FreeGameDev

Shoutout to Affray Studios!

Here's something I started working on three days ago:


youtu.be/S5yZwKIyCp0

The video was recorded at 10 fps and I took it into Blender to speed some sections of it up, which is why some parts are choppier than others. The track plays at a smooth 29-31 fps on my machine on high settings (for context, chocolate/cocoa temple runs at around 16).

Features:

6 Custom library objects (4 boulders, 1 pine tree (retired), and one patch of 5 spruce trees)
10000 trees total
1500 boulders total
Reasonable polycounts (scene+shadow stays < 300,000)
Animated clouds
Splat (terrain) map based off of the height and slope of the terrain
(fake & inelegant) Terrain lightmapping
~2x2 km of terrain

I don't really have time or motivation right now to upload the track, especially since it's incomplete and consists of not only the track itself but also many library objects. As a result, this thread will mostly be a place where I post updates and show off any development of this track/demo/experiment.

Ultimately, I'd like this scenery to end up looking good enough that a replacement for the Green Valley track can be set in it (on peak in the middle of it is what I'm thinking).

If anyone wants to help, I need a unique skybox for this track. As per the STK Style Guidelines, it should be handpainted. It could also maybe have some 3d elements in it, like chocolate/cocoa temple's skybox.

I'm thinking of a golden sunrise theme for the track, so that might be an idea for the skybox.

WOW I'm impressed

That's amazing and it runs smoothly even more than cocoa temple . Also it looks beautiful the main problem is the rocks are currently looking like pure aluminum which is very unrealistic.

However the main issue with that is there is no track . And I'm "sure" that the framerate will drop once you start to add all details near the road like the grass, the buildings, objects, details, etc.

and about the skybox for green valley core (the one who will be included in stk) we should stick to a blue sky. We have a lot of track that have already sunset colors. If you want to make a sunset, you can adapt zen garden . This is the perfect place for a sunset

I have some requests/questions
1) can you provide me the track ? because I think you made a quite cool demo and I want to try some stuff.
2) How did you make the clouds ? they look so cool
3) Fix the rocks/boulders, because the aluminium material is strange
4) Can you provide the objects, I think they should be included in the library as soon as possible

keep doing a good job like that

Sam

WOW I'm impressed

That's amazing and it runs smoothly even more than cocoa temple . Also it looks beautiful the main problem is the rocks are currently looking like pure aluminum which is very unrealistic.

Thanks

However the main issue with that is there is no track . And I'm "sure" that the framerate will drop once you start to add all details near the road like the grass, the buildings, objects, details, etc.

Maybe, but maybe not. The polycount stays at around 80k tris as long as you don't get too close to the trees, so there's still some room to add track elements. You also have to consider that if the track is on a mountain, then you only have to add decorations for the side of the track that's up against the terrain, since the view in the other direction just be the valley. The framerate also doesn't seem like it would be 30 if vsync were turned off; my guess would be that it could reach a lot higher if it weren't limited.

1) can you provide me the track ? because I think you made a quite cool demo and I want to try some stuff.

Sure, here you go! You should be able to simply export the library objects (and copy their textures), export the track, and jump straight into the game provided that I've packaged and linked everything correctly. (If not, let me know and I'll update the archive.)

Note that for the clouds' animation to play properly, you'll have to manually open scene.xml and append a "5" to the end of their "dy" value (making it equal to 1/32).

2) How did you make the clouds ? they look so cool

They do, don't they?

I actually spent a fair bit of time on them, working on them intermittently throughout the course of an entire day. Basically, all I did was make an image sequence out of a single cloud image and a copy of it rotated by 180 degrees, run it through slowmovideo (a piece of software that's really not well known enough), and then make it loop and add shading with Blender's Video Sequence Editor and Compositor. I've included most of the source files for it in the archive under "textures/draft/slowmoclouds", so you can take a look at the files there if you want to know more about the specifics of the compositing (didn't include the slowmovideo sources though, due to uncertainty about how the format would react to having its files moved around and what information it contains).

3) Fix the rocks/boulders, because the aluminium material is strange

They actually use one of the textures from stk-assets, which I guess must be missing a gloss map or something. I didn't want to fix it myself, since it would mean either editing the game's main materials.xml or overriding its settings in the library.

4) Can you provide the objects, I think they should be included in the library as soon as possible

They're included in the download three quotes up.

Hey nice work Anon, I like it !

First working attempt at making a "edge-map", to have the stone/gravel around hard edges eroded down to bedrock at altitude and have grass growing on it closer to sea level (see reference pic):



I haven't tweaked the settings at all yet, so it should look pretty good once I've done that.

After several hours spent making one of the most complicated nodetrees I've ever worked on, I can say that I'm done the second version of this demo/track/experiment's splat map.




To illustrate how much more refined the algorithm(?) for generating the splat map has become, here's a picture of the new compositing nodes under the old:




And last but not least, here's the new splat map itself:

Slight tweak to the algorithm resulting in a much more natural transition from the stone to the bedrock:

I made a quick test of the new algorithm for generating the splat map, applying it to a terrain model much more professional and with features much more pronounced than what I've been using so far.



It seems to be pretty successful, placing bedrock along edges where I'd expect them and creating a generally pretty good looking texture. This confirms that my algorithm is working as expected, which means that any potential future efforts to improve the valley will likely include a redo of the terrain to make it more jagged and realistic than the ANT Landscape Generator output that I'm using right now.

At this point, I'd also say that all the unique/special tools and assets (tree models, boulders, particle based object placement, animated clouds, this splatting algorithm, etc.) necessary to create a next-gen port of Green Valley are in place (maybe with the exception of a landscape generator). So we'll see what happens there.

EDIT: Tried to fix image, thanks GunChleoc.

Looking great

Man that looks pretty snacksy - wish one could generate a nice road in the terrain as well, but I guess that's where traditional modelling comes to play so we can play.

Oh man, I wish I posessed the knowledge to install this and try it- it looks amazing.

Hello

Congratulation Anon your cloud animated texture were used in the track Sand track for a sand storm . However I reduced the number of frame by half and the size of the texture to not take too much VRAM.

I'm currently adapting the trees for scotland.

Congratulation 2.0 :P

I have added two different pine trees based on your work . One high poly for location near the road and one low poly for the landscape.

For the moment they are used in scotland and lighthouse

Great! Thanks for letting me know.

Also, you've inspired me to try and implement an idea I've had for a few weeks on making textured airplane smoke.