There is quite a bit happening behind the scenes here. Modelers are texturing, modeling. Riggers are rigging, web devs are deving, Unreal blueprints are being made, etc.
As we get busy, we sometimes fall behind on updates. Since deciding to move to a video format, the process of making the updates becomes more time consuming as well. That said, I believe that video is the best way going forward for these updates, esp as we have more to show.
We've shot two updates to cover things we've done, and things we are about to have done. A 3rd update is going to be filmed on Sunday.
But given how busy we've been with the Omniframe movement demo, which is the next step in the playable mockup process, we haven't put time into editing these videos or capture the footage we need to show you a few things.
So, how's the Omniframe movement demo coming? That I can update in text for now. We've been rebuilding the Omniframe in low-poly since the tweaks were completed. We hired a new modeler to help out with some of the pieces and he is currently done with several parts and is wrapping up the rest. These parts will go to Joe, who will do a new "bake" of the high poly to the new low poly mesh, then it will go to rigging and finally, animation. We've been working on this for weeks and I'm happy to see that the process is nearing completion and that we can move to rigging and animations.
Meanwhile we've been prototyping jetpacks in Unreal using just the default Unreal dummy. I've been speaking with the Firefall designer who did the original jetpacks for the game, and that's been helpful too. Although we may not have the same system for Em-8ER's jetpacks, because of how players are mechs and how we need the verticality to be a little different to fight giant Kaiju, we got a few good ideas in the process.
The goal for the Omniframe movement demo, as a reminder, is:
1) Have a human pilot inside a working Omniframe (medium)
2) Be able to walk, run, and do all the basic movements of the Omniframe
3) Get Jetpacks in and have the Omniframe able to jet.
4) Get Gliding in and have the Omniframe able to glide.
5) No shooting, no sound work, no particles or special effects, just the movement and feel.
We have some bonus items for you too that we will share in the video update and in future updates as we get closer to finishing the movement demo that will be delivered to backers.
Thank you for your patience! A video update will be posted as soon as we are able to get some time to edit it.
- The Em-8ER team