Devlog 7: Finished Adding Submarine Polish and started working on building an environment

Submarine Controls: Fixed and Polished

During further testing of the submarine on new features, I felt like steering the submarine felt awkward as it was locked on a flat horizontal plane. Pitching up and down required extra key binds.
So I decided to change/improve the physics and input methods of the submarine so driving it feels much more smoother.

• From Third person Camera to Periscope:

I decided to change my third person camera into a periscope to give my game a more ‘claustrophobic’ feel hoping to get the element to show how small you are in such a big ocean.

Well, the periscope has a open and shut animation and well as audio polish. The player can see through a small circle and see their surroundings. (Also for visual polish when the submarine is at low health the glass will even appear cracked!)

• Full Axis mouse control:

Moving the mouse left and right handles the Yaw (left and right) but now I made it so that it can handle the pitch (up and down) so the player can point the sub’s nose up when ascending.

• Keyboard Axis controls:

The player does have the direct keys for vertical changes like diving and climbing still giving players all the options when using the submarine.

• Full Audio Response:

I have added dynamics pitch scaling so the background engine hum will go change when in different states. Quiet for idle. Loud for moving. I added hiss and bubble effects just like how real submarine use their ballasts to rise and fall, hull breach alarms, collision thuds, warning sounds as well deep pressure creaking of the hull.

• Death Animation and Warning Collision:

When the player reaches 0(Zero) health, the sub will like spin out of control and ‘crash land’ in the water. The screens will show errors and soon fade away. The scene then reloads.

Also using a Shapecast3D, I managed to make a collisions system. The bottom left text will say ‘COLLISION : FINE’ if there are no objects in the enlarged ShapeCast but if there are objects in that shape the text will go red and say ‘COLLISION : WARNING’

Responsive Steering Controls:

I also added a script to the steering wheel so it would turn as the player is moving the mouse to give it more responsiveness. Much better than a static wheel in the front.

Marine Particles:

Additionally, to give that immersive feel I made simple marine particles. These are like your pieces of plankton or dust in the ocean. They just float around the screen and even rush by appropriate to the sub’s velocity.

Upgrading the Ocean: Boujie Water Shader

After the player features and movement was locked in. It was time for environmental visuals. I realised that my basic volumetric fog wasn’t quite cutting it for an immersive ocean.

After some research, I stumbled upon the fantastic Boujie Water Shader created by Cory Petkovsek (GodotNite / Boujie)

I love this addon. It really brings the ocean to life using Gerstner waves this is really good for optimization in the future!

What’s Next?

With Submarine movement, UI and audio out of the way, the focus is now entirely towards Level Design and Gameplay loops.

Here is my todo list:

1. Mapping out ocean zones:

I will have 3 zones and each zone has 4 artifacts. Each zone will get darker, and more scarier.

1. Relic Retrieval:

Now that I am changing my placeholder of ‘RINGS : 0/12’ to Relics I am thinking of making 12 ancient, artifacts scattered across the map waiting for the player to collect them.

1. Potential Underwater Hazards:

By placing environmental obstacles, tight squeeze caverns, minefields or even patrolling enemies this will make the gameplay much more exciting!

See you in the next devlog where we explore level design!

Devlog 6 Finished Making the Interactive UI

Took a little while but in the end, totally worth it!

What have I accomplished:

Real-Time Telemetry Arrays:

Dynamic Navigation Tools:

Integrated a fully functional Compass Heading indicator, alongside precise Speed (m/s) and Depth trackers linked directly to the sub’s 3D transform and linear physics state.

Not to mention there is also a compass, a progress tracker and a warning system

Vital Resource Gauges:

The console now cleanly maps out real-time Stamina and Exhaustion meters to handle high-speed maneuvering and sprint cooldowns smoothly.

Smart Health & “Frame-Before” Velocity Systems:

Implemented a custom predictive physics calculation that catches the sub’s exact velocity right before a collision occurs. This completely bypasses physics-engine quirks (like velocity instantly dropping to zero on impact frames), ensuring blunt collisions register perfectly every time.

Dynamic Hull Integrity Status:

The hull damage bar dynamically recalculates color states and screen readouts:

Above 66%: Status reads STABLE with green theme aesthetics.25% to 66%: Automatically shifts to a warning state (DAMAGED) with an orange alert profile.

Emergency Visual Alert System (Dynamic Warning Lights):

When structural health drops below the 25% Critical Zone, a time-accumulating sine wave engine takes over the console mesh arrays. This triggers an aggressive, high-speed visual flashing sequence across the interior status plates to warn the player of if its gonna die.

Terminal Polish & Hacking Decorations:

To capture that retro, high-tech submarine atmosphere, the dashboard now features a multi-layered background Parallax Hacking Screen that slides continuously behind the telemetry values.

Combined with sudden flickering screen effects, the terminal reacts heavily to impact forces, making the player feel every heavy rattle when diving too fast into rocky corridors.

What’s next?

• I want to make my 3rd person camera a periscope with the cute little spyglass on top of the submarine and allow to have a 360 degree of motion

• Adding a death screen and animation, not so sure of seeing myself still being able to run

• Also doing something about this Collision Warning alert in the bottom left corner.

• Definitely add some visual juice (screen shake, glass crack) but that’s low priority

• Also some audio!

See you guys later!

ALERT ALERT ALERT: Actual progress coming in!

I have been pretty busy this week working on my other custom WarioWare game, but I finally managed to crack it.

By carefully placing each and every word, section, icon and evaluating every single number… the top screen of the submarine is officially done!

What’s on the screen right now:

• Hull Integrity: A functioning system variable.
• Custom Healthbar: A sick-looking visual health layout.
• Rings / Checkpoint tracking: Keeps tabs on your current objectives.
• Status Alarms: Two red dots on the wings (which will flash for critical signs or dangers once I code the triggers).

I got so excited that I even found a cool hacking matrix background and threw a Parallax2D on it so it looks like the sub is constantly processing code in the background

On top of that, I added a custom shader flicker effect so it feels like a real, raw electronic monitor. As you can see in the screenshot, I just slapped a ColorRect2D added some code (with the help of AI as I don’t know jack about shader code) and BOOM!

The big game-changer: I just switched the viewport texture configuration from the default Albedo slot over to the Emission channel so the cockpit doesn’t look so dull. Because the display now literally emits its own light into the dark, I was able to delete the temporary OmniLight3D from the scene entirely. The cockpit lighting looks way more natural now.

Next Up:
Now that the formula is down, I’m moving on to complete the other two viewports: the primary speedometer display right on the steering wheel, and the auxiliary bottom viewport sitting behind it.

Give me a follow to see the next updates as they happen!

Fixing the Submarine Screen Layout

Spent some time wrestling with Godot’s SubViewport system today to get the submarine’s overhead display screen actually working.

What went down:

• The Layout Battle: Setting up the UI scene with clean container nodes (CenterContainer and VBoxContainer) so the labels stay organized and readable.
• The UV Stretch Crisis: For a while, the text was completely giant and blown out across the entire 3D mesh. Turns out the mesh’s UV unwrapping stretched the texture out like crazy. After a lot of tweaking, setting a custom UV1 scale of -2.0 on the material ended up being the magic number to force everything to shrink down and fit right onto the screen arch.
• Viewport Quirks: Dealt with some classic Godot issues where the texture kept disappearing or turning bright purple when making edits, but finally got the paths reconnected and running.

Next Steps: I have to now fix and test these screens and to make sure they display the text flawlessly. Next up is prettying it up to make the text layouts look nice and crisp and then getting the rest of the cockpit dashboard screens mapped out.

🌊 Submarine Devlog Update: Polishing the Pilot Experience! 🚀

🛠️ What’s New?

I have decided to shelf the torpedoes and missiles for a bit. The absolute priority right now is making the submarine movement feel completely seamless before adding combat mechanics! Here is what just went live:

• 🎥 Dynamic Camera Sway: Added procedural camera sway that reacts directly to the submarine’s velocity and turn angles, making the underwater physics feel incredibly weighty!
• 🔄 Dual-Perspective Toggle: Implemented a first-person cockpit view. Players can now seamlessly toggle between 3rd-person and 1st-person perspectives by tapping the V key!

🛑 Current Roadblocks & Design Hurdles

1. 🎛️ Overwhelming Cockpit Screens

I am starting to build out the internal monitors and pilot UI. However, in my opinion, the current setup of these screens covers the view a bit too much. The player can’t really see the outside environment!

2. 💥 Camera Clipping Through Walls

Also, something I am discovering is that despite using a standard SpringArm3D node for my third-person view, the camera is still clipping into the walls. I have been banging my head for so long trying to stop it from clipping!

🚀 What’s Next?

Over the next few days, my primary focus will be breathing life into the cockpit interior:

• 📺 Adding Submarine UI: Actively building and designing the interface systems for the dashboard.
• ✍️ Filling Empty Screens: Populating those blank monitors with live text, data feeds, and telemetry.

💬 Any Suggestions? Let Me Know in the Comments! 👇

I would love to get your input on how to solve these issues:

• How should I handle the screen layout? What are your favorite tricks for keeping a cockpit UI highly functional without completely blocking the player’s view of the outside world?
• How can I fix the camera clipping? If you have experience with SpringArm3D or collision detection in this engine, what am I missing to keep the camera outside the cave walls?
• How can I make the screens look properly sci-fi? What kind of design elements, color palettes, or visual details should I add to give the terminal text that high-tech, futuristic submarine vibe?

Drop your ideas and suggestions in the comments below low key really appreciate the help! ⬇️

Ever played a game like Trackmania? How about underwater??

What’s happened?

I am making a racing inspired game with beautiful underwater visuals. Currently working on the smooth ahh submarine movement as well as BUBBLES!

• Realistic Bubbles: I created a sphere and slapped on a realistic transparent bubble shader that I had spent hours looking over the internet on how to code in shader text and finally got something working.
• Dynamic Trails: I duplicated a few of the GPU particles and slapped them on all sides of the submarine.
• Full Directional Logic: Then with a few lines of code, I got them to dynamically emit bubbles wherever I go. It works for the strafing side-to-side as well as climbing and diving.

Overall, a good start to the movement of the submarine.

What’s next?

I will be making a missile that can shoot walls of rock down! This will be apart of the underwater obstacle course I will be making.

Making Movement for the Submarine