58 replies to this topic

[Pasidon]

Oh.  Yea.

 

But yea... cars, spaceships and boats... if we can design whatever we want to race to navigate either the ground, water or air (maybe just ground and air for simplicity), we would really have a winning game.  And obviously have balances... like different obstacles for each and benefits (power usage?).  And all while doing it on a small planet.  It doesn't have to be a conventional track either... maybe it could be to cover a certain amount of distance, or race to certain points on the planets, or maybe lap the circumference the globes a certain amount of times.  Or all three for different game types.  Holy crap... that would be awesome.  

[duke_Qa]

I'd rather avoid anything that requires different sort of gravities and orbits to begin with, I guess some sort of physics-defying tracks like track-mania can be fun, but to begin with I'd go easy on them. I wonder if there are any good free tools in unity to draw hi-res textures onto mesh.

[DIGI_Byte]

i guess you mean as in roads? its Called EasyRoads 3D

it has a free version and pro, the limitation on free version is that your unable to go back and edit the track, however you can 'undo' to go back and manipulate it

i've looked over other road packages and its really the only one suitable for racing games, specially because its also the only one with a 'loop' option

and it can only taper the track in one direction, meaning bevel one side up for that unique bend on corners

Edited by DIGI_Byte, 27 January 2013 - 10:15 PM.

[Pasidon]

But is it possible to make an unconventional track with no boundaries or set paths so the entire level is the track?  Like a small planet that just contractually loops?  If we have the ability to make tracks like that, then we really should.  That's like a "silly side-project" turned into "actual genera breaking concept with potential" kind of decision.

 

I'm also imagining cool weapons on the carts that can blow down large sky scraping obstacles and creatures, but that may be a different story.

Edited by {IP}Pasidon, 27 January 2013 - 10:23 PM.

[duke_Qa]

Yeah that I think we can handle with 3d-modelling programs, I'm more about generic terrain and brushing over it with textures and whatnot, like any generic map-editor for an RTS. Its easier I think to have the texture integrated by a specific tool or system that does that than to save a huge texture for it.

[Nertea]

Agree with Duke for that.

 

For terrain with textures, Unity's Terrain feature is decent. It is lacking in some areas (I've played with it a bunch) and is way more cumbersome than implementation in RTSes I've played with, but it does work out of the box. Allows height painting, importing of heightmaps, texture painting, addition of detail meshes and generally everything you'd expect. It integrates well with the physics engine too, you can make a terrain, slap a CharacterController on a box and have it work very well.

 

http://docs.unity3d....l/Terrains.html

[duke_Qa]

Yeah I guess you could use the integrated terrain thingie, but I'd rather look around for something made by someone that got annoyed by its limitations.

[Pasidon]

We can always go for the 'cell shaded' style and just make everything from solid colors with geometrical details.  It would look really good, and be really easy to do.  But if we go for HD textures, I can make up generic 'foliage', 'rock', 'cement' or any other textures we'll be using.  If we can import textures, anyway...

[Mathijs]

I would have to say no to HD texturing, or HD artwork in general. It just takes so much more time and skill to get it to look decent and distinctive. We need to go for a stylized look. Which doesn't mean we won't need terrain textures. They should just be more abstract and painterly than HD. 

[Nertea]

Yeah I guess you could use the integrated terrain thingie, but I'd rather look around for something made by someone that got annoyed by its limitations.

 

Well, if you wanted to do the planet idea, it's certainly impossible with the Terrains. However, most other things should work well. At this stage I would say rapid prototyping and testing is more important that having a terrain at all even, get the car moving, jumping, figure out the gameplay, etc.

 

Where I screwed up with my current project was designing systems before gameplay, and ran into lots of issues making my implementation work with the actual game concepts we ended up using. It will save RR a lot of time if the gameplay is established before you start looking at ways to implement it.

 

The racing around small planets thing is the most interesting thing I see here. Unique at least, could be quite fun!

[duke_Qa]

Yeah I'm all for keeping tracks on a 2d+height plane for now. Getting the basic dynamics up will be the first hurdle. I can safely say this week won't see a lot of action from me, but I'll spend spare time getting some shared folders and arrangements up and running.

[DIGI_Byte]

its not so much that its limited, but its done in a way that feels limited, you can do a lot with the terrain, it just takes practice and a lot of patience as its more open to what you do then a world builder for an RTS

[Pasidon]

And unlike world builder, we don't have 1000 grass textures that all look terrible.

I would have to say no to HD texturing, or HD artwork in general. It just takes so much more time and skill to get it to look decent and distinctive. We need to go for a stylized look. Which doesn't mean we won't need terrain textures. They should just be more abstract and painterly than HD. 

I don't think we were going for realism in HD, just high resolution to look smoother.  Textures can be HD and still stylized. 

[duke_Qa]

Look at the Planetary annihilation for texture inspirations then, highlights and ambient occlusion shadows on big chunks of stuff. More than good enough for us.

[Gen.Kenobi]

Look at the Planetary annihilation for texture inspirations then, highlights and ambient occlusion shadows on big chunks of stuff. More than good enough for us.

 

Yep! My thought exactly. Damn, I missed that kickstart...

[Gen.Kenobi]

Inspirational video:

 

[duke_Qa]

 

Did a quick color painting of a desert-like terrain. Something of a start, no fancy mechanical structures or elements there right now.

Edited by duke_Qa, 29 January 2013 - 10:48 PM.

[duke_Qa]

Also did a quick neon-thingie just based upon the freeze-frame of that video. watched it afterwards, interesting style.

[Nertea]

That reminds me a lot of some of the Audiosurf levels actually

[duke_Qa]

 

Example of my silly epic space map theories. Big objects floating through space.