WXX-Rebirth : a modern engine for Wipeout 3 Special Edition !

[80T]

Weekly Check-In

[aybe]

Haven't really had the time this week to work on it ...

[TroJan_Virus]

I suppose this essentially makes my Wip3out 4K remake redundant...

Looks great though!

If you need any help with graphics let me know, although considering this uses base game textures you probably don't haha

[aybe]

Thanks,

If you wish to achieve a personal project I think you should go for it I already knew about BnG but that hasn't stopped me from working on this project, WO3SE also did exist so there were numerous 'excuses' to not work on this but I didn't ... So if you're dreaming about something I think you should make it happen

Regarding WXX I really want to make it open in GitHub, but not unless there's an 'incentive package' for people to get hooked on ... I know I'm repeating myself but I'm getting to it these last 2 weeks I haven't had time to work on it and I guess probably a few others I won't be able to (summer) but I'm definitely committed to it. By package I mean shaping up the overall thing, menus/UI, scenery, animation, sounds etc ... all what makes a game in the end. Now when this is done I'll ask some of the experts about looking at better simulation and IA.

The main things I'm spending my time on recently is figuring out how to achieve things by code in Unity, since it's a black box and there's pretty much no documentation when using it that way, it's a matter of trial and error. But sooner or later I'll be finished with that aspect, then as I've already worked on many other aspects of the game I will get a productivity boost.

I see all that happening as 2 releases, the first one would show a 'familiar' WO3 world with full scenery implemented (i.e. racing part) that should give a smile to people, the second one would be about a game-like release (menus, etc ...).

For the graphics I'd definitely love to see creations of some people, while not exceptionally complex to achieve, the difficulty lies in the many places where there are textures and how to hook up (easily) according data structures of the game. The other difficulty would be to provide a tool to modders to visualize/highlight their work in the scene (some sort of editor). It is definitely doable and should not take ages (not a priority, though )

[80T]

Nice job there TroJan!



How 'bout "joining forces" for an ultimate WO3 Dev. Team ?

[aybe]

Very impressive

Honestly I didn't even think about that and I'm clearly open about collaborations ! The roll out I've talked about is not 'fixed', merely some stuff I've thought about ...

So I'm totally open, let me know what were your initial thoughts about all that and we could go from here ... These animations are great for introducing teams !

I can provide unpacked game content if necessary (sounds, graphics), and just pause what I've been onto to help shaping up supporting code. It's just that these days I really don't have much time to work on it but soon I will have plenty of time again

[80T]

I suppose you were replying to TroJan, since that's his work in that video from his YT channel.

[aybe]

Today I had some time to work on the project

So the first step in getting the whole thing up !



The rest should follow soon : fountains, sewers, lights, ad rotators ...

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I suppose you were replying to TroJan, since that's his work in that video from his YT channel.

yes or anyone actually

[80T]

Yeheyyy! Progress is made Nice!

[aybe]

Crane animation !



Sorry for the quality, I use the XBOX DVR in Win10 but still at max quality it's

[80T]

.................. in Win10 .................

Wait, what !?!

[aybe]

I like living on the bleeding edge

I really don't know why all that recent fuss about it, I use it since day 1 and I'm really happy with it (after the initial period of nasty bugs with video corruption); it's fast and works well. Note: I don't use that funny start menu but Classic Shell instead, also I don't use Cortana nor all the UWP apps. (I mainly do work with it, i.e. I don't have time to waste on funny features). The other thing I don't get is that on nearly 10+ Win7 machines I support on a domain, absolutely none of them auto-magically installed Win10 even though the wizard was opened at times, technically Win10 rocks but 'reputationaly' it doesn't !

[80T]

Yeah... I just don't want to deal with the "extra setup" after a fresh install... or deal with the "identity crisis UI" or mess with the registry settings, or dealing with "Modern Apps" leftovers since you can't completely "eradicate" them, or lack of control over my updates... privacy settings... and so on... Too much pita to go by... I mean what's new after all... DX12... ? Meh, I can live without it for few more years. Instead of implementing Tabs to Windows File Explorer, they give me Cortana and 2 types of Control Panel... Yeah... ) Nope, seriously, I don't see the point in Windows 10. It's not like my PC would crawl on it's knees or something and Windows 10 would be this be all end all save my PC from dying kind of deal... If anything, I see Microsoft going towards Apple like policy and slowly taking away more and more out of my personal user experience and most importantly the control I have over my own PC. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road Windows would turn into a monthly subscription based OS asking me to "pay my rent" in order to Log in... ))) Well at least pay a fee to get rid of Log In Screen Adds... I can definitely see that becoming a thing in the nearest future if we're just embracing "everything new" from Microsoft, or any other big company for that mater... Just telling myself that, "hey, I'm gonna do that, disable that, tweak that, not use that... and so on" won't take us anywhere good in the future imo. Btw, did you installed the "Anniversary Update" ? I've heard that you can't disable Cortana any more...

[aybe]

No I didn't install it, had to customize settings once at install then I forgot about them ...

hint 1 : I don't fiddle with the OS
hint 2 : I use a computer how it's initially meant to be used, a device for work and eventually gaming -> no webcam, no mike etc ...

Mmhh we certainly won't agree but I find it a definitive improvement over the previous releases

Eventually it will become the next Win7 in a few years ...

[80T]

Ok, just please, please don't make this a DX12 exclusive game

[aybe]

Here's a quick update about what's going on,

The scene editor is in good shape !

2016-08-17 01_00_41-Unity Personal (64bit) - SceneEditorOutput.unity - WXX-Rebirth - PC, Mac & L.png

I took the decision that levels should have their own scenes, much like any Unity game:

• easy to design
• easy to extend
• less code, more mouse
• etc etc etc ...

This has many implications but I think it's the best because endlessly gathering numbers and numbers for models and polygons then writing some code was really tedious and in the end very long.

Obviously this is a singular editor specific to Wipeout (which one is not anyway ?):

• it allows to make quick selections such as parents of some polygons (there are 22 tracks nearing each ~10K polygons)
• relieves from the error-prone processes of selecting them manually or selecting incorrect groups, some visual cues too
• creates part, objects and groups for making human-friendly entities (see bottom right)
• resulting in simpler and more efficient hierarchy (i.e. a billboard will be a mesh with two sub-meshes/material)

The correctness and creation of entities works well, saving as well since it's done by Unity

What's next:

• next big step is to re-write behaviors and try take advantage of animation window in Unity instead of using code (e.g. billboard editor using mouse)
• ease the process of assigning behaviors to entities (using mouse)
• build a complete scene with it
• write a test scene button
• finalize the whole thing for export (remember, there shouldn't be any copyrighted Wipeout material in the project)
• build scenes for all tracks
• also it will support Wipeout and Wipeout XL later in the process, I'll just have to generalize the 'game content class'

As usual it's Unity-related stuff that took most of the time, but submarine crew is hard at work and soon we'll surface !



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Ok, just please, please don't make this a DX12 exclusive game

I will do a Linux build myself but not for Mac since I don't have any.

[80T]

Hurray! Progress it's being made! I don't understand 99% of what you're saying, but progress is progress nonetheless Let the Wip3Out submarine surface
I'll take it that there will also be a Windows build ?

[aybe]

Of course there will be as this is my main machine

Trivia: so basically I'm working on a tool to build levels using mouse and Unity interface instead of code, and it's generic enough that it should work on WO/WOXL.

But these last days I'm struggling on a problem I thought relatively easy to solve but is tough to crack : performance issues for the editor .

I first made it simple by gathering all objects I need when a user performs an action but it starts slowing as soon as a few dozen objects are added. The feature I've added to automatically select and rename a newly object stops working because of that ... (this is a must because I am going to have do that hundreds of times per level so everything I can use to ease the process I'm sold)

And since Unity call some parts many times per seconds it is choking...

Roughly I maintain a list of ~10000 polygons (entire scenery) but searching the scene for these is slow, I needed a mechanism to listen on objects being added/removed -> ok, low-level Unity crap solved. But now there are other lists as well, referenced and non-referenced objects, and queries between those simply slow everything down to the point that it freezes.

It is really important that the editor helps me as much as possible for very repetitive tasks such as those, I also would like to do A/B comparisons with resulting levels and I need the same concepts...

I guess I will tackle it over the next days, hopefully.

So these days, quite some work on it but hasn't really paid off

And hot temperatures these days don't help much

[80T]

Itsy bitsy bump.

[aybe]

I was busy the whole month fixing house's kitchen/bathroom/painting etc ...

Just started working again on it tonight, need a refresh ... hmm I guess I have to fix this perf. issue so I can finish the scene editor and so on.

In short, I'm back !!!