EXTRUDE BEFORE SUBDIVIDE
I’ve been working on improving the damage system for the bots so that when a limb gets damaged enough it stops being usable. Originally I wanted to do this by dangling the bot from essentially an invisible hanger, then to slowly chip away at bones until the whole thing just kinda flopps over. However, I […]
So I’ve been wanting to make the robots more of a physics simulations since I started the project. However, I’ve had a hard time of figuring out why I couldn’t get the physics-based-animation effect I was looking for (See https://willkolb.com/?p=915). I thought I had a decent method which made the ragdolls of the robots stable […]
I also fixed a bunch of the shooting systems, re-worked the AI so it doesn’t try to reload in front of you. I added in some squad placeholders for future collaboration amongst units and started working on another overhaul of the basic bot so I can finally get physics based animations working. Also: (No idea […]
This one is just a stick
I gave up on trying to use modular rigs or IK rigs for the mantis bot ( see https://willkolb.com/?p=1239) and I I just manually made my own control rig. This is EXACTLY what I did for the patrol bot awhile back. This time around I wanted I convinced myself that last time was an lack […]
Unreal engine has its quirks. A big one I found is the idea of “additive” animations (see this). Which essentially take the animation you made and subtracts it from a reference pose or animation. This is how you can easily blend ontop of an animation instead of getting some weird median between two existing animations. […]
I spent WAY to long getting leg ground detection working for the patrol bots: It still isn’t that great but it’s probably as good as I wanted it to be. The big thing is that I can put the bots on ramps and they look kinda right: The basic idea too complicated: essentially you draw […]
I’m constantly pondering what to do about the “boss room” for the game. Honestly I’ve been stumped on how to make it fun. In the meantime I’ve done a bunch of smaller things on the game such as: Another map I tried my hand at making a much much bigger map: The thought was that […]
I added in rain and some mood lighting. There were also a bunch of other smaller changes but this is where I’m at. It’s very dark and the rain kinda looks like pills falling so I’ll probably need to do another pass here. I’m happy with the water material I setup here: Essentially its just […]
The borderlands 4 issues with unreal (see: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/borderlands-4s-latest-patch-triggers-a-flurry-of-performance-complaints-but-gearbox-says-new-stuttering-problems-should-resolve-over-time-as-the-shaders-continue-to-compile/ ) made me realize I was doing all of my materials wrong. Originally the way I pulled in 3d meshes generated a material of each slot in the mesh. So I thougth I was being clever by using material slots to determine colors (so I didn’t have […]