Multipurpose Banana Warhead

Grumpy oldish german illustrator, designer and pen&paper enthusiast. This is where I post stuff I do for fun and practice.

[jkruener]

Anyways, railgun and autocannon combo. Have to think about how the whole ensemble should work ingame, right now the enemies are too straightforward and just walk and turn to the player...which kinda negates the whole weakpoint on the back thing I had going. I'll note down proper enemy AI on the rather long to do-list.

[jkruener]

And while I told myself I should focus on graphics more for now, I also tinkered some more with Godot. Figured out how to attach the "shoulder" mounts, made some rocket pods and cannons. Also fiddled around with visual shaders a bit for the projectiles.

[jkruener]

Apparently the Changeling campaign will be ending soon-ish (hey, we finally found the spring queen!), so in order to get back into things I started to make some more tokens for my Lancer npcs.

[jkruener]

With placeholder sounds this time. Worked on Navmesh and Navagents a bit (Read: bashed things with a wrench until they moved) and got some basic pathfinding going. Also, they can shoot back now.

Anyways, still fun, but I wanna work on some more graphics or models now, all these coding tutorials make my head spin. Still not a programmer, rather stick to being a graphics guy.

[jkruener]

Tinkering around again with weapons and wrapping my head around how exactly they may or may not work. Made some progress with my sample loadouts, minus the grenade launcher. Let's just say I'll have to reinspect the physics there. They shouldn't do somersaults, right?

Also, will need to figure out a way for explosive and piercing weapons to not count ALL the colliders on a single enemy they touch, otherwise it'll result in some cascading damage numbers. And even more explosions.

The weapon animations should now correspond with their respective firerates, even the minigun spinning up.

And while this one is muted, I also added some placeholder sounds. Which led me to another point on the list, because while my system worked for single shots, the minigun needs another way to sound properly.

[jkruener]

So, I figured out how to make hit locations for my little placeholder enemies. Still need a better way to import the collision shapes from Blender, but placing them by hand will do for now. Muzzle flash, case ejections and sounds are just placeholders for now, but they're in there.

Note to self: Need to add little pieces of scrap flying away in the explosion, maybe a leg or two.

May not be apparent due to the shotgun spread, but the boiler in the back and sensor pod in front are weak points, dealing more damage. Maybe I should have maded a bigger enemy for testing purposes? *shrugs*

[jkruener]

Still trying things out in Godot, bullets do not ignore colliders anymore from time to time and I figured out a proper shotgun spread. Also testing out a new IK rig for the arms for aiming, not perfect, but getting somewhere. Oh, and since I needed something to shoot, I tinkered with some target dummies and damage numbers. Need to make muzzle flash and cases ejecting next. And sound...

[jkruener]

Finished my pilot for a possible Battletech session. Callsign Escher due to a patchjob on her mech she made herself. The chief mechtech later fainted when he saw her cable management. Not sure if that's good or bad.

[jkruener]

Made a basic rig for the Avatar, just for testing purposes, while thinking about how to draw the pilot of this thing.

[jkruener]

So, I'm starting to wonder if my "reference" model isn't perhaps already good enough as an illustration by itself. Still needs a proper paintjob and pose, though.

Also, does this look too beefy for an Avatar-0C?

[jkruener]

Finished up the Vulture MK3 to my liking. My initial reaction to a 60t mech with 4 Lrm20s have slightly subsided after I learned the thing only carries 6 volleys for each of them. Clanners still struggling with logistics, apparently.

[jkruener]

Lineart done, mech is now a proper Vulture Mk3, a mech I did not know existed because most of my Battletech history knowledge ends with the Clan Invasion. Also, this thing apparently carries 4 Lrm20 launchers (Clantech, what else?), which kinda overshadows even missile boats like the Longbow...I mean, that's basically two Archers in a trenchcoat! Do you really need this many missiles?

Anyways, now I have to decide on a paint scheme. And after that, I still have to tackle the Avatar.

[jkruener]

Tried out printing some of my maps for Lancer and run into the problem that my usual 40x40 hex maps work well on a screen, but in order to place proper miniatures I would have to print them extremely big. So I kinda tweaked this testrun for knifefight distance, which works well enough, now my problem is that I have to retool the encounters for rather cuddly-close maneuvers. I'm sure this will do just fine.

Also, now I have to make proper paper tokens for the opfor. Whelp, the work continues...

[jkruener]

Kinda forgot about Avorion. Even though I spend quite some time building these thingies in there.

[jkruener]

Got a really janky aiming system working. Currently just three LookAt-nodes stacked in a trenchcoat trying to stare down a raycast collider (don't ask what happens when it looks into the sky, there is assuredly not a invisible box around the mech...). I do realize I will have to redo this entirely, but this is what my trial and errors have gotten me for now.

Also, I think sometimes the bullets are too fast for their colliders and pass through them? Will have to test that out. And weapon spread for things like shotguns. Got horizontal spread working but not in a cone pattern.

Oh, and a sideeffect of the whole aiming thing is that the thrusters on the shoulders get affected by it as well. Guess I'll have to stick the forward/backward ones back on the torso.

As said, progress, however bumpy, is still progress.

[jkruener]

So, while I have been watching too many Godot tutorials about aiming and weapon firing mechanics, I made a mecha chicken. I mean, this is basically just a turret on legs, this should be easier on me than a fully articulated mech. I hope.

[jkruener]

So the whole IK thing in Godot took me some time to implement in a working order. Influence curves are still not optimal and movement looks a bit choppy, but at least the basics are working. Also switched out all the thruster plumes from amount to scale, so the blending between directions look a bit better. May also have to tweak the cloth banners since they behave a bit too floppy while boosting.

Still all very muchly work in progress, but hey, at least there's progress.