Yes it’s still very rough round the edges, I put this together in the demo version time of Unity to test what is possible - probably have to put it on hold now for a while as my demo is about to expire (but going to save up for the pro version then start this game for real from scratch).
I’m completely new to game development, but a quick learner, my experience in 3d/texturing/scripting, etc comes from SecondLife (Virtual World) and off the back of a cornflakes packet… but had a lot of fun putting this together.
Spent most of my time getting the car physics and weighting right.
With the exception of the last crash clip, this was all captured in real time in one take, I’m using trip-wires to trigger camera angle changes to give a more cinematic feel. There are quite a few soundfiles attached to the car, with different roll-off settings, creating some good engine sound effects as the car flies by…
I am liking it a lot (so far). Looks like you got the physics down very well. I really dig the current state. In my opinion the best “car/driving” thread I’ve seen so far on here…looks VERY promising!
Thanks Danny… I tried both both methods and settled for the raycast to keep the speeds up. The real wheels are invisible, and not exactly where you think they are, but shhhh. Surprisingly similar to vehicle physics in Second Life actually, but there everything is calculated server side so it’s all lagged. Unity is amazingly fast.
@ Crockett - aye, great minds. I’ve tested that out too and it works a treat, basically by storing the player-controlled car transform data to an array and later on, applying the coordinates and rotations to another vehicle (to create a ghost car). Upon car-to-car collision I send the force from the player to the ghost and switch to physics for a bit then attempt to interpolating back to the stored route (ie. the array data). It’s almost working, but I’m getting some weird sideways movement in the interpolation stage in some situations at the moment.
I love ghosting 'cause the gameplay becomes infinite, even if you manage to out run the ghost, next time you have to be better still - when I get me the full version of Unity I’ll defo be carrying on with this.
your physics look really good - maybe just a shade too touchy, which makes the car seem a bit light IMO. very well done though - i’m wanting to see more ; )
Madly in content-creation-mode at the moment. Some images showing progress. Need to sleep…
i. Mapping out the Road-Layout (in Flash):
ii. Building the 3d Road-Model (in Carrara):
iii. Importing the Road-Model to test it in Game (in Unity):
iv. Texturing Low-Poly Buildings (back to Carrara):
…the idea here is that these are modular so that different combinations can be constructed from instances of a few parts.
v. And of course, fine-tuning the car movement still:
@ drJones. Hmmm that’s odd and I don’t see the images above any more either, have added the URL links in the above post now tho. Thanks for the feedback.
and as if by magic the images are back after reposting… Don’t touch any thing!
IMO the car could use a little more poly love, particularly on the wheel wells and front end - but in general things look great so far. nice job on the road textures.
Thank you and yeah I agree with you RE: car poly love (ha nice term).
At the moment the car is moving really, really fast, smooth and realistically (for a game) - and I’m not sure of the limitation within Unity at the moment so I’m being cautious with the poly count / frame rate (eg.the buildings will probably remain as nicely UV mapped boxes)
I will add more detail later if all is cool when the buildings, lighting and padding are added to the scene - but the main objective at the moment is to keep it fast, and slick.
To be honest - I’m making it all up as I go along! Having never done this kind of work before (inc. any real 3d modeling). But I have a good idea of how I want the game-play to work.
‘1’ = Normal Follow Cam
‘2’ = In Car Cam
‘3’ = Heli-Cam.
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I’m now getting ready to add the main gameplay, but for the time being I’ve just added a few camera angle changes and a ghost-car in this one to interact with / chase.
Takes a little while to get used to the car-control, but it handles well once you do.
Try a bit of hand braking at speed round the corners… watch out if you do this at the top of an incline…
first impression: it does handle really good… the car goes where it’s directed, and it feels like it’s under positive conterol… not too much overdone physics reactions…
i also like the headlights and the way the lights illuminates the road and objects ahead…
Nice game man! It reminds me of playing Driver back in the playstation 1 days. I really like the “cinematic” camera angles you got in some areas, but they can confuse the driving a little too.
Now put in some ragdolls and make it a bit brighter, then we can start talking
ya, will make that an optional preference, only in the follow view, and not happen on silly corners.
going for a dawn/dusk feel here, but I have indeed noticed a distinct difference in the brightness across a couple of machines, it looks OK my end but was it really too dark for you? - guess this could easily be made a prefs option too.
Thanks for the comments guys, i’ve got a few neat ideas for the gameplay that I’m experimenting with - that will hopefully make this more than your standard race driving game… more to come soon.
I know what you mean about the car flipping at the top of an incline/ramp when at speed. I can make it cling to the ground easy enough but it’s a fine balancing act - the car needs to feel light enough to get some air in places and also give the feeling that taking a corner too hard at speed is going to cause you troubles (like it would in reality!). I kinda find it fun to try to find the sweet spot on the corner…
I’ve spent about a month on the physics and weighting so far to get it to this stage, but it’s not quite there yet -I’ll keep on fine-tuning, there must be a happy medium but it’s a difficult call.
Agreed. I’m using bouncy material there at the moment. It’s not quite right without it though - again it will probably be the middle man.
Game-mechanics will be in progress shortly (I’ve got a neat little idea if I can pull it off). But first, I need to do some tidying up and add a bit more scenery padding - I’m going to move to a more serious approach now, with ‘propa’ development notes to keep the project (and the car!) on track.
Thanks for the feedback dude - always appreciated.
