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[jctwood]

Well there's always another!

[Selkcip]

Whoops, I forgot to post the video of the new halo table here:

I tweaked it a bit after recording that video. Unfortunately there's no easy way to align pieces going around the edges so I made it thinner so that no pieces really fit anyway.

There used to be a Mobius strip with a train going around it at the Tech museum in San Jose. I was reminded of it the other day so of course I had to see if I could make one:

This first one uses rail guides below the rails to keep the engine from falling off. To make it work for unmodified engines/cars I wrote a magnetic rail script that pulls them towards the track when the wheels touch it.

[Selkcip]

(it seems like only two videos will load per post?)

I don't think that there's an easy way to make a Mobius table that you can build on due to the twisting and inconsistent face sizes so I'm just going to have a fixed track one that can be placed.

[jctwood]

That mobius track is the stuff of escher's dreams!

[CobaltHusky93]

Got around to doing my Winter Update Video! I spent a lot of time making the layout for this video and I'm really proud of it. :D





Here are a bunch of my thoughts that I have as I was playing and after playing. Some are mentioned in the video, others are not:

• The more things you place, the worse the resolution of the game becomes in the headset. Duh. Lol. I've turned on the new batching and that helps marginally when you have that many things on the Layout but on the medium ones; it seems to work fantastic.
• Super Sampling I couldn't really tell how much better this made things look as the layouts I was trying them on were already putting a heavy dampener on performance. I could try and do more tests with the other layouts that are available.
• There were some points during the build that all of a sudden I had a bunch of saves with no way to delete them other than manually go and delete the picture associated with the file. The odd thing is that I didn't take any pictures of the layouts at all during the process so I don't remember how I ended up with so many. Which also means that if you have too many; you can only see the first few rows of them then they start disappearing and there's no way to scroll through them.
• There are a few random bugs that I experience in the video; such as the table moving on its own from firing the artillery car and a few others.
• Roof pieces should stick to anything they're placed to on their stickable surface to create some more custom shapes. I was trying to do the main bow for the boat and have a Diagonal piece but the roof piece wouldn't stick to anything that wasn't a top of a piece.
• Perhaps the option to color/paint individual sides of a cube, roof, etc. Would make for a bit more in depth customization.
• I mention this in the video, but I think painting and the method to do it is very difficult. It's still a fantastic tool and I'm greatful for even being able to do such customization; I just feel it could be reworked a bit into something more user friendly, easier, and more enjoyable to do. Painting the Color Palette is nifty to hold colors, but trying to use those tiny dials is a nightmare most times. Getting the color and tone you want just takes a lot of work. Just trying to paint the more finer details of cars and houses ( The window outlines, and door outlines for one ) are very very tough to pin-point and actually color properly.
• More of the premade buildings would be amazing! Really enjoying the variants that you have come up with so far.
• Unsure if it's just me, but couplers just don't work for me between saves with moving vehicles. Stopped ones it seems to be okay.
• Tables having gravity is a neat thing to mess around with. Trying to make mountains out of the canyon pieces with tables angled on the sides leads to interesting results. ( See video ) but hopefully perhaps some custom mountain or terrain building in the future...?
• Engines and rolling stock all still start out with some form of random slow speed forward or backwards. They never just stay put when placing them down.
• I'm not sure if it's going to be a thing but roads with cars/trucks might be a cool next step. I used some slot car track as roads and while it's not to scale with real roads; it actually fit pretty well with the layout.
• Along with the above point, perhaps Railroad Crossings, Signals, and signs could be added.
• Perhaps even roadbed ( The stone under the train tracks ) would be something cool to add too.
• I also really wanted to paint the Ties white so they look like they have snow on them, but it would be so annoying to go around and paint all the pieces. Still hoping someday for a prepaint option and then being able to continually put that colored piece down.
• Perhaps the ability to change the color of the water? I wanted to paint mine a bit lighter blue to resemble ice.
• I think that the percentages of the power pushed to the wheels of the locomotives should be widened by a lot. As I show in the video, it doesn't take much to get to the speed where I like to cruise at. So much of that lever goes unused. Perhaps making the acceleration and deceleration and bit wider towards the beginning 40% would be neat. Almost like an exponential graph instead of a linear one.
• The Fire Extinguisher is fantastic and I love the fire/explosion effects. It's just a bit tough to put out all of the fires that happen.
• Bridges are super awesome! I'm really hoping there are more variants in the future. ( Draw Bridge, Suspension, trussell, etc. )

This is all I can think of for now. This Winter Update ( with the previous update that I miss ) are absolutely fantastic and it's some of the best work you've put into the game so far! I had a blast creating my layout and I can't wait to see what other things you do in the future.

[Selkcip]

I haven't had a chance to watch the video, but I want to address your comments sooner than later.

• The more things you place, the worse the resolution of the game becomes in the headset. Duh. Lol. I've turned on the new batching and that helps marginally when you have that many things on the Layout but on the medium ones; it seems to work fantastic.
• Super Sampling I couldn't really tell how much better this made things look as the layouts I was trying them on were already putting a heavy dampener on performance. I could try and do more tests with the other layouts that are available.

The super sampling label is a bit of a misnomer because what it really does is set the minimum resolution for adaptive quality. The maximum is 2 so if you turn the dial all the way up the game runs at 2x native res. I think there might be a performance issue with particles, but I'm not sure if that's in game or only the editor.

• There were some points during the build that all of a sudden I had a bunch of saves with no way to delete them other than manually go and delete the picture associated with the file. The odd thing is that I didn't take any pictures of the layouts at all during the process so I don't remember how I ended up with so many. Which also means that if you have too many; you can only see the first few rows of them then they start disappearing and there's no way to scroll through them.

I'm planning on adding in game save deleting for the next update. Were you deleting tables? It creates a save when you delete a table in case you accidentally delete your entire layout.

• There are a few random bugs that I experience in the video; such as the table moving on its own from firing the artillery car and a few others.

Yeah, I noticed the table moving but while i was trying to improve the artillery car. It's because I added a box around the room to catch pieces if they fall out of the world and move them back to the center, but didn't check that they aren't something like a table, so the bullet leaves the room and hits this box and because it's a child of the table, the entire table gets set to 0,0,0.

• Roof pieces should stick to anything they're placed to on their stickable surface to create some more custom shapes. I was trying to do the main bow for the boat and have a Diagonal piece but the roof piece wouldn't stick to anything that wasn't a top of a piece.

I guess I could allow certain pieces to snap sideways.
 

• Perhaps the option to color/paint individual sides of a cube, roof, etc. Would make for a bit more in depth customization.

I could do this for some of them, but the ones with windows would be a pain.

• I mention this in the video, but I think painting and the method to do it is very difficult. It's still a fantastic tool and I'm greatful for even being able to do such customization; I just feel it could be reworked a bit into something more user friendly, easier, and more enjoyable to do. Painting the Color Palette is nifty to hold colors, but trying to use those tiny dials is a nightmare most times. Getting the color and tone you want just takes a lot of work. Just trying to paint the more finer details of cars and houses ( The window outlines, and door outlines for one ) are very very tough to pin-point and actually color properly.

Yeah, selecting colors/material properties is definitely a challenge and I've been thinking about how I can improve it.
I've also been thinking about maybe having something that lists the colors and lets you change them from there.

• Unsure if it's just me, but couplers just don't work for me between saves with moving vehicles. Stopped ones it seems to be okay.

It seemed like they were working, but maybe they don't if the engine is too moving too fast.

• Tables having gravity is a neat thing to mess around with. Trying to make mountains out of the canyon pieces with tables angled on the sides leads to interesting results. ( See video ) but hopefully perhaps some custom mountain or terrain building in the future...?

Yeah, I want deformable terrain, but idk if it'll happen before release.

• Engines and rolling stock all still start out with some form of random slow speed forward or backwards. They never just stay put when placing them down.

Nothing spawns with the brakes on and because gravity is so high they tend to move one way or the other. I could potentially change this.

• I'm not sure if it's going to be a thing but roads with cars/trucks might be a cool next step. I used some slot car track as roads and while it's not to scale with real roads; it actually fit pretty well with the layout.
• Along with the above point, perhaps Railroad Crossings, Signals, and signs could be added.

This has always been my plan.

• Perhaps even roadbed ( The stone under the train tracks ) would be something cool to add too.

This might cause some height issues depending on how thick it is/how tall certain engines/cars are.

• I also really wanted to paint the Ties white so they look like they have snow on them, but it would be so annoying to go around and paint all the pieces. Still hoping someday for a prepaint option and then being able to continually put that colored piece down.

Idk what to do about this one. Maybe some kind of piece palette that you can put painted pieces on and then copy them off that?

• Perhaps the ability to change the color of the water? I wanted to paint mine a bit lighter blue to resemble ice.

My friend pointed out that you can't paint the water and I've fixed it.

• I think that the percentages of the power pushed to the wheels of the locomotives should be widened by a lot. As I show in the video, it doesn't take much to get to the speed where I like to cruise at. So much of that lever goes unused. Perhaps making the acceleration and deceleration and bit wider towards the beginning 40% would be neat. Almost like an exponential graph instead of a linear one.

This was another thing I noticed watching my friend play, that once you hit a certain point it's really easy to go too fast.

• The Fire Extinguisher is fantastic and I love the fire/explosion effects. It's just a bit tough to put out all of the fires that happen.

Originally it put fires out with one hit, but that seemed unrealistic and visually.

• Bridges are super awesome! I'm really hoping there are more variants in the future. ( Draw Bridge, Suspension, trussell, etc. )

Definitely.

[FluffyJenkins]

Am I doing Christmas right?



this is fine.

[Selkcip]

[Selkcip]

I've been wanting to add a drop in animation to layout loading for a while. While I was adjusting loading to prevent the fade to compositor you sometimes get with larger layouts I realized I could use similar code to animate the pieces coming in.

[CobaltHusky93]

I love that you called it Prepare for Titanfall. I don't know why but I love saying that phrase!  Can't wait for it to be introduced so that way I can say it every time. :D

Something that reminded me of an idea I had: I don't know how easy an undo and redo function would be to put in the game but that might be neat if you start doing an idea and it just doesn't turn out cool. Instead of picking up each piece, you can just undo them.

In the same fashion,  it would be cool to have the same effect that you have done, but go a bit slower and spread the pieces out as they fall so you can almost have a time lapse building of your layout. I think that would be pretty neat.

[Selkcip]

Something that reminded me of an idea I had: I don't know how easy an undo and redo function would be to put in the game but that might be neat if you start doing an idea and it just doesn't turn out cool. Instead of picking up each piece, you can just undo them.

In the same fashion,  it would be cool to have the same effect that you have done, but go a bit slower and spread the pieces out as they fall so you can almost have a time lapse building of your layout. I think that would be pretty neat.

Undo is something that people have asked for a lot and I've said no for performance reasons. However, those are assumed performance reasons. I haven't actually tested making text only saves every few seconds or something, so it might be possible.

I had increased the number of pieces that are spawned at a time so that larger layouts don't take forever to load, but I realized that it ruins the effect so maybe I need to dynamically adjust the number based on the layout size.

I just uncommented some code and now layouts are cleared in the same way but in reverse (instead of just shrinking away).

[Selkcip]

Oh, also, I posted an announcement on Steam, but I'm pushing the release date back to the end of February because shit's still not done :/

[CobaltHusky93]

I don't think you should be disappointed that you're pushing back the release. It's great that you're leaving the game to be a Demo and have people give feedback on the game and want to make sure that it has enough bulk of features to be officially released.

Can't wait for the day that you'll be able to finally do an official release. We'll all be here to congratulate and celebrate with you when it does happen!

[Selkcip]

I don't think you should be disappointed that you're pushing back the release. It's great that you're leaving the game to be a Demo and have people give feedback on the game and want to make sure that it has enough bulk of features to be officially released.

Can't wait for the day that you'll be able to finally do an official release. We'll all be here to congratulate and celebrate with you when it does happen!

Thanks!

[jctwood]

That is the smoothest load transition I have seen, so wonderful!

[Selkcip]

Got around to doing my Winter Update Video! I spent a lot of time making the layout for this video and I'm really proud of it. :D

I finally got around to watching the video. Great overview, great layout. I only noticed at the end that you have a bunch of spotlights above the table. I think that might be a big part of the performance issues since just about everything is being redrawn for each light's shadows.

Also, the reason you were going to the SteamVR/skybox when you spawned an engine is because when batching is enabled the parts of the engine are combined into a single mesh. This is part of why I have batching marked as experimental.

[CobaltHusky93]

I'll remove the lights and report back.

[Selkcip]

I feel bad for not posting anything for a while, but I've been working on stuff that I'd rather show off when it's fully functional.

What I can say is that in support of future features I've been updating how saves are loaded/stored and as a result the hang to compositor you see when saving a layout only occurs for very large layouts. I can probably make some changes that will remove it completely.

Hopefully I'll have something to show by the end of the week.

[CobaltHusky93]

Awesome! Can't wait! =D

[Selkcip]

Custom model support!

Sorry this took so long. I thought it would be fun for it to be a surprise since I had said it was coming later, but Idk how exciting it actually is.

Anyway, it's possible to import your own models and use them as scenery pieces. It's only scenery right now because specifying which parts of a locomotive or car are wheels or pistons requires more interface.

At the moment the two supported file types are fbx and obj. obj is good because just about every modeling program supports exporting it, but it's pretty limited in the data is provides. I think fbx is pretty well supported to a lesser degree. fbx is best because it provides all of the data I'm using for the painting system. Luckily, Tilt Brush supports exporting fbx files so you can paint something, export it, and import it while retaining the color data. Here's a tiny screenshot of a tree I painted:

There's a new model editing work bench that lets you select the model you want to import, scale/paint/position the model, and then export it to a format that can be uploaded to places like the Steam Workshop (not yet).

I wanted to add support for loading these custom models directly from layouts so that even if you don't have the specific model in your workshop folder it'll still load it. This makes layouts self contained.

In adding this support I realized that the save format I had been using was going to result in giant files because I was storing everything as plain text. So I spent a while working on serializing saves to binary using a built in format.

Then I realized that I didn't know anything about how the data was being stored and if I wanted to read the files somewhere else I would be out of luck. So THEN I spent a while implementing my own binary format.

After all this I was still using the text variant of fbx files, but the binary version is more common and since there aren't any good free FBX importers for Unity, I wrote one myself using this handy reference from a Blender dev.

Getting all that working was the bulk of this update, but I also fixed a few bugs and added some content. I tweaked grabbing again so that if you're trying to grab a thin object, you don't grab what's underneath it instead. This kept happening to me with the flat car, grabbing track under it. The halo table and the Mobius tracks are now in the game and I also added wodden variants of the basic track pieces.

The next update is going to focus on polishing up the interfaces in the game. I'm going to remodel the toolbox and workbench and rearrange their buttons. I'm going to improve the models for the in-cab controls, the boombox, and maybe the workshop itself.

I was also approached by a composer who would like to make some music for the game, so eventually there will be some original music in the game.

See here for a more detailed changelog: http://steamcommunity.com/games/490250/announcements/detail/668057243334269777