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Re: Proun

Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:05 pm
by MrD
Oogst wrote:Those who did: thanks for testing!
MrD wrote:That's real fun to play, the only complaint I have is that holding down forward all the time makes your hands ache, is it really necessary to make the player hold down forward all the time? I have yet to find a condition that would make me want to slow-down.

For now I hold the (online) high-score on track 1 easy: 3:34.048 :)
The game is designed so that all tracks can be played perfectly without ever letting go of the acceleration button on the Easy, Normal and Hard difficulties. However, on Impossible you will have to let go of it once in a while. I think the main issue here is that playing a racing game where you don't have to accelerate yourself would feel rather lame.
Fair point, I did try the game on Impossible (it really is) and I have to say that I don't get a very good perception of speed from the game. I mean, when I'm on impossible difficulty I know I am going a lot faster, but I can't really tell I am going a lot faster; in-fact I don't seem to be able to judge my speed at all.

Your point about a racing game where you don't have to accelerate feeling lame made me think of Wipeout HD. I don't know if you have played it, but there is a mode in that game called "Zone", and in Zone mode acceleration is automatic and increases in speed every zone (which is 10 seconds), the objective is to survive for as long as possible; I really enjoy zone mode, it's my favourite mode of all the original (pre-Fury) modes and I'm still trying to get my Zone Zeus trophy although the best I have ever reached to date is Zone 59 :(

I realise this is a different type of race to what you are aiming for since Zone is an endurance race, but it still proves that a racing game with automatic acceleration doesn't have to be lame. Links to a couple of videos of Zone mode are below:
WipEout HD - Zone 87 - Anulpha Pass forward (watch in HD ;))
WipEout HD - Zone Zeus

Re: Proun

Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:42 pm
by Oogst
Hmm, I could think about adding some game modes as well. On the other hand: I do want to actually finish this game at some point! :D

Anyway, so far 292 races have been raced in the beta so far. Can't someone beat me on the Hard or Impossible difficulty level on track 1?

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:10 pm
by Oogst
I'm currently doing the graphics of the second track and this time I started with the lighting and I am having a lot of fun with colours! :D I use two bright blue shadow-casting lights to act as the main light sources, while the sky emits a red light from all directions. That gives some pretty cool effects on these untextured models. Of course, the final look is going to get more colours and textures. These are shots from 3D Studio MAX, by the way, not in-game, but with depth of field blur this would actually look better in the game itself. :)

Image

Image

Image

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:43 pm
by Xavyiy
Wow, impressive lighting for your second track!
Looking forward to play it ;)

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:51 pm
by jacmoe
Wow - just wow. :)

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:48 pm
by xavier
Oogst wrote:These are shots from 3D Studio MAX, by the way, not in-game

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:18 pm
by Praetor
But surely this lighting will be baked. I don't see any reason for you to try to recreate it dynamically.

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:32 pm
by jacmoe
xavier wrote:
Oogst wrote:These are shots from 3D Studio MAX, by the way, not in-game
Oh - I must've missed that! :)

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:46 am
by Oogst
Indeed! :) Since I don't use speculars, the only difference between in-game lighting and these renders is that very sharp shadows will get slightly blurred because of the lightmap texture resolution. Ow, and these renders are on low quality (there is a lot of noise in the penumbras in these shots), so the shadows will look smoother in their final version in the game.

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 6:04 pm
by Praetor
Well it looks great. The lighting and shadows adds a sense of "presence" like the world is really tangible.

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:29 pm
by gmfreaky
I downloaded it, and it was really harder than I thought! :o but absolutely amazing! Btw I live in the Netherlands too.

I would like the possibility to make a 'quickturn' so you can immediately turn left+right (at higher speeds you turn faster)

Also I think it would be better if the ball would keep his circle shape all the time, but would glow and shake when going faster.

It would be nice if the collision with a wall wouldn't give you such a slowdown feeling, just a screen shaking and going half/1/4 of the speed, and not stand still immediately (you can eventually move through walls for one second) so less effect of collision

As final note a Tutorial mode and a Level creator would be good.


Great game, I really enjoy playing it.
Greetz,

Gmfreaky

Re: Proun

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 10:05 am
by Oogst
gmfreaky wrote:Also I think it would be better if the ball would keep his circle shape all the time, but would glow and shake when going faster.
The idea is that the ball is a piece of ugly noise if you don't go fast enough. So by accelerating, you become a shape that fits with the rest of the graphics and bring the composition into balance. So the ball intentionally doesn't look that cool when you go too slow. :)
gmfreaky wrote:It would be nice if the collision with a wall wouldn't give you such a slowdown feeling, just a screen shaking and going half/1/4 of the speed, and not stand still immediately (you can eventually move through walls for one second) so less effect of collision
For walls that you just skim past, you already get only a slight slowdown. However, most crashes are bumps straight into objects, I don't see how I could make that have less impact without allowing the player to go into objects. Going into objects would destroy the graphics, so that really isn't a possibility.
gmfreaky wrote:As final note a Tutorial mode and a Level creator would be good.
A tutorial? That's interesting: there is hardly anything to explain. The game already reacts to the arrow keys and the wasd-keys and the joystick stick (if plugged in), so what would there be to explain that people don't immediately get when they touch the keyboard?

The level creator is already included with the beta of the game. It is an exporter from 3D Studio MAX, plus a PDF with documentation on how to use it. It is the same tool I use for level design and graphics myself, so you can make anything you want that way. Only restriction is that you need to have and know 3dsmax, of course.

Re: Proun

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 11:34 am
by gmfreaky
Well, I still think that the penalty of colliding is too big, maybe some teleportation thing so you 'zap' through it at a lower speed (with some sound effects, going from high sound to low sound)

With tutorial I mean, each level has got some points which are hard and you need to get the hang of it. It would be nice if there would be a 'free mode' where you can repeat some hard parts (for example in track 1, the 'pillars' after the 'draaikolk' (in dutch :P)

I mean that when you go faster, you also turn faster.

Re: Proun

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:28 pm
by Oogst
Colours! Fun, so many possibilities, but also so incredibily difficult to do right... Are these two shots of the second track really cool, or really terrible? What do you folks think?

Image

Image

Re: Proun

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:32 pm
by gmfreaky
Great!

By the way, can you tell the diameter of the cable for 3ds max and the diameter of the ball? This way you can create accurate tracks in 3ds max.

It looks really good.

Re: Proun

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:53 pm
by Oogst
The radius of both the cable and the ball in the actual game are 0.4, and I think this works with 3dsmax units as well. I always do things relative to other things, long ago that I actually measured anything in 3dsmax for Proun. For reference, I can upload the 3dsmax2009 file for the first track, if you like?

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:47 am
by Pyritie
ooh, pretty~

Re: Proun

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 10:57 pm
by metaldev
man this game looks awesome. If someone told me to make a game like this look good i wouldn't know where to begin. I played it today and you have really done a fantastic job. It's really hard to make flat surfaces look good and you have some great lighting skills that have done the job.

For some reason, i can't help but feel that the 'vehicle' should be a running flea or insect.
Maybe its because i read this explanation of string theory using a flea as an example - i dunno lol.

anyway your project looks awesome and is playing pretty well which is a great sign - good luck oogst!

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:12 pm
by sinbad
Really nice. I think the warm, saturated colours work really well in this case, and a good contrast to the desaturated originals. Makes me wonder if some kind of 'colour filling' game mechanic might work with this, although I realise you've already done that idea with de Blob :) But I like it, no-one's really done it very much - there was WizBall, de Blob, Saboteur sort of does it, but really not much else.

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:14 pm
by jacmoe
It's beautiful! :)

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 5:40 pm
by spacegaier
The colours look quite good, however the balls have some kind of belt around them in the middle where it is slightly darker.I have currently some similar problem with the shaders for my planets where it also want the back side (facing away from the light source) to be a bit coloured as well, but the transition between the normal lightning calculation (for the side facing towards the light) and the back side isn't working for me yet either.

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:40 pm
by Pyritie
spacegaier wrote:however the balls have some kind of belt around them in the middle where it is slightly darker.
Um, that's how spheres look like in real life?

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:47 pm
by spacegaier
Pyritie wrote:
spacegaier wrote:however the balls have some kind of belt around them in the middle where it is slightly darker.
Um, that's how spheres look like in real life?
I highly question that. They are bright on the side facing towards the light source and getting darker and darker to their equator. But the back of the ball isn't supposed to become brighter again (if there is no light source behind the ball as well), is it?

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:52 pm
by Pyritie
spacegaier wrote:
Pyritie wrote:
spacegaier wrote:however the balls have some kind of belt around them in the middle where it is slightly darker.
Um, that's how spheres look like in real life?
I highly question that. They are bright on the side facing towards the light source and getting darker and darker to their equator. But the back of the ball isn't supposed to become brighter again (if there is no light source behind the ball as well), is it?
Pretty much any good tutorial/books/whatever on shading (the art kind of shading, not the hlsl or whatever kind) will teach you this way. Shading is almost never a simple light -> dark gradient.

Re: Proun

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2010 6:55 pm
by Oogst
Thanks for the positive reactions, folks!
metaldev wrote:man this game looks awesome. If someone told me to make a game like this look good i wouldn't know where to begin. I played it today and you have really done a fantastic job. It's really hard to make flat surfaces look good and you have some great lighting skills that have done the job.

For some reason, i can't help but feel that the 'vehicle' should be a running flea or insect.
Maybe its because i read this explanation of string theory using a flea as an example - i dunno lol.

anyway your project looks awesome and is playing pretty well which is a great sign - good luck oogst!
Thanks! :)

As for where to begin: I based the graphics of this for a large part around abstract paintings. The addition of 3D, depth, lighting and the positioning of gameplay objects makes it something different altogether, but still, I drew a lot of inspiration for this track from this painting:

Image

In the newest version of the game (on my computer), the ball actually rolls, that makes it look slightly more 'there'. An insect or flea would probably be pretty cool, but is not an option, since I want the game to remain entirely abstract. :)
sinbad wrote:Really nice. I think the warm, saturated colours work really well in this case, and a good contrast to the desaturated originals. Makes me wonder if some kind of 'colour filling' game mechanic might work with this, although I realise you've already done that idea with de Blob :) But I like it, no-one's really done it very much - there was WizBall, de Blob, Saboteur sort of does it, but really not much else.
Epic Mickey! :D

Never thought of that direction for this game, would be interesting. We also did a very similar thing at Ronimo with a cancelled game, so I think I have seen enough of such effects for the moment, though. :P
spacegaier wrote:The colours look quite good, however the balls have some kind of belt around them in the middle where it is slightly darker.I have currently some similar problem with the shaders for my planets where it also want the back side (facing away from the light source) to be a bit coloured as well, but the transition between the normal lightning calculation (for the side facing towards the light) and the back side isn't working for me yet either.
That's because there are two lights at opposite directions, so where they both don't shine, you get those belts. It is realistic, but not very pretty, so I might look into possibilities to smoothen the lighting a little further by adjusting the light settings in 3dsmax.