Heavy Omniframe model (probably animated later)

Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#1
Among (many) other things I had started work on the omniframe, and decided to do the heavy set of exterior armor/feet/hands first. Was figuring I'd wait to rig and animate it a bit before I posted it but... I feel like I'll be distracted and that that might take awhile so.... here.


EDIT from a point in the past that is closer to the present than the point in time that this post came into being. Aka some updates from later in this thread.
 
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Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#3
gg, nice :D i think you should look into some of the equipment customization treads etc.
like here xD https://forums.em8er.com/threads/questions-about-customisation-and-the-arsenal.485/
Well, I am making it with being customizable in mind so you can just swap out any given piece for any other given one, will do it with some pre set keys at first, as I make more/later down the line might add a UI for selecting them.

The core frame underneath is universal, the feet, upper leg/knee plates, head, engines, shoulder plates and upper arms, and the forearms/hands are the different parts that I plan on making changeable at first, could do more but those groupings seem decent. Also the heavy frame has the torso section that's sort of unique to it right now.

Not going to bother adding that for it in the engine till I have a functional rig and basic animations though. Just did a basic test on the default grey guy/manequin by giving him various types of gauntlets that I could equip that would overlay on his arm, but use the same skeleton/animations.

Still, think I'll go back to doing that flamethrower turret first, and probably refine that building a bit more now that I have a model to compare it's insides against. Also wanted to do some larger city/buildings to give a sense of scale and see how some of them might look.
 
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Pandagnome

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#4
Among (many) other things I had started work on the omniframe, and decided to do the heavy set of exterior armor/feet/hands first. Was figuring I'd wait to rig and animate it a bit before I posted it but... I feel like I'll be distracted and that that might take awhile so.... here.

:cool: i like it!
 

Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#8
While more possibly doable with the models, there are issues. Without being more in the loop stuff like my mech doesn't necessarily work for all the things it'll need to in game (like looking good while letting pilots in/out). Similarly not sure what approach they are taking to rigging with the frames and the characters, will they use the same skeleton in engine making it all nice and easy or split them up so they can do something else that requires them to be unique?

That all said, if they did decide to throw a cheap contract my way and try to get me involved a bit more then I'd be all for helping out. But as it stands what I've made so far would be of limited use for those types of aforementioned reasons (the part that I never planned to/started unwrapping any of this stuff for textures also being up there).


Like take this animation, I can all but guarantee that (besides its low/testing quality) it and the rig could in no way be brought into Em-8ER. It just doesn't have all the stuff they'll probably want/use/need in it. And you can't just grab two different rigs and slap them together in engine so their animations can go between them very easily, and even if you try odds are they won't look great. Overall it'd just be a massive hassle that would be better off being done over to make it fit just what they want/need.
 
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Pandagnome

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#10
if they did decide to throw a cheap contract my way and try to get me involved a bit more then I'd be all for helping out.
Would be superb to see some of the work implemented in the game that is a satisfying feeling when you know that you had a part making the project move!
 

DiBBz

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Oct 17, 2016
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#12
at first i was like. WTH is that animation but then i realized, its supposed to be running with a gun xD

basic animation or not. this is looking great. more fleshing out and could be a fantastic community piece :)
 

Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#13
at first i was like. WTH is that animation but then i realized, its supposed to be running with a gun xD

basic animation or not. this is looking great. more fleshing out and could be a fantastic community piece :)
Ya, I just put a random long block in there for the gun, slaved it to the right hand, posed the left near the edge then put a dummy there linked to the proxy gun block and aligned the left to follow it. So no ideal animations for a specific gun/weapon but it has the general position of a gun. Since I don't have an actual gun for it I just ripped the gun off of the rifle turret and gave it to him for the short term. Pokes through his rear arm a bit but that's hardly the worst issue.

So, at the end of today I have.... this.

Problems you will likely notice.
  • The music is louder than I expected (from my music playlist here if you're interested). Upside, it kept me awake while I worked on this, time to go pass out now (very tired, need to be up early tomorrow).
  • There is only a forward run animation, nothing for sideways strafing or running backwards.
  • Collision for the frame doesn't update/change when it enters it's skim mode so you end up with the main point of collision back behind his feet and he clips through some stuff.
  • The gun is not aimed, it just fires out of wherever the gun is pointing at that point based on the animations.
  • When he starts flying/running he doesn't ease into them properly, setup the blend animation for going from idle to running but kept forgetting to slow his walk acceleration speed down bellow his max speed.
  • The gun firing animation doesn't blend with the others, so no visible recoil, tried to throw it in with a bone ruled blend... but it seems it might not like my skelly or something. I'll look into why it wasn't working later on.
  • Preview shadows/lighting.... everywhere...
  • No dapper hat... I plan to import the hat and monocle into the engine tomorrow, along with whatever other random things I feel like making.
  • Whole boatloads of other little things, it's just me messing around, and trying to loosely cram stuff in as quickly as I can without even a clear view of my current direction or goal beyond maybe the hour or so. What do you expect?

EDIT: If a mod wants to change the thread title to "animated now" instead of "possibly animated later" that would probably be a more appropriate title now.
 
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Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#16
Honestly the more fabric/cloth looking hats don't quite look right on them, going to try more for metal/solid/faceted thigns like a tiki mask and samurai helm next. But before that it's back to base buildings for a bit I think.

Other things I plan to stick on the back include trophy poles with bits of enemies, banners (let an army/guild have one officer for every ten members, officers can carry a guild banner, plus the army/guild master). Other styles of tiki torch like a more mechanical one or a very frilly artistic one. A random gun, even if you never use it nothing wrong with an extra gun on your back. A bat/spike, something that you can get a custom execute animation for where you pull it off and stab an enemy with it or something. Few other ideas like that, will see what I actually end up doing as time goes on though.
 

Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#17
Still haven't bothered making a dedicated gun for it... I should change that soon. In the meantime, enjoy some melee weapons!


The Sabre, a solid hitting single handed weapon for giving someone a really bad day.


The Bastard Sword, because not having a massive two handed sword you can swing in massive arcs would be boring. Since I wanted it to be something that could be swung in both directions and still cut I made it more or less symmetrical but wasn't too happy with that. I added the whole gap area inside to make it stand out a little more... but I think I'd want to take another crack at a two handed sword later.


The Hammer! You can probably tell that this was the weapon I like the idea of the most by it's greater detail. It's a bit taller than my heavy omniframe, and is meant to be swung in great arcs with two hands sending everything it hits flying. And to make sure you can do an aerial smash it's got it's own engines on it to help you bring it down with some serious force. Also you can stab people with the poky end.

So, thoughts? Ideas for other omniframe styled weapons? Questions? FEED ME YOUR REPLIES!
 

Terricon4

Base Commander
Base Commander
#20
Axe is always a good one, a giant robot morning star and flail... those ones seem like they'd be a bit more weird. Some type of chain segmented shocky/plasma whip could work though.

Other ideas are claws (like powerclaws from 40K) that normally rotate back around to be over the wrist, then flick out when used.
Lance, like from Monster Hunter built for charging mechanics using jet energy and to be used with a shield.
Spiked punching gauntlet that has spikes along the forearm that shoot out hydraulically or something to stab whatever you punch.
Twin shields, so you are all but completely covered from the front and just run around smashing people with them.
Drill, an omniframe carried mining drill used on enemies like the big daddy uses his. With lots of force and gore.
Longsword/Katana, almost the reach of the bastard sword but much faster slashing though with less damage and no knockback characteristics.
 
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