Track: Mountain Village

[WillemS]

I uploaded a new version of my Mountain Village track to the add-ons, and it seems it is available in-game now.

Changes in the new version: the weather has cleared up (I got a bit depressed from all this rain ) and there is an actual village on the mountain now (with an alternative way). Furthermore I tried to prevent players to just drive through the grass on some places.

If you have any feedback, I would like to hear it!

[Auria]

Hi,

I think this track looks good, nice job

my main criticism would be :
1) the road is too narrow, and the grass slows you down a lot. This combination is frustrating, especially when playing with several AIs
2) the trees' material should be marked as ghost, so that you can't hit the edge of a tree when driving near the edge of the track

[WillemS]

Thank you!

The track is now 30% wider, and the ground doesn't slow you down so much anymore.
I maked the tree material a ghost, but a result of that is that in many more places players can take shortcuts. I'm still experimenting with this...

Furthermore this is my first attempt at using texture splatting for the ground coverage, and I added a skybox (just the summersky skybox from the textures library, but I think it fits the track quite well). Finally I enabled normal smoothing.

The current version is attached, again any feedback is appreciated!

[asciimonster]

• The AI's are very nervous and twitchy. Some even don't drive in a straight line. Has the driveline been adapted to the new width?
• On the highway, there is a bump before and after the bridge. It's more pronounced on the right-hand side of the road. Could you remove it?
• I LOVE the short-cut through the town.
• After you exit the highway you need to turn right. When you are on you last lap you can turn left there instead, because you can finish at the end of that road. Was that on purpose? But basically the end-cam there (...). All you can see is a giant tree.
• The left-hander right over the hill is devilishly hard. I always end up in the wooden barrier. (read: you kept the difficulty-level high. I this those tracks)
• The road could use a better border. The side if the tarmac is so straight it doesn't look natural.
• I just wish there was a collision-mode between "static" and "ghost". Before the trees stopped you dead at the lightest touch, but now you can drive right through them.
• Now all it needs is a highway patrol car. With lights and sirens of course. ("dang road hogs!")

[Arthur]

[*]I just wish there was a collision-mode between "static" and "ghost". Before the trees stopped you dead at the lightest touch, but now you can drive right through them.

Well, there sorta is, but that requires that leaves and tree trunks are separated with the first being ghosts and the latter being static. So it can be done, but needs more work.

[asciimonster]

Well, there sorta is, but that requires that leaves and tree trunks are separated with the first being ghosts and the latter being static. So it can be done, but needs more work.

I was thinking more in the lines of something between a static and a movable object. Let's call it "expel" or "soft". The object would have a shape (as movable objects) but in stead of colliding a force acts on you pushing you away from the centre. The force would increase exponentially as you get closer to the centre.
So if you go fast, your path will be altered slightly. If you go slow the effect will be the same as static objects.

[Arthur]

Hmm that's an interesting idea actually; I like it.

[Haldric]

The new version seems to be really interesting.
I didn't have the time to test it for the moment but have you fixed this?: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3704
Because I'm not sure you have seen it.

However, it stay one of the most wonderful track of stk ;-)

[WillemS]

• The AI's are very nervous and twitchy. Some even don't drive in a straight line. Has the driveline been adapted to the new width?

No, it wasn't actually. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll fix it.

• On the highway, there is a bump before and after the bridge. It's more pronounced on the right-hand side of the road. Could you remove it?

That was meant to imitate the bump found at the beginning of real bridges. I agree that it is a bit annoying now with the new physics; I will remove them. (In the 0.7.3 physics, you almost didn't notice there were bumps.)

• I LOVE the short-cut through the town.

Thanks!

• After you exit the highway you need to turn right. When you are on you last lap you can turn left there instead, because you can finish at the end of that road. Was that on purpose? But basically the end-cam there (...). All you can see is a giant tree.

That's strange indeed, I have the same here. It was certainly not on purpose and I am wondering why it happens since there is no checkline there.

• The left-hander right over the hill is devilishly hard. I always end up in the wooden barrier. (read: you kept the difficulty-level high. I this those tracks)

I take that bend mostly by driving on the right of the road, and then drifting over the grass a bit

• The road could use a better border. The side if the tarmac is so straight it doesn't look natural.

It will be hard to create a "soft" border, since the grass and rock textures are applied with splatting, so a simple "grass-to-road" texture will not work. However I could put a white line on the border?

• I just wish there was a collision-mode between "static" and "ghost". Before the trees stopped you dead at the lightest touch, but now you can drive right through them.

I will try to put an invisible face at the place of the trunk of the trees, that is static instead of ghost (as Arthur suggested). However I wouldn't like changing all 200+ trees one by one, so I'll have to invent an easy way to do them all at once (it's certainly possible however since I made a separate STK object out of them).

For the "expel" material, I would say that it is better to decrease the player's speed instead of pushing the kart away from the center. That is, if you drive to the center exactly, your speed will be reduced to 0, and if you drive through the outer leaves your speed will only be reduced a bit. In both cases, the direction of the kart will not change.

Anyway, I think separating the trunk from the leaves will work well enough.

• Now all it needs is a highway patrol car. With lights and sirens of course. ("dang road hogs!")

Well... that might be a bit difficult to implement

The new version seems to be really interesting.
I didn't have the time to test it for the moment but have you fixed this?: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3704
Because I'm not sure you have seen it.

However, it stay one of the most wonderful track of stk ;-)

I didn't see this topic; I already put some houses in the way but it is still pretty easy to use the shortcut effectively. Especially now that the grass doesn't slow you down so much anymore. It would be nice to have some object in the middle that prevents you from driving through. I don't really want to put even more of the same houses in, does anyone have an idea for something different?

Thank you!

[Haldric]

Why not a lake, or a safety barrier to the road ?

[GunChleoc]

Market stalls?

[Hero]

Some houses on the hill would look good...

[asciimonster]

hehehe, a floating tree!!!