GOLF - Reef

m4dcow · Jan 2014

My concept is to have the course underwater and take place on a reef. I'm still putting my ideas together, but I'll have a bunch of corals, sea weed, shells, sea urchins etc... It should be pretty colourful, and I'm thinking of integrating at least 1 sort of sea creature to serve as an obstacle or tunnel.

LANKUS MAXIMUS · Jan 2014

Awesome idea. You should get a classic mine in there to serve as an avoidable object..

I look forward to seeing it develop! All the best.

m4dcow · Jan 2014

@Lankus Good call on the mine, I decided to use it as a hazard on my course, the thinking is if you hit it you go back to the start ideally it would trigger some sort of explosion effect but I don't know if I'll be able to pull it off.

I have this basic blockout of my course design for now

Next I'll start on a few tileable textures.

anglorum · Jan 2014

Nice layout, and it definitely has a ton of potential for fun and colorful textures. Can't wait to see how it develops further.

I think bright pinks, hot oranges, and deep blues and purples are going to bring this piece to the top of the competition if you pull it off right!

m4dcow · Jan 2014

Made a few simple textures and models, also figured out how to do gradient mapping in the engine.

Ewing · Jan 2014

Diggin' the layout! Not overly complicated but still feels like a proper mini golf hole. Excited to see that bomb all textured!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Kind of went back to the drawing board when it comes to the style of this scene. I decided to try doing a more stylized look with vertex colour gradients, I'll have to do some more experiments for the corals etc..

I also tried adding banking curves and stuff to my course, which I ended up scrapping because it didn't read well from the overhead camera, and ultimately were a bit glitch and annoying when I actually played the level.

m4dcow · Feb 2014

More vertex colour experiments

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

vibrant.. I like!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Another update, this is in engine.

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Here's my level in action and a bit more populated.
[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXjUuZYnL-k"]Polycount Mini-Golf Contest - Reef 14/02/06 - YouTube[/ame]

Vailias · Feb 2014

This is looking great! I dig how you've used vertex colors to great effect and staying away from your texture budget.

Grindy · Feb 2014

This is coming together quite nicely. From the video it looks fun too!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

So I wasted a bunch of time UVing a bunch of stuff for lightmapping (the reef and track), when I realized that the lightmaps didn't really turn out how I liked, so I ended up just manually cutting in some geometry to do a shadow under the overpass.

I also did a 1st pass of the mine with a blinking shader, added some starfish, did a little rim lighting on the ball, made a skybox (cylinder with vert colors) and I made a procedural checker pattern for the green, so I haven't used a single texture map yet.

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zmy7-G6ONI"]reef 140209 - YouTube[/ame]

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

looking very cool love the bright colors!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

So with the extra week I have decided to implement a transport, and have idle animations for a few things in the level.

I also decided to add a few sunken ship related elements so I can have wreckage in the background on the ocean floor, along with a few non natural elements to scatter around the reef.

Here is a test pass at a rusted out cannon.

I'll probably have an anchor, and a few bits of wood also since colour-wise they could be simple and I'm sticking with the vertex colour thing, while for the background stuff I could do nice silhouettes of masts with ripped sails and hull ribbing or something.

Sharvo · Feb 2014

Looking real good, love the colours. Always good to have a cannon or something similar and your background ideas sound great as well, keep on swimming!

Can i ask how you got the vertex colours to show up in engine? I want to multiply my vertex with a diffuse map. Did you create your own shader for this?

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Sharvo wrote: »

Looking real good, love the colours. Always good to have a cannon or something similar and your background ideas sound great as well, keep on swimming!

Can i ask how you got the vertex colours to show up in engine? I want to multiply my vertex with a diffuse map. Did you create your own shader for this?

Thanks. For the vertex colours to show up I used the visual shader editor, there is a vertex colour node you can use in there.

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Small update:

m4dcow · Feb 2014

I added bloom and fog to the scene to try to give it a dreamy underwater feel, setup my transport and a few props.

I'm going to try to get some ambient movement with at least the seaweed, maybe a few other elements to round out the scene in the coming week.

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPL6-D5XvN8"]reef 140216 - YouTube[/ame]

m4dcow · Feb 2014

I got the seaweed animations working, nothing special but the ambient sway adds to the atmosphere.

I'm trying to think of other things to add, I'll probably add some treasure or something along those lines to the end of the hole, and maybe some fish. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrtJxGGmrdI"]reef 140217 - YouTube[/ame]

Sharvo · Feb 2014

Yeah fish would be a great shout or an octopus not sure what your poly limit is like? I suggested this in another persons entry but maybe some bubbles? Or light rays depending on how deep we are in the ocean?

anglorum · Feb 2014

Yeah, so this is definitely getting into the top five for sure. It's shaped up so nicely, and I love how much those subtle animations add. Only thing I REALLY want to see is the ball getting shot out of that cannon, but that's really the only thing I can think to add. Great stuff dude!

Tobbo · Feb 2014

Looking really cool. You nailed the underwater feel. Really digging the colors too!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Thanks guys.

@Sharvo I'm at about 24000 tris (but a few things are set to double sided and I don't know if the engine counter is calculating those properly overall). An octopus is a great idea, I might just try to pull that off. I also thought about doing bubble particle effects, but I'm still trying to stick to this arbitrary no textures thing, while I could make procedural circles for bubbles, I don't think that would be great for mobile performance. I'll play around with light rays too and see if I can't integrate those nicely.

@anglorum Yeah I wish there was some sort of delay parameter on the transports so the camera could catch up with where the ball was.

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

m4dcow wrote: »

Thanks guys.

@Sharvo I'm at about 24000 tris (but a few things are set to double sided and I don't know if the engine counter is calculating those properly overall). An octopus is a great idea, I might just try to pull that off. I also thought about doing bubble particle effects, but I'm still trying to stick to this arbitrary no textures thing, while I could make procedural circles for bubbles, I don't think that would be great for mobile performance. I'll play around with light rays too and see if I can't integrate those nicely.

@anglorum Yeah I wish there was some sort of delay parameter on the transports so the camera could catch up with where the ball was.

You can play with the camera movement speed in the camera component.

-Ryan

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Mangled Poly wrote: »

You can play with the camera movement speed in the camera component.

-Ryan

Thanks Ryan, it works but makes the playthrough feel of my level too jumpy, I might just compromise with a combination of figuring out how to spawn a long particle that would still be visible on screen and quicker camera.

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

m4dcow wrote: »

Thanks Ryan, it works but makes the playthrough feel of my level too jumpy, I might just compromise with a combination of figuring out how to spawn a long particle that would still be visible on screen and quicker camera.

Wrote a script for you which adds the time to transport. So overwrite the transports script with this code then you will notice in the exposed components property there is a transport time field. Put in the value you want (in seconds). Do not edit the lua file just that field in the components tab.

function OnExpose(self)
    self.transport = ""
    self.transportDirX = 0
    self.transportDirY = 1
    self.transportDirZ = 0
    self.transportMultiplier = 1
    self.transportTime = 0
end
 
function OnAfterSceneLoaded(self)
    self.ballEntity = Game:GetEntity("ball")
 
    if self.ballEntity ~= nil then
        self.ballPhysics = self.ballEntity:GetComponentOfType("vHavokRigidBody")
    end
    
    self.transportStart = false
    self.transportCounter = 0
    self.transportEntity = Game:GetEntity(self.transport)
end
 
function OnThink(self)
    if self.transportStart == true then
        local dti = Timer:GetTimeDiff()
        self.transportCounter = self.transportCounter - dti
        self.ballPhysics:SetPosition(self.transportEntity:GetPosition())
        if self.transportCounter < 0 then
            self.transportStart = false
            self.ballEntity:SetVisible(true)
            self.ballPhysics:SetLinearVelocity(self.forceApply)    
        end
    end    
end
 
function OnObjectEnter(self, object)
    if object == self.ballEntity and
       self.ballPhysics ~= nil and
       self.transportEntity ~= nil then
            self.transportCounter = self.transportTime
            self.transportStart = true
            
            self.trigHitVelocityLength = self.ballPhysics:GetLinearVelocity():getLength()
 
            self.forceApply = Vision.hkvVec3(self.transportDirX,
                                          self.transportDirY,
                                          self.transportDirZ)
            self.forceApply:setLength(self.trigHitVelocityLength * self.transportMultiplier)
            
            --self.ballPhysics:SetActive(false)
            self.ballPhysics:SetLinearVelocity(Vision.hkvVec3(0,0,0))
            self.ballPhysics:SetAngularVelocity(Vision.hkvVec3(0,0,0))
            self.ballEntity:SetVisible(false)
    end
end

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Mangled Poly wrote: »

Wrote a script for you which adds the time to transport. So overwrite the transports script with this code then you will notice in the exposed components property there is a transport time field. Put in the value you want (in seconds). Do not edit the lua file just that field in the components tab.

Wow! Thanks a lot Ryan, the script works great, I thought you might do something awesome like this

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

No worries man rock the rest of it out!

RianShelton · Feb 2014

I like this hole in the beginning but wasn't sure what direction it was going to go, the things you've added have only enhanced the underwater feel, kudos

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Thanks, I wasn't sure what direction it was going to go initially either :P

Got a few test fish swimming around now.
[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hevz6y2aRQc"]reef 140219 - YouTube[/ame]

Ewing · Feb 2014

oh my god this looks fantastic!

It is so clean and just gets better and better.

The fish are truly spectacular.

Shiv · Feb 2014

Those fish man, really really cool

Awesome stuff!

AzzaMat · Feb 2014

I love the sunk ship in the background, a definite favourite!

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

really nice work m4d!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

Thanks again guys.
Modeled, rigged and placed my octopus, not too sure about the colour, but I'm going to get some animation done tonight.

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

he needs the cute suctioning thingies!

ufo.mesh · Feb 2014

What a cute! (=

m4dcow · Feb 2014

@Ryan I'll see what my geometry budget looks like after I finish a few other things.

I got the octopus animation working. I'm no animator, so its a combination of flailing around/conducting an orchestra. I also placed some collision geometry on him, so when you shoot out of the cannon too hard you can bounce off of the octopus.

All I have left to do is a particle effect for the cannon shot and a few small modeling tasks.

[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MZY0eSkgA0"]reef 140220 - YouTube[/ame]

I'm really grateful for the extra week though, because the level I was intending to turn in at the time the extension was announced would have had no transports, fish, octopus, cannon, animation etc...

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

its really coming together!

ufo.mesh · Feb 2014

Love these fishes crossing the screen!

m4dcow · Feb 2014

I posted my final images and video.

Ended up doing a simple particle effect for the cannon and added some treasure scattered around the place.

Would have liked to do a better particle, have an alternate fish animation and a bunch of other stuff but I figured I would call it done now (thought I had killed the fish at one point too).

The video is a bit, long, but I got carried away with trick shots and managed to get a hole in one.

The whole scene, when I counted up the meshes comes to 26,071 tris including the double sided stuff and the ball that came with the sample hole (though the editor polycount does display at around 30k, and I know it doesn't count double sided geometry properly)

Beauty Shots

Video
[ame="

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SHUJxDyOyQ"]The Reef - YouTube[/ame]

Technical

Mangled Poly · Feb 2014

stunning work! that hole in one is quite the trick shot

Sharvo · Feb 2014

Fantastic work and great use if the vertex colour it's beautifully done and the sense of depth is great!

Ivalice · Feb 2014

Just wanted to pop in here and say this is one of my favorite submissions. I love the colors and concept.

ufo.mesh · Feb 2014

Yeah! Absolutely agree with Ivalice. Simple but very cool. Fantastic colors! Man, you rock!

bcarter · Feb 2014

This one really turned out great, all the colors work really well together and you definitely get the feeling of being underwater. Very nice!

m4dcow · Apr 2014

Woohoo, got my trophy today!

JustinSA · May 2014

This is looking fantastic and amazing! Great concept to not use any textures. How about adding a crab.

GOLF - Reef

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