About
ZENITH 01 (I needed a better name than Space Station View 2: Electric Boogaloo) is a project I have been working on for about a month now. After releasing my first space station demo in December, I decided to sit back and spend more time on another 'diorama' project. I felt, though, that I could have made my first project even more detailed if I gave it more time. So I expanded on the idea entirely and am creating a sequel (or reboot?) of sorts.
Named after the ship design showcased within, this project is intended to be less of a game and more of an experience. I'm sure most of us, upon seeing great films like Alien, Serenity, Event Horizon, Pandorum, or Cargo, have always thought it would be neat to soak up the atmosphere of a dark and cozy deep-space vessel. Or at least I have! So I set out to try and create a little environment that's at least a fraction as cozy and immersive.
Gameplay
Unlike my last game, you can fully move around two rooms/floors of Zenith 01. I've tried to strike a balance so far between tons of detail and performance. So far it's running as smooth as silk and has a moderate amount of objects without being too cluttered!
I wanted to create something that's just nice to soak in. And so, I've allowed the player to, upon approaching chairs, automatically sit in them. Just relax and look around! Want to make it even more cozy, or increase performance? Main lights have associated light switches that can be toggled on/off!
Great care is being put into the sound design. I want to immerse the player into the guts of a gargantuan spacecraft, and so the sound is booming, and all -encompassing, and bass-rich, but also mixed just right and low enough to allow you to play your own music in the background. Or why not a podcast?
Floor 1: Recreation/Observation
The most spacious and "homey" room is a laid-back and messy observation room.
Floor 2: Control
Tighter quarters but a better view. You will get a better view of the vista outside in a less-than-comfy chair in front of monitoring consoles.
Background
You are a mechanical engineer, just relaxing after a day of work. You and your partner (who you may spot outside 😉 ) are two of the skeleton crew kept conscious in shifts while the passengers and crew lie in stasis on your journey to colonise a new world.
But empty space is boring! So Zenith 01 and 02 are placed within eyesight of an alien planet with a trace gaseous atmosphere that is to be scooped up as fuel.
But that's not going to happen. This is a diorama - a looping snapshot of a moment in time. Soak it in and relax as long as you want.
Release
I will most likely release this in early July, as I am taking my time polishing it off, and would like to implement DK2 support and then further tweak the game for positional tracking if necessary. With an upped resolution and more ways to peek, peer, and bend, it would be beneficial to ensure everything looks its best with the new hardware.
Anyway, this is just me announcing this WIP. You can see any new progress at http://rift-vr.com/. Thanks for reading! It might be hard without a demo, but please let me know if you have any ideas/criticisms from what you have seen.
(Here are some dark and un-revealing screens - these may appear pretty dark - I assure you it looks great in the Rift)
Screen: http://rift-vr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/stationscreen2.jpg
Screen: http://rift-vr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/station22.jpg
Edit: I've added a short video!
"Amantis" wrote:
Hey man, July is almost over and DK2s are out and about, have you gotten yours yet?
Unfortunately not 😞 I ordered 7am day 2 and, miraculously, my order is still Pending and awaiting inventory. I haven't actually touched this in a couple weeks because I've been in the middle of a move, but I'm now ready to implement DK2 support...whenever it comes!
I've been worried about the alleged smearing that occurs in dark environments. This whole little game is almost pitch black. But now I'm hearing reports from people who are actually doing their homework, and they're playing Elite: Dangerous and saying that it's very, very, very minimal there, and more apparent for dark objects against a much brighter background. I hope that's true!
I hope not! With an SDK/plugin change in mind, I made sure to not do much coding into the camera objects at all. Hopefully I can just drag the new OVRCameraController in, change the clipping plane values, delete the old object, and head tracking should work. I could technically do this now, but I'd really rather test it myself and make sure everything looks OK with the new resolution.
Music!
I'd like to bump to make a little announcement that Ben Babbit (http://benbabbitt.bandcamp.com/), a musician most recently known for his work on Kentucky Route Zero (check it out - amazing games), has made a track for this project!
It's going to be an introduction song that plays as the game starts to set the mood. He did a great job and I can't wait to port my game for the DK2 and release the thing already.
Check out his KRZ work here: http://benbabbitt.bandcamp.com/album/kentucky-route-zero-act-iii
Great stuff.
I'd like to bump to make a little announcement that Ben Babbit (http://benbabbitt.bandcamp.com/), a musician most recently known for his work on Kentucky Route Zero (check it out - amazing games), has made a track for this project!
It's going to be an introduction song that plays as the game starts to set the mood. He did a great job and I can't wait to port my game for the DK2 and release the thing already.
Check out his KRZ work here: http://benbabbitt.bandcamp.com/album/kentucky-route-zero-act-iii
Great stuff.
(I'm getting deja-vu from my old topic!)
Unfortunately...not much 😞
It's at a point now where the two rooms are 90% done, and have been for a while. It's been untouched for several months now. The intro scene exists and has assets and music, but I haven't made the transition mechanics between virtual-VR and the space scene yet. From there the diorama is mostly done and has music, and has a lot of little details, but what's stopping me from making a "final push" to completely polish everything and add final details and finish the thing is...performance. It's all dynamic lighting by choice, but obviously that's not great on middle-of-the-road computers. Or maybe just awful ones like mine. I have a feeling it's gonna be tough to hit 75fps unless you have a video card from the last year or two max.
On the other hand, who knows how much of it is SDK-optimization based. I haven't tried it out yet with anything newer than the first DK2 SDK.
Since I'm never going to get any more free time than I have now, and since I don't see myself getting a new PC soon, I'm tempted to just finish work on it assuming that everyone but me is going to get a silky smooth FPS.
I got distracted for a month and worked on-and-off on a Blade Runner diorama, but I'm tempted to come back and finish this already! It's really not all that much or all that big -- I've just been really slow with working on it at all in the last 4 months.
I'm a really lazy guy and hate releasing demos because then people, helpfully, offer suggestions and make requests. Normally not a problem, except I don't have a lot of free time for hobby-developing and usually make stuff selfishly for myself and then release it. But I may have to send a test copy out to see how it performs on better computers than mine 🙂
Unfortunately...not much 😞
It's at a point now where the two rooms are 90% done, and have been for a while. It's been untouched for several months now. The intro scene exists and has assets and music, but I haven't made the transition mechanics between virtual-VR and the space scene yet. From there the diorama is mostly done and has music, and has a lot of little details, but what's stopping me from making a "final push" to completely polish everything and add final details and finish the thing is...performance. It's all dynamic lighting by choice, but obviously that's not great on middle-of-the-road computers. Or maybe just awful ones like mine. I have a feeling it's gonna be tough to hit 75fps unless you have a video card from the last year or two max.
On the other hand, who knows how much of it is SDK-optimization based. I haven't tried it out yet with anything newer than the first DK2 SDK.
Since I'm never going to get any more free time than I have now, and since I don't see myself getting a new PC soon, I'm tempted to just finish work on it assuming that everyone but me is going to get a silky smooth FPS.
I got distracted for a month and worked on-and-off on a Blade Runner diorama, but I'm tempted to come back and finish this already! It's really not all that much or all that big -- I've just been really slow with working on it at all in the last 4 months.
I'm a really lazy guy and hate releasing demos because then people, helpfully, offer suggestions and make requests. Normally not a problem, except I don't have a lot of free time for hobby-developing and usually make stuff selfishly for myself and then release it. But I may have to send a test copy out to see how it performs on better computers than mine 🙂
Thanks guys! I'm busy all today and most of Saturday, but if I have time, maybe early Saturday or sometime Sunday I can try re-integrate the most recent SDK into it and package a demo. Who knows, maybe it'll even perform better on the new SDKs!
