Character and Car

I realized I haven't posted my character and car that I'll be doing all semester. So for anyone that is interested  here they are.

My car is a 1973 AMC Gremlin X. I want to make it dirty and covered in stickers to match my character.

My character is a greasy, scumbag metalhead. Here's my turnaround and inspiration, Fenriz from Darkthrone.

Concept Painting

This is my concept painting for my race track.  My theme is a near future destroyed Tokyo. The race is the Old Tokyo Circuit. After being destroyed by natural disasters, the ruins of Tokyo were converted into the infamous, gritty old Tokyo Circuit, drawing thrill-seeking competitors and audiences from around the globe.

The painting illustrates a building collapse event I am going to incorporate into my track. There are a lot of things not working that well in this painting. The general consensus was it was hard to tell what was going on. There's a car jumping in the background, escaping the building collapse. And I tried to do a motion blur thing on the car in the foreground but it turned out pretty wonky. It was also hard to tell what the big black space is in the middle. It's supposed to be a big crack in the road, like you would see in a severe earthquake. I am pretty content with the lighting and the detail in the building.

Dirt 3 Analysis

I played some Dirt 3 to get some more experience with racing games. Dirt 3 is a rally car racing game. I didn't really like it, I think because I wasn't very good at it. Going into the game I was thinking I would be drifting around corners like mad but if you want to win it's all about braking way before each turn, at least at my skill level. The game did have some cool things going for it though. There are a huge amount of cars, tracks, and race types to choose from. There is also tons of different surfaces you can race on (snow, asphalt, dirt, rain, mud, etc.), each affecting the car differently. I started to get the hang of controlling the car, but at the beginning it was extremely easy to lose control of your car.

Another thing I did like about the game was the particles other cars would kick up.

This is at the very start of a race but the cars are pretty clumped up and kicking up a lot of snowy particles, making it harder to see. I really like this mechanic because it isn't something that is triggered by someone, or something unexpected. You know the car in front of you is going to create this plume of snow, but it is still dynamic and an added challenge.

Another thing I liked, which you get a lot of in the Rally Cross game discipline, is the change in surfaces.

This is something that I have wanted to incorporate into my game from the beginning. It is just a wet spot in the middle of the track that changes the way your car acts. In this instance the wet spot is coming out of a medium turn leading into a hairpin turn, where positioning is crucial. I think little obstacles placed around a track strategically like this can add a lot to a track. In these Rally Cross races you also go from dirt to asphalt which is really cool. These transitions seemed to be on medium turns which makes it really fun. You are turning a certain way on asphalt and while you're turning the surface transitions to dirt, forcing you to change the way you are turning. It takes a normal turn and makes it EXTREME!

I mainly focused on track design in the short time I played this game. And it seemed most of the tracks I played followed a similar structure. Straight start to gain speed > Medium turn > Hard turn > A series of easy/ Medium turns for a majority of the track > hard turn > start/finish line. So they throw some hard stuff at you right away, ease it up for a good part of the track, then give you some more hard stuff at the end. Seems like a pretty good flow throughout, if I can keep control of my stupid car...

Concept Painting and Callout First Pass

These are some quick sketches to try and get an idea for a concept painting incorporating my stunt and level theme for this semesters racing game.

 I chose 3 sketches and did some quick lighting studies.

And here is the first pass of my callout sheet.

Racing Game Pre Pro - Stunts and Paper Map

Thinking more about one of my stunts I came up with something like this:

The floating diamond would be a trigger, that when activated does this:

So, you hit this jump and these poles/ spikes/ whatever come flying out of the ground on either side of this big barrier in the middle. Anyone underneath would be launched, and anyone behind would slam into them. I think that once the poles fly up they will recede back into the ground.  This trigger has to be really risky to hit, but if you do you get a good lead. To make it harder to hit the ramp leading up to it would have tobe narrow and you'd have to be going really fast to make it over the big barrier. If you didn't hit the jump just right you wouldn't make it over the barrier and hit the trigger. I was also thinking of having that ramp at an angle on the opposite side of the track coming out of a turn. That would make it harder to reach as you would be turning or dodging stuff as you try to hit the ramp.

I thought of another obstacle/stunt that I would really like to implement. 

In part of my level I want to have this tunnel that is like a half pipe, where you can ride the walls a little bit. I was thinking through this tunnel there could be these huge industrial fans that moved fairly slowly, or maybe at different speeds, or the speeds vary throughout the race. OR you can hit a switch and make a fan go crazy and speed up. Anyway it would basically be the windmill at a putt putt golf course. And raised up on either side of the tunnel are super narrow platforms that you can drive on and avoid all of this if you are good enough to get on top of them.

Here's a 1st pass paper map of a top down of my track. Drawing this I was thinking more about the actual width of the track than the length, so it's not drawn completely to scale. 

Throughout the track I want to have different little ramps and routes you can take, nothing severe, just some changes in elevation on one side of the road or something like that. The shortcuts are more like alternate routes, than shortcuts. The level has more gradual turns to make it a faster race. The track is fairly narrow for the most part but opens up in some places. One thing I think I could add is a straight away portion. For most of this track you are turning, and in a lot of games I notice there is at least a small section that is just straight to make you feel like you are going faster, or to gain speed for something epic. Oh, that raised part of the track, furthest to the right would be a platform type thing that has no guard rails but if you can get up there and stay up there it's faster than taking the bottom two routes.

Racing Game Pre Pro - Theme

Here I'm just going to narrow in on some ideas for my racing level.

Theme: The year is 2037 and the race is the infamous Old Tokyo Run. Tokyo was struck by a natural disaster so bad everyone left and built New Tokyo. To not let Old Tokyo go to complete waste, a race track was built in part of the destroyed area. People come from all over to watch the few brave souls participate in this brutal race.

The idea is this race track is dangerous enough by itself with the cities decay, but a few things have been added to the track, like traps and switches, that makes the race even more brutal. The race that takes place would be something like a spectacle or sport (i.e. The Running Man, Death Race).

My character is this greasy metalhead whose insatiable craving for carnage and destruction draws him to this race. His car may not look nice, but it's been around for ages and he has done what's needed under the hood to make it race worthy.

The track would be in a modern (2012) city, like Tokyo but destroyed, with some near future attributes. Neon lights, holograms, structural details in traps and switches, etc. Sort of a mix between this:

And this:

Not as extreme is either case. I want this to be set at night with a color scheme similar to the top image. Something like:

We also need to come up with a concept statement/ tagline for our game.
Anyone can handle speed.
Can you handle carnage?

Racing Game Pre Pro - Stunt Brainstorm

I came up with a few stunt ideas that I would like to incorporate somehow in my track.

I like the idea of narrow tracks a lot. It adds so much chaos. So this idea is a narrow alleyway or something, and on either side there are jumps with flat platforms extending past the jump. The diamonds would be where triggers are placed. Actually, only one trigger that alternates back and forth between the two jumps. If someone jumps and successfully hits the trigger some alleyway junk or something would fall, slowing down the players behind. I also wanted to add some kind of ledge at the end of the platform, so if you don't hit the jump right you could not make the whole thing and get stuck.

In my previous post I posted a clip from CTR that was in a tunnel. I was thinking of this kind of thing from the beginning. It would be a tunnel where you could wallride. At the trough of the tube there would be some kind of material that makes makes it harder to drive in and is kicked up obscuring people's vision behind you. On either side there would be some narrow jumps with boosts that would be hard to land right, but if you did you would get to drive on a ledge not having to worry about other drivers or that bad material. Originally I wanted this to be placed as players are coming out of a turn, making it harder to hit the jumps. But as I was brainstorming I thought it would be cool to do something like this:

This space would be fairly large in actual driving space but be littered by obstacles placed strategically to make it hard or challenging to navigate, with a few viable paths. The x's indicate a trigger that if hit one of the dark horizontal bars would be activated and shoot out of the ground blocking that path for a second. I thought it would be cool to have this bigger space lead into this narrow tunnel, so people are fighting and converging on the same space.

Coming out of the tunnel I want to have a big jump that leads to a raised platform with no guard rails. There would be paths below in case you fell off, but it would be faster if you stayed up top. There were a lot of Trackmania 2 tracks I played that had a part of the track like this. I thought it was really challenging, and would be really fun if there were multiple people colliding. I also wanted players to come out this tunnel on this big jump and have this big reveal, like everything opens up, maybe some bright sun stuff happening.

These are just a few ideas but I feel like there is enough text in this post as it is.

Racing Game Pre Pro - Stunt Research

This semester we are making a racing game. For my level I found some real life stunts that I would like to incorporate into my game and some racing video game mechanics that I thought were pretty interesting.

Disclaimer: There is a lot of writing. If you watch anything, make it the video with the link titled Bridge. And the Trackmania videos just for fun.

The first real life stunt I am drawing some inspiration from is a General Lee jump through a barn. Mute the video immediately for a better viewing experience.
General Lee
Particularly what I like about this video is jumping through something. I want to add at least one jump where you jump through something and all sorts of little pieces fly all over the place. Another thing I like is they are jumping over something. Say this exact stunt was in my level, if you weren't going fast enough or if you hit the jump wrong you could hit the building and it would slow you down.

Another real life stunt is from a stunt car show at MGM or some crazy place like that.

MGM

I like this jump because it is a narrow path to hit the actual jump, adding a risk element. Also they land on a platform which adds another risk factor similar to the General Lee jump. You don't hit the jump fast enough, you won't make it over the platform.

Video Game reference. There are quite a few so I'll keep each explanation fairly brief, just mentioning the name of the game and what mechanic they are using that is appealing to me.

Wheelman - Much like the real life stunts, this Wheelman clip shows the car jumping through an overpass. It would be a risk/reward jump. You make the jump and fly through, you get a reward. You hit the jump wrong, you get nothing.

MK64 Koopa Troopa Beach - Same ole song and dance my friends. A risk/reward jump.

Crash Team Racing - I really wanted to add a tube in my level. Or some kind of smaller space where you could ride up on the walls and there would be some kind of substance at the bottom that would affect your driving or something. Another thing I wanted to add is a moving object like the barrel in this video. 

Motorstorm Apocalypse looks rad. There are a lot of mechanics in this game that are definitely worth thinking about. Tons of decay and stuff breaking, alternate routes, shortcuts, vision obscuring materials, awesome events. Here are a few examples of some cool stuff:

Trailer - All sorts of stuff breaking and changing and tons of events happening.

Building Jump - Leading up to this jump isn't really narrow, but imagine it being narrow and then you jump out and have this big reveal of a city.

Vision Obscured - This has a few things. Stuff flying everywhere and the vision being obscured by the water. It also has fire and those red road flares to guide the player in this huge crazy storm. 

Smokestack - Awesome smokestack event. 

Bridge - Another event. The bridge falls down altering the course and also sends huge trucks flying around which also alter the course.

Trackmania 2  - The Trackmania videos are just absolutely crazy. Nothing really else about them. Just pure madness.

Another TM2

Programming - First Kismet

A couple days ago we messed around with kismet in programming class. It is very basic stuff but it's still cool. Problem solving n junk. The set up turns on each light one by one by using a trigger until all three are turned on. Once all three are on another trigger use turns them all off. Still using the trigger, the process repeats but the starting light changes progressively, y'know, to make it more like a discotheque. Also, there are logs to tell you the count and tell you that something has been switched.

Anyway, here's the set up and and the result.