It's crappy and all considering I'm working on my own on it and I'm a programmer/designer, not an artist. It's been painful creating placeholder art such as mechs myself but I've now got most of the primary systems working: -Radar (passive and active modes) -NV gun camera -Missiles that receive targets from the radar system -Weapons that are aimed via helmet aim -Helmet aim system works either with VR (helmet looks + joystick/keyboard) or with mouse + keyboard -Gunpods and turret(s) that aim at helmet aim point and account for ballistics - each weapon also has it's own barrel indicator in the helmet HUD -Actual displays in cockpit that display UI data such as radar, weapon systems and other thing What do you guys think? I'm planning on creating a damage model next and adding some warning indicators into the cockpit as well as a damage display. At some point I'm thinking creating AI opponents and multiplayer. Oh and please ignore the butt ugly art. Looking to have a proper artist come up with art at some point. This is all systems testing and proof of concept level stuff. :edit: In the build the terrain texture bugs a bit because some of the layer settings did not carry through into the build.
Thanks! Eventually I'd like to have a MW2 style contract system and some combined arms battles going on but I'll see how far I can get with this.
So, during weekend I got drunk and then I remembered the old mech project and thought the mech I used for testing the mechanics and controls looked like shit. So I made another mech that looks like shit. But it has fricking engines on it's back, it's going to have animated movement system and I haven't yet added 'arm turrets', it will have huge Stalker like turrets on the sides when I get around to it. Also thinking of integrating missiles batteries into the hull with a hatch. 120mm guns won't be enough! I'm thinkin 240 or 360 for the turrets. The autocannons are also placeholder along with the laser, they're primarily self defense against missiles, infantry and for harassing enemy mechs. Laser can also be used to damage enemy sensors. Eventually. Those jet engines are designed to increase forward velocity and acceleration and they'll have a tilt control allowing them to be lowered behind the hull. Idea is that the 14 meters tall mech can move fast in all terrain while being able to take punishment and protect itself. Work in progress and won't look that good when finished but at least I'll have a mech to play with.
I'm still interested in helping you with this if you need fact checking done on dropship interior layouts and whatnot.
I'm still torn between using BT models and having unique art. BT models would be cool, all the mechanics and values would be there. The problem is, even if it were freeware there might still be a 'cease and desist' inbound if it gained any popularity. But that doesn't mean that BT couldn't be a major source of influence. Essentially, if there's a Catapult like mech that's called Thor which isn't quite like Catapult etc., it's mostly OK. As long as values and names are not exactly the same it's fine. On that note yea, definitely, I'd like help with dropship interiors etc. There's a lot of thinking and research involved in a project like this that can bog one down for weeks at a time.
Shit, added the side turrets, rigged and animated it but for some reason the animation which was supposed to move the mech forward as it walks resets it back to original position as walk loop restarts. Weird bug, I already though of using a more physics based movement - putting some traction on the foot collision detectors so the legs can slide on poor terrain but will move it on good terrain. Of course animation driven generally works better but then the impact of uphill / downhill has to be "manually" addressed in the movement code.
This is what the mech looks without textures and with animations. Oh right, animations don't show on the picture. Well, the animation is a bit clunky anyway. The short pole is a standard human (180cm) height measure tool. Essentially this whole mech is just a placeholder, something that's not as crappy as the first one and for testing the animation system and building a control system based on actual rigged models and animation rather than manually twisting joints via code. This mech also paves way for weapons customization with the weapons not being part of the mesh (replaceable). The missiles still would probably look best incorporated into the hull. Anyway at least I'm going forward and there's a lot of groundwork already in place for a game in terms of functioning aiming system, weapons systems, seeking missiles, radar, radar lock etc. The cockpit is not transparent from the outside but from inside. I plan on finishing all the mechanics including mech customization, movement, combat etc. and at some point trying to get some real artists in on replacing the placeholder art.
