Kart racing game

[marshmonkey]

there is an effect that you don't see much of in the video where when it is detected that you have fallen off the camera stops and you see yourself falling into space while you wave your arms about.

[notman]

It would be pretty damn funny to have a satellite fly by and obliterate your guy :D ... or a meteor or various other space junk.

[SHEPEIRO]

if you fall off you should be picked of by giant space lasers, always go with the giant space lasers

[marshmonkey]

As we are starting to build pieces of the GUI for the much anticipated race mode for our game, I spent some time mocking up a general outline of what it might look like. What do you think? We will use this as a guide to build the real pieces. Click to see the bigger picture.

http://myzerogear.com/positionsml.jpg (http://myzerogear.com/position.jpg)

also, check out these things - I want to buy one and make it into a Zero Gear-mobile sooo bad. http://www.lusseautoscooters.com/bcarpics.html

I will have to model one for the game at least!

[JasonLavoie]

This is awesome watching all of this come together MM, you and your team are doing a great job with this, very inspiring.

I like the HUD as well, very clean, and I (personally) wouldn't change too much. The only thing that I think you could play around with is the power up , more so the size. I think it would be cool if the actual power up icon was popping a bit out of the box, or maybe when the player gets a power up, you could incorporate an animation that expands and then contracts with some follow through could add a nice "cartoony" touch. This could be done with the numbers as well (when you change positions or completed a lap) but subtlety may be the answer :)

Anyways, I just wanna say this is looking great, each update gets me more excited for the release :)

Keep up the great work!

[marshmonkey]

thanks Jason, I would like some kind of animation when states change as well. Esp. for when you first get an item and when your position or lap # changes etc. Just a real quick scale up with maybe a touch of rotation.

[marshmonkey]

new blog post, we got our minimap created in flash by eeenmachine (http://www.eeenmachine.com) into the game and working, check it out!

http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2008/06/mini-map-with-maximum-enjoyment.html

[[MILES]]

The speed by which you and your small team are pumping out this high quality content, indicates to me that Nintendo must have had only one person working on Mario Kart Wii during its development (likely an intern with no arms or legs). Keep up the great work!

[Skizot]

new blog post, we got our minimap created in flash by eeenmachine (http://www.eeenmachine.com) into the game and working, check it out!

http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2008/06/mini-map-with-maximum-enjoyment.html

during the 3-5 second mark of that video i can tell that THOSE CARS HAVE NO BOTTOMS!!!

hehe j/k but yeah... they ARE lacking bottoms for wen they flip up like that

[marshmonkey]

they do have a bottom? They flip over all the time so they have to.

[LEViATHAN]

Well the bottom is flat and in the same colors as the car, so it gives the illusion that it's missing.

[J.I. Styles]

If you're still interested in experimenting with it, in your rim lighting shader, I'd suggest retaining some of the diffuse component. Or if you're working with higher specs, do a proper snells law fresnel function and then overlay the function with the diffuse component.

so:
float fresnel = SolveFresnel (http://developer.nvidia.com/attach/6664);
fresnel *= diffuse*2; //simple overlay expansion

that will reduce the desaturation of your scene and allow your diffuse component to show through and not be so washed out

[marshmonkey]

actually we are not using any shaders at the moment, just fixed-function operations. This is how we are doing the rim lighting: http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2008/02/rim-lighting-extravabonanzathon.html

[marshmonkey]

This is a revised GUI mockup of how we want the garage to function. This will hopefully be another GUI programmed in flash, and will feature floating elements that can be positioned by the user. Hopefully you will be tooling around in this garage soon!

http://myzerogear.com/garage2sml.jpg (http://myzerogear.com/garage2.jpg)

[Snowfly]

Sweet. Flash UI's are the way to go! I notice the Kart palette has a by-line...support for custom karts? :-)

[marshmonkey]

you should read the entire thread! :) This game will support almost custom everything! See the Import Item menu option? :)

[pior]

Hey Marsh, will it work fine if I divide my textures as follows for the character I'm working on :
1 square map for the bodytight suit,
1 square map for the hard armor (includes shoulder pads, legs aso + helmet) and hair,
1 square map for the visor (ideally I would love to have a nice cubemap reflection on this part, no painted detail),
and 1 square map for the head?

[marshmonkey]

that should work, the only limitation to having multiple textures for the same mesh is that you can't customize the same color across all of them. So if there is one common color you would want to see change on all the pieces at once, they have to be on the same sheet otherwise you would have to change each one individually in the game. Also, you are limited to 6 custom colors for the entire mesh.

for the cubemap you could use the one I use all over in the game, or you could create your own. Eventually there will be a limit for the size of all total assets for each item, but I don't know what that is going to be yet.

Are the helmet, visor and character going to be separate items?

[gamedev]

Hey Marsh,

Not sure if this was answered or not - are you two working full time on this? Self funded?

Looking great guys! Can't wait to make some custom content!

-Tyler

[marshmonkey]

Yea, we are both working full time on this, self funded.

Hey, anybody out there that has 3D World issue 106 that just came out, there should be something in there about our game - if someone owns a copy, a scan would be much appreciated, I can't find it out anywhere around where I live.

[marshmonkey]

whipped this guy up this morning:

http://myzerogear.com/sockmonkey.png

[JasonLavoie]

Hey MM, do you make it so that the green and white are masked? So players can control the colour of the monkey, or is the customization aimed at the accessories and carts?

All I can say is I realllyyy wanna play this badly, you guys are doing such a good job.

[Pedro Amorim]

ahahahaha
Awesome!
give it a brown color and make a nice monkey:)

[marshmonkey]

Hey MM, do you make it so that the green and white are masked? So players can control the colour of the monkey, or is the customization aimed at the accessories and carts?

All I can say is I realllyyy wanna play this badly, you guys are doing such a good job.

Yea, when I am preparing every model to go into the game I set them up to use color masks for the parts I want to be customizable. Almost every single kart, character, accessory, hat, and wheel has 1-6 customizable colors on it.

The sock monkey will have 3 customizable colors, 2 for stripes and one for it's button eyes.

[Armanguy]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v92/armanguy/polycountrider.jpg

Hey marsh i was wondering what maps im allowed using in my model? can i use spec,alpha,normal maps at all?

[marshmonkey]

right now I am only using a diffuse and alpha, and also being able to flag a texture as using an environment map (but with no spec map, 100% on)

trying to keep it simple simple simple!

[marshmonkey]

working on a kart for the sock monkey:

http://myzerogear.com/shoecar.jpg

*edit* custom wheels for the shoecar?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSzzgFb5rkg

[[MILES]]

HAHA! Funny video. Very creative idea you have there for the Sock Monkey, Marsh

[marshmonkey]

got it in game today - 5 customizable colors!

http://myzerogear.com/gumshoe.jpg

[edwardE]

All that comes to mind is: lmao

Very nice. I can see people having the whole "Only one of us can be him!" argument.

[Sa74n]

looks dope, david :)

personally i'm not a big fan of the shininess of everything in the game. i think its the rim lighting shader that makes it look a bit too plastic.
maybe some more ao and a shader that makes it look more like rubber would suit the game a bit better?
thats the only crit i can offer but its more of a personal preference i guess :)

[marshmonkey]

well, one cool thing about the way I am doing the rim lighting effect is that since it is done with a cubemap, I can experiment with the look easily by altering what the cubemap looks like.

We still have not experimented much at all with shaders or any kind of actual lighting on the characters, which is something I would like to do eventually but like so many other things in my head it is on the "when we have time" list.

[marshmonkey]

gonna try and do a mess of accessories and hats today, first up:

an easy combo of some of the existing ones,
http://myzerogear.com/acc006.png

next,

http://myzerogear.com/acc007.png

also,

http://myzerogear.com/acc008.png

[pior]

Haha 3D glasses YEAH!

Here's what I have. The colored bits (ref and green here) come from a multiply layer. I have a few different mouthes (with and without lipstick, smiling and neutral = 4) but also have variants with the cast shadow of the visor painted in. It could go without tho.

I guess I can make you a .ma?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/wip_kart_colors.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/wip_kart_mouthes.jpg

[marshmonkey]

thats awesome! I could try and get it set up for the game from the .ma file if you want to send it over.

here is one last accessory for today:

http://myzerogear.com/steamgoggles.png

*edit* I just thought of an awesome kart to go with that futuristic character. Some kind of f-zero-sh wipeout hover kart deal, complete with scrolling texture hover jets - and the cool thing which I wasn't actually planning on when I set it up - is there is a turn left and a turn right animation on all the karts that is blended in depending on on speed and sharpness of turn. Right now we are using it so that the steering wheel turns when the kart turns, but if there was a kart that was "hovering" then you chould have the entire kart tilt side to side for that animation. There is an idle animation as well so the kart could be bobbing slightly up and down. I am not sure what to do for wheels though, since at least the way the system is right now it requires a wheel model. Maybe wheels that look like air exhaust or something . . . hmm I'm going to think about it some more :)

[pior]

Hehe glad to hear it spawns cool ideas!
Just sent you a link to the model. It's a bit of a mess, it being a conversion...
I'm thinking about making more simple, cute models like animals and such. Keep you updated!

[marshmonkey]

http://myzerogear.com/spacebunny.jpg

http://myzerogear.com/spacebunny.pnghttp://myzerogear.com/spacebunnyhelm.png

video of it in game soon.

[pior]

Haha that's cool :P
Face is a bit grey tho!
I'll send you the hard-edged mesh asap.

[SHEPEIRO]

prior- ace character, ears could do with a couple more polys though the shading lets it down with the env. map on it

i wish i had time to make a kart. i bagsy a tricked up mobility chair

ah just read your last post when i posted, hard edges on the ears?

[marshmonkey]

the face is a little grey I know, I hacked in a color mask for the skin tone and the hair and I could have tweaked it a little better.

I will make sure this girl works with the garage editor when we release it then I will give it back so you can see the format and change whatever and see how it fits with everything else. There is a .mesh exporter for max, so you could make stuff straight from there once you are able to throw it into the garage to see it.

I also separated the material for the helmet so it can be a stand alone item and I tweaked the geometry of it just a little so it fit properly on all the other characters.

[SHEPEIRO]

marsh are tracked vehicles possible?

[marshmonkey]

not in a straightforward way right now. We are just getting around to making the idle anims on the kart scale with speed, so if you had the tracks animated as an idle and then we have those settings available in the xml for the item - then I think it might be possible but it would not be actually physically correct. It might look ok though.

I would really like to make a little tank, if I ever get to it then I will figure it out in the process.

[SHEPEIRO]

ive found the perfect ref for a tank for this, if ive read the thread correctly you have an idle, right and left turn anims?? are these blend shapes, or anims that blend? bones or seperate meshes with transform keys? sorry for the load of Qs im enfussed

ever thought of using animated uvs for the tracks?

[pior]

Oh cool. As for skin tones I would suggest the following :
You could have the 'main' tone driven by a multiplied color (over a very bright greyscale painted face), and another layer on top of that that adds the needed coloration. (red in the cheeks and nose for instance). A couple blending modes in photoshop allow to do that just fine and I hear they are easy to replicate in an engine. (multiply mode might be a bit too dark for such subtle shifts)

Edit : hehe just saw the eyepatch! NICE haha!

[erik!]

very cool!

[marshmonkey]

Oh cool. As for skin tones I would suggest the following :
You could have the 'main' tone driven by a multiplied color (over a very bright greyscale painted face), and another layer on top of that that adds the needed coloration. (red in the cheeks and nose for instance). A couple blending modes in photoshop allow to do that just fine and I hear they are easy to replicate in an engine. (multiply mode might be a bit too dark for such subtle shifts)

Edit : hehe just saw the eyepatch! NICE haha!

ah, thats a great idea Pior!

right now (and this may not be final) the karts have turn_left, turn_right, and idle skeletal animations which are all blended by the engine.

Animated UV's would make it look like the tread is moving, but right now we don't have any way too hook the scroll rate to how fast your kart is moving. I think it would be a good idea for us to make it so that you can designate a name in the material file of the scrolling texture in the item xml, as well as a multiplier value against the speed of the kart, so that it will scale the scroll value based on kart speed for that texture. We have also talked about opening up a lua script per item so that it would be easy to implement this kind of stuff yourself ( with a little scripting knowledge ) but I am not entirely convinced if that would be a good idea or not.

[SHEPEIRO]

cool
worst comes to the worst and you have to have a gta tank (wheels)

[marshmonkey]

here the video of Pior's space bunny in the game, the quality kind of suck for some reason but you get the idea anyway.

http://vimeo.com/1220911

[pior]

Haha you killed her :P

[marshmonkey]

lol, I couldn't see where I was driving becuase I had the camera turned around!

trying to keep the item train rolling . . . got a mohawk
http://myzerogear.com/mohawk.png

[Baddcog]

You said you didn't know what to do about hover car NOT having wheels since the anims (or something) needs them.

I've done this with game models before to 'trick' the engine, maybe it'll work. I'd love to see a hover car.
Just hide a triangle inside the car somewhere. Could be very very small. Name it the wheels name and link it to the wheel bone. That should make the engine think it's got wheels.

[Ironwolf]

hrmmm

[marshmonkey]

yea, I could easily do that - we can control how the game works, I am just still figuring out if and how we need to build it to combat stuff like that, becuase while it might work well to just make a set of invisible wheels for a hovering kart, we will need to have some checks in place so that people don't make an invisible kart, character, etc and mess things up for other players by being basically invisible. I think invisible wheels might be ok, as long as we can prevent invisible karts and characters.

*edit* did a ballcap real quick

http://myzerogear.com/ballcap.png

[Skizot]

do you have a static mesh that can be used to make addon parts? like a basic body shape?

I'm interesting in making a few things for characters and i'd like to know the scale.

[edwardE]

Sorry if you guys already have this, but I didn't see it; night vision goggles (http://www.night-vision-goggles-4less.com/images/atn-night-vision-goggles.gif) would be pretty slick.

That future bunny girl is looking pretty cool!

[marshmonkey]

here is something pior put together from some meshes I posted earlier:

"Also put together a little static template skeleton in .obj flavour. The zip has a Maya8 .ma version of the original template too - to make it work under older Mayas simply textedit the few '8.0's at the beginning to the desired version."

http://www.pioroberson.com/files/ZG_driverrig_obj.zip

night vision goggles would be cool. I think a pyro tribute gas mask would own too.

[SHEPEIRO]

gas mask, fluffy bunny ears, flat cap, unicorn horn all ftw

[Skizot]

here is something pior put together from some meshes I posted earlier:

"Also put together a little static template skeleton in .obj flavour. The zip has a Maya8 .ma version of the original template too - to make it work under older Mayas simply textedit the few '8.0's at the beginning to the desired version."

http://www.pioroberson.com/files/ZG_driverrig_obj.zip

night vision goggles would be cool. I think a pyro tribute gas mask would own too.

so that head is the regular head size?? I might just do a pyro mask.... i was going to make a 300 helmet as well...

my question is... i use max, can i give you a 3ds and texture?

[Funky Bunnies]

this is looking more and more glorious every time I see it!
awesome work

[kinikuR6]

great job on the characters. Lots of personality.

[marshmonkey]

so that head is the regular head size?? I might just do a pyro mask.... i was going to make a 300 helmet as well...

my question is... i use max, can i give you a 3ds and texture?

no, I would need a format I can load into maya. Once we release the garage though, you will be able to get an exporter set up and see it on the characters. The head in that reference file is the "maximum" size, all the props are fit to fit on that, like a mannequin. Some have smaller or slightly different shapes but they will all basically fit inside that shape.

[kdub]

so that head is the regular head size?? I might just do a pyro mask.... i was going to make a 300 helmet as well...

my question is... i use max, can i give you a 3ds and texture?
As if you could make anything.


This thing looks awesome. If I understand it right the plan is to release it on steam?

[Generalvivi]

That is looking so awesome! nice job pior! and nice work zaph on getting those extra parts done ^^!

[Skizot]

As if you could make anything.

like you've done anything productive lately?
:P

[marshmonkey]

This thing looks awesome. If I understand it right the plan is to release it on steam?

Yes, that is our goal.

[Skizot]

http://i26.tinypic.com/2nkj882.png

progress so far...

question: what should i have on it that can be colored? i was thinking the rings around the eyes and breathers...

[marshmonkey]

cool! You might want to make the rubber part customizable, I am not sure how recognizable it will be as a gas mask if it is not black/dark gray though.

new hat, be a TV star!

http://myzerogear.com/tvset.png

[boomz]

Hey marsh, I have a few ideas but most of all I'd like to make a Train Engine Kart. Do you have regulations on the wheel count/styling/size? 6 wheels would be good for train-ness, and the two rear wheels would preferably be bigger than the front 4, and fully rubber tires are simply unacceptable haha. Theres also the question of the bar that joins wheels and whether you could animate that in congress with the travel of the kart. I just think you're game is dying for something steampunky (doesn't require a train, but how much cooler can you get than locomotives?). Excellent work, I can't wait to play!

[Skizot]

http://i28.tinypic.com/k19r2c.png

final i guess. max exports obj, can i send that and the textures? or do you want . .mat too as i have no idea how those work.

[Smirnoffka]

Just couldnt resist, and needed a break from my own project.

About an hours work, don't know if it will amount to anything.

http://i26.tinypic.com/2w1y6pz.jpg

:D

[Funky Bunnies]

hmm well I probably have to make a hat too, then


fry-hat (http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/fryhat.rar)?...

http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/fryhat.jpg

[SHEPEIRO]

gimp character is needed and skull car, now where was that sketch?

edit- found the bugger from ages back on the concept tag thread, pity coulnt find the one with all the knickers falling out the boot

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v192/Sectaurs/Pimpage/carpool.jpg

[marshmonkey]

I knew it was a good idea to involve polycount in this :)

that fry-hat is f*cking awesome. That looks like an easy one to try and get into the game real quick.

Obviously, as I am only one person who is trying to do the job of about 8 people, including making my own cool stuff - I can't work on getting everyone's stuff into the game right now. But what you can do to get ready for the day we release the garage editor that will allow you to test out all your custom content - is bone up on the Ogre3d asset format.

you can poke around the Ogre wiki for tuts http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/DCC_Tutorials

here are some exporters for most popular 3d apps http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=413&Itemid=133

here is a bit about the material script http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Materials

finally, once you get something exported, you can view the asset using LEXIVIEW, a model viewer for Ogre3d which you can download here: http://myzerogear.com/LEXI.rar

here is an example item I have pulled from the game and zipped up. This is how all the items are set up at the moment. You should be able to load this in the lexiviewer to check it out.
http://myzerogear.com/SteamGoggles.zip

one last thing to mention, it is not necessary - but if you would like to follow the style I have setting, I bake AO into all my maps using this tool: http://www.xnormal.net/ obviously there are lots of other ways to bake AO into your maps as well. This helps give objects some depth and illumination even though they are actually full bright in the engine.

btw, the skull car is an AWESOME idea! Any thoughts on how to make it work as a single seater?

[marshmonkey]

Hey marsh, I have a few ideas but most of all I'd like to make a Train Engine Kart. Do you have regulations on the wheel count/styling/size? 6 wheels would be good for train-ness, and the two rear wheels would preferably be bigger than the front 4, and fully rubber tires are simply unacceptable haha. Theres also the question of the bar that joins wheels and whether you could animate that in congress with the travel of the kart. I just think you're game is dying for something steampunky (doesn't require a train, but how much cooler can you get than locomotives?). Excellent work, I can't wait to play!

right now we only support 4 wheels, which are in the same spot on every kart. The wheels themselves can be customized but they have to be a standard size

[JasonLavoie]

Hey MM, maybe you can still do the idea...

What if you only had 4 wheels working (real wheels) and 2 wheels on the kart model? So it would be apart of the cart chassis instead of 2 more sets of real wheels.

Just a thought... I don't know if it even works, maybe you need so much distance between the cart and the ground that it would screw everything up :P

Either way, i gotta say it again... YOU GUYS ARE RAWKIN!!!

[marshmonkey]

Hey MM, maybe you can still do the idea...

What if you only had 4 wheels working (real wheels) and 2 wheels on the kart model? So it would be apart of the cart chassis instead of 2 more sets of real wheels.

Just a thought... I don't know if it even works, maybe you need so much distance between the cart and the ground that it would screw everything up :P

Either way, i gotta say it again... YOU GUYS ARE RAWKIN!!!

hmm, thats an interesting idea actually. It could work. It would depend on us setting up the idle animation rate to be tweakable based on kart speed, so you could animate the wheels spinning in the idle and set the rate in which it speeds up to match the rest of the wheels.

thanks for the cheerleading, I am not exaggerating by saying that the positive feedback is a huge part of what keeps us going in this stressful and scary ( but rewarding ) process!

[SHEPEIRO]

this would work for tanks too!
maybe

[JasonLavoie]

A whole new world of 6 wheel'ed cars awaits you Shepeiro, go forth and dominate!! :P

[Skizot]

are the wheels used for collison?

if not couldn't you make a wheel that is sideways (ala back to the future) for hover cars? or maybe booster engines?

if all else fails, what about a wheel that is clear? as in there is a model but it's alphaed out?

an no comments about the pyro hat? i r offended! :P

[marshmonkey]

the wheels is only graphical, although the physical wheel the game uses is the same size. So the graphical wheel can look different but it would have to be about the same shape and size to look correct since it is parented to the invisible graphical wheel of a fixed size.

[Skizot]

the wheels is only graphical, although the physical wheel the game uses is the same size. So the graphical wheel can look different but it would have to be about the same shape and size to look correct since it is parented to the invisible graphical wheel of a fixed size.

you solved flying cars for the most part...invisible wheel model + flying cart. tada... the flying carts would hover at the height the rolling ones go, so it'd be basically the same... right?

[marshmonkey]

yep, that would work. I am just wondering how many people would put them on their regular karts and make them look odd. I guess it's not a huge deal - people are going to do all kinds of wacky stuff we can't always control.

for some bizarre reason I have created a NimbleBit myspace page. Add us if you are the myspace type!
http://www.myspace.com/nimblebit

Also, a reminder that we also have a Zero Gear steam group - join up if you haven't already!
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/zerogear

[Skizot]

well can't you have them add in an option for tires a car CAN'T use?
like a text file with the tire id's that are disabled per car? that would allow you to make it so hover cars can't use the floaty wheels, and vice versa.

[SHEPEIRO]

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/Shepeiro/ZeroTank1.jpg

couple of things may need altering, worried about how much space the driver has inside the turret for anims and accesories, and the
treads, could possibly alter them to fit the wheels on the cart but that may look pants.

got a little texture space and a few polys to play with 2500 tris all in all, so i might add a little more stuff

[marshmonkey]

yea as that stands right now, the character would be clipping through it like crazy. There are anims where they flail their arms about. Not sure how you could avoid that, I really like the concept.

[Skizot]

http://i27.tinypic.com/aczjv7.png

new WIP

[SHEPEIRO]

mmm re-design it with lower turret sides and turn the rear of the turret into a spoiler/seat. its crazy but it just might work, this tanks gonna be rollin on chromes by the time its done

[Emil Mujanovic]

Took a while to catch up on this thread and I'm amazed with the sheer amount of quality work being displayed here! Awesome work!
Pior, Bunnygirl <3 My favourite custom player model in UT. So ace seeing it modded for Zero Gear.

-caseyjones

[Skizot]

http://i30.tinypic.com/293cco6.png
get both of my hats Here (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S7OL5OL8). I'm only posting them as there is apparently no ogre exporter for 3ds max :/

[marshmonkey]

there are lots of exporters for max, you might try this one:
http://www.ogremax.com/

btw, that's the sniper hat from TF2 right? I'm not crazy?

[Skizot]

btw, that's the sniper hat from TF2 right? I'm not crazy?

it is... it goes with the pyro hat ;)

I found an importer that works... shows my model in the LEXIViewer.. but no matter WHAT i do the model is looking up, and i have made almost the same material as yours (copied alot) and the rimlighting just won't turn on...
any ideas?

http://i27.tinypic.com/2m7vjw6.jpg

[Skizot]

okay so i got the model organized (holy god what a pain) but the rimlighting is still off...i can send you what i have if you'd like.

New hats in ogre format HURR (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QD2U2L3C)

[marshmonkey]

you don't have the rimlighting cubemaps that are being referenced in the same directory as the models so it can't find them. Take them out of here http://myzerogear.com/SteamGoggles.zip and put them in your model directory.

[boomz]

OK marsh, I'll get to work on something that fits the standard size a little better ORRR I think I have an idea on how to jimmy the train into the rig you support-- assuming you can "kart_velocity = idle_animation_speed;" on the extra wheels. If it doesn't work out, I'll just try something else, no biggie, its such a fun style to work in. Accessories will come too.

[BrodyB]

Here's a WIP of a hat I'm doing. I've never dealt with OGRE, so I'm going to have to figure out exporting this thing from modo.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/1017/helmetprevwg3.gif

[Skizot]

you don't have the rimlighting cubemaps that are being referenced in the same directory as the models so it can't find them. Take them out of here http://myzerogear.com/SteamGoggles.zip and put them in your model directory.

that's the issue... they ARE there.... i took them out of the zip seeing as you already had them...

[marshmonkey]

Awesome brody! I was going to do an army helmet next, but maybe I will do something else since that is great looking.

got some DJ cans goin

http://myzerogear.com/djcans.png

I will put the rim lighting files in there and try and see what your problem is Skiz

*edit* are you baking color into the verts?

[Skizot]

shouldn't be... if it is i'll try painting them out tonight..

[marshmonkey]

where is the brown color of the hat coming from? The only texture you have is the skin.png but I don't see any brown.

btw, dibs on engy helmet!

[Skizot]

there's a ton of brown.... or are you talking about the band? holy crap... i just opened it and see what you mean... yeah they are there, just hidden by a mask that it's not gonna show me :/ that's messed up. but yeah it's all in skin.png.

also, damn you. i was gonna do that one tonight :( guess i'll have to do the spy.

[boomz]

http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/train/images/ZG-trainblock-boomz.jpg
Here is my TrainKart blocking out. Marsh, QQ. Can the driver's position be moved in any way (forward-backward, laterally, vertically)? In order to be train-y he's kinda gotta be towards the back (sitting over the rear wheel). It should be a simple offset, but depending on the engine it could cause difficulties. Figured I'd ask before fully fabricating it. Also, 4 Wheels just looked simpler... much better than any additional 'fake' wheels, so the design should no longer cause difficulties/additional work :). On the wheels, if I want train-looking wheels, (kinda like the ones that be on the toy) should I texture those separately from the kart or on the same sheet? I'll be working on a version of this hat! (http://www.after5catalog.com/images/products/172-06601p1.jpg) while awaiting your response to my q's.

wip:
http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/images/beerhat-wip-2.jpg

Love the cans! It really teaches the kiddos that the safest drivers wear sound-cancelling headphones ;)

Army Helmets should be accompanied by a cigar, always!

[marshmonkey]

lol, those are both awesome! Right now the position of the player is constant across all karts . . . I am trying to think if there would be any problems allowing people to set a custom offset for the driver as long as that point lies somewhere within the collision mesh... I could see where it could be useful. I wall talk to my programmer about it.

meanwhile,

engy helmet

http://myzerogear.com/hardhat.png

*edit* programmer says that should be no problem, full steam ahead!

[SHEPEIRO]

ace train but it may look better and keep the drivers pos, if you add a coal bucket at the back and make the front shorter

[Skizot]

http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/images/beerhat-wip-2.jpg


if you take the beer cans off you could also make a baseball helmet. ;)


engy helmet

http://myzerogear.com/hardhat.png

the goggles have to be part of the helmet, else it would look weird... also need the slight lean that the real one has ;)


anyword on those rimlights on mine? or did they work for you?

[marshmonkey]

it has a tilt, I just took a screenshot of it at a top down angle. And eyewear is a separate "Accessory" item type. There are hats, and there are Accessories, for things like glasses, moustaches, etc that go on the front of the face.

The rim lighting is working, there is just some kind of weird lighting or texture weirdness with that model.

[Skizot]

if i change the rimlighting part of the material to the sky50.tga it gets a nice shine similar to the engy hat...

i have NO clue what it is.

[marshmonkey]

it seems like the cubemap is being applied, it just is not wrapping around the model the way it should. I think you have some wierd normals going on. Try setting all your normals to face and see if it looks correct besides the hard edges of course.

[Skizot]

I sent you a PM.

i seperate the hat and glass to see if that would work.. it KIND of did... but then failed.

[BrodyB]

I heard someone call for a cigar?

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/2647/cigarfr8.gif

I'm just gonna make a bunch of models, and once I get a lot of free time, I'll see if I can figure out OGRE importing. Or do you just want me to give OBJs or FBXs?

Next up, I think I'm tempted to make a Solid Snake bandana/mustache combo. Or maybe I shouldn't, as I don't want to start crossing the infringement line.

[marshmonkey]

I'm just gonna make a bunch of models, and once I get a lot of free time, I'll see if I can figure out OGRE importing. Or do you just want me to give OBJs or FBXs?

I can't keep up with getting a bunch of other stuff game ready, I am happy to try and troubleshoot people generating assets that will load in ogre though.

General Cap

http://myzerogear.com/generalcap.png

[Skizot]

PROTIP: if you use 3ds max and are wondering why LEXIViewer won't show rimshading etc. it's because 3ds max somehow locks down tga display and nothing else can use them. so close max and you stuff will look awesome.

[boomz]

Maya with Brice's CGFX BRDF Shader (http://www.mentalwarp.com/~brice/shader.php)
http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/images/poptop-boomz.jpg
LEXIView with all the goodies + color variations:
http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/images/poptoplexicolors-boomz.jpg
Flats:
http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/images/poptop-lum.jpghttp://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/images/poptop-alpha-boomz.jpg

Mesh, Material, Masks, Etc. Available Here (http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/hats/files/ZG-poptop-boomz.rar)

Gotta say I had fun with this one. Can't wait to do more tomorrow, especially now that I know a little more. Hopefully I'll also get a train done!? :D

[Funky Bunnies]

hmm, another eating-related hat. Maybe this means I should grab some food...


Got the mesh, material, and nonsense here (http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_chefHat.rar)

http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_chefHat.jpg

[marshmonkey]

those are both awesome! That chef hat might be so tall that it blocks your visibility a bit, but we will have to see.

need to do some wheels..

http://myzerogear.com/bottlecaps.png

penny:

http://myzerogear.com/penny.png

[boomz]

"In the force we trust" - nice. Did you straight up paint that portrait of abe? There should be a traction penalty for having such cool looking kart wheels.

Oh, what resolution is a standard Kart textured at? How about wheels? Trains-a-comin'

http://www.roryjones.net/gallery/zerogear/train/images/ZG-lowpolytrain-boomz.jpg
Lowpoly done. Integrated Railroad Crossing sign along with the warning lights as the brake lights. Quick paintover of what I think the color groups are going to look like, right now they're displayed in Brass/Red/Black. The wheels will be separately controlled but I imagine them being red by default like the original toy. Might adjust later for balance.

[Funky Bunnies]

those wheels are awesome! Really dig the general cap too, btw

sweet train, boomz. paint it up!


sorry about the height of the chef hat, I wasn't even thinking about it. I can re-export it shorter after the weekend.

I hacked together some files (http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_fryHat.rar) for the fryHat, but I can't get it looking as good as it did in Maya :(. I guess it's just an inherent challenge to coloring with this method.

I'm also using color1,2,3 within multiple shaders in this one - is that not allowed? I wasn't sure

[Skizot]

funky, it seems your model isn't getting the rimlighting applied...

[marshmonkey]

the texure sizes I have been sticking to are 512x512 for characters (in some cases two if the face needs a lot of detail)

one 512 for karts, and one 256 for wheels, accessories, and hats

There will be a size limit per item type, but I have not gotten to the point where I know what it should be yet.

you can have up to 6 customizable colors.

[Funky Bunnies]

the texure sizes I have been sticking to are 512x512 for characters (in some cases two if the face needs a lot of detail)

one 512 for karts, and one 256 for wheels, accessories, and hats

There will be a size limit per item type, but I have not gotten to the point where I know what it should be yet.

you can have up to 6 customizable colors.

I suck. Sorry, I forgot to resize the textures. And I'll check about the rim lighting too in a few days when I can get back to my computer. and does this mean it's okay to have 'color1' in more than one shader?

[marshmonkey]

no, they have to be named Color1, Color2, Color3, etc

[odium]

This game owns, really, really good stuff.

Its just missing something... A clown. A really freaky, but cute, clown. You knwo the kinda that try so hard to be nice and kiddy like but scare you more than IT? Yeah, would rock :)

[Funky Bunnies]

I updated the files with the right texture sizes and changes to the mesh

Chef Hat (http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_chefHat.rar)

Fry Hat (http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_fryHat.rar)

@skizot: I'm not having any problems with the rim lighting, but I pumped the chef hat up to the full rimlighting instead of the 50

[Skizot]

it was the fryhat that wasn't getting rimlighting for me...

hmmm

[marshmonkey]

just a FYI for everyone making stuff in the thread, we are still a week or more off in getting the garage operational ( my brother and new GUI programmer is on his honeymoon! ) so until that happens I wont be able to throw anybody's stuff in game easily. But we WILL release the garage as a stand alone toy in the somewhat near future, so your work on getting these into the right format and making even more stuff is not in vain.

We have small mention in this month's computer graphics magazine 3DWorld! The issue focuses on open source technology, a lot of which we use in Zero Gear. If you see it on news stands, check it out!

http://myzerogear.com/magazine.png

*edit*

SHOEWHEEL

http://myzerogear.com/shoewheel.png

rollin' on dubs!

http://myzerogear.com/dubs.png

[Electro]

haha shoewheel rocks

[Funky Bunnies]

oh my god, my car needs some shoewheel. badly.

and congrats on the mention in 3dworld!

[marshmonkey]

HYPNO-WHEELS!

http://myzerogear.com/hypnowheels.png

[Funky Bunnies]

I've been messing around a bit with a fish-hat, hopefully it's not too tall. I haven't had much time to set up color masks to my liking yet. I'm clearly going about it wrong every time :P

http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_fishHat.jpg

I'll do files when I get some more time.

[marshmonkey]

holy crap, that is AWESOME

[Murphy]

I registered here just to say that the fish hat is incredible.

I have been following the work everyone has been doing here and I can't tell you how much inspiration it provides Marsh and me.

Keep all the awesome content coming everyone! I can't wait to have my fish hat on while riding my train kart and smoking my cigar!

[Eclipse]

I gotta say, I love that fish hat man, it really rocks!! Just awesome man, I love it!

[marshmonkey]

I put a post on our blog with some polycount man-love

http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2008/07/holy-custom-content-batman.html

[marshmonkey]

I took some time while making an asset today to document my workflow, I hope it might help out some of you guys that are making stuff:

http://myzerogear.com/workflow/

[Funky Bunnies]

Awesome :)
and thanks, guys

I got the files together for the fish-hat.
you can grab em here (http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/Work/ZG_fishHat.rar)

that's probably enough thread-spamming from me for now, although a friend suggested a Turkey-car to go with my chef hat :D

keep up the good work

[marshmonkey]

That is about as clean of a setup as you could possibly make . . . can you do the rest of my work please? lol

*edit*
http://myzerogear.com/fish.jpg

I suppose I should mention in the workflow doc I made that you need to either set your working units to meters, or set it to be meters in the exporter :) About 100 times too big, but still f*cking awesome.

[Joao Sapiro]

i still think the white trim lightning makes it all look flat :(

[dabu]

maybe I missed something, shadows?

[marshmonkey]

nope, you didn't miss them!

[Funky Bunnies]

haha my god, that's hilarious

probably a lot of the blurriness and flatness is coming from my poor texturejob mixed with my uncertain color masking.

btw - should I re-export with the right scale?

[marshmonkey]

I like it. It's going to go well with my pirate ship

[KUATOOHOHOH AGGGF FUCK]

Just found my way here from the SA thread, Here's a quick one-
http://g.photos.cx/Hemchj-9f.JPG

[marshmonkey]

I started this pirate ship kart last night, been unwrapping it all day.

http://myzerogear.com/pirateship.png

[Eclipse]

That is truly awesome! It will be mine!

[Funky Bunnies]

oh man, that looks great!

[Smirnoffka]

Pirate ship owns!

What I did instead of study...

http://i32.tinypic.com/10oqko5.jpg

Loosely based off...

http://www.nopuedocreer.com/quelohayaninventado/wp-content/images/2007/07/pacman_hat.jpg

Files:
Pacman Hat (http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/59c6a796a3_1.6MB)

[marshmonkey]

awesome!!! :D

[marshmonkey]

this thing was a royal pain to texture

http://myzerogear.com/shiptextured.jpg

MAXIMUM UV SPACE
http://myzerogear.com/shipflat.jpg

[Smirnoffka]

Unreal. That is just fucking unreal.

Not a day goes by where I don't wish I had this game on my computer. It will be an instant network classic here at work.

:D

[marshmonkey]

This morning I woke up and realized we had no 4th of July themed hat, so I took care of that

http://myzerogear.com/july.png

Also, a very enthusiastic Zero Gear fan (ok, my wonderful girlfriend) decided to make an entirely physical version of our sock monkey character (http://nimblebit.blogspot.com/2008/06/rock-em-sock-em-monkey.html), complete with a Zero Gear butt-label! Awesome!!!

http://myzerogear.com/monkey1.jpg

http://myzerogear.com/monkey2.jpg

Have a happy and safe 4th of July everyone!

[Eclipse]

[borat accent] Very nice, how much? [/borat accent]

[Baddcog]

Awesome stuff, sock monkey is cool. That ship is top notch :)

I got inspired. Sloppy but almost ready to tex.

Mini Truck
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk59/Schwaa1147/MiniTruck_ZeroGear.jpg

[Smirnoffka]

:D nice hat

And awesome doll. I wish my girlfriend would hand make a doll for me.

You could sell that shit once the game is released.

:D

[Cody]

Made a helmet! With SDK.
http://www.codywright.com/files/smiley_render.jpg

Here's the sdk...if someone wants to do a better texturing job than me. Included is a max file, obj, texture, and photoshop file with UVs, AO, and my Diffuse.

If you could make this work in game, marshmonkey, the files are in there...

http://www.codywright.com/files/smiley.zip

[boomz]

Marsh, I was totally going to do a pirate ship! At least you did it justice, more than justice, that is. Kickass. I'm gonna get to the rest of the train soon, just gotta find some time. Do you think it can have particle goodness coming out of the stack? I was going to paint up some sprites for you. Also can the stack deform like your other exhaust pipes do? If so, I'll have to try and set that up for you so its as easy as possible to get into-engine.

[Cody]

Working on a trophy truck type thing. Would this even work, Marsh?
http://www.codywright.com/images/renders/truck.jpg

[marshmonkey]

if it fits near the bounding box and has the wheels in the right place it will work. Right now we don't define any particles via each kart. We are still having some issues with parenting a particle emitter to a kart and getting it to face the right direction. An idle animation with the smoke stack pumping up and down would be very easy to do though.

[Cody]

The engine, seat and steering wheel are still in the same place, only higher. If the wheels are bigger, but near the right place, and the cart is slightly higher would that be ok?

[Generalvivi]

I want a sock monkey for my desk at work right now!

[marshmonkey]

Right now the wheels are placed by the game, so they aren't changeable.

We are thinking about keeping making these sock monkies in different colors and auctioning one off once a month or so, with all money going to help fund development. What do you think?

[Baddcog]

Ouch, been working through all this new stuff for awhile. Having progress but it's comin hard.

To start this is the first time i've used any of these programs, first time I've messed with AO maps, and first time I've finished a vehicle (I started this as a low poly truck awhile back and never got far...)

Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I pester you with a few Q's marchmonkey.

1: I finally got Xnormals to work, made the AO map and got my model into Lexi-View.
It was on it's side and squished but was evenly lit.
I messed around with XNormals and got it aligned and centered to grid correctly, whether or not it's still aligned with your car I don't know.
However, now the front and back are black and not lighting correctly. Any idea what's causing that?

2:I've been reading through your workflow, have the AO map and have my colors on layers. Few Q's on that though.
first-Your color masks are white, is the background transparent? On the wed site it is blue like the website.
second-I'm not clear on colors 100%. I realize you can have 3 changeable colors, hence the masks. colormask, colormask2...
It seems like if you want white you just paint white on the occulsion, then mask it out (transparent? - back to that again)
You don't mention black however, I suppose this is oppositie white. If occlusion is black tex will be black, no need to mask?

Might as well get em all out of the way, believe me I've been looking but I'm slow...

3:You said in read-me for character/car that you can move the player rig to match hands to steering wheel? Does this mean the seat can be moved to players new position?

4:Do I need to make links for wheels? Or is their position based off of the center of car? What is the max turning angle of wheels? I had a clipping issue when I turned, edited the mesh and right now I can get about 17* before clipping.

5:You stated somewhere also to use multiple materials for specular/non-specular. I haven't tried yet, I suppose that doesn't effect color masks at all.

Well, I'll leave it at that for now as I know you've got plenty to do. I've been having fun with this though, can't wait for the game.



This is the only exporter I have found so far that's complete and free to use with Max
http://www.ofusiontechnologies.com/downloads.html
Seems to work well enough, all the exporters listed on the Ogre Wiki seem to be dead end loops.

[marshmonkey]

1: I finally got Xnormals to work, made the AO map and got my model into Lexi-View.
It was on it's side and squished but was evenly lit.
I messed around with XNormals and got it aligned and centered to grid correctly, whether or not it's still aligned with your car I don't know.
However, now the front and back are black and not lighting correctly. Any idea what's causing that?

XNormals should have nothing to do with where your mesh is situated, all I use it for is to generate a flat for use in the final texture. If your model is not showing up correctly compared to the way you have it modeled, you need to check out the options on your exporter and make sure you have units set to meters, and you may need to flip the y and z axis or something like that.

2:I've been reading through your workflow, have the AO map and have my colors on layers. Few Q's on that though.
first-Your color masks are white, is the background transparent? On the wed site it is blue like the website.
second-I'm not clear on colors 100%. I realize you can have 3 changeable colors, hence the masks. colormask, colormask2...
It seems like if you want white you just paint white on the occulsion, then mask it out (transparent? - back to that again)
You don't mention black however, I suppose this is oppositie white. If occlusion is black tex will be black, no need to mask?

The color mask png's are white with a transparent background. I am not actually sure if it matters what color the alpha'd bits are, as in the material script I believe it is using the alpha mask itself.

You can have up to 6 customizable colors. How the material is set up is this: The engine takes the solid portion of the colormask, fills it with a color and modulates it (multiplies) it with the base lum texture underneath. The reason the letters on the button were white is simply becuase I made them white in the base lum texture, they could have been black or orange or whatever and since no parts of the color mask were multiplying colors over it, it would remain that color.

3:You said in read-me for character/car that you can move the player rig to match hands to steering wheel? Does this mean the seat can be moved to players new position?

I just meant that if you are making a character, you have some fiddle room as to where you position the skeleton if it is such a shape as you need to do so. The hands do need to match up with the steering wheel though. I had mentioned that we will probably support the ability to define where the player is positioned as a function of a kart setup, but if you moved that, you would have to make sure to move the steering wheel of the kart the same amount.

4:Do I need to make links for wheels? Or is their position based off of the center of car? What is the max turning angle of wheels? I had a clipping issue when I turned, edited the mesh and right now I can get about 17* before clipping.

no, as it stands now, the wheel positions and sizes are fixed.

5:You stated somewhere also to use multiple materials for specular/non-specular. I haven't tried yet, I suppose that doesn't effect color masks at all.

It does, in that you can only change the color on one material at a time. So if you have a kart with one section you want to be shiny, and you use a separate material for those bits, you can't change a color across both, they would have to be split up into separate named texture units even if it looks like they should use the same customizable color.

[Baddcog]

mm, sorry, I meant X-Form (in 3dsmax) not x normals. Starting to wear out :)
I've got it positioned right, just getting weird lighting at the moment.

I really appreciate the thorough answers.

I guess I'm a bit confused about the steering wheel bit yet. I modelled my truck around your car. So the wheels and steering wheel are in same place. I loaded up the posed character and he's in the seat, yet his hands don't reach the steering wheel.
I saw the ma and mb files included, but I don't have maya.
So I guess further Q's about the car/char set-up are coming:
1-when I export the car I do it sans wheels? Do I just export one wheel centered on grid? Then the garage places said wheel?
2-Do I need to export vehilce with character skeleton? If so is it possible for you to upload an FBX file for max users?

Again, sorry. I know you are trying to get around to release and this stuff will all be available eventually anyway. I've just had a hard time getting motivated to model recently and this seems to be a cure :D

I pretty much copy/pasted your material file. Having probs with that though. If I load model with the exported material I get my truck in viewer with the AO material and said lighting issue. But if I use your material file (with my names) inserted I get this error:
(I've double/Triple checked for old files, etc...)

Ogre Exception:(Item Identity Exception) resource with the name minitruk_chrome already exists. In resource manager::add at../src/ogreResourceManager.cpp (line 113)




material minitruk_chrome
{
technique
{
pass
{

lighting off

ambient 0 0 0 1
diffuse 1 1 1 1
specular 0 0 0 1
emissive 0 0 0

// set color
texture_unit Color1
{
texture minitruk_colormask.png
colour_op_ex blend_texture_alpha src_manual src_current 1 0 0
}


texture_unit
{
texture minitruk_lum.png
tex_coord_set 0
colour_op modulate
scale 1 1
scroll 0 0
rotate 0

}

// env map
texture_unit
{
cubic_texture cubemap.png combinedUVW
tex_address_mode clamp
colour_op_ex add src_texture src_current
colour_op_multipass_fallback one one
env_map cubic_reflection
}

//rimlighting
texture_unit
{
cubic_texture rim50.tga combinedUVW
tex_address_mode clamp
colour_op_ex add src_texture src_current
colour_op_multipass_fallback one one
env_map cubic_normal
}
}

}

}

material minitruk
{
technique
{
pass
{

lighting off

ambient 0 0 0 1
diffuse 1 1 1 1
specular 0 0 0 1
emissive 0 0 0

// set color
texture_unit Color1
{
texture minitruk_colormask.png
colour_op_ex blend_texture_alpha src_manual src_current 1 0 0
}

texture_unit
{
texture minitruk_lum.png
tex_coord_set 0
colour_op modulate
scale 1 1
scroll 0 0
rotate 0

}
//rimlighting
texture_unit
{
cubic_texture rim50.tga combinedUVW
tex_address_mode clamp
colour_op_ex add src_texture src_current
colour_op_multipass_fallback one one
env_map cubic_normal
}
}

}

}



My model mesh, material, all textures, all cubemaps and env maps (from steam googles) are in one folder.

[marshmonkey]

no problem, they could be things other people are wondering as well. In some strange future where I have some time I will need to write up some proper documentation. Having the garage is going to help enormously once it is released.



My guy might not be properly positioned in the kart, he might be too far back. If the steering wheel is in the same position as in the ref kart then that is the important bit.

All the items are exported separate, so yes - kart is exported sans wheels, wheels are exported as a single wheel at 0,0,0. No character skeleton should be exported with the kart.

There should be no lighting issues if you have lighting off on all your materials and the diffuse is set to 1 1 1 1. What you might be seeing is the issue skizot had where you have the rim lighting applied and you also have max open while in the viewer, in which case max messes with the tgs files of the rimlighting cubemap for some reason. Try closing max and then loading up the viewer.

"resource with the name minitruk_chrome already exists"

this is becuase Ogre does not like having two things named the same anywhere. The viewer loads every resource it can find in the same directory as your model, and if there is another material file in the folder which has a material named minitruk_chrome, even if it is not used on the model you are trying to view it will come up with this error. Just rename one of the materials in both max and the .material file and re-export the model.

[Baddcog]

Thanks,

I tried lots of stuff, nothing worked. took a break.

Started in viewer with spec and matte Ao material. Then add one line at a time to material file and kept reloading lexi view. No probs, I have colors.
Though my AO doesn't seem to show through the colors.

I did figure out that I can have a mask work in both 'channels' (matte and spec). Kindof cool, I suppose if it works in viewer it would work in engine. Not sure if that would mess up the color picker though.
Currently I have windows and lic.plate on one mask, the windows have spec material, the plate had matte. I can choose their colors seperate. Would this make 2 color swatches to choose in garage?
I also have other color masks per channel. 2 tone paint on matte, etc... chrome bumpers on spec.

[marshmonkey]

Yes, if it is the same color but on two different materials, then they will have to be 2 unique tweakable colors

here are some starfish on a sand dollar wheels for the pirate ship (or any kart)

http://myzerogear.com/starfish.png

[Baddcog]

Awesome idea for a wheel, goes with the barnacles good.

Think I'm done buggin ya for awhile.
I did figure out what the Ogre/Lexi Viewer material issue was though. Not sure how to fix it but have found a workaround.

When exporting a single mesh that has multiple standard materials applied, the oFusion exporter for max combines them into a sub-object material.

So Standard Max materials named 'matte' and 'specular' become:
material#35/matte and material#35/specular.
They remain seperate materials in the exported material file, and the mesh file still has 2 materials on it, but you can't edit the names in the mesh, so you have to leave the material files material names the same.
Lexi-viewer will not open this file.

So, I first exported a 3ds file. The materials get combined into a sub-object material.
Import that 3ds into a clean Max file. Without doing anything to materials I export that with oFusion to an .osm mesh and material. The material file looks the same and the material names are the same.
Theoretically it shouldn't open in Lexi_View. But it will now.

I have tried this several times and get the same results each time.

[BrodyB]

Okay, I've gotten through midterms, so now I have a little more free time to start looking into getting my army helmet and cigar into OGRE-readable formats. Problem is I'm using Luxology modo. Modo is compatible with Lightwave files, and while the OGRE site lists LWO exporters, there's no place there to download either of them. So unless anybody can offer up one, I'm going to try going through Blender.

[RustyFranks]

? :poly138::poly117::poly138: moar pls :poly106::poly106::poly106:
btw the real sock puppet on the blog is awesome

[marshmonkey]

Sorry for the lapse in updates, this month I am working on some lame contract work in order to pay the bills. I am working on some ZG stuff in my spare time, but it is so secret I cannot show it here !!

[RustyFranks]

bills are for noobs :p

nah lol good to hear it's still goin. i just got used to reading updates so often, then they stopped and i was sad :(

[marshmonkey]

It has been a little while since we posted an update - Brian has been a little bogged down moving to another apartment in San Fransisco, and I have been slightly derailed doing some non game related contract work to bring in some more development funds.

But here is just a little feature we got working last weekend, a "look-back" key that you can press to check out what it going on behind you. I think it will be very useful!

http://vimeo.com/1329610

[pior]

Hey Marsh! what are your plans regarding music?
I just found this :
http://musicbakery.com/royalty-free-Techno-music-downloads-mp3.htm
'Techno-Sports' kindof fits, in a nice cheesy way!

[marshmonkey]

cool, I will check it out for sure. We don't have really solid plans yet - for the little videos I have just been buying royalty free stuff like this. For the actual game I am not sure what we will do, the sound guy we are working with is going to try and make some music for us too.

[marshmonkey]

Update!

Here is a video of the garage which we have been working on:

http://myzerogear.com/garagevideo.jpg (http://vimeo.com/1402027)

*edit* you can see some of pior's work snuck in there :p

[Xaltar]

Haha, awesome vid. This is looking better and better.

[GCMP]

Nice job man:poly123: the progression is felt. Love the colour selector, a unique part that is often overlooked in many games. Please include that music!

[Docm30]

That video was incredible.

[marshmonkey]

beginning of the skull car . . .

http://myzerogear.com/skullkar.jpg

[ElysiumGX]

this is all just pure genius

[Vylaroth]

That last video made me a definite buyer. Awesome job, keep it going. ;)

[marshmonkey]

little more work on skull car tonight

http://myzerogear.com/skullkar2.jpg

[Smirnoffka]

The engine at the front just sorta takes away from the look of the skull. It would be more recongnisable if it had just holes there, like in the previous update. Still, will be buying this one for certain.

BTW, are you guys taking donations?

[marshmonkey]

yea, bit iffy on it myself. Was trying to stick the engine under the jawbone there but there wasn't much room.

We are not taking donations right now, we would feel strange taking money for effectively nothing. We would like to fund raise though by providing something, even if it is small. My girlfriend is making sock monkies to match the sock monkey character in the game and we had the idea of auctioning them off to try and raise some money.

*edit* stuck the engine in the back

[Eclipse]

hopefully those auctions don't get up too high, because I really want one!!! That skull cart looks really cool the engine placement looks good. Looking forward to seeing it textured.

[bounchfx]

do want this game badddd, it's looking awesome man. I hope it plays as great as it looks

[marshmonkey]

speaking of monkies, latest out of the monkey mill:

http://myzerogear.com/monkey3.jpg

http://myzerogear.com/monkey4.jpg

hopefully they DO get up high, that means we get to spend more time making the game and less time doing other work to keep us fed!

[marshmonkey]

Skullkar lives!!!

http://myzerogear.com/skullcargarage1.jpg

http://myzerogear.com/skullcargarage2.jpg

[Joshua Stubbles]

haha that's awesome, marsh.
Is there any ETA on a beta/test release maybe? I posted on your forums as well, that I was interested in making a custom track. But I can't just make something without being able to playtest, etc etc.

Nice work :)

[marshmonkey]

The first thing we will have out is the stand alone garage editor, and after that we are going to have set up some sort of beta before IGF sumbissions close - I don't know if it will be open or closed yet.

[marshmonkey]

some more spiritual hats:

http://myzerogear.com/halo.png
http://myzerogear.com/devilhorns.png

[ThatDon]

I want one of those sock dolls, pm me sometime if you ever want to sell one.

[marshmonkey]

new hat

http://myzerogear.com/hornhelm.png

[Carbon14]

Looks awesome, is there any way to get the reference files in a format 3dsmax can read? Would love to try my hand and some stuff for this.

[Baddcog]

marshmonkey has released obj files of everything for refs. They worked good for me. they are probably about 3 pages back, maybe up at the Zero Gear site too.

[marshmonkey]

here is the one I think most people are using

http://www.pioroberson.com/files/ZG_driverrig_obj.zip

[renderhjs]

any polycount limit?,- what is the average triangle count right now for the cars?

[marshmonkey]

most of the karts I have top out around 2k tris

I really need to write some guidelines soon. Wish I wasn't so busy.

[renderhjs]

oh thank you,
that means I have to cut from now on some polygons and reduce some stuff

my current SL300
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/kartGame_sl300_01.jpg
fits perfectly your default goKart because I didn´t knew if the wheel distance can be changed or even the wheel radius, width or size.

[Pedro Amorim]

maybe its best to dont call it a mercedes, and change the logo. just for legal reasons.
maybe change the merecedes logo with the peace logo?

[marshmonkey]

holy crap!!!! that is AWESOME

I can't wait to see it textured and shiny! It is good you kept the wheel positions and size, those are all static. The only thing that can be moved currently is the player position.

few crits
I am with bitmap on the logo, could be copyright issues. The player's hand come off the wheel in some animations to wave around and such - it looks like they would clip through the windscreen at the moment. The back looks like it could use a bumper or some kind of ornament, especially since you will be looking at the back most of the time.

those things aside, I think you really nailed our style.

[Thegodzero]

Are you counting the wheels? I love the peace sign idea.

[marshmonkey]

yea the wheels are a separate item, no need to count those

[renderhjs]

changed the Mercedes symbol to the peace one,
the windscreen has yet to be changed

http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/kartGame_sl300_03.jpg

I left out all the faces at the bottom,- but I dont know if one will see the bottom of the car. Are there explosions or accidents where the car can be seen from the bottom?
Also are ~2300 triangles still ok?

if so can continue with creating the UV layout

EDIT:
ok yes I counted including the wheels,- without the wheels its 1356 trianles (whoops,- could have spent more)

[marshmonkey]

haha, you have never seen any of our videos (http://myzerogear.com/media.html) have you? :D

the car will be very visible from all kinds of angles so it will need some sort of bottom. I usually leave it pretty sparse.

You sound like you are doing awesome on tri count without the wheels.

the added details on the back are great. Are you going to bake an AO base? There are so many parts on that car that will look great with AO.

[renderhjs]

I´ve seen some videos,- just couldn´t remember that clearly

what about the texture size? - is the car including steering wheel (texture wise?). I assume the wheels apart.
Will do either a AO bake alternativly a cavity map. The way I usually do it is subdivide the mesh- bake on that retouche the baked result in PS - gives usually a cleaner base texture.

[marshmonkey]

I use a 512x512 diffuse, thats about it.

[renderhjs]

just unwrapped it,- and starting blocking
current progress:
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/kartGame_sl300_04.jpg
triangle count is now excatly at 1949 tris.

I want to start painting on this texture by tomorrow

[marshmonkey]

that is going to look phenomenal! I love the detail on the steering wheel and the sun visors. Absolutely top notch.

I don't know if you saw this a few pages back but I posted a small example of how I set up items for the engine for custom colors and stuff, it may be worth a look: http://myzerogear.com/workflow/

*edit* woot! 200th post!

[Thegodzero]

Good start, BTW did you ever add a bottom to it?

[renderhjs]

thx, yes I noticed that post and it was back in my mind. Will have a closer look before I continue.

and yes it has a bottpm- no holes. Things I changed on the model with the last post:
- window
- steering wheel
- sun visors
- back lights
- back bumper
- bottom

[Cody]

Looks great!

[Baddcog]

Nice, the Luxury series :)

That'll go good with the monacol (?)

[Carbon14]

here is the one I think most people are using

http://www.pioroberson.com/files/ZG_driverrig_obj.zip

Thanks, I had already found that though, was after the car rig, I must be stupid or something because its obvious other people have it!

[marshmonkey]

ah, there should be an obj version of the kart in here: http://myzerogear.com/ZeroGearModelSDK_v1.01.zip

(i hope)

[Rhinokey]

it seems the back of the lil vent things on the door have no polys, it seems the player will be looking at the back of the car more than the front.

[renderhjs]

it seems the back of the lil vent things on the door have no polys, it seems the player will be looking at the back of the car more than the front.yes I thought about that to,- will propably clone and flip them so that they can be seen from the back as well- after all I still have like 51 triangles left.

[renderhjs]

started working on another one (ferrari testarossa)
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/kartGame_trossa_01.jpg
1008 tris so far (bottom almost closed)

[marshmonkey]

absolutely brilliant! I hope the default color for this one is red :)

I would like to get a beta version of the garage out to the people that have already started contributing - hopefully sometime in the coming weeks.

[BoilingOil]

That Ferrari looks great!

I started working on one too. (Datsun 240Z)
I still got alot of verts to push around. I started from the default OBJ. I think I might pull the seat out and do my own.
I have a few wheel ideas i'm gonna work on after i finish this.
http://www.boilingoil.com/images/bitbucket/zkart.jpg

[marshmonkey]

it is so fun to squeeze all the defining characteristics of these cars into almost a cube form factor, all these cars look like we took regular sized ones and made them out of clay and squeezed them to be short and fat, can't wait to see them in the game!!!

[renderhjs]

@BoilingOil:
nice going, you can remove lots of vertexes by merging/collapsing ones that are already close to each other and not really defining curvature.

@marshmonkey:
what is your average trianlge count for 1 wheel? And while you are at it,- what about hats, characters, and anything else that can be customized.
Also regarding the wheel does it need backfaces even though the wheel is hidden in the car body- in other words can one see the wheel at times seperate from the car - like explosions where the wheel gets off or in the garage where the wheel is displayed as unique item and rotating?

if I got it right so far

vehicle:
- max 2000 tris
- 512² tex

1 wheel:
- 256² tex
- max 400 ???

[Baddcog]

renderhjs, cool ferrari.

Boiling Oil, diggin the datsun. Could probably lose some polys. Mainly the strips at the center.

I went a little low on my Mini's hood and window, I might end up increasing polies there at some point. It deffinately helps with the reflective cube map to have more polys.

Here a re a few color combos, was waiting until I had at least the wheels done.
It's basically a Chevy S-10 (gen 2 with gen 1 headlights, cadillac tails) and the rims are my favorite Crager 6 series (erm, I mean Zero Gear 6 series).
(The rims were mirrored for the render so the tex is backwards on one side)

The window will probably stay opaque, I wasn't sure at the time that transparent was doable.

Still needs a steeing wheel.

The tailpipes are animated.

Gotta finish the interior too.

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk59/Schwaa1147/Mini_wheel.jpg

[Jason Young]

Can anyone contribute assets? If so, are there any you're looking to have done? I'd like to make some stuff. :)

[Baddcog]

I think it's just user created content more than 'contributions'. I haven't heard marshmonkey say anything about including this stuff in the release. But they are making it as customizable as possible.

Over at the zero gear forums there are threads about what stuff people want already.

I'm done for today but wnated to do this for awhile. It's early wip
T-Bucket
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk59/Schwaa1147/T-Bucket_early.jpg

[renderhjs]

done modeling the ferrari
1985 triangles
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/kartGame_trossa_02.jpg
(the horse of the ferrari logo has been altered,- in the original the tail is upwards and longer)

@Baddcog: I was about thinking doing something close to your T-Bucket as well - might find something else now as yours already looks very good.

[Baddcog]

Thanks, I held off a bit 'til I was sure we could reposition rider in relation to wheels.
I'm hoping we'll be able to use different wheels front and back (Hint Hint). I'd like some skinny wire spokes up front. But I guiess the wide tires are OK.

Yeah renderhjs, it should be a pony :D
It's very cool, you've got alot of details in there. Are ya gonna do any anims/color changes?

[renderhjs]

animations?,- didn´t knew that was possible o_O

yes color changes- the screenshots before were just about the mesh - no UV or textures. Started now with the textures + some color variations:
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/kartGame_trossa_03.jpg
still work in progress...

[Baddcog]

Nice.

Yeah, you can do anims :)
marshmonkeys were mainly the tailpipes rattling around so that's what I did with my truck. He has a fan on the back of his skull car, I'd bet it rotates.

I put one bone at 0,0,0 and left it named bone01 (3dsMax), then just used a skin modifier to attach the tailpipes to bone02 and bone 03. 30 fps. I don't know how critical frame count is but the anims play in Lexi View.
I named it Idle.
Not sure what kind of support there will be. I know accessories can be animnated too. Basically an idle anim when Idle, and when driving it will just be sped up. I inquired about a 'crash' anim, sounds like they might do that.

The color variations on my truck were just edited in notepad and I used the color_mask.png's to seperate color selections. Then rendered in Lexi view to get the cubemap working for specular.

[marshmonkey]

that ferrari is AWESOME!!!

all the karts have at least 2 animations, a turn left and a turn right - each one is 10 frames long and turn the steering wheel 25 degrees in the appropriate direction (plus anything else you want to happen when turning left or right). It also supports an idle animation.

[Baddcog]

Oh, guess I have more animatin' to do :)

[renderhjs]

another one started:
1977 triangles
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/submissions/oldF1_01.jpg
(still have like 23 triangles left [and some to clean/ reduce up]- so maybe I´ll add some smaler details)

regarding animations:
are the animations vertex animations? (so that it has to be 1 mesh with a skin modifier to be exported ? And what about the car loop animations what frame range do they have.

[marshmonkey]

looking cool! My only worry might be that it is not wide enough to support the entire range of possible characters, but that is something you should be able to see when we release the garage. The animations I do are bone animations, but it might not matter what kind of animations they are since the Ogre exporter should support most kinds.

The number of frames for the idle can be whatever, you specify the play speed for it in the item XML file.

[renderhjs]

a range mesh,- like ghosting the most extreme character animations and catched in a mesh-cage would help. Or some other reference to know to what extend the characters can bend. The wheels are already the close with the character - sometimes there is not really that much space to use for a design.

[marshmonkey]

I mean more just some of the characters like the panda have a bigger ass than the human rider in the ref.

I know how hard it is to squish these cars together, I think the result is really great though. I am going to make sure the garage has a key that cycles through the player animations so that you can see what clipping issues there will be if any. It looks like people are doing really well based off the ref obj's I don't think there will be any major issues with how they fit together.

I want to privately give the first build of the garage to everyone in this thread that has already started building something, when we are close to having that build ready I will gather a bunch of email addresses to send something out.

*edit* hopefully part of what we send out will be better reference models and some more definite numbers on tricount / memory footprints.

[Carbon14]

http://www.carbon14net.net/zg1.jpg
Needs a lot more work, but getting there! Must have a muscle car =p

[BoilingOil]

Wow RenderHJS you work fast!
Carbon, is that a Dodge Challenger?

I did a bit more work on my ZKart: Now it's down to like 1300 polys. Gonna add the rest of the body to it and unwrap it. Hopefully I'll have it finished on Thursday.
http://www.boilingoil.com/images/bitbucket/zkart2.jpg

Now i'm really new to all this 3d modeling stuff, so people, is my use of polys and my edge flow okay? Is there places where I could use work or am I headed in the right direction?

[Carbon14]

Wow RenderHJS you work fast!
Carbon, is that a Dodge Challenger?

Awesome, yes it is, at least its somewhat recognizable, the long lean and sometimes subtle shapes of the 70's muscle cars doesn't seem too easy to translate to a little lumpy form. I need to mess around with the side to give it that slight ridge they have along there, should make it more obviously recognizable.

As for the model, looks pretty good to me, but I might consider cutting a few polies out of the hood curve and adding a few to the lights. Oh and apparently the character is moveable, so might wanna shift the steering wheel back a bit, if I remember the shape of those things right the hood is much longer than the boot. Looks good though!

[marshmonkey]

due to all the kick ass stuff people are making recently, we are going to make a push to try and get a build of the garage into people's hands sometime this week. While we are putting a last lick of paint on some things, everyone who is interested on getting their hands on the garage to start seeing how your stuff will fit into the game - go to the zero gear forums: http://myzerogear.com/phpBB3/ register a username, and then send a PM to marshmonkey that also contains a shot of something you have worked on for Zero Gear.

[BoilingOil]

Thanks! Yeah, the hood is way longer. I just went from the kart in the SDK, I didn't do too much moving things around, because I didn't know if the character was movable. I pushed the seat and steering wheel back a bit, and added more detail to the lights.
Next i'm going to make some custom wheels for it.

EDIT: I pushed the seat back even further, and dropped it a little. Now it's starting to resemble a Z!
I think I need to add more details, I cut alot of polys out.
http://www.boilingoil.com/images/bitbucket/zkart3.jpg

[renderhjs]

@BoilingOil:
here is a technique I used for my cars,- it helped me saving lots triangles
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/tips/BoilingOil_car_modeling_tips.jpg
since modern 3d engines have propper z-depth sorting and clipping mechanics you can use that to your advantage- letting the engine sort and clip objects that intersect into each other.

[Baddcog]

renderhjs,
Diggin the 'Cobra', good choice, I always liked those cars but for some reason I never even thought about them when thinking of what cars we need.

Boiling Oil,
I think the changes are good, deffinately more Z now. I'd raise the back up a little. The front seems really tall and I think the back should match that a little more.

Carbon14,
Awesome. Looks like a charger to me, what better muscle car to make? I think you could make the back a little taller too, that would accentuate the charger shape. Not the lights or wing, just the row of verts right behind player. And not much, just a tiny bit. Maybe drp the verts right by his elboe down a tad too, just to give more of that curve.

[Carbon14]

Carbon14,
Awesome. Looks like a charger to me, what better muscle car to make? I think you could make the back a little taller too, that would accentuate the charger shape. Not the lights or wing, just the row of verts right behind player. And not much, just a tiny bit. Maybe drp the verts right by his elboe down a tad too, just to give more of that curve.

Uhoh! its a Dodge Challanger, not Charger, but your crits might still apply! I chose it because it was the most lumpy curved shape to start with, Cuda being less so and the charger even less than that. Then there were the boxy shapes like the Roadrunner and Dart, which I am still tempted to try just to see if I can get a boxy shaped car to actually look good!

[marshmonkey]

Last weekend was my birthday, and in celebration my girlfriend made me this awesome Zero Gear cake!

http://myzerogear.com/cake.jpg

[BoilingOil]

Happy Birthday!

mmmmm frosting *gurglegurgle*

RenderHJS, thanks for the tip on the lights. I did the bumper that way, I dunno why I didn't do the same for the lights. I think I'm done with the mesh on this kart now. I added corner markers, fender flares and tail lights, and the side runner thingee. I also put that little swoop over the back fender and raised the back up a bit.

Is the tricount on this thing decent? What's the limit for the body?
http://www.boilingoil.com/images/bitbucket/zkart4.jpg
Now for UV mapping and texturing. Still have to make custom wheels too.

[marshmonkey]

my preliminary guideline for karts is 2k so you should be fine. Looks good!

[Cody]

Sweet cake!

[Baddcog]

Uhoh! its a Dodge Challanger, not Charger, but your crits might still apply! I chose it because it was the most lumpy curved shape to start with, Cuda being less so and the charger even less than that. Then there were the boxy shapes like the Roadrunner and Dart, which I am still tempted to try just to see if I can get a boxy shaped car to actually look good!

OH, It looks like a Dodge to me, I'm not actually enough of a muscle car buff to say which one ;)

I think part of the challenge here is to make it look like a specific car convertable. Roofs deffinately help with shape recognition, just make more of a challenge eh?

I'm wrapping up my T-Bucket this week. Fighting the 2,000 poly limit pretty hard but it'll be close.
Needs a sterring wheel, tex (AO is baked) and animation yet.

----------------

I was wondering though. How much time are you guys putting into these. I tend to waste a bit of time here and there while working, but I think I'm going on about 10-12 hours of solid work by the time I am done. Am I slow?

---------
Nice cake marsh! Does your girlfriend have a sister?

[BoilingOil]

I was thinking of doing a roof on my kart, but I wanted to keep that Power Wheels or whatever other kind of kids replica car style.

I don't get to work on my kart every day, and I get about 3 hours at a time when I do, give or take an hour. I haven't really been keeping tabs, but I'd say i've probably put in about 9 hours so far. I'll probably be at 15-17 hours by the time i'm done.

[marshmonkey]

yea I have not figured out yet how a roof would ever work. The character would just clip like mad through it, and you can never really be sure how tall the hats are going to be.

[Baddcog]

Did some pretty major poly reduction today. Took alot of polys from bottoms of pipes, they are still there to see from bottom and I don't think it's noticable. Went around and took a few polys from all the little details.
Got it down to 2050 with a steering wheel. I could take 50 more out but then I start messing with the major details (mainly the bucket and the tank which will be seen most, I want to keep them nice and smooth.)

The coils are two sided material. All the caps and steering column are cones to cut polys and keep round. The engine pulleys are 10 sided (no caps). Probably a waste since they can't be seen well, but I think the engine really needed them.

So without further ado(?)
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk59/Schwaa1147/T-Bucket_Polys.jpg

Some Lexi View renders
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk59/Schwaa1147/T-Bucket_Render.jpg

Uses 5 materials:
spec, matte (no enviro), glass, twosided (coils, carb valves, steering wheel), spec_alpha (the two sided colormask seems to overide the lum_alpha, without color it works, had to add this for chrome alpha). 4 color changes, will probably add paint details, still need to finish tex but it's close.