Go Kart Demo NGUI Update

Web playable update: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16956434/Kart_Race_Demo/1-18-13_Webplayer/WebPlayer.html

Converted all in-game HUD elements to NGUI. Now they’re rocking 2 draw calls of the entire UI (1 is for the font and other for UI elements.) I am aware of the position indicator doing it’s bugginess. What is occurring, is that when the player and AI are equal in Laps Completed, Waypoints Passed and are relying on Distance to Next Waypoint to calculate who’s in front..well that value is jumping back to 0 at each way point being passed (resets value). So I think because the data is relying on the rapidly changing value to determine race position in these circumstances, it’s glitching a bit. Once you determine a lead by passing more waypoints in general or more laps, the position indicator is fine. It’s a bug and I’ll fix it.

I’ve also added in driver camera functionality if you click the camera icon in the top of the game window. Helps with the sense of speed a bit, but I’ll do more with the far camera’s sense of speed when I get to that. For now I’m working on getting the second functional AI vehicle in…I intend to have a race between (3) Karts.

Setting up simple vehicle AI in Unity

Latest tutorial upload for all of you Unity folks. This is a video that will help you get simple AI going in your racing or traffic games. The video includes a 1.4MB download of the entire Unity project seen in this tutorial (look in the video description).

Creating Custom Control Layouts – Unity Game Engine

Latest tutorial per user requests. This will help you setup and save custom control setups in your PC/Mac and iOS/Android projects.I’ve included the entire Unity project folder ZIP, as a link in the Youtube video description.

Checkpoint and Lap System for Unity

This is a small project that teaches you how to implement a simple checkpoint system and lap system. The checkpoint system is used to prevent cheating (i.e. backing up and driving over the finish line to increase lap count.) The player vehicle must pass through a series of checkpoints (which you determine), before the lap counter will increment.

Updated Build (mini-map, character models)

Okay so I’ve been busy working on another iPad project for myself, so the Kart Demo got neglected for a few days. I came back with a vengeance and smoothed out the physics on the player vehicle and the AI now path smoother (they also have turning wheels now!). Still need a new set of Waypoints for the blue AI. I’ve also implemented a new driver model (completed modeling, normal mapping, rigging and animations, etc.)…the same model has been applied to the AI. It was a bit tricky getting the AI models to play their animations without having any keyboard control input to trigger them.

I ended up hooking into the existing script for Waypoints that controls turning of the AI wheels/car ( I used it’s wheelAngle variable to to set an “if-else”). This would readout a numeric degree of that variable, which I could read from and say, well if the degree number is +15 or greater play the “TurnRight” animation… else if the degree number is -15 or less play the “TurnRight” animation, else play the “Idle” animation (which is a static animation right now.)

I’ve also got the mini-map working in the build too. It’s actually pretty solid right now. I may polish the little blip texture a bit, but it’s pretty much completed. I used a second GUI camera in scene, set its viewport clipping so it only appears in a section of my game window. I set the camera depth for the mini-map to always render on top of the game camera, placed in a GUITexture for the map of the track, placed (3) 16×16 blip textures for AI and the player and created simple code that makes them follow their assigned transforms (i.e. player or AI vehicles).

I feel it’s really coming along now, starting to look like something finally!

Check the latest build out at : http://www.fatboxsoftware.com/#/kart-demo/4565740225

Unity Kart Demo – Menu UI

Worked on the HTML for the web page interface for the game. Also I’ve worked more on the main menu interface, trying to get it closer to representing something useful. Today was mostly HTML and main menu work for the buttons, etc. I’ve also got a splash page working (with the fatbox logo) as the game menu loads.

As usual here’s the link, go check it out! https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16956434/Kart_Race_Demo/WebPlayer.html

Unity Kart Demo – Lap Count System (including checkpoints)

Decided to start doing a daily video log (2-3 minute videos max) describing what I accomplished in the build that given day. Also a good spot to share info, scripts and any implementation specifics with other folks.

Unity Kart Demo – Web Playable

So I’ve have some updates:
As of today I finally gotten a small LCD tach and speedo on the steering wheel working. As of right now it’s not reading out RPMs. The MPHs are not rounding off properly (bad math code or something) so they jitter a bit on the panel. The track is standing in for the final path, it’s textures and UVs are not complete either so you’ll see some parts of the track where the grass/dirt blend is not broken up. Also all of the GUI elements on screen are not the final game UI. They are stand-in debugging items.

Integrated new speed-based vehicle handling (not sure how accurate it is yet)..but basically your steering becomes less sensitive the faster you go. I’ve also got a new sound manager working. You have engine sounds based on RPMs, you have a wind passing by you sound based on velocity. The sounds are not fully looped yet in Audacity, so you will hear some pops. I’ve also implemented a camera shake animation on the cameras based on velocity as well. The camera shake has been polished up in the latest build which isn’t up tonight.

I’ve gotten feedback about implementing a handbrake for sliding through turns and feedback about adjusting the slip when taking turns and such. I’m working on, the physics calculation stuff is a little more complex so I usually tackle easier things first.

Next task is to get some raycast AI working in the scene (one’s that can avoid obstacles dynamically, etc.). So not just the simple “follow a spline” fellows.

Anyways here’s a link:  http://www.jamesarndt3d.com

This is where I will host the game (so I will test it this way as well)….hit the button at the bottom called “Kart Race Experiment”. It will take you directly to the current build.