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[WIP] Fly Like a Bird - Skycall - Rook Island Release

getnamo
Honored Guest
Update
Public Demo is now live!

Grab Win32 build at
Link(Mega)
Mirror(Mediafire)

This demo requires DK1 and Razer Hydras.

About Rook Island:
This is a pre-alpha demo meant to allow you to explore bird flight with the closest possible experience. To gain altitude you will have to flap, once you gain enough speed you will glide and steer with tilt and yaw like you used to as a kid imagining you were a bird/airplane.

Enjoy the shoulder workout! Let me know what you think, and if you manage to find all the eggs...

All the instructions on flight are included in the Documentation check out the flapping video below for an example of controlled flight.

Flapping Video:




Original
Hi Rifters!

I've gotten my flight dynamics to the point where I have to share at least a proof of concept video. The flying is only playable with the Razer Hydras and Oculus Rift.




Each of your hydras define the wingwips of each wing, and you uhhh... flap to generate lift! Once you have enough speed to generate lift it will make things easier and you can soar like a bird identifying the perch you want to land on or maybe... tasty prey on the ground? 😉

Let me know what you think and what you'd like to see next. If you could fly like a bird, where would you go?
Current Project: Skycall
47 REPLIES 47

samrawuk
Honored Guest
Looks fun! The flight looks pretty natural. Up next I'd like to see the actual wings and body, to see the animation.

Some long-term ideas:
You could continue down the fun route and focus on meeting objectives (like flying through rings, reaching certain platforms or dropping... presents 😉 ) or turn it into a more exploration-focused game. It'd be interesting to fly around an abandoned city, above a volcano and just generally through beautiful bits of nature.

You say bird, but you could also be a dragon, a pegasus, a bat, a pterodactyl... lots of different options. You could be one creature throughout the whole game or you could have different creatures for different levels, which would require the player to adapt to the creatures' wingspans, weights, stamina, vision, etc.

Just some random thoughts! Best of luck with your project 😄

Elzo92
Explorer
Look amazing dude! id love to try it sometime.

Krisper
Explorer
Very nice. I was working on exactly the same thing till I got sidetracked building a submarine game.

I was thinking of being an eagle where you start in a nest way up a mountain, with a bunch of hungry chicks. And it's your job to hunt and catch prey to feed them. Not sure if that could be developed into something fun.

Looking forward to a playable demo.

cybereality
Grand Champion
Looks cool actually. I would not mind being a bird.
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Frito
Explorer
hahaha awesome! the flying looks really smooth

hard mode: you are a dragonfly
Backer "Have faith." -Palmer Luckey

getnamo
Honored Guest
@samrawuk
Thanks for the great suggestions! I was thinking an explorative tech demo would be the most appropriate for introducing people to flight, at their own pace, exploring a landscape, finding some... secrets? ;). Where to go from there? That's the question.

Wing dynamics are pretty complicated, there are some finer movements we just can't do; look at the very fine movement of macaws in slowmotion (about halfway is the footage) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTVigNA3KCY, I had to assume a person's wing automatically fans out on the upstroke for example. We also don't have tail feathers... Exploring different flight dynamics would definitely be interesting though, need to parameterize my flight formulas.

@frito
Anything smaller than say crows, would require some very impressive shoulder work. Already with current setup, I can guarantee you, your shoulders will become buff 8-) (will the next generation of cyber-athletes be competitive with their olympic counterparts in fitness...?) . That said, there isn't any good reason to stop people from trying :lol:.

@krisper
After seeing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVfFOcxJf2k this was my thought as well, it would an especially tough challenge to swoop down and grasp a fish in a stream while concentrating on not crashing into the water. As an added bonus eagles seem to be wing-size appropriate to humans: slow and big flaps, lots of gliding.



I'm hoping to have an IK rigged bird and a bit more believable landscape in a week's time. What introductory flight videos do you think would be useful? General flapping? Take-off? Transitions? Maybe real bird example videos followed by trying to copy them?
Current Project: Skycall

Krisper
Explorer
"getnamo" wrote:

I'm hoping to have an IK rigged bird and a bit more believable landscape in a week's time. What introductory flight videos do you think would be useful? General flapping? Take-off? Transitions? Maybe real bird example videos followed by trying to copy them?


The closer you get this to real bird flight, the better I think. Showing real bird flight, and then your in game flight, maybe with an overlay showing the player as well would be great. Can't wait to see more.

Koshinator
Honored Guest
This looks spectacular - I mean who hasn't wondered at some point about how it would be like to be a bird? Can't wait to get my hands on a demo 🙂

As for expanding on the concept, i think an exploration/free-flight sort of mode would be best to start off with, perhaps with some secrets or some time attack courses or trick flight maneouvers. Should be a good base to get the flight dynamics/IK wing models perfected. After that, well... the sky's the limit (pun intended :P)

molton
Explorer
"getnamo" wrote:
...Exploring different flight dynamics would definitely be interesting though.


I have my own bird flight concept I've been working on, a bit simpler than this, as a matter of fact it basically just requires a mouse with a mousewheel or a mouse and keyboard and an oculus rift. Was trying to keep it a secret but now that we're talking about bird flight anyway I can admit that.

That is cool as shit how you actually flap with the razer hydra's for this, my flight is more of a relaxing experience, less intense than actually flapping.