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I’ve been very busy in the last months working on lighting on PC version and building a new game version for Samsung Wave mobile phone. It is now finished, I’ll post soon screenshots of the new great tracks.
For now, I’d like to wish you an happy new year. Have great success in your projects.

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Here is a video to show how the data can be edited and result can be seen in reel time in game.

Click here for french version

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I worked on « items » that are displayed on track. Items can be boost pad, collectable objects, weapons pick up or Check Point. I added in 3dsMax one selection tool to choose the location of items, the type and the lateral position on track.

Currently these different types are defined:

Then in game I added code for displaying these items. The boost bar is composed of one pad on track (with an arrow) and moving arrows on top of it. The textures are displayed using additive mode, in order to see them on all type of background. Player need to quickly see and identity the item.

Here is the icon of « collectable » object. The center icon is a rotating coin (done with 3 quads)

Here is icon for weapon pickup. Same rotation as previous icon.

This is start line. The effect is not very good, I’ll improve it.

This is checkpoint. The arrows are moving left and right (crossing and merging).

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During August, Alexandre Ducreux has worked on first modelisation of Libertia environnement. He choosed to start with surface track (all environnements have « space far tracks » and 2 « Surface/detailled » locations). Here are the first screenshots.

Libertia is a big asteroids where pirates lives.

It is former mines.

Lot of ships has been linked to the asteroids to create habitations.

Some of them are big luxury ships.

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In order to improve the speed of creating a track, I’ve written a small graphic application that record track « shapes » position using a small flight simulator. It uses an USB joystick.

The camera is moving at constant speed. Joystick is used to turn right/left, up/down and roll. The joystick has analogic values, so the motion changes are proportionnal to stick motion.

The application display a grid and record a new piece each 10 meters. First piece is the blue one. Once application is stopped, all pieces coordinates are recorded into a txt file.

I’ve wirtten a small 3dsMax script that import the txt file and create all track pieces. Above, you can see the result.

Here are the shapes with final « profile ».

Same with textures.

With some asteroids and lighting.

Other view.

Once track is finished, the PVS (potential visible set) is computed (it is done outside 3dsMax).

Another view.

Result in game

Result in game

The total process has taken half an hour. There is still some work but the track structure is there. The curves are fluid this way and recording them with a joystick gives a interesting natural feeling.

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« Ragged Edge » engine use small pieces of track, added one after the other. Each piece can have different profile (horizontal slice of the track). Changing profile of a piece adjust automatically the track mesh. So it is easy to change style of track. I’m currently working on listing all usable track profiles. The tracks are built into 3DS Max. For each piece of track I can tune the profile. To be more efficient, I’ve pre-defined 20 types of profiles and I can copy paste shape style from one to another. To illustrate this, here is a sample of a track slice, pasting different style. On the small blank frame, you can see the profile, and the result on the right (click for bigger picture)

My goal is to pre-defined nice profiles so that I’ll only have to select them into a list (this is already done into my 3dsMax plugin, I only have to complete the list now).

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The Lao Tzu

This ship is the OrbiTemple of the Prakaash Rooh (Doctors from all nations, they speak the subtle and are trained to fight to protect injured people). Titanic ship ever expanding thanks to donations from patrons, which passes through the space systems on a unchanged trajectory for generations, allowing those who need to join them each time they pass near.

Large cylinder with colored metal caduceus painted in the center in the lengthwise: two green snakes coiled around a scarlet kris.

Both ends of the cylinder are perm work to enlarge: beams above, pieces of unfinished hull, teeming with small ships and construction workers in spacesuits. A large amount of docking bay alongside the ship can allow the docking for smaller ship. The cylinder is studded with large antenna sizes, all different. It is an assemblage of disparate things, viewed from far, gives a cylinder. But upon closer inspection, it is full of bumps (buildings, ships permanently docked and welded …)

All around the ship, moving ships that bring medical or send back patients to their planets or their colonies. Small convoys of ships are accompanying the Lao Tzu (a bit like sharks and pilot fish for the picture).

The lenght is about 1,5 km, but with all antennas, and docks bay it is more about 2Km.

Here are designs from Pratik Jaiswal

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Tuning data is often a hard task in a game. Some games have so many data to tune, that a tool is required to edit them (or this can be a nightmare: to change data, save, run game, see result, change data, save, run game, see result …).
In Ragged Edge, all data can be tuned by anybody. So I’ll deliver the editing tool with the game.
Here is first screenshots of the editing tool. Not finished yet, but I can edit curve, float and int (single value or array). The editor will be connected to the game using the « shared memory » method (this is next step).

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Ragged Edge will feature additional games. As the game takes place in a tavern, card games suit well the mood. One of them is « The Makers of Universes » (« les faiseurs d’univers » in french).

The game have been created by Pygmoo. We’ve been thinking since a while with Nicolas Maillet (the game creator) how to convert that game int a video game. This is now clear that it will be perfect inside Ragged Edge. Between two races, you can seat and play a game.

The goal of the game is simple, you buy machines and build universes (!). To counter your opponents, you can send them attacks through one of their three doors.  It is turn based game.

The work has started to adapt the original game to video game. Stay tuned for more.

Arts by David Revoy.

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Here is the third graphic environment defined for the game: Libertia

Description:

« A fool assembly of all types of vessels, anchored in good sized asteroid (about 1,5 Km diameter), inside a heap of other race ships in orbit around a blue sun. About 4000 people. Close of a blue sun. Large asteroid exploited for rare minerals inside. Some small buildings with antennas on top, visible on the surface, with bright windows. 4 Tunnels (coupled by two) used as dock entrance/exit for small carriers. Structures for docking vessels in the periphery, they allow large vessels to hold on to land and staff enter via pressurized tunnels. Some vessels are attached and used as permanent houses for the pirates who do not want to live in the complex in the heart of the asteroid, nor in their battleship. Among these vessels some are luxury cruise ships (about 300m to 500m long), stolen from Large Companies. Other vessels are in ruins and used to repair others. « Close to te sun » mean that the asteroid is orbiting around this sun, is very far in fact, but close enough to make is radiations deadly for unprotected peoples. The big sun must reflect a feeling of « danger zone ».
The complex has been dig in the asteroid to aim to the valuable metal heart. But some part of building are on the surface. May be an excavation, like big open-sky mine hollow can be seen, showing buildings under the surface of the asteroid.