Traffic lights instead of 1, 2, 3, ...

[Arthur]

Maybe it could be defined as a kind of standard for tracks to add a checker arrival line on the ground (it would also be good for consistency) ?

Definitely. I think we should have enforced this, and not added any tracks without that. I've added this to our style guide.

To all artists: please feel free to fix any tracks that don't have a start line

Cheers,
Joerg

I thought the point was to not have a checkered start line in all tracks, since it might not fit too well with the rest of the track. There aren't too many tracks without anything like that; Fort Magma and Snow Peak are the two I remember off the top of my head which lacks any indication of starting/ending. So those would just need something like Bovine Barnyard has at the start/end, but fitting the environment present in the aforementioned two tracks.

[Kinsu]

Just make sure that the traffic light model has an appropriate offset so that when it is attached to t'bird it is located at the appropriate location.

Alright, this should not be too complicated

As for in-game testing and transparency, best for now is to test using Irrlicht's mesh viewer, which is part of its samples.
Just export to B3D, copy the textures to the same directory and open in this viewer You will also have animations in the viewer.

OK. fraang, if you read this please tell us if you need additional help with transparency

I like the new texture, too bad it's temporary

It's nothing more than the thunderbird logo a little bit extended Maybe fraang will take it as a start for its texture ?

[Kinsu]

I thought the point was to not have a checkered start line in all tracks, since it might not fit too well with the rest of the track.

Well, honestly a simple checkered line does not feel wrong to me, whatever the environment ... and it's kind of a must-have for a race track, no ?

[Funto]

I totally second the checkered line idea, it gives coherence to STK, which really needs it

BTW Kinsu, I had a look at the Blender file, and it's really like my model, but cleaner, with a correct UV-mapping, and polygons just where needed, really good job

[hiker]

I thought the point was to not have a checkered start line in all tracks, since it might not fit too well with the rest of the track. There aren't too many tracks without anything like that; Fort Magma and Snow Peak are the two I remember off the top of my head which lacks any indication of starting/ending. So those would just need something like Bovine Barnyard has at the start/end, but fitting the environment present in the aforementioned two tracks.

Well,I worded it quite open in the wiki. But I agree with funto and kinsu - generally I think the checkered line will be fine and (at least my) preferred solution.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Arthur]

OK, I agree it would be good for coherence, so I do not object even if it looked that way.
I just thought I remembered an earlier discussion where it sounded like objects fitting the environment were preferred over a checkered line. Now that I think about it, Shifting Sands would seem kinda weird with a checkered line all over the width of the track... but that's a problem with the track design anyway.

[charlie]

Just narrow the track by the chequered line?

[Kinsu]

BTW Kinsu, I had a look at the Blender file, and it's really like my model, but cleaner, with a correct UV-mapping, and polygons just where needed, really good job

Thank you

Now let's wait for fraang's texture. I'll also try to make a traffic light, then an animation for race start, and eventually one for rescue (I'll try with a dive as hiker suggested... It should look great with a rapacious shriek )

For the traffic light & progress bar animation, how should we do ? Pre-animated texture, or Irrlicht-animated texture as we said earlier (don't know how it would work that way...) ?

[hiker]

For the traffic light & progress bar animation, how should we do ? Pre-animated texture, or Irrlicht-animated texture as we said earlier (don't know how it would work that way...) ?

I'd say with the model looking that great we can keep the traffic light simple. So what about just three lights, and we light them up one at a time (red, red, green=go)? You could just make one texture consisting of four rows: first row no light, second row one red light, third row two red lights, last row two red and one green light. This way the texture can be applied (for the first row), and we would only have to change all V coordinates to switch on a light. I think that would be good enough as a start, and we can see if we want more detailed animation (like the 'circular' progress bar, which would be a lot more work).

Cheers,
Joerg

[Kinsu]

Allright, we can make it gradually.
I will still try to make the progress bar after the simple traffic light : I think it would be too bad to have brainstormed like this, and got to this great conclusion for nothing

[Kinsu]

I just updated the blender file : corrected some vertices of the legs so the bird's skeleton is more correct, and added an armature (hidden for now). UV coords did not change.
I also saw a little bug that will need to be fixed : the crest is only visible from one side (faces are merged by the mirror modifier). This should not stop fraang to work on the texture

[Funto]

That's why I gave a very slight width to the crest

[Kinsu]

Yes this is the way

[fraang]

Ok guys I am on this task but have not much time atm.

But I have made some progress so far :



Btw: I have painted all by hand so far. No procedural stuff.

[Kinsu]

Nice to see you've begun !

A few remarks :
- The wings seem to have been torned... maybe it would be good to follow precisely the end-feathers like on the eagle photos (roughly like on the gray screenshot with the white line),
- The crest & the eyes are good, but it's different from Thunderbird's one (2 "spikes" vs. "3 spikes" for the crest). I think it would be cool to respect a minimum the mascot's design.

And, generally, I think you could even maybe base your work upon the original icon... It would avoid you to re-do everything, and ensure the final result to precisely look like the real Thunderbird...

Keep us informed !

[Turtle]

Wow great work folks! Also, agree that tracks need checkered line for starting position. This for multiplayer (in the future I hope) will make it challenging for deciding when to pull off last minute speed boost or cupcakes (make their jaw drop when they get hit so close to the finish line ).

[Kinsu]

I've thought about the race-start we're planning to make, and we will have to make some choices : after the start of the race, what will become t'bird ?

1st choice : Make it just gradually disappear after a given amount of time. Very simple, and in 99% of the race-starts, players will not notice as they won't be here anymore.

2nd choice : Make it fly upwards before disappearing. Slightly more elegant, a lot more complicated : in subsea track, how will t'bird escape ?

3rd choice : Add next to the checker-line a kind of "referee post" where t'bird will land and stay here to control the race scores. This would require little changes to tracks, but as these changes are already needed for adding the checker lines, this can be done at the same time. Problem : what to do when there is no referee post in a track ? Just disappear as choice 1 ?

I like the 3rd option, but it's the one which requires the biggest amount of work... I think for the moment the 1st option will be fine, and eventually could be improved later...

Any thoughts ?

[hiker]

First of all we should check how many TBs do we actually need: is one enough (i.e. can it be seen clearly enough if you play with 20 karts, and have a player on position 1 and 20)? I doubt so (though I am happy to try), but otherwise I would say we could just have one TB per kart, but implement this as one model only, which is moved around just before rendering each view (so in your view you can't see the thunderbird of another player kart).

Then TB could just be removed from the view of a camera once it's not visible anymore. And we remove this TB model completely once it's not visible for any kart. This way it conveniently disappears. We could still show a flying animation after the start (would be great imho), but perhaps let certain tracks disable this (e.g. subsea track might set a 'no-fly' flag).

Not sure if we should handle the case of a kart being rescued while the "start TB" is still visible separately (to avoid showing two TB for a kart) - I'd say we can just ignore this, it should happen rarely enough. Or then just remove the "start TB".

Cheers,
Joerg

[Funto]

I see three problems with the one TB per kart approach:
- first, minor problem, is that it means the same "character" is duplicated, which can be hardly justified from a scenario point of view. But ok, who cares We could also perhaps variations on the color of the TBs?
- second, if we have many TBs, there would be many animations, which as you know is the bottleneck in terms of perfs for STK
- third, having many times the same model with the same animation would be too visible and synchronized, so we would need to have a way to "blur" the animations. Oh, maybe what you meant with rendering the same TB several times is that you would animate it just once per frame and render it many times, so that it wouldn't cost much to render?

I would first try with just one TB at the starting line, holding the starting lights. If it's not visible enough from karts that are farther away, maybe we could add one each N rows of karts?

[Kinsu]

First of all we should check how many TBs do we actually need: is one enough [...] ?

Well, I think one could be fine if we make it big enough (and if it's supposed to rescue karts by carrying them it should be big !). And TB's not as important as the traffic light, so if the 20th player does not see well TB but still sees the light, I think it should be OK (when the player goes forward after the start, it can see better TB while driving under ). For this, a powerful-enough light effect should be made.

If we can see the light from a long distance it's OK.

Or, in tracks that have turns (or big rocks, or trees) just before the finish line, maybe a little frame could appear in a corner to show the race-start ? And in split-screen, no need to show it several times, just one at the center of the screen

The big thing could be a tree, or a rock, a building, that hides TB. In this case, show it in a small frame.

[Ludsky]

It's very good idea, it's beautiful image

[hiker]

I see three problems with the one TB per kart approach:
- first, minor problem, is that it means the same "character" is duplicated, which can be hardly justified from a scenario point of view. But ok, who cares We could also perhaps variations on the color of the TBs?

No variation of colors I'd say. People might otherwise be wondering that the different colors mean. We should stay consistent.

Note that MK Wii uses exactly what I have proposed, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Ka0Ya2FAg Look at around 00:42: the bike in the lower screen is to the front right in the upper screen, and no sign of the traffic light. I don't think that this will be a problem at all.

- second, if we have many TBs, there would be many animations, which as you know is the bottleneck in terms of perfs for STK
- third, having many times the same model with the same animation would be too visible and synchronized, so we would need to have a way to "blur" the animations. Oh, maybe what you meant with rendering the same TB several times is that you would animate it just once per frame and render it many times, so that it wouldn't cost much to render?

That's exactly what I meant: one model, and we just adjust the position of the scene node before each render call.

I still think this is the easiest and best looking way. Individual TBs for each kart might have performance impact (and yes, would look too synchronised).

Cheers,
Joerg

[Funto]

Oh... O_o they're just cheating!!
But ok, until you pointed it out, I never remarked it...so it seems that this method gives good results after all

[Kinsu]

I don't know which solution would be the simplest regarding programming, but I prefer the one where TB is located at one place for every kart... sounds less like a trick.

To detect if TB has to be shown in a small window to the player, a kind of code like this could be used :

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

// First frame of the race :

ray = rayTrace(from : playerCam, to : tBirdObject);
IF (ray.collideWithAnotherObject() OR ray.getLength() > maxDistanceAllowed)
    drawLittleFrame = true;

// ...
// Next frames

IF (drawLittleFrame == true AND raceStart == true)
    irrlichtDrawFrame(location : topRightCorner, camera : tBcam, ...)


[hiker]

I don't know which solution would be the simplest regarding programming, but I prefer the one where TB is located at one place for every kart... sounds less like a trick.

I am reasonable sure that you wouldn't have noticed that if we hadn't had this discussion Besides performance implications having 20 karts, and 20 TB hovering about them will certainly look boring. But as I've said, I am happy to try various things.

Feel free to add a ticket to trac to add thuunderbird, then someone can tackle it, and we can decide.

Cheers,
Joerg