Hello everyone, KrimsonStorm here. Two weeks ago, my university went on break for the “spring”, and it was very cold. It was time to recoup, and I apologize for the lack of updates that week. I did however begin working on animations during that time, and despite remoting into my desktop it went pretty well.
As for this week, I took care of a few things. The first thing I did was polish up the animations I started over the break. As both the animator and gameplay balancer, I get to know first hand how each weapon will behave, and how many frames each animation will need to be. With there being 3 categories of weapons (Primary, Secondary, and Heavy), each grouping needs to have a standardized time to *deploy* each weapon. The following is a heavy weapon pickup animation
Along with this, I began doing more motion capture data. Unfortunately, the data I collected this week is not enough to work off of. That means animation must be done by hand, using them as references.
I also took a few hours out to actually work on the sniper rifle again. It’s not finished, but it’s close. Most of it’s shape is there, just some detail on the main body left to do.
As well, I designed the last starting weapon; your default, trusty sidearm:
It’s a overheat weapon; it has no ammo supply that is refueled in the field. As the overheat meter fills up, there are two exhaust ports that open more and more on the weapon. When overheated, the exhaust caps fully open for roughly 4 seconds as the weapon cools. As an added effect, coolant flows from a container in the grip to the barrel slowly.
These two weeks, I have:
Designed the starting sidearm (120 minutes)
Met with the development team (180 minutes)
Weapon Equip Animation (14 hours)
Character Walk animations (8 hours)
Reciprocator model (5 hours)
Wrote this blog (90 minutes)
Next week, I will get the basic character animations done. If I have time, I will also work on the first person rig or the sniper rifle more. It’s crunch time! Until next time folks, KrimsonStorm signing off!
KrimsonTheory 