Logs / Route 010
September: rotors, a volcano and far too much grass
The helicopters got rebuilt, Hachijō-Fuji got a lava lake, the grass got a whole library of species, the engines finally sound like their layout, and the game moved back to an island it left in July.
Just over 2,300 commits went in this month, which is too many to list and a slightly worrying number. These are the ones you’d notice.
Back to Hachijō
On 24 September the live map switched back to Hachijō-jima, the island first imported in July. El Hierro had been the live map for most of the month. Hachijō comes back with a much better set of tools than it had in July, and how it’s built is in Hachijō-jima at 1:1.
New helicopters
The old helicopter, a leftover from the shooter days that aimed at the mouse cursor, is gone. The new ones simulate the rotor blade by blade, with flapping, ground effect, a tail rotor that takes about 7% of the engine’s power in a hover, a governed turbine, and autorotation if that turbine gives up. There’s a stability assist that makes them flyable on a keyboard, and three to choose from: travel, police and rescue.
Since the 22nd the rotor can also hit things. Clip a wall, a slope or a tree and the blades take damage, the imbalance thumps through the airframe, and badly damaged blades snap off and fly away. Land near dust or grass and the downwash kicks up a rolling cloud and flattens everything around.
The whole story is in The helicopter got deleted, including the part where full right pedal switched the tail rotor off.
A volcano
Hachijō-Fuji got a lava lake in its crater, with a cooled crust around the edge, steam vents on the rim, and a plume visible from anywhere on the island, bent by the wind. It’s scenery for now. The real volcano hasn’t erupted in four centuries, so some liberties have been taken.
Grass
The grass is drawn blade by blade on the graphics card now, with the species chosen by the ground it’s growing on. There’s a whole library of plants, including local ones like ashitaba and freesia, each with its own season and flowering time. Behind the scenes the editor tools gained a full set of grass brushes too (force, remove, replace, limit by slope and height, fill a region), which is the “far too much grass” part of this month.
Engines that sound like engines
Engine audio got a big pass. Turbos and superchargers now whine in step with the engine, flat engines have the lumpy burble they’re known for, and passing cars get a proper pass-by sweep.
Traffic that steers
AI traffic used to slide along the road on rails. There are now AI drivers that use the same controls as a player (throttle, brake, steering) on the same physics as every other car. They’re early. They drive, but not well, and whether they replace the rail version or live alongside it hasn’t been decided. They do run on the new native physics code, which is what makes a whole island of them affordable.
Smaller things
The planes now calculate aerodynamics per strip of wing, with a propeller model to match and a live view for tuning them. Towns got procedural facades and roofs along real street footprints. The road network learned roundabouts, median islands, driveways and junction phasing. About thirty work sites now have plans, many traced from the real facility. And the first proper cloud system started going in this week, after the first attempt in July never made it into a scene.
Next month
Trailers and cargo bodies, so every job on Hachijō can be driven from pickup to delivery. After that, multiplayer goes back on for the island. That’s the plan, anyway. The timeline shows how plans in this project usually go.
Filed under update, helicopters, hachijo-jima, audio