Dev Log #4
Work is currently focusing on road infrastructures, whose interest lies in the environment on the one hand, and on the other hand in the possibility of generating procedural events that will fit into the game play. This system will be strongly linked to Unreal's Landscape. I'm to
Work is currently focusing on road infrastructures, whose interest lies in the environment on the one hand, and on the other hand in the possibility of generating procedural events that will fit into the game play. This system will be strongly linked to Unreal's Landscape.
I'm totally focused of the graphic part right now in order to avoid unpleasant surprises that previously forced me to do a rather severe downgrade of the game.
I'm currently a bit delayed by a performance problem during the "real size" tests...
Road tools
The 3D models of roads (see gif 1 below) are temporary and will be replaced by realistic models.
The cubes (see gif 2 below) are temporary and will be replaced by vehicles.
Extension of the Unreal Engine spline system for :
- manage different road models, number of lanes, direction of traffic, type of road.
- managing intersections, priority, traffic lights, stop.
- manage assets automatically placed on the roadside (static mesh), street furniture, streetlights (automatic lighting).
- creation of trajectories for artificial intelligence of vehicles.
All of the above functions are in the form of road "prefabs" in order to efficiently and quickly edit the future game map.
Artificial intelligence
vehicles adapt their speed according to those in front of them, as well as according to the driving style of each driver; some AI will do "speeding" while others slow down the traffic; some accelerate or brake faster than others, in order to give a more organic effect to road traffic seen from the sky.
The rules of the highway code are applied procedurally; for example, in an unmarked intersection, the right-of-way rule applies. Traffic lights, stop and yield are also shown, giving a fairly realistic traffic flow.
When an obstacle is encountered, vehicles brake and create a 'traffic jam'; this system is very useful for creating procedural accidents for example, or any other interaction with road traffic.
The IA system runs on a different Thread from the main Thread so as not to alter the performance of the game; this method could also be used for the physics of the helicopter to allow more accurate calculations for each frame.
Coming soon
- The animation of each vehicle with indicators, stop light, warning, position light, wheels.
- Overtaking vehicles.
- Path finder so that vehicles find the shortest route to a given destination.
- Global optimisation to display at least 100 vehicles simultaneously.
This module is very resource-intensive; it will be necessary to use all the tools available on Unreal Engine to minimize the impact on in-game performance.
In conclusion, it is not a main system of the game. The purpose is twofold :
- To integrate the road infrastructures for, on the one hand, a realistic rendering which is the main idea of Helicopter Simulator at all levels.
- Create, on the other hand, these new tools and allow me to 'get my hands on' Unreal Engine that I didn't know 2 months ago, since I remind you that Early Acces was developed under Unity.
