Wingsuit Proximity Flying Game

[mccordia 73]

Martijn, lets meet at my office sometime next week when Im back and sketch some levels, so I can get start modeling and texturing.
And pick a date for your first skydive

And Kallend..again great stuff.
You're turning into my brainy superhero rolemodel

Some asked about the games I worked on previously via PM:
Age of Wonders: Shadowmagic (PC)
Overlord (only concept/test phase)
My Horse and Me (PC/Wii)
And got to assist in the D3 base game a little bit as well.
Next to a lot of misc projects..

As an additional thought (asking input).
This is all no budget/hobby so far, though we will try to aim for some sponsored backing to make it worthwhile. But we hope to keep it free for the users.
But if people like, we could setup a small paypall donation, for which you'd get your own face and wingsuit colours included in the game to assist us in the initial development

The V3 model I am making (seen at the start of the video) will also be turned into a free downloadable (pdf) paper constructionkit, for anyone interested, to hang on the ceiling, use for dirtdiving or throw off the roof of your house

Martijn and I will try and keep this thread alive regarding graphic and programming developments

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Tinus 0]

Good call, just sent you an email.


Never bothered with paper construction kits before, but I'll make an exception for this.

[Teigen 0]

Full size for me pleeeeeeeez!

[drdiesel 0]

Looks pretty realistic and more technically specific.

A game coming out for xbox 360, Crackdown 2 is supposedly going to have wingsuit flying. (Game is similar to GTA) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXCx1jxFouQ

No actual "wingsuit" by the looks of it, guess more just tracking

---------------------
Twin Falls BASE Co.
208-423-8080
www.twinfallsbase.com

[mccordia 73]

The previews showed more of an iron man thing, with 'wingsuit' being a term used to avoid legal problems

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Tinus 0]

Hey all! Remembering how enthusiastic you all were after seeing the first trailer, I thought I'd post a quick update on things:

First, here's some much-improved gameplay and physics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhnPdVAO8ZA

And second, you can now follow the progress on the projects very own blog: http://www.synthode.com/blog/category/volo

Cheers!

[lurch 0]

YEAH! when the flyer made first approach to mountainside I was like WOOT! Then when he went into a flip after he cleared it I was like WHOA, shit!

Only suggestion would be jack up his fallrate when he's not flying flat...when he went into flip near terrain I was like WHOA cause I expected him to get a LOT closer to terrain when he did that. I dunno how hard it would be to implement that but in real flight, whenever you flip you drop a little even if you flatten out immediately, and if you go head down for any length of time beyond about 1 second you speed up a LOT.

That flip should have cost him about 50-75 feet of altitude relative to the slope he was flying over, just to give an idea of the scale I would expect.

AWESOME work...really awesome. You know you're succeeding when your work is enough to thrill a real wingsuit pilot and that demo has me all like Whoooah, YEAH! Woot!
I had to wonder... what happens when he hits the ground?
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[SuperGirl 0]

dude that's totally awesome, thanks for the update, it looks GREAT so far, keep up the good work!!
very exciting!!!

[Tinus 0]

Thanks guys, it means a lot when it's coming from people who actually do this thing for real.

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YEAH! when the flyer made first approach to mountainside I was like WOOT! Then when he went into a flip after he cleared it I was like WHOA, shit!

Only suggestion would be jack up his fallrate when he's not flying flat...when he went into flip near terrain I was like WHOA cause I expected him to get a LOT closer to terrain when he did that. I dunno how hard it would be to implement that but in real flight, whenever you flip you drop a little even if you flatten out immediately, and if you go head down for any length of time beyond about 1 second you speed up a LOT.

That flip should have cost him about 50-75 feet of altitude relative to the slope he was flying over, just to give an idea of the scale I would expect.

AWESOME work...really awesome. You know you're succeeding when your work is enough to thrill a real wingsuit pilot and that demo has me all like Whoooah, YEAH! Woot!
I had to wonder... what happens when he hits the ground?
-B

Good suggestion there. That comes down to tweaking the drag and lift algorithms so that he generates less gravity-resisting forces when not flying flat. I'll probably also integrate that into a difficulty settings menu such as this:

Fallrate: arcade  realistic

Muscles: arcade  realistic

Fatique: arcade  realistic

Stabilize pitch: none  full

Stabilize yaw: none  full

Stabilize roll: none  full

etc.

And as for crashing: I haven't decided yet. For now he just ragdolls around, tumbling down the mountain lifelessly. I'll probably keep that in so there's at least some kind of drawback to crashing, and besides, it can look kind of funny. However, you can instantly respawn your character at the press of a button, and start flying again right away. Since this kind of game can involve a lot of trial and error having a quick reset button is crucial for your enjoyment.

[lurch 0]

Ok now thats cool. You can actually have different settings for different suits then as well.

A BASE wingsuiter could probably fine tune it for ya better than I could by the way...
If you watch wingsuit flight videos and see some acrobatics you'll get a good idea of the scale of the altitude loss based on the speed of his movement. A quick flip, he's not going to drop very much relative to stuff nearby...10, 20 feet max, maybe, depending on how clean the recovery is. A perfectly executed flip next to another wingsuit and might only lose 5 feet. A slow flip, and he'll drop a lot. I've done snap-flips next to a flock of wingsuits where after the flip I was still right next to them... and slow or poorly executed flips or rolls where when I got right side up again I'd dropped 200 feet. It'll be tricky to model well but after seeing what you've got so far I have no doubt whatsoever that you can do it.

Having a "fatigue" setting is genius.
And VERY realistic.
You could tie it to the size of the player suit model.
When I flew a medium sized suit, a Birdman S-6 the wings were easy enough that I could fly it at maximum the whole way down. So my fallrate would stay mostly the same and get slightly slower from about 4000 feet on down because of noticeably thicker air.
When I started flying the huge suits...either homemade mods or a Tony S-Bird the reverse became true... I could pull insanely low fallrates in the first few thousand feet and things would speed up as my arms gave out. I might be doing 25mph at 12 or 9000 feet but by 4000 the best I could manage was 35, maybe 40. Or I could conserve energy and save the all-out effort for lower down and still do low speeds below 4, at the cost of higher speeds higher up.
Managing fatigue could be a major game mechanic...waste too much energy higher up and you don't have the strength left to clear a ridgeline... Could have a little muscle fatigue gauge maybe, a simple bar or something. In real life, for all-out flying fatigue management is everything. If I'm trying for max time aloft I'll often switch muscle groups, load some while resting others... back off the outer wings and lock my elbows against my sides to charge up shoulders and chest for one last effort.
You could also tie flight characteristics to both suit model choice AND player model... medium height skinny guys like me (5 foot ten, 135 lbs) are medium fast forward and come down very slowly, only going really fast forward in a slight dive or when REALLY maxed out... tall heavy guys, say, 6 foot 4 240 lbs come down a lot faster but tend to be MUCH faster forward and go fast very easily.
Short round guys get the worst performance all around and tend to be not particularly fast forward nor slow descending.

I can easily see competitions in your game, matter of pride thing similar to fighting games. In fighting games like Tekken or Street Fighter it is often a matter of pride and proof of skill to be able to dominate the game with a weaker character. So in YOUR game, the best players would pride themselves on being able to beat other players while flying the short fat guy in the little suit against the tall skinny guy in the Mach 1.
So far your game kicks ASS. Must have taken a hell of a lot of work to make. I give it 4 and a half wings.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[Tinus 0]

Yeah, I'm going to have to sit down with a couple of experienced flyers again soon to tweak the settings a bunch. I've got the tech setup so that I can quickly change body and suit characteristics: For each bodypart you can now set the dimensions, weight, muscle strength, joint rotation range, etc. For the wings you can define the surface area, location, connection to body parts, span, and lift/drag characteristics based on angle of attack. I plan to do a deeper simulation of actual ram-air aerofoils in the future, but what I've got right now flies pretty well. You can define all sorts of body types and suit types right now, and that will only get better.

Anyway, that's exactly what I was thinking for the fatique system, awesome! Basically I'll code a system on top of all the individual muscles that regulates the amount of force they produce and energy they'll consume. I'm also planning a system with which you can finetune your own flying style, so you can tweak your performance with fatique management in mind.

Finally: Multiplayer will be pretty much a must for this game to really take off, so network code is one of the first things I'll be working on.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, it's immensely valuable! If you think of anything else let me know.

[mccordia 73]

We'll organise a meeting at our office, let some wingsuitflyers play and also shoot some video to show how it all works..

Martijn, ill shoot you a call monday (at the DZ now;)

JC
FlyLikeBrick
I'm an Athlete?

[Tinus 0]

Excellent idea.

[elias123 0]

I'd love to be at that meeting! Supernice work dude! I can't wait 'till this game comes out!

"In a mad world, only the mad are sane"

[arai 0]

realistic vs fun for the public is always a fine balance. you'll have to decide if your making this for diehard skydivers, the regular joes, or a blend of both. looks awesome though

[Tinus 0]

Hey guys! Time for another small video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnqfF0gDOJ8

This one shows what its like to fly relative to other people. I've been tweaking the movement model a lot, and it looks and feels a lot better now. For proper relative work I'll have to teach wingman how to perform braking manoeuvres (using legwing/cupping armwings, etc.), and give you the option of locking the camera to point at other players automatically. When that's all done I recon you can do some pretty accurate formation flying. :)

Next to that I've been working on multiplayer, gametypes, etc.

Hope you guys like it, cheers!

[SuperGirl 0]

WAAAAAY COOOL!!!
does the flyer get burbled when getting too close? above/behind another flyer?
will it be possible to take a dock?

[base851 0]

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Next to that I've been working on multiplayer, gametypes, etc.

Hope you guys like it, cheers!

Nice stuff! Don't forget to put the grid in for multiplayer!

*** ducks for cover***

[Tinus 0]

Burbles aren't in there yet, but they will be. Right now the wind system is still very simple: I can set wind direction and amount of turbulence only for the whole level. So first I'll build a simple model that allows wind to be different everywhere, and then I'll make it so that you leave a turbulent wake as you move through the air. Having that wind system will eventually also allow me to make wind travel up against mountains to cause updrafts and crosswinds. But that's all further down the road.

Docking's also on the list. I'll do it the easy way first: temporarilly 'welding' the player's limbs together when you hold a button. I hope I can make it so that you can grab onto any body part (hands, torso, legs, etc), so you can also do multi-way docks and maybe even rodeo jumps. It might look a bit wonky first, but it will work. After that comes making an animation system that makes it all look nice.

Thanks for the feedback as always, SuperGirl. :)

[Tinus 0]

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Nice stuff! Don't forget to put the grid in for multiplayer!

*** ducks for cover***

I could, but I'd probably create some enemies in the process.

Heck, I'll just roll my own grid system; one that's better than all the others.

[Skwrl 56]

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Heck, I'll just roll my own grid system; one that's better than all the others.

You fit right in here.

Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

[Skwrl 56]

If it's going to be MMORG, you should create an online forum where players can trash talk each other, pick on n00bs, bitch about the rules of the game, and generally snipe back and forth about mostly irrelevant and petty stuff.

Or, I guess if you're lazy, you could just link here.

Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

[Tinus 0]

Integration with an online community system is on the long-term todo list, and I'm setting the foundation for the game up to support it in the future. As soon as your doing multiplayer, you really need to have communication as a core component as well. Hell, even if multiplayer was not part of the plan I would still push for some online community tools. :)

While I'm all for a little friendly trashtalking (e.g. my little jibe about grid systems), I'm not so much for all that bitching and moaning you see in a lot of gaming communities. Most of the gametypes I'm designing right now have some form of cooperative play in them, anyway. Not sure how it will all work out, we'll see when we get there. The bunch of early fans that the game has right now have all been very kinds and supportive; with a bit of luck (and a bit of work) I think we can keep it that way. :)

[Skwrl 56]

Actually, that was more of a joke making fun of dizzy.com, but cool.

Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

[Tinus 0]

While we're at it: Here's the first footage for split screen play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpOan0bbnIY

It's buckets of fun; it really lets you experience (and play with) the freedom of movement you have much more than solo flight.

Let me know what you think!