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Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:49 pm
by Harmalarm
Okay, I think it is about time I give you guys a heads-up on what I have been working on the last couple of months. As the title suggest, I am working a new version of the Hotroom! This post will explain most of my goals, but will also be a spoof of some of the content. Don't worry, I intend to keep much as a surprise for later too ;)

The original Hotroom, for those of you who do not know it, dates way back to the creation date of C2. I think it was stainless who created the track, but it remained unreleased because of copyright infringements. The track was later released by Errol. It features a living-room which is being constructed. There a hot-wheels track, some secret tunnels, a lot of construction materials like paint jars and plaster apliances and other fun. It was one of my favorite track back in the days, mostly because of its design. Unfortunately it lacks a lot of features, such as powerups and peds, and the track itself is quite empty. Here is a shot of the track:

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From the day I played the hotroom I always wanted to model my own house for carmageddon. And thus the idea was born. :)

THE ROOM

The track is based on my own living room. This means that soon the whole c2 community will know what my apartment looks like :D.
I've recreated most of the furniture and added a lot of fun so far. The smaller props still have to be placed, all as low-poly as possible to keep a nice Carma frame rate. This view shows the living room and the dining room behind it.

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The base of the room also has fake light modeled into the mesh. This way it looks like direct light is entering the room. A really cool and easy trick, also used by stainless in the original tracks on some points.

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DARDA

I started off with the Darda toy track, making most of the map accesible for the small toy cars we will drive. The track parts need a wall friction of zero, in order to make the cars slide through the pieces. Otherwise, cars would slow down too much in corners and loopings. For some loops a speedup is needed. For this I use env boxes with negative viscosity. (like negative water, you speed up instead of slowing down)

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SCALEXTRIX

Next up was another of my favorite toys; Scalextric. The track I layed out will be the base for two drone cars, driving in high speed around the track. I suggest you don't play chicken with these guys. (Cars still need to be modeled)

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ARTIFACTS

The track will be a Carma tribute. I want to add some cool Carma artifacts throughout the track, for people to spot and recognize.

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INTERACTION AND COOL TRICKS

I think interaction betwheen the player and the track is essential. There will be a couple of object that will interact upon touching or coming close to the object. I think it is all a mater of clever use of triggers for funks, noncars and env. boxes. My cats will probably not be amused if you dare to come close!

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The fake lighting trick was the first one, but I think this mirror trick is one of my favorites. 3ds max has the ability to output 3d panoramic images of a 3d model. All I needed to do for this mirror was to render one panorama, cut it in half and map it on half a sphere. The sphere is visible behind an invisible wall, creating the illusion of a mirror. The image quality determines the quality of the 'reflection', however in this case a 256 texture will suffice.

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JURASSIC PARK

I have always been a huge fan of the series and love the toys that were released back in the days. I own a couple of dinosaurs, but never had the chance to collect more of them.
They will be featured in the track. Perhaps someone can make a custom c2 ped animation fitting one of the optimized low poly dinosaurs? anyone? :p (the dinosaur models originate from the game Tresspasser. I re-mapped them on single 256 textures)

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The Jurassic explorer is also on polycount as of today and is most likely to make it to C1 soon; http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost ... count=6080

LEGO

and last but not least for today, LEGO! Offcourse, how could it not be in there? :)

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There will not be much of it though. Lego is touch to model low poly. The tank station alone is 3000 polygons, and the train track is crazy right now. I will have to shrink it to make it suitable for the track, that's for sure. The first in-game tests showed that the lego was a real frame rate killer, so this will be a big challenge. Here is a nice in-game shot by the way. (a little dark perhaps)

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deadline?

there is no deadline on this project. Off course, I will finish it, and it will not take forever, but I do intend to take my time! This should not be a rushed job in the end, but a complete, nice, stable and cool track to play with. I will do some modeling here and there in my free time, as I have been doing since December ( allready... geez, time flies...) This topic will be updated occasionally with some new images that will not spoil to much of the fun!

now I have had it with this posting!?! Shoot your suggestions and critiques please :D.

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:58 pm
by Razor
Wow, incredible, I was not expecting this!
I however loved Hotroom!

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:31 am
by Toshiba-3
woooOOOOWWW :O :zomig:

Even though you showed me several wips, I'm really blown away by your presentation here. It just seems AWESOME.
BTW I just watched Jurassic Park! For real! These props are damn great. As I said, I can't wait to see the 4x4 in C1.
About the dinosaurus as ped, I'm willing to say I'm game! I can make new animations for C2 and I'd totaly like to be attacked by a t-rex ingame (suicide peds powerup :B)! But what is the tricount (sounds almost like triceratops) on the t-rex for example? Seems to be fairly lowpoly (which is good for peds).

Sure thing, take your time Harm. This just assures us that the track will be insane :swheel:

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:46 am
by Harmalarm
I watched Jurassic Park myself last week! :)

Believe it or not, but the Dinosaurs are all below 500 polygons!. The T-rex is 426 to be exact.
As I said, the 3d model is from the game trespasser. Problem was that they were all using about 20 textures each, so i rendered the entire model to 1 single texture again, losing about 50% of the original texture detail. They still look real good i.m.o.

It would be awesome if you could create some animations for them! I would love to see that T-rex in my rear view mirror :D. I think that some of them, for instance the triceratops and the stegosaurus could use the elephants motion, except they would miss the tail motion?

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:50 am
by Pip the pest
That is absolutely great! I too am a bit of a Jurassic park fan so carry on with the good work Harm. Oh and here is my Woooooooooooooow!

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 2:24 pm
by Halogaland
YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAH!!! Hope to have it really soon, really really, I love it EXTREMLY!!!

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:14 pm
by TTR
Like Tosh says, your WIP's i've seen and now this presentation, it's really cool!

Oh yeaaah Darda, i still got all those cars! I think there's tracks too but i don't remember where..hmm..heh..i still got my Scalextrix too!

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:32 am
by Jon606
Absolutely insane work once again Harm!

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:58 am
by Citywalker
Once this gets done to perfection, I'll definitely be pestering Halogaland to convert it to Re-Volt :) This is good stuff! (However long it will take, the end result will be worth it.)

-----
CW

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2011 7:17 pm
by Harmalarm
hehe, it would be a nice revolt track indeed.

I made two ped models right now. The lego ped is the same size as the bricks in the map, and it fits the cars scale fairly well, so that is a big relief! :) The lego ped is 908 triangles and the army dude is 705. (all with closed rounded off bones)
I am not sure about the army dude yet. What would be better, using fake env map with a plastic look, or texturing the soldier for more detail on the clothing? what do you guys think?
I don't think making him smaller will look good, but I will experiment with that as soon as I get them in-game.

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Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:00 pm
by Toshiba-3
I think I would have made it smaller and "env mapped" it with a good plastic material. Also I would have made different and way simpler animations where it would move like so: http://www.koreus.com/video/panique-au- ... mmeil.html
(I mean the indian there, the way he walks without actually mvoing)
Well that's what I would have tried personaly ofcourse ;)

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:14 pm
by Harmalarm
ATTACK OF THE LEGO CLONES! AAARGH

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Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 4:24 pm
by Halogaland
WOW hihi, it makes me remember my childhood XD
A day, a lego hurt me, now I will take my revenge LOL

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 6:45 pm
by Fireman
I was about to ask someone if they could port the maps from Micro Machines 4.0 to Carmageddon.

But this looks a lot better! Hoping for some items that push you off the edge.

Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Mon May 02, 2011 8:28 pm
by juozas
Well, I see great projects and other redones are here out :)
When I'll get some time I'd try them soon on my C2 within the new hardware up and running fine.
Btw great work for "porting" real interiors into 3d models as this seemz promising and reasonable then.

Re: Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:52 am
by Harmalarm
shiiit I should definately continue on this one and finish it! Let that be my 2013 new resolution from now on!

Re: Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:10 pm
by Razor
Hell yes!

Re: Hotroom 2011 [w.i.p.]

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:38 pm
by coffeycup
I don't know how I missed the original post, but this looks great. You really do need to finish it. Nice apartment btw.

I like the idea of the Legos, but if they're killing performance could they be simplified and rely more on textures?