Ripper model built, looking for Skinner/Programmer

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 5:50 pm

jeditobe1 wrote:Neo, if i remember (and feel free to correct me if im wrong) the original UT ripper had the blades scale from invisible to full size in the "ready" position to fire (rotating the entire time).

Thought about that one, too. But thanks to Epic in UT2k3 animation has to be done via bones. Scaling or even scaling and rotating an entire object properly is only possible when you use one bone per vertex. It'd be a huge amount of animation (and probably still look crappy), a terrible waste of memory and most likely a real drop in framerate.
It is therefore better to do the rotation via shaders and drop the scaling in favour of some other kind of animation I think...

elpollodiablo · Post by **elpollodiablo** » Wed Apr 09, 2003 11:52 pm

hella pimp model. maybe it can be like the cut claw where it has a melee in slot 1. turn it sideways and smack people or stab them and cut them up after pushing it in...

Post by **Shadowstar** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 9:21 pm

Would be pretty crazy to see someone swinging that thing around with buzzsaws shootin out... But fun I think. You really wouldn't want to get too close to someone with that gun.

its23skidu · Post by **its23skidu** » Fri Apr 11, 2003 11:55 pm

Ok, I pretty much done ... I have some minor details to iron out. Hit a case of designers block trying to figure out how the disks would be loaded and animations for them. I'm trying to make the Clip compact without compromising the believability of how it reloads ... tougher then you would think seeing a though the disks are pretty wide. And I don't really want to revert to the scaling the disk from nothing like in UT.

Oh well, I'll post some picts of changes tommorrow night! I should be done then.

Btw, Chaos Team when do you meet on mIRC or ICQ? PM me!

Post by **R.Flagg** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 2:43 am

Sittin' in IRC now...lookin' for you.

If I don't see you tonight, I'll probably email you tomorrow.

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 11:29 am

its23skidu wrote:[...]
Hit a case of designers block trying to figure out how the disks would be loaded and animations for them. I'm trying to make the Clip compact without compromising the believability of how it reloads ... tougher then you would think seeing a though the disks are pretty wide. And I don't really want to revert to the scaling the disk from nothing like in UT.
[...]

PM or mail me in case you need help or info for the animations.

elpollodiablo · Post by **elpollodiablo** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 7:57 pm

to load maybe a can of blades with a slider so they slide down.

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Sat Apr 12, 2003 8:58 pm

elpollodiablo wrote:to load maybe a can of blades with a slider so they slide down.

Only if you can only see one of the blades. All firing/reloading animations have to be the same.

elpollodiablo · Post by **elpollodiablo** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 1:43 am

it might look like this:
_ _
| |
\\___<-(into ripper)

im thinking a closed canister kind of like the ut ripper ammo on top of a ramp (at a shallower angle than in my crappy illustration) and a blade looks like it drops out and down the slide onto the spinny thingy. this is only a suggestion, though.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 7:23 am

Perhaps it could be something like a mechanical crossbow. It could be designed similar to a machine gun with the magazine toward the front. The blade can is attached to the underside of the barrel, just past the trigger, and the next blade pops up into the barrel after firing and is then pulled to the back of the gun like a crossbow, except that the device also rotates the blade as it pulls it back. The blade is then held in that position and when the trigger is pulled, the pressure is released, causing the blade to zip along the barrel in reverse to the way it loaded, so that the blade is spun as it is being launched. My description probably didn't come out too well, but I hope you get the idea?

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Sun Apr 13, 2003 9:02 am

elpollodiablo wrote:im thinking a closed canister kind of like the ut ripper ammo on top of a ramp (at a shallower angle than in my crappy illustration) and a blade looks like it drops out and down the slide onto the spinny thingy. this is only a suggestion, though.

This should work fine I think.

Post by **SPA** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:20 pm

Being away only one week and such things suddenly happen again...hehe...

its23skidu: very cool. Just got the package of the model from Joe and I think that model will fit in very very well... really looks like I wouldve done the ripper

(and even looks similar to the one I did for ChaosA

... that somehow "teethy" look...hehe)

About the reoloading issue: if its oky for you I would add a little container cardridge which holds the blades for the ripper... ony idea I already wanted to add in my own model (once I wouldve done it... now you were faster

) is that the blades arent completely stiff... I wanted to do them with a CD like core which snaps out the teeth when loading in the ripper so it doubles its diameter and gets its "sawblade teeth"...this way it will look even more dangerous and also fit into a small ammo package which doesnt overweights the model too much.

About secondary fire: already talked to Joe about this some time ago and the last thing we got stuck to was the following:
"....
SPA: For secondary I would vote for the wheel-style blades... the player would in secondary fire simply make a fast 90° turn of the ripper before firing....
SPA: You could then really fast turn a small room into a meat grinder by dropping down some blades in secondary mode from the second floor...due to the fact that they would bounce the walls some times and catching everyone who is touching the ground in that small place

Joe: hehehe yeap very true
SPA: Ok....got our new weapon...

...."

Of course I would like the following extras for the ripper blades:

- Kinetic energy slows down slowly while flying... so after some time when dropping under a certain speed they either stick into the wall or start to bounce and slide onto the floor 2-3 times before stopping completely
- a fast flying blade which hits and kills a player should cut off the body part it hits and continue flying...and eventually also hurt secondary enemies
- a blade which doesnt kill a player should have a certain chance to keep sticking to the player (should look funny when one of these things stick halfway in his head

)

its23skidu · Post by **its23skidu** » Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:25 pm

SPA wrote: About the reoloading issue: if its oky for you I would add a little container cardridge which holds the blades for the ripper... ony idea I already wanted to add in my own model (once I wouldve done it... now you were faster ) is that the blades arent completely stiff... I wanted to do them with a CD like core which snaps out the teeth when loading in the ripper so it doubles its diameter and gets its "sawblade teeth"...this way it will look even more dangerous and also fit into a small ammo package which doesnt overweights the model too much.

Exactly what I was going for! As you can see from the model the blades can ungroup from the rest of the model so they can be animated seperatly from the core so they could "snap out" when the core is loaded from the clip (tube) at the bottom which can also separate and is low poly enough to be a pickup.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 12:56 am

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this mod is gonna rock.

I think if you see someone with several buzzsaws stuck to thier legs and feet, you'll know they met someone who favors the secondary fire...

I just had the weirdest idea! What if proxies could "ride" rolling buzzsaws like unicycles? Imagine a proxy riding around the level... The proxy could control it and it would let him move fast, sorta like a little vehicle... Then when he spots a victim, he hops off and chases the victim down while the blade rolls away (and maybe cuts someone else up)... Well, that may not be possible, but damn it would be funny!

FurrySound · Post by **FurrySound** » Tue Apr 15, 2003 1:07 am

Shadowstar - Proxy Uni -

FurrySound{Moo}