My STK projects

Re: My STK projects

Postby SvenAndreasBelting » 30 Apr 2020, 16:20

I'm pretty sure that the track won't be an exact copy of OzoneOne's concept art.
And I don't know which parts of the concept art I'm gonna use for the track.
Don't get me wrong the concept is a great inspiration and gives me a lot ideas, but I just don't want to promise anything about how the track will be exactly at the end.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby charlie » 01 May 2020, 13:48

QwertyChouskie {l Wrote}:I did a quick-and-dirty implementation of some of the driveline proposed in OzoneOne's post, and I gotta say, it's pretty awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKTUwnR-Ik4

I definitely would LOVE to see OzoneOne's concept track fully implemented ;)

Also that is a bit long for a lap @ 3-4 minutes.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby QwertyChouskie » 01 May 2020, 18:14

I just timed it and it was ~1:20 for a lap, but agreed, a bit long in that state. Anyways, that won't be the driveline used in the real version anyways, it was mainly just an experiment :)

(I would love to see a similar pipe section in the final design though, even if the driveline as a whole is different :) )
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Re: My STK projects

Postby tempAnon093 » 26 May 2020, 02:25

It looks like someone has exposed difficulty to scripting for us, so it should be in the next release.

https://github.com/supertuxkart/stk-code/pull/4297

So it looks like in STK 1.2 (or in any new git build) a script can say `if (Track::getDifficulty() < 2) { runCode(); }' to run the code only if playing Novice or Intermediate (0 = Novice, 3 = SuperTux)

(P.S. in actual code I would write '<= 1' instead of '< 2', it's just the second one makes more sense to non-programmers)
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Re: My STK projects

Postby forum » 29 Jul 2020, 11:48

benau {l Wrote}:We have /installaddon command now... ImageImageImageImage

Can you or someone else please give a short hint how the aforementioned non-free textures could be used by this? ;) Thank you so much, also for the really impressive ideas and artwork - you all rock! :cool:
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Re: My STK projects

Postby SvenAndreasBelting » 29 Sep 2020, 23:48

So here is a little update on the new magma track.

newfortmagma-2020.09.30_00.30.30.jpg


https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxe3ie0jpzlhc ... a.zip?dl=0

The new version has a complete concept of how the whole track layout could be,
but some things are still only placeholder and a lot of the road was only build to see how long a lap would take to complete.

So here a few things that will change for sure:

- the castle will be not end were it ends at the moment.

- the road which starts after the castle at the moment will completely be remade and lead trough the castle.

- of course a lot of parts of the roads aren't connected good but all that kind of things will be done later.

- on some parts of the road the karts are stuttering a lot I will try to fix this.

- the graphics will be improved but I will try that it will still run fast on older hardware.


So please tell your thoughts to the gameplay and the general track design and also if you have any other idea, as sooner as I get them the easier it will be to change things ;)

Oh and also, do you think the whole track should be a bit shorter? I already tried to make this track not too long but for me it takes around a minute to complete a lap.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby tempAnon093 » 30 Sep 2020, 02:06

Personally, I think the length is fine. It's the final track, so it should be a minute or more in my opinion. It could be Nordschleife and I'd think it were fine ;)
I just ran through for the first time, here is a video. (graphics on 4 because recording)
The biggest issue for me was the darkness of the map, I couldn't see some corners. It makes sense that everything is charred, but it's hard to see the shape of the track without that contrast and shadows.
[edit: during afternoon, there is lots of glare where my desktop is. These was much less of an issue when playing at night]
At 0:14, I couldn't see the corner (it's already hard because the bright road is going down and left, so it's impossible to foresee without hints from the environment) and the rocks on the side are completely black to me so I can't read the corner from them. A more bright orange backdrop behind the rocks (light from the lava) could make them visible, with their heights matching the shape of the corner (highest on the right, lowest on the left)
At 0:26 and subsequent laps, I keep hitting that dip. It looks like open road so far, and the dark road makes it hard to see that goes down, so it looks like you can cut the corner safely. Maybe adding an obstacle to show you aren't supposed to cut the corner, or some easily visible obstacles that could help make it look less open and prevent the illusion that going fast through that section is fine.
The section at 1:08 also had poor visibility, I didn't even see the trees until the second lap.
I do like the overall shape and there's a lot of good stuff in there, like dips and banked, inclined corners, and some tight corners that will be fun with more visibility. The swinging spiky balls are nice! They are visible from a distance and predictable, so it's fair, but still managed to get me on that second lap, and occasionally the AI players too.
I noticed that using graphics setting 1 made it far easier to see the road and the corner at 0:14, while still looking alright.

I wonder if you could add lighting to the sides of the road (especially near corners) by using decorations, like glowing molten rocks or embers along the sides of the road.
Last edited by tempAnon093 on 30 Sep 2020, 11:51, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby QwertyChouskie » 30 Sep 2020, 02:27

My first impression: This is awesome!

There are a couple of things I'd tweak though:

- There's a general contrast issue, where everything is usually either bright red or dark black. This can make navigation unnecessarily difficult, especially in particular sections.

- Canonically, Nolok Industries produces and sells all the nitro in STK. If you look at the big nitro cans, "Nolok Industries" is on there. It's also been speculated that kidnapping Gnu was all a scheme to sell more racing supplies, including nitro.

Image

We should see a lot of the equipment and tubing infrastructure in the track, especially in the section that will be in the castle. The presence of bright, glowing blue should significantly help with the contrast issues of the track, and can be used subtly to give the brain points of reference when navigating. Also, green metal, similar to what is on Nolok's kart, could be used in various places (e.g. some of the nitro transport tubes would be transparent, showing the glowing nitro inside, while some would be made of the green metal.)

- After the corkscrew down in the beginning, if you don't already know that the road goes left and down at the same time, you are likely to smack into the almost-pitch-black rock. The problem is that you can't see the road as it curves down right here. The road needs to curve down 0.75-1s before any turns, to give the brain appropriate reaction time. Also, having anything that emits light in the rock (torch, lava crack, direction arrow, nitro transport pipe, etc.) will also help a lot.

- The fact that the bridge boosts you, then the track right after the bridge slows you down immediately again, feels unnatural. Having a jump with no speed boost might work better here.

- The way the road snakes between the jump bridge and the end of that section (where it goes to the long broken bridge section) is also a bit unnatural, as the road curves back and forth significantly, but the best way to drive it is to go almost straight.

- The spikeballs that swing back and forth are an awesome obstacle, though also suffer from bad contrast, making them harder to avoid than they should be. Also, maybe these could start with a random offset and more at slightly different speeds, which would make them feel less static/predictable.

- I'd like to maybe see some more anti-gravity stuff. The road that will run through the castle could be a good candidate, especially if there's lots of machinery in there.

- Lap length feels just fine. In fact, some parts, like the part in the castle, could be longer if there's cool stuff in there (e.g. anti-gravity).
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Re: My STK projects

Postby Alayan » 30 Sep 2020, 07:51

TempAnon and Qwerty gave some good feedback already.

For now, I won't focus on graphics, only on gameplay elements. Overall, I love where this is going to.

- The length of the track is just fine in my opinion. It's not repetitive, so 1 minute is not an issue for a 3 laps race.
- Lack of contrast and difficulty to understand where the road goes next the first time you play are problematic in several spots as already pointed out. I understand that outside the castle the road on the rock and the rock on the sides are made of the same thing, but it's really important to make the difference clearer. Lack of contrast between road and off-road is XR591's biggest issue and it's very noob unfriendly.
- I don't see the point of the speed boost on the jump before the broken bridge, especially followed by a slow down texture.
- The corkscrew and the broken bridge make for challenging gameplay, very good
- The ball spikes obstacles are very good. Dynamic in nature, yet fair to the player (good visibility, predictable pattern). I think Qwerty's idea of not having them all in sync has potential. A 4th ball spikes in that section could also be considered. Avoiding one or two is easy but you need to stay focused to pay attention to what's coming afterwards, so the 3rd ball ups the challenge and a 4th would even more (a lot more than it would if placed in an easy part of the track where it's alone)
- But the hitbox from the ball spikes seems to be slightly bigger than the ball. At least, I got this impression from repeated testing. Of course we don't want the kart to go inside the ball, but the sphere defined by the farthest point from all the spikes is too large for a hitbox, it needs to be closer to the main surface.
- Having dynamic obstacles in other spots of the race would be nice, too. I don't have a better suggestion than more ball spikes right now. Maybe something to do with lava, but without going over the top crazy with random fireballs that make no sense...
- It's possible to completely cut the corkscrew by jumping to the left to the road down below. Auto-rescue planes and checklines will be needed to deal with this.
- There are severe rescue issues in spots where the rescue puts you back over "nothing" and you fall back down the lava. But it's not fundamentally a track issue, as the engine has no proper way to deal with this for now. The unique drivequads used for guiding AI + minimap + rescue management are proving to be a limitation. The AI needs to understand that the parts of the broken bridge are connected, but on the minimap showing it broken would be nicer, and the rescue system definitely needs to know where to not put the kart back.
- The lapline will need to be clearly marked on the ground. And a lap arch + a lapline on the ground would be even better.
- The 15 seconds section from the castle entry to the ball spikes hall is boring. It feels like Abysses : sure, the road is moving left and right, but it's wide, the curves are not challenging at all. I don't mind necessarily having an easier section (also, there should be multiple spots where using a zipper is ok in a long track), but that should be maybe a 3-4s easy straight without any obstacle and just some collectible item boxes to relax before more challenge. 15s is too long for such a section.
- The broken bridge section is not compatible with reverse mode. Reverse mode is a cool feature, it needs to be supported. Before the "cobbles" between the start line and the spikes hall the road isn't at the same level which is causing issues too.

QwertyChouskie {l Wrote}:- I'd like to maybe see some more anti-gravity stuff. The road that will run through the castle could be a good candidate, especially if there's lots of machinery in there..

The road towards the castle already has a lot of vertical movement and banking (which is good), do you mean more of this or straight-up an upside-down road ? Height variation and banking make for a much more interesting track than a flat layout, but upside down is gimmicky outside of O loops with boosters (but that's not suited to this track's theme).

Mario Kart's gimmicky anti-gravity and bizarre layouts make me sensitive on this.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby tempAnon093 » 30 Sep 2020, 09:20

Alayan {l Wrote}:- The ball spikes obstacles are very good. Dynamic in nature, yet fair to the player (good visibility, predictable pattern). I think Qwerty's idea of not having them all in sync has potential. A 4th ball spikes in that section could also be considered. Avoiding one or two is easy but you need to stay focused to pay attention to what's coming afterwards, so the 3rd ball ups the challenge and a 4th would even more (a lot more than it would if placed in an easy part of the track where it's alone)

As mentioned earlier in the thread, there is now a getDifficulty script function. I wonder if it would be possible and a good idea to have 1 on Novice, 2 on Intermediate ... 4 on SuperTux.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby tempAnon093 » 30 Sep 2020, 11:58

QwertyChouskie {l Wrote}:- The fact that the bridge boosts you, then the track right after the bridge slows you down immediately again, feels unnatural. Having a jump with no speed boost might work better here.

I feel the same but I did realize that if you mess up the jump, it's hard to get across after being rescued unless you are boosted over. I still feel that the slowdown afterwards is jarring.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby fracture » 30 Sep 2020, 15:49

The part where you jump over the lava at the beginning of the track needs some fixing. If I were to fall just after that, I'd respawn in the lava with almost no way out of it.

The biggest problem with the old fort magma was that it was very disappointing for a final track in the game. Like N64 Rainbow Road, it was very easy and boring, but not nearly as long as that track (2 minutes to complete a lap usually fails, although Black Forest is a rare exception). This track should be the hardest track in the game, but not too hard to where the track is unplayable (like that one mountain village addon with the extremely narrow roads and sharp turns which require the user to come to a complete stop. That addon sucks.).

Alayan {l Wrote}:- The ball spikes obstacles are very good. Dynamic in nature, yet fair to the player (good visibility, predictable pattern). I think Qwerty's idea of not having them all in sync has potential. A 4th ball spikes in that section could also be considered. Avoiding one or two is easy but you need to stay focused to pay attention to what's coming afterwards, so the 3rd ball ups the challenge and a 4th would even more (a lot more than it would if placed in an easy part of the track where it's alone)


Bonus points if you make the ball spikes slightly faster (but only a little bit). Maybe add some fire hazards at other parts of the castle.

[quore="SvenAndreasBelting"]the road which starts after the castle at the moment will completely be remade and lead trough the castle.[/quote]

Good.

I suggest replacing the music with a different theme because the current one doesn't sound like the music you'd hear in an final battle. I also think this track could also be slightly longer since this is the final track in the game.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby QwertyChouskie » 30 Sep 2020, 21:36

Better music already exists (https://jacobspctuneup.tk/STK/Music/fortress_stkr.ogg), though it was only ever released as a "WIP", and thus didn't have a license statement. That being said, since it's based on ST's "fortress.ogg" which is CC-BY-SA 3.0, hopefully I can convince OzoneOne to release it in it's current state under said same license. :)

I actually changed the track's music to this before I even loaded it up to test it, it made for an even better first impression of this version. Interestingly, one lap of the track is just slightly faster than one loop of the song...
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Re: My STK projects

Postby Alayan » 30 Sep 2020, 23:39

I rather like the lava music, but I agree this music derived from the SuperTux Nolok one sounds better for a final track and a final boss fight. It creates more tension and make the race feel more important.

It's nicer to get a formal authorization. But technically, this is not needed. SA stands for "Share Alike". A derivative must be shared under the same license, so by sharing a derivative it is implicitly licensed as CC-BY-SA 3 too. Some people would argue it's not, but the only way to argue there is a copyright violation involves the claimant violating copyright himself (as he would forfeit his rights to sharing the remix).

it's even nicer if whatever didn't satisfy him in the WIP version can be improved upon and the completed version released. Beyond this, some small adaptations for clean looping may be useful.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby tempAnon093 » 01 Oct 2020, 00:09

fracture {l Wrote}:like that one mountain village addon with the extremely narrow roads and sharp turns which require the user to come to a complete stop. That addon sucks

I thought that the first time I played it, but once you practice it a few times it's a pretty fun and challenging track, I'd say in the top half of addons for sure. It just needs a bit of polishing to smoothen the extremely tight corners.
There are a couple of tight corners on this track which I think is good.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby fracture » 01 Oct 2020, 01:55

tempAnon093 {l Wrote}:
fracture {l Wrote}:like that one mountain village addon with the extremely narrow roads and sharp turns which require the user to come to a complete stop. That addon sucks

I thought that the first time I played it, but once you practice it a few times it's a pretty fun and challenging track, I'd say in the top half of addons for sure. It just needs a bit of polishing to smoothen the extremely tight corners.
There are a couple of tight corners on this track which I think is good.


I'd put it somewhere in the middle, only because so many addons are completely broken (mystic island), have little to no effort put into them (every skindoormimiz track), are ripped off from Mario Kart tracks (many skindoormimiz tracks), and/or are one of those shitty challenge levels which the AI can never beat (that one around the loop level with the anti-gravity, the x-treme track, bowling, etc.).

I'll probably post something about the best addons tracks at some point this week.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby tempAnon093 » 01 Oct 2020, 03:22

fracture {l Wrote}:I'll probably post something about the best addons tracks at some point this week.

When you do, can you please find the existing add-on review thread and put it in there? It's good to have all that discussion in one place.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby QwertyChouskie » 01 Oct 2020, 03:51

Alayan {l Wrote}:I rather like the lava music, but I agree this music derived from the SuperTux Nolok one sounds better for a final track and a final boss fight. It creates more tension and make the race feel more important.

It's nicer to get a formal authorization. But technically, this is not needed. SA stands for "Share Alike". A derivative must be shared under the same license, so by sharing a derivative it is implicitly licensed as CC-BY-SA 3 too. Some people would argue it's not, but the only way to argue there is a copyright violation involves the claimant violating copyright himself (as he would forfeit his rights to sharing the remix).

it's even nicer if whatever didn't satisfy him in the WIP version can be improved upon and the completed version released. Beyond this, some small adaptations for clean looping may be useful.

I'm definitely aware of it being implicitly licensed (in fact, most of the stuff in https://jacobspctuneup.tk/STK/Music/ is implicitly licensed), but I'd feel much more comfortable getting OzoneOne's blessing before adding it.

(If I were in charge of STK, I'd use some of the donation funds to hire him, as he has done so much for STK, but that's a different discussion for a different day :))

Alayan {l Wrote}:Beyond this, some small adaptations for clean looping may be useful.

The song actually already cleanly loops, in fact IMO the way it loops is one of the best parts of the song. :D
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Re: My STK projects

Postby SvenAndreasBelting » 07 Oct 2020, 13:37

Thank you for all your ideas and feedback!

Especially for the gameplay it's very important to get the opinion of other players :)

Alayan {l Wrote}:- The broken bridge section is not compatible with reverse mode. Reverse mode is a cool feature, it needs to be supported. Before the "cobbles" between the start line and the spikes hall the road isn't at the same level which is causing issues too.


For this section I will try to use the possibility of using different objects depending on the direction in which the track is driven.
I have to test this soon to see if it's causing issues with the Driveline.


My next step will be to finish the track layout. After this is done I will start to add details and improve the graphics quality of the track, like changing textures or improve the models.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby fracture » 07 Oct 2020, 18:16

@SvenAndreasBelting

Have you worked on your snow track recently? Is it almost done?
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Re: My STK projects

Postby SvenAndreasBelting » 07 Oct 2020, 21:03

@fracture

No I have mostly worked on other projects, like the magma track but I also started to improve some of the official tracks.

However the snow track is almost done for a while now.
There was the plan to add dynamic obstacles to the track but because dynamic obstacles aren't part of the game yet I'm working on other projects for now.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby Worldblender » 11 Oct 2020, 05:01

I've just downloaded the Zip archive from Dropbox, but one thing I notice right away is the lack of Blender source files. Will they be released at some point, or earlier? I can always import the SPM files into Blender, but it's not as much fun as working with the original files.

BTW, if you're willing to give it a try, I have 2.80+ versions of the scripts available. While they're in a working state now, a few edge cases may be untested. Get the scripts at https://github.com/RQWorldblender/stk-blender
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Re: My STK projects

Postby SvenAndreasBelting » 11 Oct 2020, 14:26

Worldblender {l Wrote}:I've just downloaded the Zip archive from Dropbox, but one thing I notice right away is the lack of Blender source files. Will they be released at some point, or earlier? I can always import the SPM files into Blender, but it's not as much fun as working with the original files.

I haven't included the Blend files because the track is still far from being finished and I don't see much reason to include the Blend file every time I upload a newer version of the track, and it would also feel a bit weird if many people would try out things on my track while it is not even finished.


Worldblender {l Wrote}:BTW, if you're willing to give it a try, I have 2.80+ versions of the scripts available. While they're in a working state now, a few edge cases may be untested. Get the scripts at https://github.com/RQWorldblender/stk-blender

I already tried them out but I haven't ported my track to blender 2.83 yet. But it's great that blender 2.8x is supported now, it's much better than blender 2.79 and I use it for every other of my projects besides from STK


BTW, do you know if the new exporter also works with the new 2.9x Blender version?
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Re: My STK projects

Postby QwertyChouskie » 11 Oct 2020, 17:35

SvenAndreasBelting {l Wrote}:I haven't included the Blend files because the track is still far from being finished and I don't see much reason to include the Blend file every time I upload a newer version of the track, and it would also feel a bit weird if many people would try out things on my track while it is not even finished.

It would be cool to have the blend files for us to experiment with, personally the section that will be inside the castle is of great interest for me :).

SvenAndreasBelting {l Wrote}:I already tried them out but I haven't ported my track to blender 2.83 yet. But it's great that blender 2.8x is supported now, it's much better than blender 2.79 and I use it for every other of my projects besides from STK

Also, in that repo should be a script to port the tracks to 2.8x.

SvenAndreasBelting {l Wrote}:BTW, do you know if the new exporter also works with the new 2.9x Blender version?

I believe 2.9 is supported, though haven't tested myself.
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Re: My STK projects

Postby SvenAndreasBelting » 12 Nov 2020, 17:53

Another updated version of the magma track.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2d2ndcpzhubtn ... 5.zip?dl=0

It's nothing crazy just a few fixed things.

- Reverse is working now (with some rescue issues and AI problems on lower difficulties)

- And some added objects.
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