TRACKVERSE Alpha v0.1 @ Steam Greenlight! Come Vote! :D

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:19 pm

Racing thru an abandoned building block

Azgur · Post by **Azgur** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:28 pm

Alright, that's it.
I wants it!

Brainshack · Post by **Brainshack** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:10 pm

What technique is used to get this nice looking light reflections on the stone surfaces like in this broken bridge part with the metal pole in it?

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 3:06 am

Hey guys,

Azgur: Thanks for those kind words. greatly appreciated

Brianshack: I just applied a greyscale specular map onto them. For any reflected surfaces such as mirrors or windows in the game we would be using environment cube maps.

Speaking of environment, the ruined city itself will be covered a giant dome structure with some glass refractions (refraction effect not shown on this pic but will be included in the game).

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:27 pm

Just did some testing on applying parallax mapping on to the debris floor surface and also basic glow on a test model.

Without parallax mapping.

With parallax mapping.

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 5:28 am

Will be adding some glowy scrolling and flickering holographic images to the ruined buildings blocks for the level editor later.

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:16 am

Added some real time distortion effect on the hologram.

Couple of sample screenshots

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 2:54 pm

Wow yapdakilla you certainly are killing it with OGRE. This looks to be on the scale of Epic Games type graphics to me. And I love the video you posted, the racing gameplay looks pretty cool.

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:35 am

Hey Halifax,

Thanks for the compliment. I'm not sure if we're killing OGRE yet as it still has a lot to offer us nor do we think its like Epic Games graphics yet(thank you if you do feel that way).

We're just trying to make it look as decent as possible and presentable to make the gamers feel more immersed in the game (or rather as much as we can take developing it) considering its still a 1 programmer+1 artist team work. But we will keep trying! and polish it as much as we can.

tgraupmann · Post by **tgraupmann** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:00 am

Virion wrote:The low-poly version looks nice. Hmm, just curious, 9k wouldn't be a little too high-poly?

UT3 uses 7.5k polys for normal mapped player models. And that was last year's preview. I'm sure the base poly counts are going to start creeping up over time.

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:29 pm

Heres a vid update on the holographic textures real time.

[updated] video link moved btm

tgraupmann · Post by **tgraupmann** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:25 pm

What software did you use to capture the video?

Edman · Post by **Edman** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:08 pm

I'd say it looks better than Wipeout

Good job!

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:25 am

Yeah, that's cool. The holograms definitely make the city look more alive, and colorful. I like it; keep up the good work!

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:14 am

Just found out how to upload HD vids in vimeo.

tgraupmann: we used fraps to capture the vid and virtualdub to compress it.

and thanks Edman and Halifax

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:43 am

Nice once again. I would like to say though that I did notice some shadow artifacts during 0:37-0:42 in that last HD video you uploaded. It's nothing really bad, and I probably wouldn't notice if I was actually playing the game, but I figured that I would just make a note of it.

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:55 am

Yeah your right Halifax. PSSM shadow does have its drawbacks on larger objects. Still need to figure out a solution for this. But thanks for pointing it out. Will be uploading more vids in the future. Feel free to let us know of any issues so we can improve on it.

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:20 am

Heres a closeup on animated hologram texture.

xadhoom · Post by **xadhoom** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:55 am

First of all:

What a amazing game!

Really good work!

Did you know why you have the artifacts at the building in front of you around 00:40 ? Is this a shadow problem or an LOD problem (or both)?

I think the flickering of the holograms is a bit too often. Maybe you could
lower the frequency or disable this effect for particular holograms...

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:29 am

Hi xadhoom,

The shadow problem can be fixed by tweaking the shadow resolution size based on distance (we will include different shadow levels for gamers with lower end cards). Right now we're using 1024 for near up to 512 for far distances which is why you noticed the shadow artifacts appearing at certain distances.

The hologram flickering suggestion is a good one. Will be implementing those changes you suggested for some of the holograms.

Halifax · Post by **Halifax** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:20 pm

Yeah I agree with reducing the frequency of the hologram flickering. Just curious, but how did you achieve the flickering?

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:57 am

Hey Halifax,

The hologram flickering is basically manipulating the the texture's opacity by running it through a horizontal texture which looks pretty much like a bar code, white being opaque and black transparent.

The rate of flicker is then controlled by controlling the play back speed of this "bar code" texture example: 1 second to run through the entire bar code texture ..etc....

Jallen · Post by **Jallen** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:09 am

It looks awesome, however i would say that it looks like it should be a lot faster, also, you have problems where there are no faces on the back of that vehicle, i can see straight through it.

Gillian_Seed · Post by **Gillian_Seed** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:29 am

Hi,

your screenshots and videos are really impressive!

I always enjoy watching the media you post (the giant dome is very cool, and the overall architecture is very well modeled and textured).

Great job! Keep up the good work!

yapdakilla · Post by **yapdakilla** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:15 am

small update:

added some ambient occlusion mapping to the building models as they kinda lacked depth without soft shadows..