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Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 10:12 am
by kiwi
Diary from May 12th 2018.

The first time without flying roof... :P

Did also a lot of lighting adjustments, and adjustments regarding the glass-parts (which are a lot at Spa-Volt). Normally I should do modelling the missing parts as a next step, but it's so much fun to play around with the lights... :lol:

Here same pictures:
► Show Spoiler
Don't forget, that the shading-part is still not done. So trees, and other objects will throw proper shadows later. (The shadows you can see at the moment, was done automatically, by placing the lights in makeitgood lights-mode.)

On the right side, you can see some big new windows on the first floor: This will be the spa-restaurant. I don't know so far, if I also should let you race through this, or if it should only be decoration. I have to think about this. Maybe an alternative route, through the restaurant, or use it on the reverse-mode?

And you can also see the new shower-boxes, where someone forget to turn off the water, which causes this big puddle in front of it...

Ciao! Kiwi

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 4:30 pm
by SebR
spa-restaurat reversed route plz ;)

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 4:39 pm
by Mace121
Kiwi wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 10:12 am
...And you can also see the new shower-boxes, where someone forget to turn off the water, which causes this big puddle in front of it...

Ciao! Kiwi
Any chance that you could replace the water particles? Blue looks hideous.

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 5:04 pm
by Mace121
Mace121 wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 4:39 pm
Kiwi wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 10:12 am
...And you can also see the new shower-boxes, where someone forget to turn off the water, which causes this big puddle in front of it...

Ciao! Kiwi
Any chance that you could replace the water particles? Blue looks hideous.
So I did some experimenting, and the water particle is the 5th icon on the set of mini particles on FXPage1.bmp. Replace it with some drips. Colour that space with 115, 192, 64 (RGB). It's green in hindsight, but in game, it counteracts the hideous blue color with a more convincing one.

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 5:04 pm
by Marv
Mace121 wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 4:39 pm replace the water particles
Hint hint:
https://yethiel.gitlab.io/RVDocs/#track ... erties.txt

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat May 12, 2018 11:23 pm
by kiwi
Didn't knew, that I can change this particles at all - thanks for the hints, this is great new info for me! :)

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sun May 13, 2018 1:56 am
by Mace121
[/quote]

Hint hint:
https://yethiel.gitlab.io/RVDocs/#track ... erties.txt
[/quote]

So you could manually change the particle colors... Well good.

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 3:35 pm
by 607
I guess that's why the showers turn off automatically in real life. :P

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 7:01 pm
by 607
Any progress? :) Or have you not been able to work on this recently?

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:56 am
by Pyves
Haha, I love the "Relaxaurant" logo! :lol:

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:13 am
by kiwi
I didn't worked much on Spa-Volt in the last time, because I was on a sailing-trip in Croatia for one week, and worked a lot in my garden. But in the last week there was some rainy days, and I spent some hours working on the restaurant area. Or more correct: The sitting-area outside of the restaurant (buffet).

I'm calling the restaurant "Relexaurant", and also made a logo for it. 8-)

You also can see a soda-machine (with the fake brand Fizzy Bobbele, which I created for one of my PPP cars), some tables and chairs, and some plants. I also placed a blackboard with some menu suggestions. Todays special menu are Wiener Schnitzel and Cevapčići. :D

Here are some screenshots!
► Show Spoiler
AND: I started working on the new staircases, because the old ones has to much angle. The new ones are much flatter now. On the first pic, you can also see the "technic room", where an alternative way will go through.
► Show Spoiler
Ah yes, I nearly forgot. Also some progress on the "Whirlpool area" was made. The whirlpool have now stairs, and handrails. Also the 3 possible routes in this area are fixed now.

1: The normal route (yellow), which also will be used by the AI. Not very risky, can be taken nearly with full speed.
2: The shortcut (orange), there is this slippy puddle before the shortcut, and you can crash easily in the whirlpools. But there will be pickups between the whirlpools, so there is some motivation to try this way!
3: The ultra-shortcut (red) is very risky. You can crash into the yellow "slippery"-sign, or fall into the big pool.
► Show Spoiler
Ciao! Kiwi

Diary from first three weeks of May.

It's time, for some Spa-Volt update. 3 weeks passed since the last diary entry. I did not that much modelling since last time. Instead, I did really a lot of detail and optimization work.

- Finished new staircases
- Finished the shape of the technic room
- Added some technic room details
- Added a lot of details in the park-area
- Added details to the whirlpool-area
- Moved the starting line
- All-new 512x512 textures (Nearly no stock-textures anymore)
- Added a custom skybox (512x512)
- Changed the season! It's autumn now.
- Optimizing, Optimizing, Optimizing (saved about 10.000 polygons)
- Added TrackZones & PosNodes for raceline testing
- Lighting adjustments

New staircases:

I think I am finally finished with the staircases, after modelling them about 3 times from scratch. Now they fit the raceline very well, and they also work well with the alternate routes I've planned.
► Show Spoiler
I also added some lights inside the staircases already. This will be optimized later on.
► Show Spoiler
Park details:

New are some benches, grass, a handrail, and curbstones.
► Show Spoiler
There are also some signs, which will warn careless drivers about the dangerous jump ahead. ;)
► Show Spoiler
Here you can see also the ventilation tunnel (on the left), which is needed for the track to can be driven in reversed mode. BUT it also will be drivable as an alternate path in normal mode.
► Show Spoiler
New starting line position

Alex gave me the hint, that the old starting line position is not very well positioned, because there was a tight corner right after the start. So I moved it a bit, so the first corner shouldn't be that big issue now. I like the new position much more.
► Show Spoiler
Whirlpool adjustments

The Whirlpools have now a water surface, better textures, and some steam :) I think this looks really cool. 8-) (Shading is still missing)
► Show Spoiler
New higher resolution textures

All the textures are now 512x512 instead of 256x256, so they are much sharper now. At the same step, I also replaced most of the textures, to new ones. Especially the stock-textures - like the floor tiling from Supermarket - are finally gone forever... ;)
► Show Spoiler
However, some textures are still not replaced, so I have some more work here.

Technic room details

I'm planning to add some details to the technic room, like pipes, valves, steam, and so on. Here I have experimented with a pipe (not final):
► Show Spoiler
The rest will follow later.

New trees

The old trees was too heavyweighted regarding polygon amount. I use really a lot of trees in the outside area, so I had to optimize them. I was able to save 2/3 of the amount of polygons by making my very first own designed tree (~30 polies for each). :)
► Show Spoiler
The needle trees in the background are just 1-face-planes, and I also have A LOT of them:
► Show Spoiler
Autumn!

Yesterday I had the idea, that the outside area would be even more attractive, by changing the season from summer to autumn. So I colored the leaves from the broadleave trees to yellow/brown/red, and underneath the trees I also placed some leaves. I am pretty happy with the result! :)
► Show Spoiler
The needle trees stay green for sure, because they keep their needled also in autumn/winter.

Custom Skybox

Finally I get rid of the Toytanic 2 skybox, and placed a custom one. It was not so easy to find a fitting one, because I needed one which can be used for night, with a lot of clouds. I was able to found a free one, and made it darker. Maybe I will add some more dark clouds later, so it fits the thunderstorm more.
► Show Spoiler
That's it for now.

Next steps:

- Modelling the technic room details
- Modelling the toilet room details
- Replacing the rest of the stock-textures
- Adding more custom sounds (wind on the outside, technic room sounds,...)
- More technical optimizations (I care about your potato-PC's...)

If you have any suggestions, complaints, or comments please tell me. This always helps a lot.

Cheers! Kiwi

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:12 pm
by Black-Revolt001
strongly that it is available to test it!

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:42 pm
by Floxit
Wow, this is so amazing. On the images, it looks so relaxing, but I'm not sure it will be in race, hehehe. The change in autumn is a great idea, but did you think about (in the future) 4 versions of your track for the 4 seasons (also day/night version ?), with some changes (seats, opened umbrellas, toys, suncream...) to express the life in your SPA (like summer, there are more activities outside, so maybe more toys, balls, ..., and the opposite in winter, with christmas lanterns on the road, ...). We could even race your track on the current season. ;o)

I'm pretty excited now, thanks for that.

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:57 pm
by 607
Floxit wrote: Thu Jul 19, 2018 9:42 pm Wow, this is so amazing. On the images, it looks so relaxing, but I'm not sure it will be in race, hehehe. The change in autumn is a great idea, but did you think about (in the future) 4 versions of your track for the 4 seasons (also day/night version ?), with some changes (seats, opened umbrellas, toys, suncream...) to express the life in your SPA (like summer, there are more activities outside, so maybe more toys, balls, ..., and the opposite in winter, with christmas lanterns on the road, ...). We could even race your track on the current season. ;o)

I'm pretty excited now, thanks for that.
With the new RVGL update, the Reversed version could be set in a different season. That could be fun!

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 9:01 am
by kiwi
Floxit, 607 - I am planning something like this, but I won't spoil anything about it. I will keep it secret, till the release. ;)

What I definitly can confirm is, that there will be the following versions of Spa-Volt:

- Spa-Volt Battle Tag (Release summer 2018)
- Spa-Volt ("Normal" Racing track), including R version (Release autumn 2018)
- Stunt Arena (Release together with Spa-Volt)

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 7:08 am
by kiwi
Diary from July 25th, 2018.

Hello to all interested fellas.

After a (more then needed) brake for one month, I continued working on Spa-Volt again. I have a deadline to keep! :D

After doing a lot of detail work on the outdoor area in June, the next steps were to fill some empty rooms with "life".

First room: The technic room:

I wanted the room to have kind of a dirty, dark and gloomy athmosphere. Including some typical items like pipes, control enclosures, steam, blinking lights, and so on.

To reach this, lighting is one of the most important parts. So I decided to build some neon tube lights, which only illuminates small parts of the room. Most of the room should be tinted black. This way, the steam and blinking lights stands out better. At least, this was my plan. :P

So, first, I modelled some neon lights hanging down from the ceiling. I also wanted to have rays of lights underneath it. After searching some information about how this can be solved in such an old graphic engine, I solved it by using volumetric lighting. I designed the light cones by adding faces, and made them transparent by setting alpha transparency.

Next I used the makeitgood Light Mode, to add the sources of light:

- I added 2 lights underneath the neon light model, to brighten the lamp face, and also to illuminate the cone.
- I also had to add 2 lights above the neon light model, to darken this area, by assigning negative RGB values. Otherwise, the area above the lamp would have been illuminated as well, which looks kind of strange.
► Show Spoiler
However, placing the lights was very tricky, to reach the desired effect.

I also added some models to the technic room. One of the pipes has a hole, so water is coming out from it and causes a puddle of water.

I also placed some steam and water effects by using Sparkle objects.

Here you can see the part with one of the finished neon light:
► Show Spoiler
Second room: The restrooms (toilet area):

This is the area, where the race starts. The start/finish line is in the middle of this room. So I want the room to be pretty and detailed.

First I added some typical objects like sinks, handdryers, and some small pipes. Also a door and toilet signs. Maybe I will add more later, but for the first this is fine.

Second I added the same neon lights I used in the technic rooms. Again, with light cones. After doing it for the second time, this was a much easier task to do. :)
► Show Spoiler
The third task was much more work. I wanted to have some working mirrors above the sinks! The Re-Volt engine can't do this, so I had to get the mirrors working "manually".

Manually means: Model the obejcts "inside" the mirror, to simulate a working mirror.

Gabor used the same technique at Quake. To gain the effect of a working mirror, he built the room twice: One time in front of the mirror, one time behind the mirror.

The problem in my room was, that I wasn't able to do this, because I didn't had enough space behind the mirror. :( Right behind the restroom, there is the main Spa hall.

So I tried to solve it, by building a miniature version of the restroom behind the mirror surface. It has to be that tiny, that it it fits the limited space. It worked better then I thought!

Here is a top-view from the restrooms. Inside the circled parts you can see the miniature version of my restroom. As you can see, I only modelled the parts, which can be seen from the RC-car racing view. Everything else would be waste of ressources.
► Show Spoiler
And here the results. I must confess, that I mirrored the room wrong. :D I have to correct this later.
► Show Spoiler
As you can see, this is a funny detail, which is also visible while racing. It adds a little bit more realism to the level. I think it's worth the work.
► Show Spoiler
Today I will continue with the cloth changing area. A big area, with a lot of work. :)

See you next time, at the Spa-Volt diary.

Ciao,

Kiwi

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:45 am
by 607
The lights and the mirrors are incredible!
It's lovely to see how you work around the limitations. :)

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 10:49 am
by kiwi
Here 2 videos, from the current status of Spa-Volt.

Normal: https://streamable.com/tvxjb
Reversed: https://streamable.com/28d9p

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2018 11:03 pm
by mmudshark
Very nice looking track Kiwi. Should be fun racing on it. :)

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:29 am
by Black-Revolt001
Is the circuit available as a download version?

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:36 am
by 607
Black-Revolt001 wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:29 am Is the circuit available as a download version?
Not yet. I believe something is planned to be released soon (a battle tag or a stunt arena, I think the former).

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2018 6:17 pm
by kiwi
I've changed my plans a bit. I saw no reason, to keep Spa-Volt 1 back, so I decided to release it earlier then usually planned.

[Download] Spa-Volt 1 from RVZ

Any comments, bug reports, and so on are highly appreciated. I plan to release a bug fix for Spa-Volt 1 in one or two weeks, with the errors you will report. Leave a comment here in this thread, on RVZ, or contact me on Discord.

Ah yes, by the way, as already announced in Discord some weeks ago, later this year, Spa-Volt 2 will follow. Here some pics:
► Show Spoiler

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:51 am
by Instant
It might be a good idea to use the spoiler tag for the images next time you do a similar topic, because it takes up a lot of space and you can only start reading the text after all images loaded.
By the way, good job with Spa-Volt.

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:55 am
by yusufcihan
I can't wait to play this map. :)
Looks amazing!
Also, when your map is finished, can you make Battle tag version of this map?

Re: Spa-Volt Diary

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:59 am
by Instant
yusufcihan wrote: Mon Sep 03, 2018 10:55 am I can't wait to play this map. :)
Hi.