AGR2280 - A Wipeout inspired racing game

[bigsnake]

Project has changed
Please see my BallisticNG thread for what this project is now.
There will be unlockable 2280 tracks and ships in BallisticNG, these ships will use AGR2280's physics.

GitHub (https://github.com/bigsnake09/AGR2280)

[Xpand]

That looks pretty epic! You're using Unity Pro, right?

[Azurooth]

Ohh i like. Really interesting how it will turn out in the end. I'm gonna keep an eye on this. :) Keep up the good work!

[bigsnake]

That looks pretty epic! You're using Unity Pro, right?

Yeah I am, I was saving up for the entirety of 2012 to purchase a license after messing around with the free version so I can later add features that are otherwise impossible with the free version.

Thanks for the compliment, I'm hoping that now I don't have to spend as much time on the physics I can finally get some actual content done for the game.

[docfo4r]

It looks very nice indeed. Especially the physics, great work. So you are programming and modeling this all by yourself?

[bigsnake]

It looks very nice indeed. Especially the physics, great work. So you are programming and modeling this all by yourself?

At the moment it is just me, I haven't made a plan for the future but as the development progresses I might start to ask if people want to contribute. Before anything like that though, I hope to have the physics polished off and wall collisions working correctly.

[DDD113]

Looks good so far, I'll play it soon and give you my feedback!

Keep at it! :D

[dreamerx]

Congratulations, you did great job man! Although collisions are punishing me almost like collisions in the first Wipeout :). On a note I would prefer to use air breaks without need to press left/right. However I played using keyboard, then DS3 and after few laps I've almost get used to it anyway ;). Other thing is that physics are quite stiff like in HD, many people will love that anyway but not necessary me :) I would prefer floaty physics - but like I said it's just me. BTW. I've done some experiments with floaty physics since I want to recreate W3O:SE physics for fun, results: http://mi-ku.net/projekty/FusionCure/WebBuild.html Of course the purpose of this mini project is not to compete with yours, SSGX nor original Wipeout, it's just my own experiment and I'm giving the link just to compare physics :).

[Xpand]

Hmm interesting... Btw I'm ThreeDManiak. It's not me who you should worry about, it's Sony, since that's still their intelectual property, but as long as you don't use those models for a monetary purpose (or in anything that gets too much attention) I think you can go under the radar (provided you give the credit to them).

[Mike458]

Looks very interesting! Sadly, I don't have a PC (yet! I have a useless modified mac ATM that cannot run this or SSGX for that matter), but this looks like a very fun game to try! The ship that you have looks very Icaras-esque, while the track is a la Modesto Heights/Ubermall inspired? Great progress so far though!

[bigsnake]

I've done some experiments with floaty physics since I want to recreate W3O:SE physics for fun, results: http://mi-ku.net/projekty/FusionCure/WebBuild.html Of course the purpose of this mini project is not to compete with yours, SSGX nor original Wipeout, it's just my own experiment and I'm giving the link just to compare physics .

That's a nice little demo, the camera makes the ship's handling feel weird but it does feel quite like a PS1 wipeout. As Xpand said though, just be cautious with using Sony copyrighted content.


The ship that you have looks very Icaras-esque, while the track is a la Modesto Heights/Ubermall inspired? Great progress so far though!

Haha you've banged the nail on there head there. The ship is actually inspired by both Feisar and Icarus, the nose being more like Feisar and the cockpit and wings being the Icarus inspire part. When I started the track it was shaped much like Ubermall just as a test, then I reworked the track layout.

[bigsnake]

This evening I have been working on the physics for an entirely different mode. After DreamerX had mentioned the old PS1 physics, the idea to have a classic mode thing sprung to mind. This mode will have separate content from the normal game, besides the ships. Here's a video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvZ3R6UDWXw

Let me know what you think so far, It's not perfect but I feel that it's a good start. The way I also plan to work on AGR2280 now is to work on the normal mode for a week, then work on the classic mode for a week and keep switching between the two.

[DDD113]

It is a good start, although just as an aesthetic comment, I would lower the walls, that track feels very restrictive. ;)

[bigsnake]

Yeah I can see what you mean, this was just a test track while I worked on the ship and camera but I'll make sure the actual tracks have lower walls. :)

[DDD113]

Cool, I can't wait to see the final product with such a promising start! :D

(Btw, try not to quote the post directly above yours unless it's a long post and you're only quoting part of it ;))

[KronicReaper]

I'm keeping tabs on this on FB and also Slipstream GX on FB too.

[bigsnake]

After some time taking a break from developing AGR2280 after Christmas I return from a month of slowly getting back into the jig of things with this.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbTBgT5KnLM

Since I'm using the Pulse Feisar model in that video it does have to be mandatory that I mention that it's copyright of Sony and LPS and will not be used in any builds of the game I upload. Other then that, the first thing anyone should notice is that the artstyle has changed. I was originally looking to go for a more realistic look to the game but over the past month I've decided to go for a more cartoony look. I'm not sure where I want to go with this style yet but I'll see what happens as time goes by.

The physics and camera have also had some adjustments. The camera is now designed so that the nose of the ship is always in the center of the screen so the ship feels more much springy then before, the ship itself has had some changes to the hovering to make it more stable (plus other tweaks like airbraking without turning will now start to rotate your ship aswell). Another thing on the ship is that the code for maglocks is now implemented and working so tracks using maglocks can be made. Lastly a huge thanks to zero3growlithe who helped me greatly with the wall collisions, they still aren't perfect yet but they are getting very close to it. I'm not going to provide a build just yet because there is still a lot of stuff I want to do but I do plan to release one soonish (hopefully).

[AGSys]

That looks really, really good so far! The turning seems to be on par with HD's, the barrel rolling looks cool, and the overall physics seem very much like HD's as well. Looking forward to playing around with this when the next build gets released. :)

Oh yeah, also, I totally forgot about designing some of the logos for the teams. I had stoooopid final year exams to blame for that, (also had to find a good 3D animation college lol). But now, I have some time to start getting creative. Keep up the awesome work bigsnake.

[Xpand]

Looks awesome!
Also that track reminds me a lot of Arridos IV.

[DDD113]

Dude... that's like, SOOOO much improvement!! Fantastic progress there, I can't wait to see what this becomes! :D

[bigsnake]

I'm glad you guys are liking the improvements and changes so far :D I'm almost ready to release a new build, just need to fix up a few little things and it will be good to go. Hoping to have it released by the end of this week.



Oh yeah, also, I totally forgot about designing some of the logos for the teams. I had stoooopid final year exams to blame for that, (also had to find a good 3D animation college lol). But now, I have some time to start getting creative. Keep up the awesome work bigsnake.

Haha yeah I know how it goes with exams, I had mine last year and they just ate up all of my free time. I'm looking forward to seeing what you design, those team logo animations for SSGX were great :)

[Colonel]

Looks fantastic so far dude. I love how HDish the physics look, that's some acheivement. And personally I like the slightly cartoony look you're using, it suits it I think. Keep up the good work man :+

[TheConzio]

Very good work :)

[bigsnake]

Just uploaded a preview build of the next version. There are still some issues I am going to address over the next few days but it's stable enough for me to say you will make it round the track without being consumed by walls :D The download link is on the first post at the bottom or just because convenience, also here. (http://www.mediafire.com/download/eh4z4beljbtex1h/AGR2280_Build_02_Test.rar)

This is also linked in the readme but I've just created this spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As4JeAOIeQm9dEtzZU1ObzV1NUNlSEVXWTFIM3FPb UE&usp=sharing) for later use on collecting hardware information to help see how the game runs on a variety of different hardware. The full release of v0.02 will have an FPS counter but for now something like fraps will need to be used.

[Aidan]

I'm having some trouble getting controllers to work properly, I've got my DS3 connected via usb using BetterDS3 and the button setup to fit a 360 controller (xinput) but in game the controls are all off. Left analogue controls steering, square to accelerate, triangle to use pickup, cross to switch camera, and I cant find what buttons do side shift / barrel rolls. I've tried changing the controls but for some reason the unity start up thing wont recognise my controller input.

That said I was able to play rather badly for a bit and fill out the hardware collection spreadsheet.

[bigsnake]

The default gamepad controls are setup in favor of the Motionjoy DS3 driver on the default PS3 configuration so that will most likely be the reason to why the controls are off. As for Unity's launcher not detecting your controller input, the only thing I can think of is Unity not detecting the BetterDS3 driver. Besides that though it's funny there's a post about controller configuration because I've just been rewriting my input code for analog control for steering and airbrakes and I've now got the default controls setup to a 360 controller, so that should hopefully allow you to play without messed up controls when I release that build :)

[JustinCase]

Downloaded the build and its really fun! Steering is great, works perfectly with my wired X360 controller. You should make a Time Trial mode or something, so we could post our scores :P. Anyway good job, can't wait to see what's coming!

[bigsnake]

A time trial mode would actually be better then the extremely simply speed lap mode I have setup right now. I'll make sure that is in the full v0.02 release :) At the moment I'm just making some >hopefully< final tweaks to my ship script to get it as close to the physics of Wipeout HD as I can, I'm not sure when It will be ready but I'm working hard at it :D

[DIXI200]

Great, you're working very hard .. In this forum there are some who work in the field of video games and other studying video games for work, :clap ... this is a good hope for a good game similar to WO. Guys unfinished to amaze me

Greetings DIXI200

[bigsnake]

Hey guys just giving you...quite a big update actually. With the release of Unreal Engine 4 I have got myself on it's subscription plan and am currently underway of moving AGR2280 from Unity to UE4. At the moment it's going very quickly because the UE4 blueprint system allows me to recreate everything rapidly (I'll later translate it all into c++ because there should be performance advantages). This however has a downside which is that better hardware will be required to run it then it would be if I were to continue with Unity, the biggest thing being that DirectX 9 is no longer supported so you will need a GPU that supports DirectX10 and above (which even integrated GPU's do now anyway so it shouldn't be too much of a problem).

What I've managed to do with it's physically-based shading (shaders that are calculated using real-world physical properties) is insane so visually the game is going to be a huge improvement, UE4 also doesn't have separate update functions for physics/normal updates so that should also mean I can hopefully get the game running as smoothly as WOHD does :D

[DDD113]

Awesome news man, this game sounds like it's gonna be great!! :D

[dreadofmondays]

Yeah,keep up the fantastic work n.n

[Mitchemous]

Definitely can't wait to see the new footage!! Do you have any plans to add something like a custom skin maker or alternate ship skins to select from? It's a feature that's always nifty for pc games, the file sharing abilites PC games produce is magnificent, it'd be cool to race a WOHD clone in an AG ship decked out in WipeoutZone livery :D

[bigsnake]

When I first started working on the game I was making a ship editor which has you building ships from different parts (nose, cockpit and engine/back), I never really got anywhere with it but I've kept the idea of having it in the game in mind :) I do defiantly want to make the game as modable as I can though so ship customization/creation will defiantly be happening at some point.

[Mitchemous]

Glad to hear it man, I've been watching your videos of the game and it looks super fun!! Just hope my PC can handle the new unreal engine

[AGSys]

Ship customisation ftw! It's all I've ever really wanted in a WipEout game. This ought to be amazing, at least from what we've seen so far anyway, and now with UE4? Insane! :D

[bigsnake]

Just hope my PC can handle the new unreal engine

Hehe it's actually not too bad for spec requirements. The lowest end card for developers is a GTX 480 or Radeon HD 6870 so as long as you have those or above you should be fine for the most part :D

Another feature I've wanted in AGR2280 but couldn't be asked to start doing early on in Unity is a time of day cycle. Typically you wouldn't see it in a quick 3-5 minute race but if you were doing a long session in speed lap then you would notice the time changing. That's defiantly something I do need to try out at some point, I'm waiting for Epic to get their realtime global illumination working before I start looking into that though.

[WikEv_512]

Man this so amazing !!! And a ship editor you say ? Hmmm... What about a track editor too so we can give life back to WipEout 2097 with Unreal 4 graphics... If you know what I mean...

[bigsnake]

I actually started working on a track editor, it's nothing special but I had basic nodes that you could place setup, the hard part is generating a track mesh between them :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_GYdQgxT5s

[WikEv_512]

AMAZING !!! You are now my new god ;)

[bigsnake]

Hehe thanks!

I should hopefully have a build ready quite soon (I use soon loosely). I'm currently just now writing everything in C++ which is pretty much just a copy paste task from my Unity code to UE4 (kinda) :)

[possesed13]

awesome work snake... fantastic!

[bigsnake]

Thanks possesed!

So I have something small (and I mean small) to test. I've been working on my own Launcher that I will be putting it with builds that are running on UE4. I currently have some very basic features that pretty much already show that there is going to be a lot of online based stuff. There's a readme with all the details inside.

Here's the link to anyone who wants to check it out https://db.tt/F4S9G34C

I wont make it a requirement that this launcher will have to be used, but it will be the first exe you see. I want to make it more of a hub to access the game, tools and online stats (plus updating) then it is a forced method of getting to the game. The launcher will however need to be used to create an account that will allow you to access online features (everything until the games actual release will be local until I can go server-sided). Also on the account side of things, an account will only be used for online features. Anything to do with singleplayer will be stored in a local profile (which if I can get server space, can have a cloud solution to go with it).

So that's the plan if I can get server space, otherwise everything will just be local.

Here's an image of the main launcher window (downscaled for the forum):

https://db.tt/GOXvzENe

[superjeepboy]

It works, but is the track and ship editor different windows?

Record: 30.27 I think, but i can get the tenth and hundreth right.

[bigsnake]

The track and ship editor will a different program aside from the launcher and main game, they are currently no where near completion. My plan is to make those 2 tools in Unity which save the data UE4 then reads :)

Development is also going a bit slow at the moment. I'm playing around with UE4 to see what it can do, plus I'm looking at starting a project I can make a profit from while still developing AGR2280.

[superjeepboy]

Like starting a Kickstarter?

[bigsnake]

Hehe no nothing like that :)
As for AGR2280's development though, I've taken a break the past week and will start working on it again in the next few days. I've gotten to play around with UE4 quite a bit and am more familiar with how it works now so I'm hoping it shouldn't be too long until I have a build out. My main concern is collisions for the track, from my understanding I just need to do the collisions in Maya as I normally do it but just use a certain name for the collision mesh that UE4 will then pick up.

[bigsnake]

I am back on working on AGR2280 after a short break and I've got multiple things going on.

Firstly I am sticking with Unity (which I have already plastered everywhere now :3). As for UE4, I'm still using it for another project but I find the workflow of it just doesn't work for racing games. Secondly a new build is available and there are some huge changes to my physics and camera which I feel like is a large step towards the Wipeout HD feel I've been aiming for, I rewrote everything from the ground up for this update so I've spent quite a while on this. One of the things you should straight away notice is the support for analogue input, both for steering and for airbrakes (only digital inputs will allow you to use the airbrakes to slow down your craft and SS at the moment though). I am also now looking into making the airbrake sensitivity be based off your ships speed, so that should hopefully be in the next build! The download for v0.02 is on the first post, there's a video aswell.

I have also started to work on a documentation for how I've made everything in AGR2280. At the moment it only talks about 3 topics and they don't go into a huge amount of detail but I will be working on it much more in the future.

And finally for the biggest thing. This isn't going to be happening for a little while yet but after I've fixed up the rest of my physics I will be working towards making the AGR2280 project folder downloadable for anyone. I will be keeping the project folder updated regularly but before I even begin think about releasing it I first must clean up my code, do loads of optimizations and create some Unity editor extensions to make the entire project more user friendly...plus I will need to write a documentation for those editor extensions. Since I am doing this I think it needs to be said that the game will still obviously have modding and those tools will even be available in the project folder for anyone who will want to see that. This is however still quite a while away but it's going to be happening :)

Oh and if you want to help develop AGR2280 in any way then feel completely free to let me know because I would love to help people's anti-gravity racing ideas come to life :D

[WikEv_512]

Well... This awesome man ! I'd love to help develop but I don't know anything about programing etc. :( I can only help you with my ideas ! ^^

[bigsnake]

Hehe I didn't mean programming anyway because I'm doing that part :3

I have something of interest for anyone who will want to get into the track editor. This is currently the "developer" version of it, but this is an editor extension I making for track node placement (it has 3 modes where are the node placement, node editing and AI navigation setup). Now before you see the image this extension is still under heavy development and the actual in-game track editor version will not be using the Unity editor GUI for obvious reasons.

https://db.tt/3IwhsUZp

[bigsnake]

I've got another AGR2280 update! I've finally cleaned up the project and got it on Github so the source is now available to everyone :D Here's the link. (https://github.com/bigsnake09/AGRacing2280)

At the moment it's very basic because I've been redoing my entire script to make it friendly for others, legacy scripts are still in the code folder though. I'm still working on editor extentions so there's only a semi-functional node placer and a basic tool for placing speed pads on the track.

So for anyone who wants to play around with the Unity project, enjoy!

[pichuscute]

Hi! So, I checked out the game, and I really like what I see. This is pretty well-made. However, I tried to open up in Unity and got a ton of errors. I assume this is because I didn't load it up in the most recent version of Unity, but I don't know for sure. Is that what you use?

[bigsnake]

What version of Unity are you using? I haven't updated the github repository with the newly updated version for Unity 4.5 just yet so as long as you have 4.3 or above it should work fine. If you send me a PM with the errors then I should hopefully be able to help you :)

[pichuscute]

Hm, that's strange. I'm using 4.3.2. I'll send you the errors but it's something like 9000, soooo, beware. xD Also, I've only been using Unity for a week or so, so I'm pretty lost with what the error messages are right now haha. Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Scratch that, there's just a few that are repeating. I hadn't looked at it closely when I tried it like a week ago.

[bigsnake]

Just sent you a reply :) I had to re-login as I sent it and I always forget to tick the option to track it so if it doesn't send then at least you have this post to certify that an attempt to send it was made :3

[pichuscute]

I got it and responded. :) Thanks!

[Trilby]

Hello! As a primarily Mac user, I do have to ask you if a Mac version will come out. Seeing as it's being made in Unity, this can't be too difficult.

[bigsnake]

Yeah it shouldn't be a problem at all, I've never compiled for Mac in Unity but it is quite literally just the click of a button :) I'll give compiling for Mac a shot when the next version of the game is ready.

[bigsnake]

I've got some news regarding 0.1!

The past few days have been spent implementing loads of new stuff both graphically and in the backend. For graphics the game now has Physically Based Shading (https://db.tt/PTKccmRh), if you are not aware what PBS is then what it is a method of calculating how light should react with a surface. I won't bore people with explanations because most people aren't interested in that, all you need to know though is that Physically Based Shading is what you're going to be seeing in pretty much every game using a modern game engine now. As for the backend, the game's physics are very rapidly improving. The past 2 weeks I have been focusing mainly on wall collisions and making them less intrusive. I will be saving making them completely functional for later as I am jumping between everything to make my physics better and better. Hovering is now much better, it's now getting to the point where it's near impossible to collide with the track surface so you will not have Unity automatically throwing you around for landing too hard.

I have also been working on a new, functional menu (https://db.tt/4X6XzvjR). The menu is very simplistic and is controlled with the keyboard/gamepad instead of the mouse. To the right of the menu is the ship that you currently have selected to race with, the game will remember which was you last used ship so that is always the ship that is on the menu until you choose a ship. The ship is not just static however, you can rotate it around by dragging it (mouse only) and it even has a hover animation with is coded from sine waves. The level selection screen also lists levels dynamically which opens an opportunity to have user created tracks included in this list (it also saves me and anyone who's playing with the source a lot of time registering tracks on the menu, hehe). On top of this I have also created a loading screen, for the time being it is boring and you won't really see it but it will provide you with the level that is currently loading and you also get a spinning circle just to show you the game is responding.

Content wise...well I'm open for anyone who wants to help. I'm not an artist and I can't try to be one (with the exception of track textures) so any help content wise would be awesome. Obviously I don't have any set ideas on paper so if anyone does want to help with that then it's of course your own ideas. I'm not sure what you can expect from 0.1 for content just yet, I'm getting better at making more solid feeling tracks and I'm consistently editing my ship model so just expect better everything that isn't track designs and ship models.

[SZEIKAN]

I'm kind of curious why people aren't ecstatic about this. I know we already have SSGX which also looks great, but there's room for more than one WipEout game. Anyway, just wanted to stop by and say that this project is looking better with each update! I can't wait to see more, keep it up!

[bigsnake]

I'm kind of curious why people aren't ecstatic about this. I know we already have SSGX which also looks great, but there's room for more than one WipEout game. Anyway, just wanted to stop by and say that this project is looking better with each update! I can't wait to see more, keep it up!

Thanks man! AGR2280 doesn't currently have a large following so that would probably be why :) I haven't really pushed the game out there yet so the only real place to find the project is here on WipeoutZone, at the back of Steam greenlight concepts and on my Youtube channel. I do need to start getting it noticed though, my biggest focus has been getting the physics as close to Wipeout HD as I can and that is very quickly coming to an end now, so ideally I just need some good assets to throw in which would help with advertising it.

[UnleashSonic]

Holy crap bigsnake, this is coming together really well! Awesome stuff, you work really fast too. Will be following, and looking out for it elsewhere like on Greenlight. :)

[pichuscute]

Just a heads up, I'm still around and keeping up with this project as well. I can't wait to see what you do with this next. :)

[bigsnake]

Great to know people are keeping up with the development :D I've been quite slow recently because College has been keeping me busy, I'm also working on my modeling skills so I haven't been giving AGR much attention.

I've got most of the physics done in Unreal Engine 4 now, all that's really left is some tweaks to what's already there then I can start adding everything I had from Unity back in. I have a few little surprise features as well, the only thing I'm going to spill is that there is a time of day system and dynamic weather. I should really be spending this time to work on other gameplay elements, but I can't help myself but to keep experimenting with UE4 more and more. For the ToD system, it will only be noticeable if you spend a long time in speed lap, and then the dynamic weather system will take a track's location into account so you don't get occurrences like rain on snowy tracks, also precipitation is more likely to happen on tracks closer to the ocean. And of course all this will be toggable just in-case someone doesn't want the dynamic elements.

Anyway, development is going to be paused until mid-jan while I get a complete remake of Wipeout 3 setup, then I'll be alternating between the two on a weekly basis (or something like that). I'm looking to get a playable build of this WO3 remake out by the time I start working on AGR again, then I want to look at getting a UE4 build out for AGR by mid-feburary at the latest. Also I'm looking for mid-feburary to be the final physics test for AGR, it's been 2 years of me getting it right and I'm now getting annoyed with myself so after that release expect to see everything else quickly make it's way in. Also for anyone reading this who has seen the jungle track (https://db.tt/slRrwse7) that was a WIP, I'm looking to make this (https://db.tt/zmxmKhNk) the track featured in the new UE4 build.

[TheXTR09]

Is there any need for some very basic things that need to be done, like voices? I'll try my best, I just don't want a cult classic die out like this.

[AGSys]

Still been following this! You really got the physics pinned down from HD, and that itself is very impressive. Can't wait for the new year.

[bigsnake]

Is there any need for some very basic things that need to be done, like voices? I'll try my best, I just don't want a cult classic die out like this.
Of course! Every little helps, if you want to contribute in any way then just PM me a link to what you've done and I'll be happy to add it to the game (credits will be in a .txt file and possibly a credits screen later on in the future). I'm designing the game to be completely modular so even when the game is more planned out it will be easy to add new content and features.

Also today I've been thinking about the engine I want to be developing AGR with. Obviously the choice was Unity vs UE4 and while I do want to try and get it fully working on UE4, I've made a final decision to revert back to Unity as that's where I'm most comfortable (at the moment anyway). However, those little surprises I mentioned will still come with the version in Unity. I'm working on AGR again as of typing this so hopefully I can have something out sooner then I planned, sorry if anyone was wanting a UE4 version, I'll be making sure to squeeze everything I can out of Unity and while I can't say I'll be making a futuristic racer in UE4, I'll defiantly be making something in UE4 in the future.

[AGSys]

I got around a month and a half left before college starts again bigsnake so if you want anything like track concepts or design ideas or anything at all, I could get right on it. I can also do some 3D work, but my experience is limited to Maya for the moment so that might be a barrier. But yeah, I'm really eager to help out with this. PM me the details if you're interested.

[ZixXer]

Hey man first off awsome stuff!!

after player pretty much all wipeout games a lot here is a list that I think is needed to make the best wipeout ever!
some things on the list may be things that you already have but just stating stuff that i think needs to be in for max entertainment!

A few things that I think this title need in order for me to enjoy it to the max,

1 difficult tracks that can be raced on max speed without braking for a corner.
2 have a option to never press the thrust button, but just press a button when you want to go less than the max. I play a whole lot of zone mode (favorite mode) and I don't have to press X all the time and i love that!
3 plz add a Zone mode, I love the INSANE SPEEDS, not the lousy phantom speeds.
It takes around 10 min to get to a speed I like in zone mode and during that time i'm browsing the web and watching series.
4 I would like a system that for example saves a checkpoint for every 10 perfect zones you did in a row. because if you can do 10 you're good enough to be at that speed. (I dont care about the points i just want to get a zone higher ) the checkpoint should be at the first of the 10 perfect zones so that you still need to do some work.
5 internal cam/front cam I would love it to have the camera on the tip of the nose so that i don't see my ship at all and am low to the ground, this gives me the best speed sensation of them all. flying out of internal/front cam is easier but feels boring compared to front cam if you have mastered it.
6 Wipeout 2097 and wip3out had a bit more icy feel to the planes, (no direct movement like HD), but when mastered feel so very good! It would be nice to have 1 or 2 crafts that use this type of smooth piloting.
7 barrel rolls I like what they do and give a extra fun thing to do/master even for internal views.
8 scraping the wall should not slow you down but build up energy, energy that can be used to enable turbo’s. (this will make flying super close to the wall rewarding, but getting closer than just a scrape and you should get a speed penalty)
9 Use up HP to get speed boost, like wip3out I really like this risk/ reward system. this allowed for last second wins if you had enough hp on the end of a track.
10 insane looking tracks with twists and upside down stuff.
11 keep the air brakes, they rule and make wipeout awesome. dont lose momentum when turning tight.
12 Racebox, I never understood how wipeout 2048 could ship without it! I want to be able to pick what track I want to race on and what settings/mutators are enabled.
13 When hitting a plane thats in front of me I want it to fly up in the air so I can race underneath him to take his place. wipeout hd did not do this so if you shot someone really close you you he would lose speed and bump into you thats really bad! Cool take over’s is what i would like to see.
14 don’t give me the blur stuff I want to see everything full sharpness when my cam is hovering just above the ground.
15 add long trails they just make it look so much cooler!
16 don’t make the vehicles look like cars!
17 add ghosts, so we can race or best versions, with the option to save a few extra ghosts, for different challenges. also allow replay to see how a ghost plane flew without having to chase it yourself.
18 share ghosts
19 simple readable hud that show speed, hp, energy and weapons in one flash.
20 you have to have turbo’s and weapon pickups scattered over the map.
21 have a option to change pickups and turbo’s every race so that even pro players need to scout and remember the spots during a new race.
22 to make this game noob friendly without the auto steering. make the wall slow you down less the further you are behind the nr 1 player. for example till 2 sec delay same amount of friction on walls as nr 1 position player then scale that up to 10 seconds delay with almost no friction at all. this will bring the pack of pilots closer together and makes it more fun with all the guns going off in the battlefield.
23 Did I mention it needs to go really fast with smooth cornering!

Hope this helps.

[bigsnake]

Ohh that's quite the list! I agree with a lot of the stuff you've listed aswell. Just to make this simpler, I'll go through the list in order:

1) That's the idea, the Airbrakes do and will continue to cause somewhat some air resistance but it won't be enough to be noticeable in most corners (it's pretty much a sharp 90 degree turn thing), then turning by itself doesn't slow you down at all
2) Now that's you've mentioned it that's going in as an option, thanks for that suggestion!
3) Zone's a work in progress right now, although just to play it safe with copyright it's called Survival (I'll probably rename it back to Zone at some point though). I want to make zones progress faster aswell, like you I find it hard to get started in Zone because it takes so damn long to get up to a reasonable speed (I might have an option to change how quickly they progress)
4) I like that idea, that would be a very useful feature for the more impatient so that's something else I'll add!
5) That's my final plan with the internal cam, I'll have to play around with what height would be good. There's actually a trick to increase the sensation of speed as well, you basically distort the frustum of the camera so the bottom plane is flat (normally a perspective camera extends out in all directions, but the effect of making the bottom flat is that it makes the floor look closer then it really is), I'll play around with that as well since I haven't really gotten into messing around with the camera outside of the external views too much.
6) Racebox is going to have mutators (much like most older games made with Unreal Engine) and one of them is to remove all the grip from the ships. There will be defiantly be some ships that slip more then others, but there will be a way to setup the physics so that they slide around much like the older Wipeout games). There's actually a new maneuver I'm adding so you can drift, I don't know what the button/button combination to do it will be just yet, but you can release your ships grips to the ground so you can slide through corners at will.
7) I'm adding another maneuver to go with barrel rolling to keep leaving the track a bit more exciting. When in the air you can also perform a spin (basically a barrel roll but turning 360 degrees very quickly instead of rolling 360 degrees). Once performed you get an instant increase in speed while you're in the air, at the cost of some shield energy of course. You can also perform as many as these as you like (with a delay between them) and can be chained with barrel rolls to get large boosts. In normal races these will obviously be quite risky to do, but in game modes where shield energy doesn't matter I'm hoping it brings a little something extra. These will also be toggable seperate to barrel rolls for those who don't want them. To add more to this, there's also a 3rd new maneuver where you can shift upwards (upshift) at the cost of more shield energy (probably about 10). What these will mostly be used for is reaching skillcuts, what I've had in mind is that you could also flip your craft when doing this to flip onto ceilings.
8 ) That's an interesting idea, it would have to be a very fine line between what's scraping it gently and fully colliding with walls. Although, that could go well with the drifting feature where you can release your grip, then you can softly scrap the walls from that. I'll play around with that at some point!
9) Again another interesting idea, you've actually given me an idea of how this could be implemented, let me know what you think of this. You could enable it on racebox which will disable the ability to absorb items. Instead of absorbing items, it will activate a shield, then the special button (the button used for stuff like combat spins and canceling speed lap times) is what allows you to convert shield energy into a boost. Then to make sure it's not stupidly easy to end up killing yourself, rather there can be healing strips along the track (like FZero), or passing the start line will you give 30% - 70% of your shield energy back (depending on various factors)
10) Yeah, that's something I felt was missing from Wipeout. There was a lot of potential with Magstrips although it got wasted on really short track sections that weren't really that interesting. I want to be a bit more creative with the kind of things Magstrips do!
11) Of course, you can't have a Wipeout game without airbrakes :)
12) As you will have read loads of times now, race box will be in, I'm also making it as customizable as possible too!
13) Yeah that was an annoying thing in Wipeout HD that really makes it hard to get ahead of the pack if your behind, also all the AI being clumped together on Elite difficulty is the biggest pain in the ass. I don't know how crazy I want to go with the ships reacting to weapons yet, it will defiantly be more then Wipeout HD's setup where the ships just slightly nudge to the side though!
14) Oh yeah don't worry about Motion Blur, there's gonna be none of that in AGR
15) I'll experiment with some lengths, at the moment my trials are quite short so I'll defiantly be looking at tweaking them. Also making them look nice, as at the moment the trail is just a solid color, later on I'll have a texture scrolling over it and give them an emissive material (with Unity 5 I can even have them inject light into the realtime Global Illumination, so the trails will emit light that bounces off sufaces).
16) Yeah the ships won't look like cars, in terms of ship design I'm wanting to for the HD Fury type designs...I'd assume when you say cars you mean the original Wipeout 1 designs (possibly the 2048 designs aswell)
17) Already in ;) Both readable and writable to disk (if you've played any of the latest AGR builds then you can see the ghost file in your documents folder, they're not encrypted yet so you can edit the locations the ghost travels between as well)
18 ) At some point I do want some kind of online infrastructure, I'm currently working on something for the Unity Asset Store so if I make any money off that then server hosting will be where a bit of that money goes in the future. For now though, you can actually share ghosts. All you need to do it get someone else's ghost file and replace your own.
19) This is something I've been torn between because I've wanted both a simplistic yet stylistic HUD. I think for this I'm going to have multiple choices for players, considering AGR already has early alpha versions of a ship and track editor, doing something simple like a HUD editor would be very feasible aswell).
20) That's another idea I've had, having separate pads for both offensive and defensive weapons in 2048 was great because you could easily choose how you wanted to race. That will most likely be something that I will add.
21) The pickups are randomized to begin with so that won't be a problem :) Along those lines though, one thing I've wanted to try out is weapon balancing, where you only get the more destructive weapons if you're at the back of the pack and then if you're first you'll just get defensive weapons.
22) That's another good idea, although it would have to be some sort of pilot assist option to get more extreme help. Maybe also only an option with the AI on novice? It would remove a lot of the challenge it was an all-the-time thing.
23) A++ class ;)

[ZixXer]

Thanks for reading and responding to that terrible long list :P
Its good to know I gave you some idea's.

I did play a version not sure wich one but I sucked at it... did not have a ps3 controller hooked up to my pc (I have 4 ps3 and ps4 controllers) I should know how to use it for the pc aswell.
I'm not realy sure what you mean with point 9.

[pichuscute]

Just a note. I'm glad to see you aren't abandoning Unity. Good luck with finishing up the physics. I really can't wait to see those done, since you've got everything so close already.

[bigsnake]

Thanks!

I've been code refactoring the past few days (reducing code as much as possible), it's led to once again another rewrite of my physics. However this time is going seriously going to be the last time as what I have now is completely manageable (from ~10000 lines of code to 1000) . Anyway, I have an experimental build with the new physics, there's nothing setup other then the ship (even then the ship doesn't have everything setup still), I'm also sorting out input for the game at the moment and the ship is currently only controllable with the keyboard. Here's the link for anyone who wants to try it out - https://db.tt/bXH4ZMt8

And the default keyboard controls:

Respawn - R (only for this build, my respawn system isn't back in yet)
Change Camera View - C (internal view doesn't work correctly at the moment)

Space - Accelerate
Left/Right Arrows - Steer
Up/Down Arrows - Pitch
Q - Left Airbrake (Double tap for sideshift left)
E - Right Airbrake (Double tap for sideshift right)
Q and E - Brake

Left/Right/Left | Right/Left/Right in the air - Barrel Roll
Up/Down/Up | Down/Up/Down in the air - Air Flip
Down Arrow + Left Shift on the track - Upshift

[pichuscute]

I don't know if it's just from my edits to your variables for your older physics engine or not, but that doesn't seem to accelerate quite as nicely as the older physics did. And the air brakes seem to turn too extreme right now, honestly. It will be very nice if the re-write is lowering the code amount by such an large degree, though, haha. Also, just a note, but it's running pretty poorly on my laptop. Not sure why, as I haven't had that issue with your older version at all (I get a solid 40-50 fps with it). Figured I'd mention it, though. Keep it up, though. :) I'll look forward to more.

[bigsnake]

In what way do you mean about the acceleration? I'd assume you mean it doesn't accelerate as fast to begin with. If that's the case, it's intentional. If it isn't that, let me know and I'll fix it.

For the airbrakes, they shouldn't be any different from the previous physics. I'm using the exact same calculation and turn amount. It could be the camera doing that because it's more sensitive to the airbrakes so that the ship swings out on screen a bit further, if anyone else has any issues then I'll tweak it a bit.

For performance there's multiple factors involved with this:
1) Unity 5 uses more advanced rendering techniques then before, especially with it's multiple pass rendering (you draw the scene multiple times in different ways to get different information)

2) I'm using a realtime reflection script on the ship. If you have an older GPU then I can imagine this might be the issue, it will be toggable for the final version of 0.2. I usually test AGR on my laptop, since this is an experimental build I didn't bother this time though.

3) The track is high poly. To optimize this later on the track will be split up into different objects that can be culled (not rendered if not visible) so this won't be an issue, this shouldn't be an issue at the moment though considering the lack of additional geometry.

[dreadofmondays]

to put it simply, it's as if the airbrakes take time to stop working after i let go of the button. Handling is very difficult and frustrating mainly because of this aspect; I need to hold the button in order for my turning radius to shrink to the right size for the corner, but letting the airbrake button off again doesn't take effect immidiately and the ship continues to turn into the wall. it basically feels like the airbrakes have overly long wind up and wind down times

[bigsnake]

I hadn't noticed that until you mentioned it, thanks a bunch! Just made the airbrakes a lot more responsive.

I'm wanting everyone to be happy with the physics, so I've exported AGR as a Web Player game so it can be quickly tested. What I'm hoping is that people can let me know what they think of the physics and then I can change them and update them almost instantly, then of course people don't have to keep downloading these experimental builds. I'll keep this up until the end of the month, I'll be mainly focusing on the physics and then in February I'll work on actual content. Then by mid-late February I'll hopefully have a full build ready.

Here's the link - https://db.tt/AFsatJgk

Changes:

09/01/2015 | Experimental 2
- Increased airbrake gain and falloff interpolation speeds
- Added airbrake drag (back of the ship now physically swings out when you airbrake)
- Added camera airbrake return spring (still needs tweaking)
- Disabled drag on the ship and replaced it with my own drag solution (gives me loads of freedom on how the ship pilots)
- Disabled Air Flips

[pichuscute]

I think he may have pinpointed the airbrake problem I was having. As far as the acceleration, I think what the issue actually is is just the speed of the ship is faster than I'm used to. That, coupled with the lower framerate I'm getting and the slippery airbrakes, and I wasn't really able to control the ship.

On that note, I tried to play the web build, but it fails to download the data file. It also says "Built with beta version of Unity. Will only work on your computer!" at the top, which may be why I can't play it. So, I can't check the changes that most likely solved the problems, haha. xD

[bigsnake]

Ah okay, that would make sense :)

For that error, I'm using the beta version of Unity 5 although I've had a few friends who have been able to test it for me just fine. I think it could just be to do with versions, if you already had the Unity Web Player installed before trying it then download the latest version (http://unity3d.com/webplayer), otherwise I'll see if I can get the WebGL player to build (I was going to do WebGL first but it threw a bunch of errors at me). If I can't do that, I'll just upload a normal version of the game.

[pichuscute]

Not sure if I did have an outdated version of the web player or not, but updating didn't change anything, unfortunately. xP

[bigsnake]

Well that sucks :(

Here's a normal build of the game - https://db.tt/USFzckrM

There's quite a lot of changes in this from the previous experimental build, let me know how it goes!

[pichuscute]

It works! :D I love that there is a working magstrip, too! Btw, what's the plan for the wall collisions? Will you keep them as they are now? Or will you have them slow down the player? Since I'm pretty bad at this, I was sliding around the walls often and it didn't really negatively affect me. xD This is looking great, though!

Edit: as I was replaying, I went off the course while on the magstrip and was able to land myself on another part of the track stuck on my side. When I respawned my car, I was upside down and looking at the inside of the track model. Just a heads up that going off the track while on the magstrip may do some strange things. xD

[bigsnake]

Awesome, glad you enjoyed it! For the collisions, yeah they will slow down the player. The ship's physics material (an asset that describes how a collider reacts to other colliders) is setup with zero friction as the collisions become unstable with PhysX doing the work, so I just need to add custom friction and wall rotations and that will be the collisions done.

For the magstrip, I need to find a good balance for the forces to make the magstrips work 100% correctly so I was expecting that to happen at some point :P

[bigsnake]

I've got one final experimental build for anyone who wants to test it out.
ETA of the final version is the end of February. ETA of the source code is whenever the final version of Unity 5 is finally released.

Link : https://db.tt/bkbPxsj4

Changes:
PHYSICS

Hovering stability has been increased as well as being made much bouncier
Hover landing rebound now affects the hover damping instead of adding a force (this makes the ship level out quickly after landing from great heights)
The ship is now pulled around by gravity while hovering over normal segments of the track (not magstrips basicly)
Custom friction has been re-added (this also rotates the ship now as well)
Pitching down now greatly increases the ship's damping, making it much better to remain stuck to the track


VISUAL

Ship energy trail, engine light and engine flare has been re-added
Ship collision sparks re-added (particles also now simulated in world space instead of local / particles no longer simulation as part of the ship)
Re-added HUD with new visual look.
NOTE : The new HUD might not work correctly with an integrated graphics chip, it blurs whatever is behind each HUD element. Zero3growlithe had tried an earlier version of this and the HUD blurring for him wasn't working. I have tried this on computers at college and my own laptop which is running an Intel HD 3000 which haven't shown any issues.
HUD now moves around based on ship movement (left, right, up and down velocity and boosting)
Ship now has electrical spark particles attached when locked onto a mag-strip
Added basic Time-Of-Day cycle
Wall collisions now vibrate the camera


AUDIO

Most sounds replaced with new sounds that aren't from Wipeout HD (remaining sounds that are the same are ones not from Wipeout HD)
Added sounds for sideshifting, newly added rocket pickup and newly added mines pickup


OTHER

Basic AI re-implemented (not yet used in any way)
Added rockets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ-TTbd-JfY) and mines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnI8L58HNVI) (not yet usable without the unity editor to set the ships pickup)
Ship respawning re-added
Both of the new maneuvers have been set to disabled by default
The splash screen is now the first scene to load (in the actual release this will go to the menu as the animation shows, for now it will skip to the game)
NOTE: press any key to skip the splash screen
Every lap you are given a turbo as to be expected, the HUD icon doesn't changed although you will still have it. Press left shift (by default) to fire it.


Gamepad controls still aren't in just because I forgot, the final version will have these back in!

[Koleax]

I think this project is great! I just recently started learning game development when news hit that more 3D engines were becoming free to download and learn from. I'm currently exploring how I might make an antigravity racer in UE4, but I'm very interested in this as well!

I am of the firm belief there can never be too many AGRs or imitations of Wipeout because Wipeout is just that good.

[bigsnake]

I agree, there can't really be enough, especially since it's a genre the AAA guys just seemed to have just forgotten about. I hope you have fun learning UE4, blueprints will help make the job much easier if you haven't had any previous coding experience. If you need any help getting anything setup then send me a PM, I'd be glad to help you :)

[bigsnake]

Small update for everyone.

I'm currently adding a photomode to AGR. It's based on an FPS camera and you can fly anywhere you like using it, you can even fly through any object you want. Later I will add post processing effect controls to it but for when the game actually has detailed environments I think many will enjoy this part - you are able to upscale the internal rendering resolution by 4x to create super-res images like so (large image warning) - https://db.tt/nH94LEq3. If you zoom in then you'll notice it's blurry, this is caused by anti-aliasing which I'm going to temporarily disable if you use the 4x upscaling.

[pichuscute]

Ooooh, that track section looks nice! Also, a photo mode sounds quite exciting haha. Keep up the awesome work man!

[Chill]

Wow looking good guys.. Agreed, there can never be too much

[pichuscute]

So, I know you guys moved on to Ballistic NG, but is there any chance there's still a recent version of this somewhere on Git that I could take a look at? I'd love to see the recent updates you had made since the last time I had messed with it in Unity. :)

[bigsnake]

Yeah, here you go :) https://github.com/bigsnake09/AGR2280

I'm still playing with Wipeout HD-esque physics to the side so I'll probably have a repo up at some time in the future with the work on that.

[pichuscute]

Awesome, I definitely want to keep up with your progress on that. :) So keep us posted! And thanks for the link!

EDIT: Sidenote, does the AI ship part of this build work at all? I'm assuming no, because I see no change in testing, but I thought I'd ask.