Looney Tunes: Vehicular Velocity (Announcement)

Warning: The Following screenshots are very early in development and heavily work in progress, pretty much everything has the possibility to change.

Looney Tunes: Vehicular Velocity is a campaign mod that's basically what you'd expect, pure chaos that still applies to Hit & Run's many restrictions.
But what exactly does this mod entail? Well...


No release date in planned for the time being, but I'm aiming to get it out by the end of 2024.
Stay tuned for more updates.

Interesting!

very cool mod

Oh, huh! Not too long ago I finished re-watching The Looney Tunes Show (which held up even better than I remember it being). While this mod isn't capturing that specific era of Looney Tunes and rather it's more popular 'Golden Era', I still hold the more critically acclaimed films up in high regard and am looking forward to this based on the small little teasers! I also really loved the Back in Action video game when I was a kid, which is where a majority of these character models appear to come from just at a quick glance.

While I understand everything posted here is a heavy work in progress and not indicative of a final product, there are a couple of things I'm really interested in.

• I adore the re-done textures present in the screenshots given. Where did they come from? Were these also from Back in Action, or completely done from scratch? It strikes me as something that suits Hit & Run extremely well compared to the mostly flat colored/cel-shaded approach most of the other 3D platformer Looney Tunes games went with.
  
• The aspect of two playable characters with two playable Levels seems really neat! Will there be an overarching plot to both Levels, or are these mostly going to stick to being regulated to their own missions?
  
• Would non-mission/pedestrian NPCs in this mod consist of recognizable Looney Tunes characters, or will these be generic characters that just kinda fit the Looney Tunes aesthetic? I would point to Back in Action being a good place to scr*** models from for this role, but the most that I think fits is the 'Tourist' enemy the game re-uses a couple of times. Recurring Looney Tunes characters I think would be nice, but I can also understand the challenge of not using NPCs that you'll also see hosting missions.
  
• On the topic of the Back in Action video game, I couldn't help but notice one of the screenshots depict a mission that intentionally uses the same setup as 'Firework' minigame where you play as Wile E. Coyote and catch Roadrunner. However, the screenshots seem to suggest you'll be playing as Bugs and Daffy through a majority of the Levels instead. Is this perhaps a Bonus Mission or Wager Race replacement?
  
• On the topic of music, I assume the 'copyright friendly' tracks will mostly be taken from the 3D Looney Tunes show games? Would love to hear some tracks from Sheep Raider/Sheep, Dog, and Wolf (please play this one if anyone here hasn't played it yet - legitimately creative cartoon puzzle platformer!) and Back in Action as well!

Hey Kenny, glad to see you're interested in it. In response to what you said:

"While this mod isn't capturing that specific era of Looney Tunes-"
While the mod is focusing the most on the golden era, there will be a handful of references to more recent shows. (For example, a lot of the planned cars are gonna come from The Looney Tunes Show).

"I also really loved the Back in Action video game when I was a kid, which is where a majority of these character models appear to come from just at a quick glance."
The models are actually from the mobile game, 'World of Mayhem'. As such the characters I can include are limited to those that appear in it, although ones who's models aren't in the game will still be referenced in some way or another. However this only applies to the more obscure characters like Rocky and Mugsy.

"I adore the re-done textures present in the screenshots given. Where did they come from?"
All done from scratch. I colour picked colours from the shorts (not really necessary, but it saved me having to create the colours from scratch), then just simply replaced a detailed texture with that one colour, a few others if need be, before adding a film grain effect to give it a bit more detail. It takes more time than replacing the textures with pre-existing ones, but it gives it a more unique look that's more authentic to the shorts, particularly the later more stylised backgrounds,

"Will there be an overarching plot to both Levels, or are these mostly going to stick to being regulated to their own missions?"
Every mission is basically gonna be stand alone to just allow me to do whatever. Very rarely one mission will lead into the next but pretty much each mission will be it's own thing.

"Would non-mission/pedestrian NPCs in this mod consist of recognizable Looney Tunes characters, or will these be generic characters that just kinda fit the Looney Tunes aesthetic?"
Originally I was gonna go for the Tag Team Racing pedestrians. But I completely forgot Back in Action had NPCs so I'll have to see if I can get those.

"One of the screenshots depict a mission that intentionally uses the same setup as 'Firework' minigame where you play as Wile E. Coyote and catch Roadrunner."
That was the main inspiration for it, although instead of avoiding cars you have to avoid cacti or the rocket will explode after hitting a few.

"The screenshots seem to suggest you'll be playing as Bugs and Daffy through a majority of the Levels instead. Is this perhaps a Bonus Mission or Wager Race replacement?"
Whereas the main story missions will only be playable with Bugs or Daffy, street races and bonus missions will always make you play as another character instead, since there's just too many good ones to have them only stuck as NPCs. So there'll possibly be up to 10 different playable characters.

"On the topic of music, I assume the 'copyright friendly' tracks will mostly be taken from the 3D Looney Tunes show games?"
Really any cartoony feeling game. So far the only non-copyright tracks I've sorted out is a Back in Action track and one from Tom & Jerry: War of the Whiskers.
However I really only recommend using this for things like Youtube, as the classical soundtrack really adds to the missions and the general feel. (Although I can guarantee you the non-copyright filesize will be much lower).

While the mod is focusing the most on the golden era, there will be a handful of references to more recent shows. (For example, a lot of the planned cars are gonna come from The Looney Tunes Show).

Super happy to hear this, knowing it mostly increases the chances of Daffy's Parade Float actually making it in (though I understand that would be a pain to model to get the paper mache effect). Would also be rad to see Duck Dodgers' redesign from the 2004 cartoon as well! I feel the original Chunk Jones short outfit would be more fitting overall to the mod's style and what it pays tribute to, but I always preferred the redesign.

I'm sadly not familiar enough with what World of Mayhem offers or even entails (outside of Big Chungus/Fat Bugs Bunny being added to play along with the joke back when that was popular), but it's good to see the models from that are of pretty fair quality.

The idea of potentially paying tribute to the other Looney Tunes TV shows released after the original golden era also had me curious if the model format for Tiny Toons Adventures: Defenders of the Universe was ever figured out or anything, but sadly no? They'd make some decent models to quickly recolor and slap in as a generic NPC or near the school.

I definitely wouldn't rule out doing a couple of Tag Team Racing models as well though, on the topic of those. I honestly can't recall if the 'Tourist' NPC is ever extensively recolored or anything to match the areas, so pickings are likely pretty slim in that game.

Whereas the main story missions will only be playable with Bugs or Daffy, street races and bonus missions will always make you play as another character instead, since there's just too many good ones to have them only stuck as NPCs. So there'll possibly be up to 10 different playable characters.

Think that's a great call overall! A lot of characters and it would be unfortunate to be regulated to just a few since the cast kind of makes the shorts. Really interested to see how the Firework mission plays out in practice!

Really any cartoony feeling game. So far the only non-copyright tracks I've sorted out is a Back in Action track and one from Tom & Jerry: War of the Whiskers.

Funny you mention War of the Whiskers since I adore the style they went for in that game and grew up with it as a kid. Fits the aesthetic of the Looney Tunes pretty nicely! Wish I could name more games that had a similar style to their score outside of a really obvious pick (Cuphead). That definitely makes fishing up tracks that probably haven't been heard by many more tricky because the quality is so superb in that particular title. The only one I feel is somewhat comparable is Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers (which I believe I mentioned to you before). I think stuff such as the 'Forest' track feels a bit too 'non-silly' to really work, but stuff like Magica's Manor I think would feel more at home in a Looney Tunes game.

First update of hopefully many to come. I promise the 2nd update will have non-SHAR pedestrians.

Second update, and yes, this one has non-SHAR pedestrians (not many though).
8/25 planned missions have been finished, not fully polished, but finished.
This is a small update, but just one to show things have been going ahead.

In terms of characters, quite a few have been added since last time to help the mod feel more populated and... well, looney. Most notably the NPCs have been started on, specifically the males (there's more finished than the screenshots imply). And no, that's not Wile E on the right, that's Ralph Wolf. Completely different character, look it up.

The retexture is coming along pretty smoothly, although I'm taking it at a steady pace and working on it alongside missions, so it'll probably end up being fully finished at the same time that the rest of the mod is. I've begun implementing references as well, although these won't really get to shine until I have buildings modelled.

Finally I have a sneak peak at one of the missions, a very small one but a sneak peak nonetheless.

So that's it, nothing huge but hopefully a decent update on how the mod is coming along.
I'll return in another few months with another pointless but somewhat satisfying rundown.

how to play

The mod is not currently out yet. The latest post is a description of how the mod's current progress is going.