In this post:

• Art progress
• Design Ideas for the Player Buggy’s Cockpit
• A sneak peek at Sound
• Free Drive has been implemented!

Progress

Art

Buggy Art

This week, the in-game buggies improved by leaps and bounds: in addition to a slew of new models, we also saw old models improved with the addition of textures and shading!

For example, here we have the Keg; seen just last week as an untextured, grey model, it is now completely textured, shaded, and ready to be put in the game!

Meanwhile, this week’s new buggy was the Pi Kappa Alpha buggy from 1946, which is reportedly the first “torpedo-shaped” buggy! For that reason, we selected it as one of the representative buggies for Buggy100.

Although the model is still a work-in-progress (it still needs the paint job and textures of the original, for example), you can see how closely it resembles the original in the pictures above!

But, that’s not all… as an unexpected bonus, our artists got started on another popular contender for the Buggy100 all-star race: The Fish!

Character Art

Environment Art

With the results of last week’s shader testing underway, we’re now getting an idea of what the final game might end up looking like. Although a lot may still be changed between now and Beta, it’s giving us a much clearer picture than what we had with just grey boxes!

For now, we have the campus laid out with models on their way, and so the shaders and textures from the previous image haven’t been applied just yet. That will be coming soon, likely in the Beta builds!

Interestingly, although the Hunt Library building already had a model in-game (thanks to resources provided to us from another class), it was not rendering properly in the VR view. A few theories were thrown around (including the possibility that our laptops’ graphic cards were failing), but the likely conclusion was that the model was simply too high-poly.

So, the above model was re-designed with fewer polys, in the hopes that it will be more VR-friendly.

Design

Last week, we saw the results of the UI subteam’s research into possible control schemes, but with mechanics and controls now decided the Design Team has fully turned towards implementing the User Interface.

Designing UI is no simple task, and it will take a number of passes through each of the teams before the final product is made:

One question that came up during last week’s rounds of UI design was “how will it integrate with the buggy’s cockpit?”

To answer that question, the Design Team drafted a series of potential cockpit designs, with large frames, small frames, and everything in between. There’s also a healthy mix of diegetic (in-world) and non-diegetic UI to be seen.

Another benefit to designing the cockpit and UI design now is that it can encourage an “inside-out” design for the player buggy.

Instead of drawing and detailing a buggy design first — then shoehorning controls and UI to match it — we can create an optimal UI design now, then build an aesthetically pleasing “shell” around it. This ensures that the mechanics look and feel good, without sacrificing any visual qualities.

In the coming weeks, the Art Team will be working on creating 3D models to represent some of these cockpit designs and collaborate with the programming team to generate a UI overlay for testing.

Sound

Over the last several weeks, our sound designer has been hard at work researching Sweepstakes videos (and even attended some of the weekend rolls) to build a library of sounds to use in the game.

Although said sound library is still a work-in-progress and won’t be in the game for a few weeks yet, here’s a small sample of what the buggy’s ambient “rolling” sound will be!

Code

Last, but certainly not least, the programming team has been hard at work this week trying to make up for lost time after the pivot to free-drive.

After the leadership team made the decision to focus on the steering wheel as our primary control scheme, the major bugs with it were ironed out and the on-the-rails system for the player was disabled. However, the work was not lost, as the AI racers that drive the other buggy will still be following the old track!

Free Drive

Course-Correction

A major concern with giving the player full freedom to turn and drive around the course was that it would be almost impossible to control the player’s actions — what if they turned around, or crashed into a wall? With the pivot to free drive, we had to create a way to keep the player on-course and solve those issues, while still giving them enough leeway to feel in-control.

Fortunately, our programmers discovered a solution! By using a modification of the original rail the player was using, they could have the player’s buggy “course-correct” back to the center of the track whenever they strayed too far.

Although this early implementation is still rough and a bit slow, future iterations are expected to react proportionally to the player’s distance from center and even provide haptic feedback to the player’s controller.

Looking Ahead

With two weeks to go until Alpha, things are really heating up! Our goal for Alpha is to have as many environment assets in as possible — including buildings and things like trees, hay bales, and other objects — get controls to feel smooth, plus have SFX and Voiceover making appearances.

For the coming week,

• We hope to put our game in front of a buggy driver, to see how they feel about the direction of the game
• The Design team will have layouts for the UI that can be tested and iterated upon
• Concept sketches for the player buggy

See you next week!