Roller Coasters VEKTOR -- Step Out Of 1985...And Into The Future!!!

[Plan1]

The Future: The Year 2000.

This is just one small part of the park. There's a "1980s drive" that's screaming to be soundtracked to synthwave, and I'm in the process of seeing if I can replicate vector mountains and palm trees. I may just be an idiot.

For some reason the forum is cutting off the right side of the image, where there are more buildings and stuff.

 

[GalcianBTH]

To much win. Win overload.

 

[Bullethead]

That's fabulous, but my computer would probably melt with all those light parts

 

[Plan1]

That's fabulous, but my computer would probably melt with all those light parts

Thanks! And hey, it turns out the load on my machine is actually less with those lights than, say, some of those ultra-detailed "regular" buildings. Maybe because there are far fewer polygons? Those vector buildings are ultra-simplistic -- literally just blank, black alloy frames wrapped in color strip lights.

The lights themselves give off almost no ambient glow, so there aren't any resultant shadows.

And for what it's worth, the way Planet Coaster renders the small lights, they "pop in" at a distance like old-school games, so the buildings look like classic, featureless vector polygons until the coaster approaches and the "pixels" appear with Space Invaders sprites, etc. (You can barely see it, but the track is there running over the "80s grid" on the floor.)

To much win. Win overload.

Thank you, good sir!

As mentioned, there's an "80s drive" section that uses classic 80s pastel lights to give shape to a cityscape, and then there's something special that I am not ready to reveal yet, but is also drenched in 80s awesomeness.


And finally, if anyone would like to collaborate, I'm all ears. I've been having a lot of fun designing the visuals of the park, but I am admittedly pretty terrible at landscape and coaster design. Almost 60 hours in the game and still so much to learn lol. [big grin]

 

[Syphirioth]

Thanks! And hey, it turns out the load on my machine is actually less with those lights than, say, some of those ultra-detailed "regular" buildings. Maybe because there are far fewer polygons? Those vector buildings are ultra-simplistic -- literally just blank, black alloy frames wrapped in color strip lights.

The lights themselves give off almost no ambient glow, so there aren't any resultant shadows.

And for what it's worth, the way Planet Coaster renders the small lights, they "pop in" at a distance like old-school games, so the buildings look like classic, featureless vector polygons until the coaster approaches and the "pixels" appear with Space Invaders sprites, etc. (You can barely see it, but the track is there running over the "80s grid" on the floor.)



Thank you, good sir!

As mentioned, there's an "80s drive" section that uses classic 80s pastel lights to give shape to a cityscape, and then there's something special that I am not ready to reveal yet, but is also drenched in 80s awesomeness.


And finally, if anyone would like to collaborate, I'm all ears. I've been having a lot of fun designing the visuals of the park, but I am admittedly pretty terrible at landscape and coaster design. Almost 60 hours in the game and still so much to learn lol. [big grin]

Amazing job this is refreshing ;P And ye the underground coasters are way better for fps ^^ I think because not much to render in darkness. In light it has to render every visible piece. Also I have strongly the feeling that 100 000 scenery objects that are the same wont eat up that much as 100 000 of many different kinds.

 

[wowman]

that looks really cool

 

[creativexp]

This is a fantastic concept for a unique park, well done. Bonus points for nostalgia as well!

 

[Plan1]

Amazing job this is refreshing ;P And ye the underground coasters are way better for fps ^^ I think because not much to render in darkness. In light it has to render every visible piece. Also I have strongly the feeling that 100 000 scenery objects that are the same wont eat up that much as 100 000 of many different kinds.

That's a good point too. I admit I don't know much at all about how different effects impact the GPU/CPU load, but it makes sense that closed off, "indoor" areas would be a bit easier on the resources.

I just took a look at that Star Wars park (the one linked in a thread here) and it looks like the creator of that park made vast buildings with indoors instead of making a cave. Or maybe different pieces for each wall and roof section, to get around any problems building inside an existing building might pose. I'm gonna take a look at that too because it seems like it might be more space efficient and less "sloppy" than making caverns.

I still have a ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎ of a lot to learn about this game, that's for sure.

@creativexp and @wowman

Thanks for checking out the screens. Hopefully there will be a video soon, just have to finish the actual track so it doesn't end with the car falling off the edge of a track haha.

 

[Bullethead]

Thanks! And hey, it turns out the load on my machine is actually less with those lights than, say, some of those ultra-detailed "regular" buildings. Maybe because there are far fewer polygons? Those vector buildings are ultra-simplistic -- literally just blank, black alloy frames wrapped in color strip lights.

Yeah, I guess now that you mention it, this looks a lot more demanding than it probably is.

Since you're into retro, why not go even further back and do a 4-color area of the very early 3D graphics. You know, perfectly flat magenta ground, featureless cyan sky, white pyramidal mountains and angular enemy ships, and black build (or at least dark gray) buildings.