thanks guys! It's some good motivation hearing that from this bunch.
I'm sure there is going to be a ton to tweak/change once I'm actually am able to drive on it. I also need to work on a better skybox solution since you see off the level a lot on that first sweeping turn.
Up next is to figure out what the item boxes, and boost strips look like.
ok, I said I was gonna do a track next, so I did a track.
click for movie (16 megs)
[Blocked Image: http://marshmonkey.googlepages.com/westdemo.jpg]
ok, having a bit of difficulty. I have animated a little in maya, but never more than one clip. How do you set up multiple anims on a skele? I have animated one pose but I keep trying to make new clips and start a new animation but I never get seperate ones. Anyone have character animating exp? Or know where to get more info about setting up characters in that respect?
wow, you have a sharp eye!
wow, you put a lot of work into that 
I think it's a great idea, I was thinking of having a transparent mesh floating just above the hood or other places like you are showing and be able to swap out decals on that. would be an easy way to customize the cart and still be able to select different color combos.
ok, finally got a little suited up driver in there.
[Blocked Image: http://marshmonkey.googlepages.com/kartshot3.jpg]
I'm imagining the player being able to choose between different colors for the kart, suit, and helmet. Next up: rigging the guy and doing left turn, right turn, and wipeout/celebration anims.
Jeff Tunnell, founder of garage games has a new web project up and running called the "Great Games Experiment" or "GGe" It's basically a myspace-like site for games, gamers, and game developers.
http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com
kind of fun to find games and people on there and whore your friendslist.
I started a mapcore group too: http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/group/mapcore
been there, done that. I'm not sure what kind of sob story is supposed to shock people in this industry any more. These guys were local to me too, I used to run into some of them at starbucks.
now go use it dammit It's still pretty slow story-story wise.
If you get game developer magazine, look for devbump in the first few pages, in the "whats hot this month" section. Devbump got number 1!
thanks for the concern fonfa, I have plenty of experience as to what goes into creating a game, and I wouldn't be doing it alone.
I'm doing this for fun, not to release a finished product.
holy crap, never played with rim lighting before. Very cool stuff!!!! I found a simple fresnel shader for maya and plugged it into the incandescence:
[Blocked Image: http://marshmonkey.googlepages.com/kart_rimlight.jpg]
thats without any lighting, would make a kart game look pretty ace methinks.
gah, must. start. on. rider.
I'd rather do my own thing.
ok, I made some cubemaps to add specularity, I'm going to call the kart done at least until I finish a rider. I also made a bunch of different colors, clicky http://marshmonkey.com/colors.html to see them
[Blocked Image: http://marshmonkey.googlepages.com/kartshot2.jpg]
I started dressing it up a little bit but I keep getting to the point where I think it looks too distracting so I take it back off. I scaled up the exhaust but couldnt really find anywhere else to push the scale without wierding it up. This shot is also with textures quartered down to a 512 for the body and a 256 for the wheels. Thoughts? I'm probably going to move onto to doing a driver soon. I'm not sure I like the skin changes, it looks like an episode of "pimp my kart"
I want to keep it very clean looking, so I'm not sure about adding a ton of stripes and decals. Also I was thinking of keeping everything to just a spec and diffuse map. Scaling some of the stuff up is probably a good idea to get things a little more cartoony, I will also be able to tweak that stuff further once I get a rider in there and see how that looks.
I don't think it's too over the top in texture and polycount, It's going to be running on a very lightweight engine like ogre, and there isn't going to be a whole lot else in the scene. I just was using my textures at source resolution but they could easily be sized down without any issues if needed.
I want to keep a very polished and cartoony appearance, like double dash and mario galaxy, but would still like to add a few details as suggested . . . any ideas? A gas cap perhaps? Some more panel lines perhaps too.
Me and my friends are about as hard core as you can get about mario kart, and I have been fantasizing about making a mario kart clone type game on the pc. I made a little kart model to ease my pangs.
just under 3k tri's one 1024 for the body and a 512 for the wheels. Both could be sized down if needed without much loss visually since they are mostly gradients and flat colors. These are just viewport shots but I'm planning on a heavy dose of specularity or env mapping if it ever sees an engine.
My next goal is to add a rider with a bobblehead-sized helmet and then animate him turning left and right as well as a wipeout anim. If I get that far then I plan to tackle an entire course for this puppy to drive on.
[Blocked Image: http://marshmonkey.googlepages.com/kartshot.jpg]
you guys can take me off the list, I have officially left the game industry for the time being at least. Me and some friends from Sandcastle are starting a new studio for these guys: http://realityx.com/ where I am going to be an "Interactive Designer" The game industry has not been kind to me and I am looking forward to having a normal job for awhile.
I play wow and a couple of other games (bf2, some source mods) in 2560x1600, I have a moderately pimped dell XPS with 2 gigs ram and a geforce 7950 GX2
thanks guys, I have a third interview at a very cool place on tuesday so I will let everyone know if it goes well. I was actually kind of relieved to say goodbye to this place, I wasn't that happy there. I just feel bad for the people that that haven't gone through this 3 times and try to stick out months of not being paid even with mortgages and families, hoping that things will turn around. 
