Progress Report - 4/3
Added 2020-03-04 09:23:32 +0000 UTCG'day everyone,
Time for the Sitrep, a little overdue, but that's sadly just the tempo I've been at during Early 2020. So, let's go Top-Down, instead of breaking it down by project, we're going by task, because this is the way work's been focused out of necessity.
UV-Mapping
All of it is done. It took like.. all of January, but every single project - XM8s, XM29, SCARs, Johnson, All completely UV mapped. I don't have much to really comment on it, except it took a while because of the sheer scale of objects being done. How Big?
Well, that's 142 individual objects, 207,000 individual polygons. Works out about 1550 triangles per object.SO, what do those numbers mean when you map them to a Month? That's about 4 objects to a day if you map to the full month...If you actually map it to work days, it's 6... and I'll confess I was not doing whole weeks, so it's probably more like upwards of 8 a day. I'll also add for the context of that Some of those objects are orders of magnitude more complex than others, so some days would have well been under, and others well over that. But yes, there's a LOT of work just in that one task.
Here's some shots from during the month, (which forewarning ,do look ugly, because the mid-state of UV mapping is just not a pretty thing)
See? Ain't pretty. But the Results.. also aren't immediately pretty, but infinitely more usable -
So from here there are three tasks that for each project start: In-game implementation, High Poly Meshes, and Animation, Each kind of tie to each other at this point, so this is where things get a bit squirrelly if we were going chronologically, but we're not, so let's get into -
Ingame Implementation
So, Some of the weapons I had really rudimentary in-game placeholders for way early (like some really when they got just past minimum-shippable amount of a platform, so as early as September) , but post UV mapping it's been the goal to get all the planned variants in game, and getting started now is important because there's a boatload of content to account for and that means a LOT of lines of script and config, so getting it in early means I'm not stuck hammering it all later. So far, the SCARs and XM8s are all in(including, for the rivet counters, the basically only semantically different variations, like say the Mk.17 and such), with the exceptions of accounting for colour variations.
Breaking the image dump -
One important new thing Worth nothing about, specifically the XM8s is that the AMO optic uses CBA's new Scripted 2D scope system and it's kind of impressive in it's execution (Pictured below: reticle not final).
The M1941 is still sitting TECHNICALLY on it's pre-UV mesh, but the reason is I'm doing the sight calibration first before I bring across the finalized mesh (because Yes, I have to zero the guns,) and it's easier to read in it's current solid colour form than it is with UV map textures on top . XM29's still in a similar visible state for a similar reason, except it also involves targeting computers. That's a whole can of worms that aren't ready to be properly opened yet. Anyway.
Next, let's talk about -
High-Detail (High-Poly) meshes
So, I think this is the area that's probably the least far along, as, so far, it's just the M1941 Johnson that's actually had the HP properly begun to any measure worth discussing, but that's actually coming along fairly well, so I'm pretty pleased. One of the things I did early in my workflow that's saving me hassles now is keeping loops in tact, rather than collapsing them for optimisation, which lets me be far more efficient building in this stage.
That last shot is genuinely functionally invisible useless detailing, but it took a minute and it's correct (and I wanted to do it), so it stays in.
So that leaves to last, my home stomping grounds -
Animation
What are you kidding OF COURSE I've been animating.
So, I can't recall if I've actually showcased the earliest of these animations here yet, but just in case I haven't everything as it basically stands is here. There's a bunch done, but I'd say I'm about 45% done overall on this task, as is obvious from prior segments, there's a lot here to go (prone iterations, Launchers, some whole cloth not yet done variants).
One thing to add to the spice, particularly with the XM8 was I want to kind of replace the V variant G36 animations with something that, IMO, works a bit better. While I was okay with them when I made them, on revisit they don't quite cut it, so I'm taking that opportunity to right this.
(Sadly Embeds of these don't work, so I'm going to have to link direct instead)
XM29 Kinetic Module - First Person
XM29 Launcher Module - First Person
XM29 Launcher Module - Third Person
That's it as far as progress goes, It's been a bit of a madcap start of the year for me, but I'm starting to make headway into getting these out the door. If you'd like to see any of the images in better detail, the entire post's visual content can be accessed through Imgur .
As a small bit of house cleaning on the end, if you're a 10 buck backer (or were previously) and I have not sent you a link to the New items form, please message me. Shouldn't be a problem of the more recent ones, but I know there's a few of you that I HAVE missed and I'm trying to rectify that problem.
Everyone, thank you all, and have a good 'un
Toadie, out
