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De/Ascend - Futuristic Race Game - Proof of Concept - WIP

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by Dayviewer, Jan 11, 2013.

  1. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Hey everyone, new guy here! :)

    I recently started on my final school project where we get 10 weeks to build something awesome to show our game art skills, and I decided to build a race game demo with 1 car and 1 track.
    It takes place in the near future and the gameplay consists of racing the track from Point A to B and to set the quickest possible time, it's basicly a sort of crossover of Wipeout and Trackmania.
    Team will consist of me(3d/2d art), a programmer and a sound designer. We'll also use the free version of Unity but in the last 30 days before the deadline we'll activate the Pro Trial to make it all look even more fancy before doing the final build :mrgreen:

    Last year I worked on plenty of game projects as an intern at 2 different game companies for 5 and 4 months so i have plenty of experience, but this will be the first time I'm completely on my own with planning/workflow/art direction etc so I'm pretty excited and nervous at the same time haha.
    I'm also used at doing more lowpoly work for web and mobile games but i will try to step it up a bit this time :cool:

    Anyway here's a blockout of the level design:

    Right now my programmer is working on getting a basic car running in there with the checkpoints etc to test the gameplay :D

    And here is a blueprint i made for the main car:


    That's all I have for now but i will be working on this allmost daily so you can expect plenty of updates soon!
     
  2. Python-Blue

    Python-Blue

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    Looks pretty good so far. :)

    Will you expand on this after the 10 weeks? It seems to have lots of potential. If so, while I don't have sound effects ready, I can write music if you need it.
     
  3. MikeUpchat

    MikeUpchat

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    Looks like a nice style indeed. On another note you wont be able to release the game using the trail version of Pro you will need to buy the license first, you can off course use the free version to release it.
     
  4. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks :D I might expand on it if it turns out to be above expectations, not sure yet ;) I already have a sound designer in my team who also composes music, I'm also a composer as well and will help him out recording guitars and bass for the soundtrack so we got it all covered already sound wise.
    Thanks for the offer though! ;)


    Thanks! ah i didn't know that, so you can't make builds with the pro-trial? guess i might want to look in getting a license then.
     
  5. MikeUpchat

    MikeUpchat

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    You can make builds you just cant sell them.
     
  6. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Ah ok, well this will only be a demo that will be shown at an expo with work of all the students, which will be a free download the day after, so no priced full product ;)
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2013
  7. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Started working on the ''starting grid'' of the track, far from done, still needs some more detail to make it more interesting etc.



    The main menu will also take place there like in Codemasters' Grid/Dirt with the camera switching postions as the menu advances so i'm putting a little more effort in this building then the others :)
     
  8. jin76

    jin76

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    hey not bad at all, keep at it, with some nice texturing this will look good
     
  9. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks! yes texturing will definatly make or break this haha.
    Still deciding if i will texture this straight away or wait before i get the other buildings done to do them all in one go, leaning towards the latter at the moment but on the other hand I do really want to see this in a more finnished state to get an idea of how the feel will be, hmm.
    Decisions decisions decisions! :p
     
  10. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Model finnished :D

    3 more buildings and the track mesh left to get all the architecture finnished :D
     
  11. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    More architecture!

    Some seats for the spectators :D



    The 'Travel Tower':

    This thing is HUGE :D , will have some big transport ships flying around it, bringing all the people to the event!
    Smaller transport ships will fly between the other buildings as well, I thought this would be nice to make the scene look more alive :) will get into those things alot later though.

    Going to texture all the buildings now (with the goal of getting everything except for stuff like the banners and flags on 1 texture), then I'm off to the track!
     
  12. Alex Cruba

    Alex Cruba

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    Really cool models...
     
  13. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks dude!

    Making a few testdrives on the track!:
     
  14. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Texturing in progress!:


    I'm having a hard time deciding what to do with the Materials regarding performance in Unity though.
    I tried using one material and one texture but it didn't leave me satisfied when tweaking things like specularity/gloss/reflection.
    Now I am very much considering to split the building into seperate meshes, with each having it's own shader but all sharing the same texture because I've read that that requires less memory than a multi-sub-object.
    Is this a good idea?
    I know very little about the whole performance thing so I thought i'd ask haha, this demo will only need to run on a decent desktop though, no mobile.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2013
  15. BIG-BUG

    BIG-BUG

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    Looking good. As you have only few buildings, which are also big and important you shouldn't worry to much about saving a handful of materials / textures...
    If this building consists for example of 10 submeshes with own shaders / textures you should be perfectly fine.
     
  16. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Ok man thanks for the advice! :)
     
  17. tapanui

    tapanui

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    try adding short cuts etc into the track
     
  18. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    this game will be all about setting the fastest time on a track through skill, so I won't be adding any shortcuts, would be cool though haha
     
  19. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Took a break from the buildings for a bit (got bored of looking at them for days haha)
    Started doing some work on the track now, heres the texture for most of track in Crazybump:

    As you can see heavily Wipeout inspired :D
     
  20. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    After getting the road texture in Unity I was greeted with this little problem:

    As you see the mapping looks fine from above but when you go down to a normal level it's getting all weird. I'm sure this is fixable, maybe even just by ticking a box somewhere, but how? :p
    Anyone care to enlighten me? :D

    Edit: Nevermind got it fixed already!
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2013
  21. Acegikmo

    Acegikmo

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    Looks pretty cool! I've been a huge fan of the Trackmania series for a long time!
    Will be interesting to see how this turns out! Do you have any plans for an editor in the future? :)
     
  22. puppeteer

    puppeteer

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    That is some fine architecture! Haven't seen gameplay yet so I can't comment, but it does give a TrackMania vibe.
     
  23. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks guys! :D
    The simularities to Trackmania will mostly be from the time based gameplay, you will race from A to B with 4 checkpoints along the way showing the current time and if you are faster/slower than the top time at that moment, when finnished there will be a local leaderboard (no online sorry)
    You can choose the direction of the track as well, that's about it from the Trackmania side of things haha.
    This is a small project with just one unique track, there won't be an editor though I have to admit that would be awesome haha.

    Big update coming tommorow, 90% of the buildings and track is textured and I will throw in some basic textures, trees and rocks for the landscape which will be a huge improvement from the green and grey meshes we have now haha.
     
  24. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Took a day longer but here are some new shots :D




    Getting really psyched seeing this myself, will be starting on the car tommorow!
     
  25. The Ghost

    The Ghost

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    Wow that looks amazing. Love the transparent road. Good job.
     
  26. _nuani

    _nuani

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    Really nice pics. I love that transparent track on the first picture.
    Can't wait to see the car.
     
  27. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks guys! :D
    Yea the glass track was one of my first ideas when designing the track and I'm very happy with the way it turned out ^^
     
  28. puppeteer

    puppeteer

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    Looks awesome! Are you in the architecture business or something? :D

    Regarding the environment it would be great to have a more realistic topography. I'm sure you can find a good height map from real world coordinates.
     
  29. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks! Haha no but that would be pretty cool.
    Yea the environment definatly needs more work, problem is though that the whole level is designed on how it is right now so I can't use any heightmap and just throw it in there haha.
    I will definatly work on it to make it more realistic though.
     
  30. derkoi

    derkoi

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    Like it so far, it reminds me of wipeout meets Trackmania which is what you said was your aim, so right on target there. :)
     
  31. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Nice man ^^

    Decided to start a bit later on the car due to planning with the team, GUI needs to be done first.
    Mock-up!
     
  32. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Will pass on the project to my programmer again this week so he can get all the functionality in there, from then on all the time left will go into making the whole thing as good looking as possible :D
    Getting the HUD on one texture:

    Some things are still placeholder but can easily be updated later on :D
     
  33. Bullets42

    Bullets42

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    I don't have much to say other then I love all of your work and your programmers! I just wanted to give an idea that seems to help in many games, throw some big modeled out boulders on your cliff sides to give them more dimension rather then a smooth rounded hill where rock textures are. Anyhow other then that I love it all keep up the great work guys!
     
  34. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks man! yea I will get some modular rock models in there to spice it up ;)
    Needed to get this other stuff finnished first though.
    Glad you like the work so far! :)
     
  35. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Finally started to work on the car today

    Planning to go all out on this one, interior, open engine etc :D
     
  36. derkoi

    derkoi

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    Some serious skills you have there Dayviewer. Love it.
     
  37. GeneBox

    GeneBox

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    I agree! This looks fantastic!
     
  38. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks alot guys, glad you like my work :)
    Here's another shot ;)
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2013
  39. PixelTroops

    PixelTroops

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    Do you think you could possibly add mini-games for fun with friends for the final product? However this is looking great. I really love the details on all the models. That said the hills coud had been a grass like texture with boulders as separate models(I do know that it has been mentioned before). But good luck with the progress.

    Cameron
     
  40. J_P_

    J_P_

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    Looking good :)
     
  41. macdude2

    macdude2

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    What program are you modeling this in?
     
  42. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    ^ 3Ds Max! ;)

    Due to time constraints there will only be the time trial gameplay, there will be a local leaderboard though so you could allways challenge friends to try and beat your time when they come over.
    As I mentioned before I will add some rock models later on to the environment ;)
     
  43. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Finnished the model :)
     
  44. derkoi

    derkoi

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    Wowsers, that looks awesome! :D
     
  45. 0n35

    0n35

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    Looking awesome man, good luck!
     
  46. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Glad you like it guys! :)
    Trying out the cockpit view:


    Going to start unrwapping this thing now, hope to have it fully textured and in Unity sometime next week.
    The programming side of things is also being finnished as we speak, game framework should be fully playable by next week with only visuals left to be done.
    Estimated release is 3rd week of April ;)
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2013
  47. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Texturing the car right now, will be done next week and then I might show some gameplay as well ;)
    WIP screenshot (therefor buried in post process fx :D )
     
  48. MrMoustache

    MrMoustache

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    WOw amazing! :)
     
  49. Brick

    Brick

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    I like this thread :cool:
     
  50. Dayviewer

    Dayviewer

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    Thanks guys! heres another teaser ;)