Frozen Drive track

Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 18 Sep 2019, 12:20

I've made a new track! Make sure you read the 'Hacks' section before downloading and playing!

Now in addons!

To download the older version, go to https://files.catbox.moe/k9bne0.zip or https://jacobspctuneup.tk/STK/frozen_drive.zip (thanks QwertyChouskie!). Here is a video of the older track: YouTube / Invidio.us


Frozen Drive
Another snow track...

addon_portal_mountain-2019.09.18_00.18.14.png

This track is a bit different though. It starts with a tunnel which quickly takes you up to the top of the mountain to a small village. I would add more images if there wasn't a limit.

addon_frozen-drive-2019.09.18_19.14.50.png

After you drive past the village, the road wraps around the side of the mountain all the way to the bottom. Lots of bumps and curves!

addon_frozen-drive-2019.09.18_19.18.43.png

Some of the turns are a little bit tight and dangerous, but I'm sure you will handle them well...

addon_frozen-drive-2019.09.18_19.16.35.png

There is also a secret bonus section. It's much harder to navigate, a nice challenge with a nice reward at the end. You can earn different ranks depending on how quickly you finish, but be careful because there are no checkpoints there!

addon_frozen-drive-2019.09.18_19.22.51.png

This track tries a lot of new ideas which are untested (or unsupported!), the most important being the two portals which teleport you across the map. I tried to make these so that it gives a smooth experience for the driver while being fast and fun. They aren't perfect but I think they work fine.

I hope you all enjoy the track. Most of it was made with the STK media repo, so thank you all! It has become much easier to make decent looking tracks once I started using the repo.

HACKS:
- This track has two sections with teleporting. This was done using very fast cannons (in hindsight, using scripting would have been better!) which are not officially supported. I don't know how they will work on computers which are better or worse than mine.
- This track plays background music as sound effects, this was done so that I can stop the main track and play a second one. Volumes may be unexpected. If you want to mute music, just replace the .ogg files with empty.ogg.

Known issues:
1) The background music continues after the race ends.
2) Bots won't *always* complete the reverse course. (semi-fixed in v2 by adding alternate route in reverse)
3) If you try, you can miss the tunnel cannon.
2 and 3 could probably be fixed by using teleport() instead of cannons, so I might try that...

My main concerns are:
1) Do the tunnel cannons work fine on both high-end and low-end computers? They have very high speeds which could possibly cause glitches.
2) Is the track itself too heavy? (~264,000 tris shouldn't be too bad and there isn't too much transparency, but I did notice lag when recording)
3) Anything else I didn't notice?

DISCLAIMER: one of the songs used ("Anthem") is licensed CC BY-NC-SA, which is not DFSG compatable due to the non-commercial clause. If you care that much about free-libre assets, you may replace it with another exciting song (or suggest a replacement).
Last edited by tempAnon093 on 27 Dec 2019, 03:26, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby eltomito » 18 Sep 2019, 13:41

It looks great! The cannon works well and I really like the flight in the dark tunnel.

Only the scenery is a bit boring. Could you put some things, trees or buildings around the track?

But great job!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 18 Sep 2019, 14:45

eltomito {l Wrote}:It looks great! The cannon works well and I really like the flight in the dark tunnel.

Only the scenery is a bit boring. Could you put some things, trees or buildings around the track?

But great job!


Yeah that's fair enough, I should add some more trees along the side of the road and the distant mountains and maybe add a couple more buildings and stuff. I was used to seeing it without any trees so I didn't realise that it still needed some more after I added about 20 of them :P

I'm glad you like the flight! It's a nice way to get to the top quickly.

Edit: I just looked at the video and noticed lots of the snow hills lost detail in encoding so it all looks plain white instead of the snow texture that is seen in-game.
Also, I absolutely agree that it needs more trees.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby Andet » 18 Sep 2019, 15:22

It's a very nice, simple track so far, kinda like Lake Ikeal or Canyon 42. Well done! :)

I haven't had the chance to try it out or hear the music (I just watched the video on mute), but I will hopefully do so later.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby eltomito » 18 Sep 2019, 22:40

It looks like there's a checkline that's easy to miss inadvertently. I just did a race and all the AI karts lapped me and I have no idea why!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 19 Sep 2019, 02:54

eltomito {l Wrote}:It looks like there's a checkline that's easy to miss inadvertently. I just did a race and all the AI karts lapped me and I have no idea why!

I will have to check that out. All the checklines appear wider than they need to be. Do you recall going far off-road?
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby eltomito » 19 Sep 2019, 10:23

tempAnon093 {l Wrote}:
eltomito {l Wrote}:It looks like there's a checkline that's easy to miss inadvertently. I just did a race and all the AI karts lapped me and I have no idea why!

I will have to check that out. All the checklines appear wider than they need to be. Do you recall going far off-road?


Well, there's a bend without a side rail where I often go off the track and cut across it. It's the one in the snow plain towards the end of the track. If there's a checkline in that bend, then there should be probably some kind of a physical obstacle that tells you you aren't supposed to cut across it (a chasm, a log, a snow castle, a fallen snowman angel, a punch vending stand, a creek, or something of that sort)
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 19 Sep 2019, 13:52

Here's where I placed the checklines (I've raised them up a bit so they can be seen in the picture).
Untitled.jpg

I think I can see what happened. I forgot to set the check height to more than 5 in the final driveline, so if you cut that corner high enough, you may have gone above the checkline that lap.
I will make the check distance double and make all of the checklines wider because there is no benefit in having them small.

Thanks for finding that issue!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby kimden » 20 Sep 2019, 09:37

Nice track and very nice music, thank you for your work! No very long boring straights and so much curves! Bananas are located right in the places they should be, when you try to avoid them, it's hard enough :) Also I tried to beat AIs and it seems harder than usual! (haven't done it yet :) ) For my (weak enough) computer, the track isn't heavy.
Regarding issues: when pausing before the start of the race, the background music begins too early. Anyway, big thanks!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby eltomito » 20 Sep 2019, 20:22

kimden {l Wrote}: Also I tried to beat AIs and it seems harder than usual! (haven't done it yet :) )


That's weird! I beat the AIs really easily with 3 lap races in around 2:10. I tried SuperTux and Expert levels and it's about the same. Just take your finger off the accelerator every now and then so that you don't go off the track all the time :D
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 21 Sep 2019, 01:29

eltomito {l Wrote}:
kimden {l Wrote}: Also I tried to beat AIs and it seems harder than usual! (haven't done it yet :) )


That's weird! I beat the AIs really easily with 3 lap races in around 2:10. I tried SuperTux and Expert levels and it's about the same. Just take your finger off the accelerator every now and then so that you don't go off the track all the time :D

It makes a huge difference with how you drive. For example, do you skid on most curves (or even straight track)?
I remember initially thinking the AIs were a bit harder, I think one reason for this may be that the main track doesn't have many nitros which I think we use more than the AI. It could also be that their programmed behavior handles this track layout well.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby eltomito » 21 Sep 2019, 13:34

tempAnon093 {l Wrote}:
eltomito {l Wrote}:
kimden {l Wrote}: Also I tried to beat AIs and it seems harder than usual! (haven't done it yet :) )


That's weird! I beat the AIs really easily with 3 lap races in around 2:10. I tried SuperTux and Expert levels and it's about the same. Just take your finger off the accelerator every now and then so that you don't go off the track all the time :D

It makes a huge difference with how you drive. For example, do you skid on most curves (or even straight track)?
I remember initially thinking the AIs were a bit harder, I think one reason for this may be that the main track doesn't have many nitros which I think we use more than the AI. It could also be that their programmed behavior handles this track layout well.


I skid like nuts all the time, of course! :D
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby Andet » 09 Oct 2019, 07:31

I finally got around to doing a thorough playthrough of the track. There are some really creative ideas here! The secret path is a very nice easter egg (although it seems when you slow down all the way you get respawned?). I liked the dark tunnel too. The course is pretty difficult with some tight but fair turns. The turns are also tilted in a way that adds to the "winding roads" feel. It's really interesting what you did with the music. The one thing I suggest is to make the track a bit less "white," and add some darker colors (still a good-looking track though). The AI are definitely more difficult than they normally are but that's ok in my opinion. I think it's just due to the layout of the curves and the small size of the track.

Excellent track! ;)
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 09 Oct 2019, 15:18

Thank you very much for the in-depth review, it really helps to see the track from others' perspectives. :)

Andet {l Wrote}:There are some really creative ideas here!

Thanks! I always like to explore ideas that haven't been tried yet and show the potential of STK community tracks, fortunately this experiment ended up as a fun track.

Andet {l Wrote}:The secret path is a very nice easter egg (although it seems when you slow down all the way you get respawned?). I liked the dark tunnel too.

I'm glad you had fun with it! No-one else had talked about it so far and I was beginning to worry that all that effort had been for nothing :P
The secret path was inspired by the 'Death Route' bonuses in Crash Bandicoot, where an optional but very difficult path can be chosen instead of the normal path.
The respawning is not intentional, I would remove it if I knew how. My best guess is that the track is far off-road and it assumes the kart needs rescuing when stopped on a slope? I'm tempted to see if adding an alternate driveline to that path fixes the respawns, but at the same time I enjoy the secret path being unmarked...

Andet {l Wrote}:It's really interesting what you did with the music.

It was a nice puzzle getting it to work. It's not a supported feature to have multiple music tracks, so there are some side effects I can't fix (music is played as SFX, so it doesn't respect beginning-of-race pausing or end-of-race celebration like the normal music does).
The really fun part is that I believe I have been able to make the two zones work fine in multiplayer online races (untested) because of a bug in the action trigger scripting (it was made before multiplayer existed, so I can abuse it to check whether the person who entered the zone is the local player or not). I had almost given up it before I accidentally discovered that bug.

Andet {l Wrote}:The course is pretty difficult with some tight but fair turns. The turns are also tilted in a way that adds to the "winding roads" feel.
[snip]
The AI are definitely more difficult than they normally are but that's ok in my opinion. I think it's just due to the layout of the curves and the small size of the track.

Kimden and I also felt like the AI were harder and, like you said, the bots seem to drive better on the winding layout. I did realise about half way though that all the turns made the course quite difficult, even with all the banking. I'm alright with that.

Andet {l Wrote}:The one thing I suggest is to make the track a bit less "white," and add some darker colors (still a good-looking track though).

I absolutely agree, eltomito also felt like the scenery could be improved.
I was so used to it being plain white when testing that I didn't realise it was still rather plain after I added twenty trees.
All I can really think of adding to the main winding road are more trees or maybe some exposed rock/grass, so any other suggestions would be great!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby gsbhasin123 » 13 Oct 2019, 03:37

Can you upload the file to mega.nz? This track is awesome!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby QwertyChouskie » 13 Oct 2019, 04:28

Contributor to/fan of STK (Upstreamed Cartoon theme, numerous random big fixes/tweaks)
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby eltomito » 13 Oct 2019, 18:26

QwertyChouskie {l Wrote}:Soo... https://jacobspctuneup.tk/STK/frozen_drive.zip


403 - Forbidden :(
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby gsbhasin123 » 13 Oct 2019, 21:46

Yours has a 403 error.
And according to my FF, mega is secure:
Image
And according to Chromium, it's also secure XD
So, your FF is wrong. Lol
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby QwertyChouskie » 15 Oct 2019, 02:06

I have my FF configured to warn more strictly, so your FF is just less strict :P

Anyways, 403 fixed.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 16 Oct 2019, 22:55

QwertyChouskie {l Wrote}:Anyways, 403 fixed.

Confirmed, thank you very much for hosting it!
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby Alayan » 17 Oct 2019, 23:42

I don't think this has what it takes to be in the main game (graphics for one part, some issues with the cannons at the star and some others with the slopes), but it's for sure one of the best addons out there, the gameplay is challenging and interesting. What makes this hard for a human is that visualization doesn't help as much as usal.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 22 Oct 2019, 10:20

Alayan {l Wrote}:I don't think this has what it takes to be in the main game (graphics for one part, some issues with the cannons at the star and some others with the slopes) [snip]

I agree. It's a bit bare and it is absolutely experimental, there was no intention of this being added to main. ;)
Alayan {l Wrote}:but it's for sure one of the best addons out there, the gameplay is challenging and interesting.

Thank you very much :)
A lot of the track layout was improvised, but I had originally intended on having a very steep track with many sharp turns, so challenging and interesting means that I succeeded with that!
Alayan {l Wrote}:What makes this hard for a human is that visualization doesn't help as much as usal.

Yeah, that explains it. I did try to avoid completely blind turns, although most of that road still doesn't give much warning and the plain white cliff just hides the corners. AI would just 'see' around the corners far better.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby Worldblender » 30 Oct 2019, 02:36

Based on the screenshots I saw, this track looks like it's decent. But where are the source files that would contain the .blend file? I don't want that getting lost forever, and it will make it easier to make changes where necessary.
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 30 Oct 2019, 05:14

Worldblender {l Wrote}:But where are the source files that would contain the .blend file? I don't want that getting lost forever, and it will make it easier to make changes where necessary.

Fair enough. I probably won't have time to work on it for a while so feel free to improve the track.
Take note of EDITS.txt, which describe how to adjust the portals to the correct speeds.

https://files.catbox.moe/hc3qfh.zip
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Re: Frozen Drive track

Postby tempAnon093 » 26 Dec 2019, 02:30

I will be posting an updated version here soon to the add-on site.

Changes:
- Added more trees, mainly to the start area. Minor graphics fixes. I intentionally left some higher areas without trees, is that fine?
- Added more nitros to alternate route to improve balancing, currently seems to be fastest route for lighter karts, potentially beating the main route with a heavy kart (in my own trials, at least).
- Made rewards at end of alternate route harder to miss.
- Added an alternative route in reverse mode so that most AI karts will finish the race. It's not perfect but it's a definite improvement.
- Made the scripting work properly in STK 1.1 (the 1.0 script relied on a bug, I have requested a patch to enable a legitimate way to make it work), this now works as long as my pull request is accepted. However it will require STK 1.0 or lower to disable a couple of lines in scripting.as to avoid a script crash.
Todo:
- Maybe try to add a few rocks. Any other decoration ideas?

Have some happy little trees
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