Thursday, February 26, 2015

I updated my destruction.
I had a lot of fun creating the merry go round. It is a blue print in a blue print. a blueprint-ception if you will. First I have the actor that is just the destructible horse (with a randomly generated color) going up and down on the pole. Then I have the merry go round base, as a separate blue print, spawning the horses on the pole on the level start. these have set locations and rotation start points. I might add more horses later. THEN I have this whole blue print being rotated in a matinee loop.

I think it creates a really cool effect.

Oh, and creepy clowns are creepy.

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Monday, February 23, 2015

Making things explode sounds like a lot more fun than i'm finding it. It isn't so much the art that is troubling, but it is the compiling. Drives me crazy.

you need to really think out your actions before hitting fracture, because once you do, the computer is going to be frozen for awhile. as a trial and error kind of person, this process is really annoying.

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Thursday, February 12, 2015

Level StoryBoards

So my racing level begins simply enough with just introductions to major gamplay elements. First you enter the park, bursting through its locked gate and then you drive around the place.
 At the end of the first lap you set off some fire works. Time to celebrate right? wrong.Going around again all seems fine.... until a fire work comes dangerously close to the ferris wheel. OH GOD- it wasn't just close, it hit the wheel turning it into a spinning wheel of massive fiery death!
You follow the death wheel down the new branching course, back around the park. All seems pretty well  as the wheel spins up over a hill.... oh no. wait. what is this? the wheel is coming back? It's right behind you!

Oh thank what ever deity you call your own. you turn away just in time. Then another ride is in your path. driving into the twisting Tornado Slingshot, you are whirled into the air, where you are whipped back on track.


If you so choose, you may finish the lap using the vortex shortcut, bringing you back to the end of the last lap.
looking back over the carnage of your joy ride it seems pretty apparent that there may be some delays with the park opening tomorrow.


Monday, February 9, 2015

Array lights.. again.


This time using a string input I created a much more complex array design- sadly this one is without spiky death. Hopefully the old school nostalgia makes up for it. >

Sunday, February 8, 2015

RacingLevel First Pass and Research

Ready for a joy ride your racer drives out into the county fair lot ready to test the limits of their engine, and put the petal to the floor. But whats this? It's carnival time already? You thought that was next week. Well that's not going to stop you from flooring it. Besides, it seems that opening night isn't until tomorrow anyway, so the place is deserted. Odd since the power seems to be on, but why complain- Rides are awesome! Just you and the open spaces between the ricketed amusments and stalls. It seems the evening is yours! What's the worst that can happen anyway? Not like you are going to blow the place up, right? Being as my character and car are both in design dirty, cheap and humorously disheveled, I felt they needed a place with somewhat whimsical roots, in a dirty backdrop. So what is fun and dirty? No, not a walmart at 3am; a carnival! With all of their blinding lights, and toys, and neon colors, it is hard not to find a carnival and think, well doesn't that look like fun. It is only after passing by a row of porto-potties as far as the eye can see, or approaching a ride much more rickety and rusted than you believe is up to code, that you remember that the fun of a carnival, comes at the cost of their mobility, and sometimes shotty design. But they are just so pretty!
Still, with all that pretty, I love the idea of having the whole carnival start to come down around you as you race around the track. It will bring to life all of my childhood nightmares of being on a carnival ride and having it die on me, sending me flying into space. So I developed a concept statement to keep me on target: It's all fun and games until things start to explode. Then it is awesome. Perhaps if you were to just spend the night driving around the dirt, Everything would be fine...
 Just ignore the rides.
 You are an adult...
 Who are we kidding?
 What is a carnival if not for the rides.













Who ever said these rides weren't made for cars must just have never tried. Besides how else would you drive around the carnival? I's like someone put these right in the way of your driving path. like you shouldn't be driving here or something. 
Who wouldn't want to see the whole park from the top of a ferris wheel in the comfort of their idling car? If bumper CARS can drive here, whats wrong with your car?
I've gotta warn you though, don't get dizzy if you get caught in the tornado swing or the vortex. but those can toss you to new heights; which is what fun is all about isn't it?



I seriously wonder that the park designers thought about your racing path at all. There are all of these alternate routes you can't even get to without using supplies found in the booths. Guess you gotta make due with what you can.
 



   A carnival is an endless supply of racing inspiration, but i Realistically don't want to scope too much. as it is, There is a lot i may need to cut out. Still I would love to integrate a roller coaster, a swinging ship, and a merry go round, but i will just leave those ideas on the back burner for now.
As it stands the map layout would look as follows....




with a color scheme like:
This (Red, Blue, and Yellow)
On a black night sky, Often just accents on white lights.

I would design it so that as you drive through the level its destruction chases you.

Lap 01: Follow a pretty straight forward circular path. You can ride the "Ferris wheel" up, And look out over the expanses of fields and see the silhouette of a city in the distance- you can also see the glowing beauty of the carnival down below. As you finish this lap, you pass by a section of fireworks, which are ignited by the heat of your speeding car.

Lap 02: Beginning the same as lap 01, As you approach the Ferris wheel, your earlier actions come back to haunt you, as the weakened wheel from your earlier ride, gets hit by a rouge firework, which you set in motion. as you get close to the ferris wheel it falls from it's bearings, twisting closed the path you followed down in lap 01, but rolling away ripping a new path through the carnival. this is an imperfect path, with a pit in it's middle, but it brings you back to the beginning of the lap, when the wheel rolls over a hill on the outskirts of the carnival. there is too much wreckage for you to follow it, but now you can go back the way you can.

lap 03: Physics come back to haunt you, when you realize that what goes up must come down, and you find yourself in a mad dash away from the runaway Ferris wheel. with no time to turn, you speed trough a haunted house/hall of mirrors/ storage shed where you can turn away from the runaway wheel. here you get scooped yup by the hyper powered tornado swing, which lifts you up into the air, and and maximum velocity, flings you back on track, finishing up where lap 01 ended..



Wednesday, February 4, 2015

ARRAYS!!

So in programing class, we've begun to work with arrays.
A simple enough idea, this is a group of alike variables, all held together in a package, which you are then able to call from. this is a means allowing you to not have to make countless tons onf calls to variables, if you know that they all are contained in the same place.
Okay, to be honest, the concept still sort of confuses me as to their full usefulness, but I'm sure that will come in time. A friend explained it to me, as though i were thinking of an old school game inventory system. That matrix of squares is usually based on some system of arrays. perhaps as i delve deeper and deeper into this dark abyss known as programming, I'll get a firmer grasp. until such a time, enjoy my disco lights and spikey deaths.