In the last week I worked on a new Tux Kart which uses the full graphical performance of the new engine. Why a new Tux? Let me explain....
Time to polish up some memories from the old old Tux from TuxKart and SuperTuxKart how we knew and loved him

http://mio.servequake.com/~takky/linux/ ... xkart1.png
http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/tmp/tux ... -08-07.png
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/sup ... x_kart.jpg
http://www.supertuxkart.de/tux1-kart.gif
Beautiful!

For the new Version (Beta) all karts were adapted to the new engine. But they all still need a revision. Textures doesn't fit as good as before and some glossmaps would look very nice. Also I think they could all need some more polygons

So now we are heading to the release of 0.8.2 (or 0.9, whatever) and Samuncle has already done a huge and awesome job with two beautiful racing circuits and some revised karts. Now Samuncle started already with a trailer featuring the new engine and in my opinion Tux is a very important character and typically for the game. I personally think it would be a pity to not have a nice version of him in the final game.
In consultation with Samuncle I have started a new version of Tux, which he also can use in the trailer or else.
The new Tux
First of all, I didn't want to completely redesign Tux or his kart. I like the old one very much and I wish to keep the classical style of it.
These were my goals, how I wanted to make the new Tux:
- Leave the main shape of tux, more polygons, nicer mesh
- New textures with higher quality for Tux, also glossmaps
- Leave the main shape of the kart, more poligons, nicer mesh
- New textures with higher quality for the Kart (a fiery red), glossmaps
- New and better animations
I'm glad to present now the result of my effort of the last week. ATM I will only show you some images of the kart but maybe I release a version to play soon (Edit on the end of this post...):
https://app.box.com/s/8hr7ra2na4ebha7ht52fydmfq9mwl0mk
https://app.box.com/s/ze3rzzwgjkq6a8v0uiiipcy17q8olax9
https://app.box.com/s/ykwy0lj5tg15x5lf9thn2vt6fy7kgqrr
https://app.box.com/s/kqvn37v4vni3uu673rqyug05yousgugo
https://app.box.com/s/v5hmhd7c1cgtc0yvpsol1yh6aqjl1bbr
https://app.box.com/s/n32hdr4wpegq6j9219raqkxw3ox9j5qs
https://app.box.com/s/es4pajhifh17lq995bh219mpef3u0svj
This is a quote of Samuncle from the IRC channel, as respond to my assertion that I wanted to leave the Kart in the classical style:
One day the track Math class will be changed, even if its a classic cliché
That is not my point of view, and I personally find it kind of sad to remove classical stuff from the game... I like the idea of the universe in SuperTuxKart but I think when we redesign old tracks and also karts but keep an old classical touch in it, that would work out very well. We can renew karts and tracks, or create new ones but why we have to replace the old classical stuff. In my opinion we also should put the artistic focus also on old and classical stuff.
For example we replace the Math class with another track. Maybe we could now put some little references to Math class in other tracks

Another example is this new Tux

Don't hesitate to leave a comment, I'm open for suggestions!

Have a nice day
Julian
Edit (21. March 2015):
Tux Kart
A total of: 6140 Tris
Texture resolution: 256x256 px (2^8) to 1024x1024 px (2^10) (All textures were originally made with a 2048x2048 px (2^11) resolution, so we can go up if it would be necessary.
Animations: Steering, Winning, Losing, Jumping
License: > See license file for further informations <
Download: https://app.box.com/s/vcq0fpkshz8kydrbirnknq2n9jqjc8jv