A new Jidousha Shakai update is available.



Technical
Files Submitted: Tuesday, 29.5.2018 19:00
Files Accepted: Wednesday, 30.5.2018 01:00
Accessibility Branch: release_technical

• Enabled new pause menu. (Settings, Graphics, Controls, etc)
  
• Introduced dynamic profile system. (Dynamically change player profile that contains settings, saves, and various other information pertaining to profile)
  
• Completely rewritten pause menu.
  
• Completely rewritten graphics manager.
  
• Completely rewritten Force Feedback manager and integration.
  
• Completely rewritten car safety aids.
  
• Completely rewritten Post Process manager.
  
• Enable extra Post Processing to replace old Post Processor.
  
• Expanded test map. (Removed wonky jumps, extended tarmac area, added basic road for testing wheel friction settings)
  
• Extended vehicle control via Controller.
  
• Fixed brake lights and hazard lights not glowing correctly.
  
• Fixed brake calipers not rotating with wheels.
  
• Fixed windshield shader not blending with sky shader.
  
• Fixed vehicle paint turning pink when pressing debug controls (Testing something that should've been removed a long time ago, woopsie)

• Enabled error messages for Force Feedback. (Mostly for testing purposes, may add an option to turn on and off debug messages for those who are interested)
  
• At nightime, the car may glow blue or orange.
  
• When looking at the moon, it will adopt the sun flare.

While I do understand it would be most beneficial to players of the game to add in the bulk of content (cars, maps, etc) right now, this doesn't align with the current Phase plan which I mentioned earlier. The early phases of rewriting the games most basic components and mechanics to be the most optimized and performant mean there will be a lot of back-end work that you don't see or notice. However, THE BULK of this back-end work has already been completed in the last two updates and will allow for more "visual" content to be added in the following updates. It is important to understand that the game cannot be made without a strong base and would cause problems in the future if it is rushed through instead of focusing multiple updates and stress test on these system in order to make them reliable.

I do ask of your patience, thank you. :)

Hi all,

Hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend. Me and my family will be observing Memorial Day today (Monday, 28) in the USA. There will be no weekly update today because of this. However, the weekly update is scheduled for tomorrow once I get back from observing the holiday.

Enjoy your Monday!

A new Jidousha Shakai update is available.



Technical
Files Submitted: Monday, 21.5.2018 17:00
Files Accepted: Tuesday, 22.5.2018 02:00
Accessibility Branch: release_technical

• First weekly release. Simple car and map to test physics, graphical capability, etc.

• Menu's disabled.
  
• Keyboard shifting configuration has changed so it doesn't conflict with Shift+Tab for game overlay. (Q - Shift Down, E - Shift Up)
  
• Graphics are automatically set based on your system settings to achieve a minimum of 60FPS. (If there are any problems you encounter with this system, please let me know. This system is only for this update since menu's are disabled. It will be used for an auto graphics option in the future.)

Hey guys.

I didn't want to include this in the previous announcement as there was a lot of info there that would've foreshadowed this big change. Consistent updates to Jidousha Shakai are returning in the form of weekly updates to the main branch. I'm excited to announce this as I believe I need all the community feedback I can get when it comes to developing JS. Everytime there is an update, I will make an announcement with what's changed, what's added, what may be experimental, and so on.


The plan is to have an update at the minimum of every Monday, however I may put out more updates throughout the week. It all depends on my progress and the feedback from the community.


As mentioned in the previous announcement, the huge update I was working on is being trimmed down to accommodate a certain goal I have for JS. This means I will be providing constant updates every week that are contained within this HUGE update. If I feel the build is stable and bug free enough to be played by new and old players, I will be putting it on the main branch. If I feel the features are still experimental, I will release them to the nightly branch. You will be notified of every update via an announcement that will specify.


No! In fact it means the contrary, more features will be released. However, I will not be holding them back privately, this game is in Early Access after all, and it would be best to include the player base to shape these updates.

If you haven't read the previous announcement please do, this is important that our players realize the game's status and direction. This includes things like mod support, multiplayer, and cars of course.

Thank you everyone, have a nice day.

Hey guys.

Wanted to start this all off by saying I apologize for my lack of communication with what's left of the community of JS. I've been reading everything you guys have been saying on the forums and Discord. Some bad, some good, some anxious. I thank you to all that have been sticking with us through all this time.

The game started out as a simple customization game with one car, and it eventually expanded to multiple cars, and the future looked promising. Things began to spiral, and the game got objectively worse and worse. As I sat here picking up the pieces to completely renew Jidousha Shakai, I realized the game is no longer what it was originally meant to be. This is thanks to my Administrator and Volunteer teams on Discord. Gone are the simple times of buying a car, heading into the garage, and then taking your creation onto the streets.




As I'm really looking at JS, I'm not satisfied with what it's become. I'm not satisfied with the direction the game is currently taking. I'm definitely not satisfied with the response and feedback I've been getting. And most of all, I'm not satisfied with having a half assed multiplayer mode and an unreleased single-player mode as the main point of the game. So after careful consideration I've decided to put the current version of the game on a diet so it can follow the original goal and ideals of JS when it was first released.

This means a lot of previous ideas and concepts will be cut for the sake of having a finished base game. No houses. No player customization. No highly complicated or advanced systems. Just cars, customization, and your choice of driving style. The goal is to chase after a complete, optimized, and polished base game before focusing on any other part of the game.


I will not be able to directly follow this phase schedule as I plan to keep multiplayer as part of the game, however single player will take priority for right now.

These will be the goals for Jidousha Shakai to reach for it to be considered a complete base game. They are broken down into 3 phases. These goals in no way reflect the final state of the game, but instead indicate a base that is ready to branch out for more content.

This phase is to get a basic single-player mode with a variety of cars to choose from and fluid menus for ease of operation. This phase will closely match the current version of JS.

• Fun, challenging, realistic physics with optimized assistants and gameplay features.
  
• 20+ cars to choose from with at least 2 customization options per group. (front bumper, rear bumper, spoiler, etc)
  
• Fluid and easy to navigate UI system with controller and wheel support. (Settings, Customization, etc)

This phase is focused on providing extended playing functions such as multiplayer and mod support.

• Basic multiplayer with freeroam and drift gamemodes, including the ability to use cars that are made in singleplayer with full sync for customization.
  
• Basic mod support for cars, maps, engines, sounds, and textures.
  
• Full wheel support, with advanced Force Feedback that included road effects, vibrations, wheel traction, and weight transfer.
  
• Full implementation of automatic, manual, and sequential transmissions.

This phase is focused on overall polishing the game and expanding on the system that are already present in the game such as expanding mod support, and improving overall graphical fidelity.

• Advanced mod support for custom scripts, scenario, and customization.
  
• Clean, optimized graphical fidelity that include AAA techniques for best quality to performance ratio.
  
• Complete PBR workflow.
  
• Full mod support for cars, maps, engines, sounds, and textures.

This phase is focused on finalizing the core of the game for expansion. This means overall optimization, fixing pesky bugs, and more polishing without really adding anything to the game.

• Further polish.
  
• Optimize and improve performance in any core game component.
  
• Finalize UI and improve compatibility with any devices that may not be included in general bracket.
  

Let me know what you guys think! As always you can reach me on Discord, or my contact email.

Hi all, I want to update you guys on the next huge update that will be dropping pretty soon. I'm excited for this, but before we get to the good stuff, there are some important things I need to get across so we don't have any misunderstandings in the future.


Jidousha Shakai will no longer support older systems of varying architecture. It is too much work to try and support older hardware that only accounts for less than 1% of JS players, so in a difficult decision, I am no longer supporting the following..

• DirectX 9 support is being removed.
  
• 32 bit machines will no longer be supported. (64-bit only from now on)
  
• OpenGL 2 support is being removed.

If you use an older 64-bit machine, you will still be able to play JS with OpenGL ES. However, please do note that all advancements and optimizations will be the most beneficial on DX10, DX11, DX12, and in the future Vulkan, and Metal (OSX).


Mod Support Tools - Addons
Some of you have had access to the mod tools for a couple of months and have provided me with some great data and features to add to them. Once these tools become public they will be part of the main game for all owners to use. In addition, to regular car, map, and part mods, there will also be mod tool addons. These addons will be downloadable assets/packs of objects, scripts, and materials to use within JS. These packs can be made by anyone and can range from starter packs to simple helper packs to get people started in the editor. The mod tools give you access to most objects that JS uses, but in addition you get access to even more objects with this addon packs. I will be providing a couple starter packs of objects, sounds, and materials that are not part of JS in order to keep the main size of JS at a minimum.

Verified Mod Program
The verified mod program is still in alpha but will be introduced a little bit after mod tools are introduced. The basics of this program will be having the highest quality mods represented in their own category on the mod browser. Once a mod has been on the workshop for 1 month it will be eligible for the verified mod program. From the mod tools menu, you can view all of your mods and submit a mod to the verified mod program completely within game. These mods will be manually reviewed for quality and content via a small list of guidelines. We will also check for script errors and incomplete or broken assets in addition to a PBR Quality Check.

Now that we've got that out of the way, we get to talk about the fun stuff!




I know a lot of you don't like the way JS looks currently, like an old PS2 game. While I personally feel a game shouldn't be judged by it's graphical fidelity, it does make the game nice to look at. So I've learned and took a dive into the grapical side of the engine and I'd say the results are pretty good for someone who barely know's how to atlas a texture. With that said, graphical capability doesn't come without it's downsides, and that is performance impact. While I've done as much optimizing as I could, some things just aren't practical for all hardware and many people realize this already. The graphics menu has been revamped to allow greater control over JS and it's graphical features. You have access to turning off bloom, motion blur, more control over the resolution scale, 3 types of Anti-Aliasing, and more.

Of course, you can turn all of this stuff down if you only care about performance, but for those cool screenshot's you definitely have the option to make it pretty. This isn't the ending graphical look of JS as I will no doubt find new techniques for things and better ways to optimize stuff, this is how it will be for now.




I've been putting a lot of work into the multiplayer side of JS because of the fact it makes more sense right now. Multiplayer is fun and it costs less for me to make compared to a rich single player experience. My goals for single player are to have a complete story in a lively Japanese city, complete with voice actors and professional animation. This of course will take a while and since multiplayer is the most requested thing aside from car requests, it will no doubt be the more focused component for now.

Enough about why single player has been taking a backseat. Single player returns nonetheless in mostly the same way it was before, except it will be dubbed "Sandbox." The reasoning behind this is that the full Career won't be here for a while and I'd still like to have people be able to play without being online in a server, so this Sandbox mode will fill the void for single player. In this mode you will be able to buy and upgrade your cars however you please as there will be no money restrictions just like before. For the meantime I will try and put some cool activities around the map for singleplayer Sandbox mode, but in the meantime you'll mostly just be modifying cars and taking it around the city in exploration and what not. The cars made in sandbox mode will be available directly in all multiplayer lobbies, fully customized, available for everyone else to see. When mod tools are released, you'll also be able to use them in Sandbox mode. (Similar to BeamNG)




Optimizations
Multiplayer has received a bunch of fixes and changes. A lot of you who have been testing it on the beta branch have given me some really good feedback while testing it. I've completely optimized the net code for a smoother experiencing. Getting in a car is smoother and there is more tips in-game when you need help such as wondering why you can't exit a car or get out of one. (In general, car's must be off and the handbrake must be engaged to exit a car)

Passenger Seats
A car will now have the number of seats it came with instead of just a driver and passenger. Yes, this means you can go drifting with your sedan fully packed if that's what you like! I've been wanting to have this for a while and it's finally done, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. In addition, being a passenger, you also have more camera angles available now. Interior view has received a considerable amount of updates also.


Offroading coming to JS! :O

There are more things to do in singleplayer and multiplayer now. Such as visiting buildings, sitting down at various chairs and benches, listening to music via a boombox (if online this music is synced across the network), watching TV in the apartment/house testing area, and more.

JS is first and foremost a game about cars, but in addition to the open world aspect of the game, I want there to be more than that. This means having a bunch of interactive things to do around town that doesn't just have to do with cars. This is the first step of this and there is certainly more to come.

JS will have apartments, houses, garages, and other buildings that you can purchase with money earned from in-game. These will kind of work like GTA's houses except the house you own in single-player will also be in multiplayer. In order to keep things fair, all houses that are purchasable will be shared. This means separate houses that don't have multiple dwelling units in them won't be purchasable. You will only be able to purchase apartments, condo's, or multi-dwelling units that allow for multiple people to be occupying them in a server. In the future this might change so I can allow for purchasing of separate non-shared houses, but for now this is how it has to be for the most compatibility.

With that said, there is an apartment/testing area in the current map that is for you to test out various things before they are put into game. You can find this area by opening your pause menu, going to your map, and setting the destination to the clearly marked area called "Apartment/House Testing Area". Upon setting a destination, an arrow will popup guiding you to the destination. (This is not GPS, just a simple guide arrow)

Within this area you can go into various apartments/houses and "visit" them. This "visiting" is unrestricted for testing purposes, but in the future you will only be able to visit apartments/houses that belong to you or belong to people that have the appropriate permissions setup for guest access.

When visiting you will be able to explore the unit and do various activities mentioned above, like sitting, playing music, watching TV, turning lights on and off, etc.

JS now features character customization! This feature isn't so much requested because most people just care about driving in a driving game, but nonetheless it adds extra personalization to the game. I will probably be rocking the racing suit anyways, but wouldn't it be cool to be have a character you can customize just like the Sims? That is now JS. The system is still in early alpha and has some bugs but it works for the most part and I'd like to get people testing it in the meantime. For now there are only basic items like shirts, pants, hats, glasses, and some various colors to these items.

Last but not least, the car list. The car list has been rather small for most of the lifetime in JS. That's only because I've been focusing on developing the actual game first, then adding cars. I've become pretty satisfied with the physics and think it's time to start adding to the car list. The newest beta branch already includes some cool cars that were added, but I've added even more cars to the list. Some don't have customization as I don't have that much time to spend on parts, but they will slowly be added over time as I focus on each car.

Hello all! I hope you guys are enjoying the latest update of JS that is available on the nightly_public branch. If you are unaware of the branch or how to get to it you can goto this page, How To Opt Into A Beta to find out how to play the newest update.


I'd like to address that there was a nasty bug that didn't come up in testing that was found out yesterday. To keep things short, this caused the "Waiting For Host" window to appear and you be unable to spawn. This was fixed in a series of 3 patch updates today that also fixed other various things like camera angles, car spawning, and car sounds. You guys testing and playing the beta branch are very helpful in helping fix bugs as they are reported. There are some in there I would've never thought of. So I ask, please continue to play and find/report bugs to me so I may fix them as soon as possible.


It has come up that many of you would like more options as far as two-wheeled vehicles. Yes, I mean motorcycles and what not. I've taken this into consideration because I'd also like to provide even more options like Go Karts and what not. However, which gets added first will be up to you guys via a poll. Please head over to our official website, Jidousha Shakai and vote on the poll titled "Other Vehicles Poll" so you can vote on which group of vehicles will be added first. This group of vehicles will be added in between or after the majority of the main car list ( which you can see here ) is added to the Sandbox mode.

Join Our Discord so you can directly message me for quick support or if you'd like to more formally contact someone you help you, then you may do that through our website also.

Hello all. I just streamed a small video of the Valentine's Day update! This mainly consisted of some small multiplayer gameplay driving around the map and finding some funny bugs I didn't know about. This update is scheduled for tomorrow and will include Sandbox Single Player and Sandbox Multiplayer modes. If you'd like a peek at what is coming then you can head over to my YouTube channel or Twitch channel to watch the full 40-minute video.

YouTube Link

TwitchLink

PS: Yes, I know the tree shaders are glitched out in the video. Thanks! :)

If you'd like first information on the rebirth of Jidousha Shakai and to participate in developer hosted multiplayer games for testing purposes and what not, please make sure you join our Discord. Immediate support and developer communication is also offered to anyone that needs it. (I cannot guarantee I will respond for casual talk not related to the game itself)



https://discord.gg/PKPZ2kC

If you are only interested in participating in the multiplayer beta then you can go directly to the bottom of this post.



Jidosuha Shakai now includes the ability to apply materials to all body parts of your car separately in addition to the full paint control you already have. You can think of it as simply dropping a pattern onto a body part except this body part is completely PBR (lighting) affected and not just a texture. These materials lay on top of paint however decals can be put over materials.



I thought it would be a cool idea to have seasonal/holiday/special variants of these materials that are only given for a limited time.In order to further test this, these X-mas themed materials will only be available till new year! More information on how to get these for your account will be posted when I have more information on it.







As I mentioned, since I don't have a great gift to give for the holidays I decided to open up the multiplayer branch for people to try out. It includes full multiplayer, server, lobby, and chat support that is mainly strictly for stress testing, general testing, and proof of concept. Anyone will be able to try this branch out if they own the game by following this guide and selecting nightly_public from the beta menu.

If you are testing the multiplayer branch you need to delete some files because the beta branch has a completely different save architecture. This is of course a downside to testing a private version of the game that was never meant to be public.

C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\CloudWeight\Jidousha Shakai (delete everything in there)

Documents/CloudWeight/Jidousha Shakai (delete settings.ini and graphics.ini)

Have fun and make sure to post back your results! Please note (there is no options menu, just game-play, please be aware of this when testing the multiplayer branch)