Jurassic Kart Dev Blog: Research

Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts

28/10/2015

Editing Vehicle movement

I had a guy from Mechanical Engineering in yesterday.

tldr: change these

27/10/2015

Stopping the AI from starting the race

Service

14/10/2015

[Research] Car AI, Animation and Control system

I've been looking around the forums, the question section and YouTube videos and unfortunately I'm still not finding any useful tutorials. As far as the work done peter L Newton is good but he has left it and has not been updating much recently so its still quite basic, So the best we can probably hope to do with the AI for now is maybe just point to point while leaving up posts and questions on the forum and hoping someone will get back with useful tutorials or at least maybe someone will start working on it.

Animation

T-Rex

Carnotaurus

I found these video which I will probably be using them to help with the animation of the dinosaurs when they are ready to be rigged. The T-Rex skeleton one at the bottom will be a good idea to figure out the Rigging of the T-Rex skeleton when he is done, The all perspective shots of the Carnotaurus will help greatly with animating it since I can see how it moves from every angle.

Control Scheme

This is Set up we currently as you can see their still a lot that hasn't been set, though given we basically have all we need we will probably leave them blank unless we put in something later for them but that would depend on how much time we have to spare.

12/10/2015

Cartoon Moodboards

As recommended by Julian I've done some character style moodboards.

Exaggerated Proportion

These characters all look in proportion in a cartoon sense not realistic. Big feet and big head with a slightly smaller body.

Small appendages, somewhat big body, varying. Tends to have a large head.

Kind of the reverse of the previous cartoon style.

This style is a large body with a small head.

The style of our dinosaurs is a mix of Exaggerated Proportion and the big head, limbs with small body. Big mouths and wide round eyes for expression.

I've looked at characters that act different to how they should. For example;

Maximus - Tangled

Maximus shows traits of a dog from sniffing the ground to pick up Flynns scent and (somehow) wagging his tail while sitting in a way not usual for horses.

While other actions involve sword fighting and responding with very human expressions.

Sven

Sven also has dog traits, panting with his tongue hanging out, wagging his tail, licking people much like a dog. He also does comical movements such like trying to move along the ice, both unusual and even impossible for a reindeer.

I have used this before with my own character for a comical appearance.

Big expressive eyes also help.

11/10/2015

AI Research

Random point AI

In this video we have three AI meshes just moving in 2000 radius of the their location, The AI will pick random point withing their radius and continue to move between random points so this gave me an idea to combine will the material below

Point to Point AI

The AI in these video moves between pre-selected nodes and follow them in order defined by myself. So what I'm aiming to do is to combine the point to point with the random radius of the Actor. so that it will create a random radius around the Nodes rather than the actor which will then move to the next one once again picking a random point in the radius around that Node.

These are the two AI Controller blue prints so this is what I'm trying to mix together and use, put simply its going to be a loT of trial and error

10/10/2015

Formula 1 & Rally Track Research - New Layout Designs

Formula One

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12499373

"There's a big difference between safety and overtaking possibilities. Safety has to be paramount," says Mr Peart.

When it comes to F1 tracks, safety is in everyone's minds when designing or re-designing a race circuit

Silverstone Race Circuit has had a recent re-design to create more overtaking opportunities and make the racing more exciting for the spectators.

"It is a tricky corner for powering down, so if there are a couple of cars fighting to win, it will be much more likely that one of them will make a mistake.

"Previously, the final corner was a very easy, fast curve," he says.

http://www.vivaf1.com/blog/?p=8052

Another track that had a lot of iteration in the design was Suzuka. The original Suzuka design was based purely around the land in which they had to use. There were a lot of rice fields are the area so they needed to miss those.

Suzuka saw more iterations as the design of the cars from 1987 changed. The modern track that is used today isn't all that different from the original design but there are parts that have been changed to increase the safety.

Turns 8 and 9 were originally one long high speed corner, a lot of traction and down force was needed for the cars to complete the corner safely, so the designers changed it and made it two corners the second of the two slowing the cars down. Also adding overtaking opportunities.

There was never the chicane (Turns 16 and 17) on the original design. The cars was have been traveling at speeds well over 190mph, this was way to fast entering the start finish line. So they added the chicane before turn 18 onto the start finish straight, to add another overtaking point and to increase safety.

Rally

Rally on the other hand doesn't need any designing as all of the WRC tracks are just sections of roads that have already been built. These roads are normally the windy back roads that can be found on mountains and in the hills.

Rally cars don't travel as fast as Formula One cars so there isn't as many rules on safety. The safety is strict when it comes to designing the cars.

The major difference is that rally stages are point to point and not circuits, the drivers race against each others times, not side by side on the track. A better driver will complete the track in a quicker time and someone who isn't as skilled. Its all about car control.

Track Layout Designs

Instead of just trying to come up with designs off the top of my head, I decided to use google maps and have a look at my home town in Oxfordshire. Using the street layouts i could create some decent starting track designs.

Circuit

Sprint

My Favourites

There is already some iteration from the original designs on some of these final ones that I am bringing to the team.

(Updates from Discussion)

Shortcuts on some of the tighter sections. Add in the Sprint (Time Trial) race.
Unreal, Splines, vertical space
(Idea) being shot out of a Volcano as it erupts, racing down the side. View of whole map.
Look into crevices and possible hazards leading into shortcuts.
Corners to be on and off camber, Arcade games normally have the sharper corners on camber, so the track is rotated inwards. This makes taking the corner easier.