It was a stool (made by someone else who graciously released it under CC0 license https://polyhaven.com/a/folding_wooden_stool)
Now it's a seat that can be used to build vehicles 🙂 No new modeling, just moving objects around, like if it was real planks.
Here it is in the game.
I have an issue with normals though 🤔
Probably easy to fix but I wonder why this happened. I'm not exactly proficient with Blender 😅
It's now possible to sit in seats and look around 😎
Funny when I think about it, how something so simple in real life can take time to implement in a game.
I've also tried to simulate the movement of the neck and shoulders when looking behind.
Next thing to finally enable driving of vehicles is to implement direction and motor force on wheels, and bind this to the player controls when sitting in a seat attached to a vehicle.
And there it is, at last! It's now possible to drive the vehicles you built! Well... sort of... There is no motor power yet, so you have to push them, or find a slope. And also, there is no brake 🫣
This is not nearly finished, but getting somewhere (downhill, obviously 😅)
I've improved various things, added motor in wheels, and it's now possible to really drive vehicles! And I mean in a controlled manner 😅
Also, guess what, larger vehicles are more stable 😁 The one with six wheels is practically impossible to topple over, no matter how hard I try.
This scene has been entirely built in-game with the 5 different parts available. The construction system is starting to work pretty well, so I should be able to add more parts soon!
These parts are quite "advanced" (metal parts, rubber wheels with integrated motor and suspensions) and would only be available mid-game. The beginning of the game should be very low-tech, gathering branches, tying them together, cooking clay...
Still have a lot of thinking to put in the global progression, and hopefully make something coherent with technological advancement, resource gathering/transformation, and the main plot, to set interesting goals and challenges for the player.
About the game mechanics I envision, there would be resources to gather (gathering, digging, pumping), energy to produce (water wheel, steam turbine, thermal and photovoltaic solar), mechanical power (shafts, gear boxes).
Buoyancy for boats and submarines. And train tracks! With splines to construct large sections easily.
Mechanical parts, pistons, hinges, drills, roller and belt conveyors
So many ideas and so little time to implement them 😅 Feel free to give suggestions and boost!
@youen I suggest a bit of rechargeable single fire explosive Rocket booster, with a side of Hot Air Balloon Part. Perhaps toss a Giant Spring Connector in there too to complete the madness.
Also, you got to have some kind of propeller. Not a good one mind you, until much later tech levels. But if we have water wheels and turbines, we should have spinning blades to go the other way! Make silly "flying" machines and discover how hard it is to make usefully balanced ones, lol!
@youen Honestly these tools look really fun to use for constructing. I am concerned that adding objectives or consumable loot might lose the fun by defining progress. There are plenty of these games focused on "a checklist of parts/materials to get/build" already.
Perhaps keep objectives loose, like "get things x to y" or "build a usable machine doing work z". Like in Contraption Maker, where there is the intended solution but what parts you should use and how is loose to make a play space.
@darkgriffin while I liked Satisfactory a lot, I completely agree that the objectives that take the form of a checklist of materials, with insane numbers to make, is not so fun!
I think we are quite aligned with what would be the "objectives" 🙂 I like how it's done in Subnautica for example: the story gives you hints about places to explore, then you have to progress in tech to get there (deeper underwater), and once you are there, you get new resources that allow more advanced tech, and so on.
@darkgriffin with actual rocket thrusters you have Kerbal Space Program 😉 I actually thought about it, but I need to restrict myself, the scope is already extremely ambitious... so, no orbital mechanics, and no planetary system 😅
But sure, airplanes, helicopters and other VTOL might make sense! I'm a bit concerned that even if the map is big (16km x 16km), some techs would still make it too fast to reach everything. Maybe, as you say, some techs that are clunky enough that it won't be too easy.
youen
Gawain(DarkGriffin)