Colourful liveries and bike customisation for 0.0.6

0.0.6 adds bike customisability and liveries! There are currently 3 sets of bike parts available, and 1 cockpit and 1 engine in each set. The new bike customisation allows for players to build their bike from each of the 3 sets, then add a livery to the bike. This allows for (if my maths is right!) 9 different options for your bike, on top of the 10 livery colour themes to choose from.

Bike Parts

Each of the 3 sets have slightly different stats to acceleration, top speed, handling, shields and armour. With this new system, they can be upgraded to improve their stats. These 3 will be treated as the 'base' sets, and as such each set will have a speciality - Set 1 Lynx has a balanced stat spread with good shields, ideal for new pilots. Set 2 Pangolin has a higher top speed and armour, but poor acceleration and shields, and Set 3 Eidolon has great handling, but slower top speed with lower armour. 

You can blend parts from different sets to tailor to your individual driving style. Cockpits determine armour shields and handling, while Engines determine acceleration and top speed. While not a physical attribute on your bike, your booster determines your booster trail colour as well stats in booster recharge speed and power. Currently there is one booster to choose from, but can be easily expanded. Wheels can also be chosen and customised but provide no benefits to performance. 

Liveries

Liveries are super important to the look of Phaseshift, I wanted to make sure to give the player enough power to customise their bike to how they want, while making sure the bikes look and feel part of the Phaseshift universe. This time around, instead of giving the player full control of their liveries -each layer colour, as well emission colour and race number; players unlock different colour schemes and livery patterns. Players also unlock sponsorships and can then layer their bike with liveries, colour themes, emission colour and sponsorship types for both primary and secondary sponsorhips. (These sponsorships also give bonuses during story mode.) Along with the aforementioned bike builder for cockpits, engines, boosters and wheels, this gives the player massive freedom to create whatever bike they desire. 

Using an unlockable livery system also means I can make sure the colour themes fit the Phaseshift aesthetic, while giving the player something to unlock while they play.

One other important aspect of liveries was making sure the UVs were simple enough, so that if we exposed the shader, players could potentially upload their own designs for liveries. As mentioned with the Track Builder, customisable content is one of the PS:E design principles. The current 'BGD' made liveries aren't quite of the quality I want for the final game, but it's a good start as a concept to test the bespoke shader and to get the look and feel I want for the bike visuals. Ideally, I want more detail on the bikes, driving home the PS1 shaded style, maybe one more colour available for the liveries with an additional layer to livery shapes for things like trims or detailing.

HUD

A lot of work has also been done on the HUD this version, always an iterative process I was keen to get a base level HUD down first to get an idea on what was important to the player as they play. 

Sizing is super important, I'm trying to make things readable, while not completely absorbing screen space real estate in the process. Some of the HUD parts will come alive as animations are added, but for now I think this is a good start, and it is functional for now.