two?

Well, the sky is the limit, but I wouldn't recommend doing more than 1000 meters of height. I know Cassandra has the highest point at 100 meters or so.... What do you mean by spliting the track in two?

I think he's talking about Ubermall like split... o.0

He might be talking about Corridon 12 too...
Ubermall is like 20% split, Corridon 12 is more like 80% split

Hmm, if that's the case, I guess you can do it. It will be a crapload of work to texture the spliting and joining part correctly, though...

Yay, my new navigation system is so awesome! :D Now it is damn smooth on every speed and I have smooth speed control over AI ships and it's expandable to make them turn faster or slower too and whatever I can imagine ^^:+ And it works faster as I predicted and new "placing system" is not needed :P Although creating perfect "racing lines" for AI is quite time consuming as you have to estimate place and speed for every node X_X Speed can't be either too big or too small cos player can't have easy time with them :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by docfo4r

Maybe he is talking about unlockables or stuff like that...

Or pickups like shield or turbo, since this can't be cathegorized as "weapon".

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What I think of in WipEout when 'Gimmicks' is said include
Airbrakes
Boost Pads
Weapon Pads
Wuss Wagon
Mag-Strip
Pickups

If there are to be general terms:
Track technologies
Ship technologies
Weapon technologies

Has anyone written the complete backstory? If this is part of the WipEout universe then someone has to write the story of the FX-150 league. And boy will there be quite a bit of fan wank...