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

[docfo4r]

I get your idea behind it. But still I think we should keep our hard work original. We spent months, maybe years already working on the tracks and stuff so I just can't imagine that when we release the game suddenly half-assed tracks pop up from everywhere.

Also you have to remember, creating the track itself is just half the truth. To fully implement it into the game, it needs logo, background story, you have to place speed & weapon pads, you have to place it in a way where they will be automatically removed in speed lap, zone mode etc. And speaking of zone mode: get's even more complicated if we create visual effects for our tracks. I am just afraid the tracks created by people outside of this project [who are not aware of our "basics"] aren't able to create tracks which fully go into SSGX or have to origins of our idea.

And like Xpand said, we'd spend hours of hard work to create a editor & half of the stuff people would create might be crap anyway xD


@Xpand: Thanks man, gonna check it out right away!

EDIT: When importing to Vue, it says the file "CERN_BAS.PSD" & "PADS.PSD" is missing... Track section itself could be imported and is perfect!

[Xpand]

Those are the textures that you said they wouldn't be needed.... It should import anyways.

[docfo4r]

Yep it did. Everything is black as for now, didn't even see the ship at first
Need to re-texture that stuff with unicolor grids etc.
Ship + Track section is perfect, thank you!

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

I was watching the last episode of Startrek Voyager a few days ago, and it made me come up with an awesome idea.

What if we replaced the 'Shield' item with a 'Deployable Armor' item? Gameplay-wise, it would be exactly the same, but asthetically it would be complete different. Instead of an impenetrable bubble of energy around your craft, it is a very tough, very shiny layer of hexagonal armor plates that detach after an elapsed period of time (leaving behind a pretty (and harmless) shrapnel effect after it 'expires')

This is the Amature League, and I am pretty sure that Energy Shields would be WAY out of their budget.
Besides, who would resist the temptation of flying around looking like you were made of chrome?

[Xpand]

It is the amateur league, but carrying around a countless number of armoured plates in a ship is impractical even in professional leagues (weight, storage room, fuel efficiency, shrapnel, etc)... Besides, shield energy bubbles exist since 2097. I'm guessing technology in the Wipeout universe also follows Moore's law, so they would be pretty cheap after almost 100 years...

[BrunoDG]

And what if this "Deployable Armor" was a new type of, not a shield, but a "Reflector" from Wip3out?
Remember this one? It worked like a shield, but instead of only protecting the ship, it blew the weapon back to the opponent.
Maybe this could be a cheaper version of the Reflector, only lasting for 1 weapon reflection, since it's the Amateur League and their budget is not THAT high.

[docfo4r]

Got the basic scene for weapon animation set up and rendered a small picture out of it. You can see the weapon pad [which I colored red for now] as well as the victim ship [always black] and the user ship [always white].

basicsetup.jpg

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

It is the amateur league, but carrying around a countless number of armoured plates in a ship is impractical even in professional leagues (weight, storage room, fuel efficiency, shrapnel, etc)... Besides, shield energy bubbles exist since 2097. I'm guessing technology in the Wipeout universe also follows Moore's law, so they would be pretty cheap after almost 100 years...

As for weight, it is possible that the Armor Plates were sipplied by Helios on behalf of Triakis, and thus the plates werre made out of Fullerenes (for example, Graphene). In addition, the plates would probably sassemble themselves at the molecular level or some other cool s*** like that.

If there were a WipEout 2025, that is probably what they would have used.

[Oryx Crake]

for standardized track pieces and such for modeling we could concievable build up a library of pieces that the modellers can use but we'd still have to do a lot of tweaking and such for each individual track though I'm not opposed to the idea. a fullblown track editor would be impractical though as we'd have to build everything from scratch and put in all conceivable models so we don't have to go back to blender or 3dsmax and make new bits everytime something is missing, also the envoirnments would become more background than they already are especially if we used standardized buildings.

[Xpand]

I agree with the idea of a part library to use in 3D CADs to make a track as a puzzle. That's fairily easy to make. Now a track editor that enables you to edit said parts in any form is everything but easy.
But there's of course the problem of importing the tracks into the game.... The game is closed-source up to now, meaning you can't edit the components after it is compiled... Zero would have to build a new version every time someone made a track... I know there is a way to make unity store the models and textures separately, I just don't know exactly how it works...

[Oryx Crake]

aye would likely take about as long as programming the game itself, at least if we started now... I really wouldn't mind having some standardized pieces for us to play around with. that could be very useful in fact.

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

See? One idea will always lead to another.

[Xpand]

I can make some generic track parts like 20, 45, 90 degree turns, loops, semi-twisted sections (like that sinucit sideways waving section for example), straight sections, banked corners. Basically like those Scalextric track parts...

Actually, I'm going to dedicate my night to that... Tomorrow I should have a working kit with untextured track sections...

[docfo4r]

Yep

We just have to make sure that our future tracks won't suffer under copypaste stuff, like having the same corner sections used in three different tracks might make the game boring faster than we can imagine. But for playing around/testing stuff it's a good idea. Just like that little track sample Xpand offered.

EDIT: Whoa, Xpand typed faster^^

[Xpand]

Okay, here's what I have so far:
Attachment 6530
List:
Rectilinear sections:
straight (100m)
wave straight (100m)
straight: into banked curve left/right 30 degrees (100m)
straight: twist left, right (100m)
straight: squeeze (100m)
Curved sections:
90 degree flat r=50m/r=100m
90 degree elevated r=50m/r=100m/height variation=15m
45 degree flat r=100;
90 degree bank r=50m

I'm using Cassandra's track texture just as calibration. I'll make a generic texture for you to edit at your own will...

[docfo4r]

Wow, you're fast!

Is there a little ship on one track section?

[Xpand]

I used Helios as a calibration, since it's the largest ship I have. Do I need to make more sections? Give me examples.

Woooo!
A loopyloop!
Attachment 6531
Let's hope that works in-game... But we have the mag-lock thing, so there shouldn't be a problem...

[Amaroq Dricaldari]

You should use both your largest ship and your smallest ship for calibration. Afterall, you can never have too much information.


That picture reminds me of my Hexbug Nano Habitat set that I got for christmas last year.

[docfo4r]

Maybe sections going up or down [curved ones maybe aswell].

[Xpand]

You should use both your largest ship and your smallest ship for calibration. Afterall, you can never have too much information.


That picture reminds me of my Hexbug Nano Habitat set that I got for christmas last year.

The smaller won't help me, I just want to know the minimal width of the track for an acceptable gameplay, giving the results obtained with the skinny track in Cassandra.

I think this is good to go for now, what do you think?
Attachment 6532