Mono-Rail Transport System

#21 I am in.

#22 Ever little bit helps

#23 Sounds cool... screenie looks great...

i might suggest that you forget about the passengers moving around inside it for now (ala Doom3)... unless, that is, you've got a method already worked out (and if so, please let me know how :) )... the ability to have four players riding around seated (or standing) would be cool enough in itself...

i tried stuff like this in an attempt to get people aboard a moving ship with partial success... i used an animated node for limited movement... might come in handy for entering and leaving the tram car...

@ Surge...
i think (and this is just a guess mind you) that four mount points, and some algorithm to track which ones were already occupied would allow you to get a group of four passengers aboard...

anyways... good luck with this... i'll be following your progress...

--Mike

#24 @Mike - thanks. I'll be sure to add some more screenshots soon, and update you all as to the progress. Next stop - a fully working mono-rail system!

#25 Nice! I bet a lot of futuristic game makers would be interested in a resource/pack like this...

#26

Quote:
i might suggest that you forget about the passengers moving around inside it for now (ala Doom3)... unless, that is, you've got a method already worked out (and if so, please let me know how :) )... the ability to have four players riding around seated (or standing) would be cool enough in itself...

We did this in pretty much the same was as mounting works, except the players velocity is added to the platforms velocity. This lets you walk around on it while still being transported.

#27 @Eric - We're also thinking about creating a modern skin for it. Plus built in animation to the dts to show damage when fired on. So you can specify something like playThread(0, "damage1...damage2...damage3")
etc

#28 @Stefan: How many players could you get on a platform while moving around?

#29 Screenshot of the mono-rail station. Notice the button on the platform, this will turn green and open the doors with a 5 second delay before closing them and moving off. We may add a countdown beep or voice so that you know when the mono-rail car is leaving - with just enough time to jump aboard!

#30

Quote:
@Stefan: How many players could you get on a platform while moving around?

There is no limitation as part of the implementation. You can stuff as many players on a platform as you can on a static interior of the same size.

Edit: Mono-rail looks cool.

#31 Workable lights on the mono-rail car would be nice. Hmmm. Have to think about that one.

#32 @ Stefan...

Quote:We did this in pretty much the same was as mounting works, except the players velocity is added to the platforms velocity.

can you give a brief explanation of how you added the player velocity to enable movement... did you position the player an offset distance from the mount point, or what...

thx

--Mike

#33

Quote:
can you give a brief explanation of how you added the player velocity to enable movement... did you position the player an offset distance from the mount point, or what...

To simplify: We check for contact with the platform on each updateMove (). If we are in contact, we add the platform's mVelocity to the players mVelocity.

#34 Thx Stefan for the quick response... i'm gonna give that a try...

there's no jerkiness over the 'wires' in multiplayer?

--Mike

#35 Yeah. I am pretty sure that we did not add any extra interpolation code, but I could be wrong though.

#36 You should include a train station .dif, not just a platform, i would pay 20-30 bucks for such a product if it included the extra miles, i imagine others would do the same in a heartbeat seeing the product that i see in the pictures.

#37 @Edward - we're working on various things for the mono-rail so it is possible that we will create a .dif station as the base. Its a shame that there is no snap in functionality, as being a kit you will need to line up each piece of the track, and tweak it if need be. If we do release this as a mono-rail/construction content pack then we'd need to make sure we recoup any development costs for it to be worth while, as it will then not be exclusive to our game. We will then put the bucks into another idea we have. As soon as it's ready in the next few weeks we will test the water and drum up some interest.

#38 Have you spoken to GG about submitting it as a pack? or are you planning on perhaps a independant website. So far from what i read, most pack submitted the users have reaped wonderful benifits. Eitherway this is one i can see being very useful in my current game design.

#39 @Edward - No not yet, but we will contact GG in due course, if we decide to go down this route. We have a number of potential content and construction kit packs that we have developed for our game and would be very beneficial to the GG community.

It all depends on which packs we do/or do not use for our game, based on the following:
1) Our game is published then we will not release any of our packs used. Dependent on the agreement we have with a publisher.
2) We time release the packs into the GG community before/after our game has launched.
3) We release the packs into the GG community when game sales start to drop.

Once our game is out there, with a pre-release demo ready around April, then the full game by June/July. Either way, we will be looking to create some really good looking content packs for the GG community.

#40 The Monorail is almost ready. After a few bugs have been ironed out, I'll post a video file here for you to take a look at :)