toadie2k

Status report - 28/10

Added 2022-10-28 12:34:06 +0000 UTC

G'day everyone,

So, here's the news- I'm deep in the making of the SCAR release video. Deep Deep. Like, the allocation for extra story, narrative and animation might have been specifically dropped, but there's still a whooole lot of work going into this, and while I don't have a finished edit to show just now, I thought I'd put up some raw clips up for you all just to show you have it's going.

So, despite dropping most of the need for custom animation, I was still committed to at least doing some to impress, and I think they're a good point to lead off with.

So far, I've committed to 4 custom animations, each with a specific beat within the film.

First one is this magazine loading one with basically is part of a now cold open. The trick that I used here is that the magazine itself is a weapon, and to get it to animate, along with the player, I made the sequence a magazine reload animation.

Here's what it looks like in-engine.

Second one is a sequence of making a SCAR-L ready and chamber-checking. Same trick, but with gun.

In-Engine implementation (not finalised camera shot)

Last character animation (for now) that's ready to show is this several second gesture that's doing some character work during the pre-flight for a Bell 412. You may have seen this already if you're subbed on Youtube or Twitter, as it's the focal clips of the teaser. This was intended as a sequence originally for an MD 500 (the civilian MH6), but I learned that it has no overhead panels, so I retrofitted it to the 412, as there's also one of those in the scene. Special thanks also to my partner for their Technical Advice on pre-flight checklists, fuel-line priming and pilot mindset, greatly insightful helped put the sequence together in a way that makes sense. Shrug, you live and learn. Implemented in a more traditional way- just a sequence applied to unit (with vehicle clipping turned off)

In-Engine implementation (not finalised cut)

Moving away from character animation for a little, I wanna quickly also show off a bit of tech scripting going into some shots. So I wanted to do a some close-in staged shots to really show off detail and such, with scripted weapon switching within the scene so I don't have to record multiple things and edit it. It was not immediately straightforward as I thought, so this took a couple of days back and forth debugging with a learned SQF head to get it right. Incidentally, - Fuck the way RV3 handles rotation and orientation. So bad.

Anyway, the Results speak for themselves.

So that's kind of where work is at the moment, officially we're going for a 3 November public launch, but, because you people are you, the release builds are actually available for download as below (I ask you to not spoil the surprise for the rest of the everyone) -
All-in-One V15

SCAR Rifles V1.0
And all the rest of the NIArms individual sets, as their most up-to-date form-

So.. I think that's caught up, yeah? Once the SCARs are out, We're onwards and upwards to do the XM29 next, and oh boy I can't wait to have to program the airburst fuse script

Until next time folks,
Toadie out.