A Move to Orange Box
It is official. Over the past two months, the development team has been hard at work porting the Episode 1 version of SHIFT to the Orange Box SDK. This means SHIFT will no longer require Episode 1 specifically and will now work with any Orange Box games.
Developing a Racing Mod (Progress Time Line)
We were unsure of how the move to Orange Box would go. To our surprise, it was more than great and proved to be worth it. To mark this change, we decided to release several videos for the public.
SHIFT has always kept quiet on its development and many people may have wondered what we were up to over the past year. Here are several videos which should help summarize our development on Episode 1 in the form of a time line.
These videos DO NOT represent SHIFT in its current state.
This is the circuit track that was used to demonstrate the 4 player multiplayer test on Moddb. Many people wanted to see it in one cut instead of in different pieces. Here you can see the basic track layout from beginning to end.
Designing a New Menu
One of the major goals of SHIFT was to remove the feeling of being in Half-Life 2 for the player. We spent a lot of time developing a new menu system.
Proof of Concept
This is one of the first solid alpha builds that incorporated a custom vehicle, tachometer, and custom performance settings for the car.
Revving in Neutral (manual transmission)
We spent much time developing a tachometer that would match the theme of SHIFT. This is actually SHIFT's 4th tachometer design. This video is also demonstrating SHIFT's realistic engine throttle simulation and the neutral gear in manual transmission.
240SX Announced
We wanted to have a car with a lot of character and personality to represent SHIFT. I had been searching for a modeler for SHIFT for many months and came across Laurens Corijn who had modeled the Bosozoku 240SX. He agreed to allow us exclusive use of the car for SHIFT.
240SX In Game
After announcing the 240SX as the games story mode car, we received criticism that it couldn't be in game. Here is the model, imported into Source.
Private Alpha Video
This is the official Alpha test demonstration video that we privately unveiled to the members of the SHIFT Steam community group chatroom. However, This video does not have the commentary audio. Due to the skepticism of the 240SX not actually being a model which could be driven, we added a teaser at the end of the video.
Multiplayer Testing
Once we unveiled the SHIFT Alpha video, we felt that the SHIFT Singleplayer was in a good enough state that we could begin work on the Multiplayer. There were many skeptics that said the vehicle netcode wouldnt support this kind of mod.
Power Sliding
We played with 4 players on huge maps and suffered little to no lag thanks to our net fix. Any lag in these videos is due to FRAPS.
Driving the 240SX
This is part two of the Alpha demonstration video that was never released. It showcases the 240SX, competitive AI, and a near complete HUD.
Quarter Mile in the City
A short clip from one of SHIFT's singleplayer maps.
Epic stuff! :D
Looks awesome :D
:O you moved to the orange box :'(
hope it all goes well, shame i only have the orange box on Xbox360 :(
great stuff though (y)
It should still work with any source engine game I believe.
wow ! good work.
btw. are these Impreza sounds from Most Wanted? :D They are very similar.
Lets get it orange in here!
Looks AMAZING. Can't wait for the release.
Looking good guys... lots of videos...
Woah, I never realized how much you actually had done until now. Good stuff, keep it up.
WOW, i thought this mod was dead for sure, but it's not. :)
The walk ways in the last video, are to vast for me, but the rest is awesome.
now all you have to do is have a gunplay scene in the game haha
Looking good. Is it going to be like an NFS style game or is it just the HL2 driving physics with new models? Will it have a cockpit view that supports the a steering wheel like the G25?
Simply...amazing.
awesome city
Looks great.
(buried)
looks like sh!t :o -.-
You guys are coming along fast.
Awesome.
Epic
This mod is really awesome!
Great works guys!
BTW Menu is COOL!!
Tracking...
the exhausts look gay green and blue really oh well recolor it or something any way amazing mod !
Sweet!
Looking good. Do you intend to improve the controls? With how nice and smooth everything else seems to work, it's fairly noticeable how jerky the movement is when steering left or right with the keyboard. I'd suggest finding a way of smoothing out the steering, or implement mouse-based steering. Keep up the good work. :)
looks like you guys are building the next trackmania :)
tight graphics, doable
Another (unrelated) thing that I've noticed is that (namely in the Private Alpha Video) at certain speeds the ground texture has a stroboscopic effect. I'm not sure if this can be stopped with the source engine, but it would be nice because I find it somewhat distracting.
you guys need to create a donation page, I'd donate 100$ to make sure that this mod will see the light of the day
EXCELLENT progress, WOOHOO xD!