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[Selkcip]

Are we talking real people or virtual people? Virtual would be difficult as it it require AI that knew what a good layout looks like.

[CobaltHusky93]

Yeah. It would be virtual people.
Maybe have some sort of combo system and theme system. Same era buildings and such would go together. Each piece of scenery would have it's own rating of realism and such and the algorithm would be calculated by the amount of buildings that are in the same era, their realism rating, and if they go well with the other buildings and scenery around them.

[Selkcip]

Idk, accurately determining "what is good" is a pretty hard AI problem.

[Selkcip]

I wish I had a Vive now....

If there's enough interest, I'll try to add non-vr support, but it isn't my focus and it won't be as good.

[CobaltHusky93]

Idk, accurately determining "what is good" is a pretty hard AI problem.

True~
Ah, well. Just a thought. :D

[Selkcip]

I have an update coming tomorrow with a new table and multi-save support, but I wanted to have some fun and see if I could increase the not so fast max speed of the trains.





I was successful. Here's an even better jump recorded with my phone:

[jctwood]

This is fantastic! I would love to see simple modular walls etc. for building little houses and stations.

[Selkcip]

This is fantastic! I would love to see simple modular walls etc. for building little houses and stations.

Thanks! I hadn't really though about this. It wouldn't be too difficult to add, but I'm worried it would be even worse for performance than complete buildings.

[Selkcip]

[CobaltHusky93]

The max speed and the loop is absolutely awesome! I'm glad that it looks like you're adding a table that you stand in the middle of! That's going to be a lot of fun with making more unique closed loops and multiple lines with sidings.

I know nothing about programming and game design, but what causes the Tram to bounce around so much when you push it to higher speeds?

[io3 creations]

Looks like a fun project.    Interestingly, based on fond childhood experiences of assembling train tracks, I also had a similar idea.  Though due to lack of time it is still being "postponed".  However, if you finish your game then I may not even have to or might just contribute with a few models later.

I'm still on the fence with VR so a non-VR mode would be great.  I could see myself both building a few tracks but am also interested just watching the trains go by and watch other people's tracks so if at least a "viewer" mode is available then I'll be happy. 

Being able to ride a train is a great idea.

As for having objectives, that might be fun for some people and give them "more things to do" but I think that would distract from (what I imagine) the original idea of just building the tracks.  Or perhaps having either both types of gameplays or separating each into a different game.

Actually, I started watching CobaltHusky93's video first and it was entertaining and exciting to see it from both a developer and player perspective whether certain things would work.  For example, when certain pieces actually snapped and when the tram reached the cross intersection and initially it didn't make it but later it did.


A few tips/suggestions:
-Object placement snapping: in many games if a certain object can be placed in a certain location, it either moves there or maybe a highlighted version is shown.  Of course, this would only apply to certain situations, e.g. when you are continuing a track and not when placing the first track (unless there are actually only specific locations where you can place tracks)
-Jumpy camera.  While it's not that much of an issue when watching the tram from the outside, being in a tram, especially when turning (e.g. CobaltHusky93's video) that jumpiness seemed considerable.  Perhaps the rail cars that you can travel in can have their own physics body and a separate model that is used for display.  That other model then could be positioned independently to still follow the physics body but have it's position and rotation modified to give a smoother ride.

I was going to suggest it but I see you already stared the "developer fun" montage. 

[Selkcip]

I know nothing about programming and game design, but what causes the Tram to bounce around so much when you push it to higher speeds?

Normally when you want to have something follow a track you'd specify a set of points that define the curve. Then, you specify an offset along that curve and calculate the position of the train.

Since I want this to emulate the act of playing with a BRIO train I went with a physics based approach instead. The trains have real spinning wheels that drive them forward and they slot into the tracks as opposed to being programmatically positioned. Unfortunately general purpose physics engines like Unity's aren't stable in all situations. When the wheels spin really fast the hinges connecting them to the train start to wobble due to torque and freak out causing the train to bounce.

A few tips/suggestions:
-Object placement snapping: in many games if a certain object can be placed in a certain location, it either moves there or maybe a highlighted version is shown.  Of course, this would only apply to certain situations, e.g. when you are continuing a track and not when placing the first track (unless there are actually only specific locations where you can place tracks)

The pieces snap to a fixed grid. Originally I had a pin system that let you hook track together and place them wherever you wanted. The problem with that was that pieces ended up misaligned. I'm not sure if I want placement previews, I might just speed up the snapping.

-Jumpy camera.  While it's not that much of an issue when watching the tram from the outside, being in a tram, especially when turning (e.g. CobaltHusky93's video) that jumpiness seemed considerable.  Perhaps the rail cars that you can travel in can have their own physics body and a separate model that is used for display.  That other model then could be positioned independently to still follow the physics body but have it's position and rotation modified to give a smoother ride.

I'll see if there's something that I can lerp that doesn't add too much complexity to the trains. It might be that I can just lerp the play space position.

[draegdrwg]

I've been lurking and watching this and I have to say, it's a really wonderful idea. Being able to build the layouts you always dreamed of when you were a kid and then being able to ride on them as well. Seems like a great fit for VR.

Regarding some of the non-sandbox gameplay ideas people were throwing around above, would something like transport tycoon work in a pseudo fantasy sort of way? Start with a certain amount of money and the objective of supplying a certain number of units of cargo to a place on the table/in the room. Except in order for that cargo to be produced you need to supply some other factories, etc. And the starting money will be insufficient so you might need to start up some side ventures as well..

[Selkcip]

Regarding some of the non-sandbox gameplay ideas people were throwing around above, would something like transport tycoon work in a pseudo fantasy sort of way? Start with a certain amount of money and the objective of supplying a certain number of units of cargo to a place on the table/in the room. Except in order for that cargo to be produced you need to supply some other factories, etc. And the starting money will be insufficient so you might need to start up some side ventures as well..

I've been thinking about this as a likely first step towards goal driven gameplay. What I've been thinking is that there would be a number of fixed stations that you need to connect. Initially you can only connect a couple that are close together, but as you transport people/goods you get enough money to reach further.

[Selkcip]

The good news is that I've uploaded a new version with an experimental save manager. The bad news is that the auto-updater appears to have failed

The biggest improvement in this build is that you can now save and load layouts by taking pictures of them with an in-game camera. You can also share these pictures with others, allowing them to load your layouts (located in /saves, you can't share them in game). They're a bit dark, I'm not sure why yet.

I've also replaced the off-center rectangular table with a centered wrap around table that I think makes better use of the player's available space. However, it does not adapt to your room scale bounds (yet) so it may not be ideal for your specific setup.

Also, I remembered to add the Steam Baron engine this time around.

[Selkcip]

I'm refining the changes to the wheel controls I made the other day. For speed control I can either go with a fixed wheel speed or a desired train speed. I think generally model trains have a fixed wheel speed, but I think it would be more useful to be able to set multiple trains to the same target speed in order to keep them in sync.

[I_smell]

I think your idea of using a polaroid camera to save tracks is really fun.

Hopefully it prints out a photo, and then I can pin that to the wall as my save file.

[Selkcip]

Hopefully it prints out a photo, and then I can pin that to the wall as my save file.

Yeah, I don't know what the best way to display them all. Right now they all just float in a grid above the picture scanner.

[jctwood]

The polaroids are really lovely!

[Selkcip]

The polaroids are really lovely!

Thanks! They are the most intuitive metaphor for saving and loading that I've been able to think of.