Here is some more progress on dressing up the space jump obstacle map - I added most of the space dressings and put some signs directing you in many parts.
We wont need to accept any custom content, the system will be designed to support 3rd party assets. They will be transferred automatically to everyone if they have that option checked.
It already supports local custom content in that you can drop in your own models, we just haven't gotten around to performing checks on those models and sending them over the network yet.
We are going to have another round of closed beta tests sometime in the next few months, and then that will be followed hopefully by an open beta - but by this summer we will be out of cash (unless money falls out of the sky or something else happens) so we will be pretty much forced to release what we have then.
finally got some spare time for my car models, unfortunately I wont export them for the engine simply because I dont have the time for it. I was reading up your wiki and forum which already cost me to much time digging up all the important information and then it often referred to xtra stuff I had to install and play with (garage, steam, game, DDS compressor,...) that it to much time consuming for me atm.
But I will release the models and textures so if you marshmonkey want to embed some of them in your game feel free to use the models and textures for your game.
The model I propably havent shown before is a dodge viper (thouh it does not look like it yet that much)
and the whole garage so far:
hopefully they will be all finished by this weekend
Really long time with no post, my sincerest apologies! I know everyone is just waiting for the game to come out, but we still have road ahead of us to get to that point. Instead, I will tease you with more media! HaHa!
This is a new level I have been working on for the last few weeks - it's inspired by the old "rats" style maps for various FPS games where the environment is giant and all the players appear to be very tiny. You can see that this one takes place in a game room.
I know a lot of people are going to ask when the next beta is going to be open, all I can say is a very nebulous "soon".
also, we have re-done our blog since I last posted here, you should check out our new site: http://NimbleBit.com
We haven't decided yet, the next beta will be mostly to prove some new networking tech we have been working on so it might be bad to open the beta up before we know how well it will scale.
I got some good feedback that the lack of shadows was more jarring on this map because of the large scale - I spent yesterday rendering out some lightmaps for the floor and bar surface in order to give all the objects sitting around some added realism. Here is a before and after shot.
I could easily add this to other places in other maps - but it becomes more expensive the more textures it spans across. For this situation it added about 5 new batches to rendering the scene - I had to create duplicate texture id's for those faces I wanted to apply the shadow texture to. I think also having the map be such a large scale helps in this case because I can make the 2 texture maps I used only 512x512 and you don't really notice there are no sharp high rez definitions because the objects are so large. Also, I am just using AO as a lightmap, not any real lightsources - which I think helps the scene not look weird having both lightmaps and vertex lighting - no jarring differences in shadow complexity.
I am starting to like the idea of using this method in certain places where it makes sense in other maps though - it is a lot cheaper to just do it on some big surfaces where it will be noticeable than trying to set-up light mapping every surface of every polygon.
Hey marshmonkey, I spent a lunch hour or two on this car a while back, but I'm never going to get around to finishing it. Do you want the Max and PSD files?
hah! thats fricken awesome. You can send it to me if you want, or you can post in here when the game is released or closer to release and most people here have a build. I am sure there will be people willing to get it hooked up in game.
Really really cool marsh, your workflow is so streamlined as well, I really like that.
I had a quick question (don't know if this has been answered already, so I apologize) I was just wondering how you setup your textures / materials so that when in game, you can change the colour... do you mask each colour off into its own section, then the engine reads that? Is it based on storing information in the RGB channels? Seems like a very awesome / quick way to get a lot out of 1 model, would like to know how you go about doing that.
Great work
Oh, and one another very dumb question. I couldn't help notice when you were in Photoshop, you did a selection of part of the texture, and you created a gradient based on the selection, I don't think I've used that tool before, could you tell me what you used?
I edited that part of the pipeline out in order to showcase the more interesting parts, but basically we create a .TGA "colormask" for every item. It can define up to 4 different color masks for the game shader to apply color to (one mask in each .TGA channel)
So basically all those blocked out color regions I was using while texturing I remove at that step, so the texture is basically grayscale for all the parts that will have color swapping on it. And then I use those colored regions to generate the colormask TGA. I set the default colors of the item to match my test texture, so it looks like it goes right into the game using that texture.
I am not sure about the creating a gradient based on a selection, maybe if you pointed out the time code in the video I could tell you better what is going on.
Wow, I'm in love with that shoe-kart. Really awesome stuff man, and awesome video as well. Haven't checked the whole thread but how long would you say you normally spend on one of these?
haha, I was actually thinking way earlier before Plants vs Zombies even came out of doing a road cone hat - that would have been quite the co-incidence!
I have been working on some new custom items, and I decided to see what it would look like to string together all the items we have in the game at the moment into one image for fun:
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keep it up, I always enjoy looking at the progress you guys make
and btw. still want to see Renderhjs finish his Batmobile
btw are you still accepting new user created content? (excuse my ignorance if it has already been posted elsewhere)
It already supports local custom content in that you can drop in your own models, we just haven't gotten around to performing checks on those models and sending them over the network yet.
We are going to have another round of closed beta tests sometime in the next few months, and then that will be followed hopefully by an open beta - but by this summer we will be out of cash (unless money falls out of the sky or something else happens) so we will be pretty much forced to release what we have then.
release it already !
edit : shouldnt this be a sticky ?
But I will release the models and textures so if you marshmonkey want to embed some of them in your game feel free to use the models and textures for your game.
The model I propably havent shown before is a dodge viper (thouh it does not look like it yet that much)
and the whole garage so far:
hopefully they will be all finished by this weekend
http://www.playrag.com/article/kart_racing_game_from_indie_developer
This is a new level I have been working on for the last few weeks - it's inspired by the old "rats" style maps for various FPS games where the environment is giant and all the players appear to be very tiny. You can see that this one takes place in a game room.
I know a lot of people are going to ask when the next beta is going to be open, all I can say is a very nebulous "soon".
also, we have re-done our blog since I last posted here, you should check out our new site: http://NimbleBit.com
*click to supersize*
http://store.steampowered.com/app/26700/
The shadow really help ground the objects. The lightmaps you've done are subtle as well. Are you considering doing the same for other maps?
Any plans for a small outdoor facade? Maybe a tree w/ a tire swing
Looking good!
I am starting to like the idea of using this method in certain places where it makes sense in other maps though - it is a lot cheaper to just do it on some big surfaces where it will be noticeable than trying to set-up light mapping every surface of every polygon.
*edit*
wrote a little blog post about out art style:
http://www.nimblebit.com/2009/04/the-art-style-of-zero-gear/
It's the Grouper Couper
my email is marshmonkey at gmail dot com
http://www.nimblebit.com/2009/05/weapon-dynamics-in-zero-gear/
also I am just about set up and ready to start modeling a new kart - I am going to try to record the entire process this time.
I had a quick question (don't know if this has been answered already, so I apologize) I was just wondering how you setup your textures / materials so that when in game, you can change the colour... do you mask each colour off into its own section, then the engine reads that? Is it based on storing information in the RGB channels? Seems like a very awesome / quick way to get a lot out of 1 model, would like to know how you go about doing that.
Great work
Oh, and one another very dumb question. I couldn't help notice when you were in Photoshop, you did a selection of part of the texture, and you created a gradient based on the selection, I don't think I've used that tool before, could you tell me what you used?
So basically all those blocked out color regions I was using while texturing I remove at that step, so the texture is basically grayscale for all the parts that will have color swapping on it. And then I use those colored regions to generate the colormask TGA. I set the default colors of the item to match my test texture, so it looks like it goes right into the game using that texture.
I am not sure about the creating a gradient based on a selection, maybe if you pointed out the time code in the video I could tell you better what is going on.
15 minutes - 1 day per hat/accessory/wheel
2 - 4 days per kart
1-2 weeks per environment
That is assuming anywhere from 4-8 hours of work per day, I usually always have some other non-art tasks to be working on as well.
just looking at it all is actually very refreshing.
- Rick.