we had our lan party playtest last night, it went really well!
Brian has been working a ton of hours getting the networking portion of our game far along enough to have our first Zero Gear play test, which we hosted at a LAN party this weekend. It seemed to be a great success and everyone seemed to have a great time driving around their characters even if we didn't have any real race rules in place yet. I was able to grab a lot of footage and I pieced together a little video, click the image below:
Here are a few action photos of the Zero Gear party in progress, it was great to see people having fun!
Looking great. Looks like you've really got a handle on doing cute stuff now. That robot has officially been claimed as my character when I get to play this.
I'm not sure if you want to commit so soon . . . I have inspired by a suggestion on a different forum that I try to do a lobster. I can see his cute little claws grasping the wheel already.
Well if your going to make a lobster you should make a panda as well. With the panda you get all types of bears. Mainly i think it would be great to see a panda driving with a viking hat and a monocle.
hey man i still think you should make it cell shaded at least the characters since the white fresnel makes them sort of "blend in" with the enviro and makes it confusing. Really great job and dedication here !!
About the cell shader, it might look even nicer with a clamped lighting effect you described, controlled by a 1-D texture. Put a (subtle) touch of blue/purple in the shadowed areas, and a bit of red into the midtones for a more toony effect. The transition looks better blended a little too, rather than a harsh two or three step cell shader effect. Sorry to refer to TF2 yet again, but that's what they have and it looks rather nice. Also gives you a lot more control over contrast, since you can just play around with the ramp texture. My avatar is using that effect, although it's probably too small to see clearly. It really does make a difference though.
I know exactly what you are talking about cheese, I thin it would be fun to play with an effect exactly like that. Something that would be easy to turn on or off depending on your graphical settings too.
as far as Wiiware, I very much doubt that nintendo wants to put anything on the wii that even remotely resembles mario kart.
so I have been really busy lately moving to a new place and dealing with all that fun stuff, but I recently started working on the "garage" environment, which will be a little room that your kart sits in where you can customize your looks, your kart tuning, etc. Hopefully we will end up supporting custom garages too so people can download new garage environments.
Here is the lift that you and your kart will be sitting ontop of:
here is the texture:
and here is a toolbox prop that will be sitting close by, I still need to texture it.
here are the UV's (spent like 4 hours on these!)
these are nice and friendly, cool stuff..
i wonder what theyd look like if you put on a ffd and just gave them a bit of a cartoony angle, like wider at the top.. might be nice if it was subtle
Have only just discovered this thread! Have just been catching up - really love the style and concept of this game - can't wait to play it - has all the best elements of games like micro-machines/mashed/mario-kart - am especially eager to see the physics in action first hand.
The last video with the cars flying through the air in a big arc looks hilarious.
another small prop I just finished, and a very WIP shot of what the garage layout might look like with everything thrown in there.
There is still 3 or 4 more props I need to make, since the camera will be close in on the kart they will be close so I want them to look nice. Once I finish the props I will texture and do some simple details to the background of the garage and then light the whole thing. I am thinking it would be cool to have the garage door in the background rolled up and be able to see outside through that and the windows, would be a good light source too.
Nice work so far, Marshmonkey. I can't wait to try this out.
I'm a big mariokart fan, but the thing I missed in MK were believeable physics when you bump into each other. In your game, the physics seem to be much more convincing and exciting.
The characters, especially the human characters, look a bit bland. There's little to no contrast in the face, and the nose would be better if it was actual 3D imho.
Will the customization of the cart affect the driving? Like will there be upgrades you can earn to improve speed, etc?
Nice work so far, Marshmonkey. I can't wait to try this out.
I'm a big mariokart fan, but the thing I missed in MK were believeable physics when you bump into each other. In your game, the physics seem to be much more convincing and exciting.
The characters, especially the human characters, look a bit bland. There's little to no contrast in the face, and the nose would be better if it was actual 3D imho.
Will the customization of the cart affect the driving? Like will there be upgrades you can earn to improve speed, etc?
Any idea when a playable demo will be available?
The physics will be a big part of the game dynamic
Characters are my weakest point right now, I do not have a lot of experience with them, so I am learning as I go along with everything else. I hope each revision I do will yield improvement, and I hope to have a decent amount to choose from once all is said and done. Also, the format for the characters will hopefully be open for artists better than myself to create custom ones along with other things like karts and tracks and accessories.
Right now my gut feeling is to not have customization effect the actual gameplay, so that people can be comfortable choosing whatever they like best aesthetically without having to pick and choose the best for gameplay reasons, and also so that supporting community created things is not a gameplay balancing nightmare. We do plan on having the ability to tune your vehicle and distribute points among the customary attributes like weight, handling, drift, etc. which will be factors that affect gameplay.
Looking like lots of fun I can't wait to play it! Only thing I would like to see is some nice AO under the objects on the ground. Other than that, top knotch!
yea that would add a lot. When I go to vertex light it I will have to heavily subdivide that area, or probably it would make more sense to bake some AO into a texture itself once the placement of everything is settled.
ok, I finally finished up most of the garage and got it into the engine - here is a screen shot. It's all a fully modeled little environment so that there is something to look at in all directions as you will be able to freely rotate and zoom in around your kart & character.
The only crit I'd have is that the white fresnel on the bottoms of the tires on the images on the 3rd page really seem to disconnect the cars from the ground for me.
Otherwise awesome style and character. Great work and good luck.
Replies
we had our lan party playtest last night, it went really well!
Brian has been working a ton of hours getting the networking portion of our game far along enough to have our first Zero Gear play test, which we hosted at a LAN party this weekend. It seemed to be a great success and everyone seemed to have a great time driving around their characters even if we didn't have any real race rules in place yet. I was able to grab a lot of footage and I pieced together a little video, click the image below:
Here are a few action photos of the Zero Gear party in progress, it was great to see people having fun!
dont know if this has been asked but what engine are you using?
Bullet for physics: http://www.bulletphysics.com/Bullet/
along with many other libraries which I can't remember off the top of my head
-caseyjones
thats looking incredibely fun to play! Any chance to have an online server up?
[/ QUOTE ]
we aren't quite at that stage yet, maybe in a few months!
btw, I am a great admirer of your work - I have spent lots of time exploring your portfolio in the past, crystal stuff!
Looks like fun... You in any of those images?
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nope, I am the one taking them. My parter Brian who is the programmer is in the background of the last shot though.
also, I have done a couple of wallpaper renders for a few of the characters we have so far:
4:3 resoultions:
1024x768,1280x800,1600x1200
widescreen:
1280x800,1440x900,1680x1050,1920x1200,2560x1600
4:3 resoultions:
1024x768,1280x800,1600x1200
widescreen:
1280x800,1440x900,1680x1050,1920x1200,2560x1600
4:3 resoultions:
1024x768,1280x800,1600x1200
widescreen:
1280x800,1440x900,1680x1050,1920x1200,2560x1600
good editing on the video
you can visit it here: http://myzerogear.com
as far as Wiiware, I very much doubt that nintendo wants to put anything on the wii that even remotely resembles mario kart.
Here is the lift that you and your kart will be sitting ontop of:
here is the texture:
and here is a toolbox prop that will be sitting close by, I still need to texture it.
here are the UV's (spent like 4 hours on these!)
i wonder what theyd look like if you put on a ffd and just gave them a bit of a cartoony angle, like wider at the top.. might be nice if it was subtle
The last video with the cars flying through the air in a big arc looks hilarious.
There is still 3 or 4 more props I need to make, since the camera will be close in on the kart they will be close so I want them to look nice. Once I finish the props I will texture and do some simple details to the background of the garage and then light the whole thing. I am thinking it would be cool to have the garage door in the background rolled up and be able to see outside through that and the windows, would be a good light source too.
I'm a big mariokart fan, but the thing I missed in MK were believeable physics when you bump into each other. In your game, the physics seem to be much more convincing and exciting.
The characters, especially the human characters, look a bit bland. There's little to no contrast in the face, and the nose would be better if it was actual 3D imho.
Will the customization of the cart affect the driving? Like will there be upgrades you can earn to improve speed, etc?
Any idea when a playable demo will be available?
The physics will be a big part of the game dynamic
Characters are my weakest point right now, I do not have a lot of experience with them, so I am learning as I go along with everything else. I hope each revision I do will yield improvement, and I hope to have a decent amount to choose from once all is said and done. Also, the format for the characters will hopefully be open for artists better than myself to create custom ones along with other things like karts and tracks and accessories.
Right now my gut feeling is to not have customization effect the actual gameplay, so that people can be comfortable choosing whatever they like best aesthetically without having to pick and choose the best for gameplay reasons, and also so that supporting community created things is not a gameplay balancing nightmare. We do plan on having the ability to tune your vehicle and distribute points among the customary attributes like weight, handling, drift, etc. which will be factors that affect gameplay.
really cool man. although it lacks calendars of naked chicks. lol
Otherwise awesome style and character. Great work and good luck.