Developer diary by
Freshdumbledore
Hi, in my first developer diary I will give you an overview on the concept art work flow. As our prototype of Project Haven will feature the builder first, I concentrated on the working drone.
Back in September I did some thumbnail sketches to give the team something to discuss.
At that time my objective was to create some robots without further detail on how they should look like. So I created this sleek and “apple-like” style.
outcome: too human
the next months I worked on the scout, the tank, the reclaimer ... but I had no idea for the builder. Then I made a concepts of flying robots and hovering ones. Flying would have resulted in gameplayissues but hovering was OK. So I‘ve drawn those quick sketches:
The team said: “we take take number 3!”
After a week or so I looked at the concept again and wasn‘t satisfied with it so I sketched a while and I came up with a drawing I like and the others accepted it.
Now the builder could be build ( :P) in 3D and I had the task to design the weapons. Also I worked on some details like the arms and how the robot actually moves.
I saw a video of fluid air muscles which where developed by a German (!) company.
Link:
Muscles
Those doesn‘t make noise and are as powerful as human muscles. Perfect for our robots!
In addition I presented the first set of weapon ideas to the team. Again, the concept has been accepted but I wasn‘t satisfied with it, but this time I took another approach to design by using 3D software.
As I really suck in modelling the result was bad... also the weapon looked too similar to the gravity-gun from HalfLife2.
Hear I tried to visualize the power of the weapon with steam-jets.
Then Draken explained his idea of an rotating part on the front part of the build gun
We had a big discussion but the concept has been discarded.
Now I imagined how such a gadget would work in real life and I used some knowledge of my physics class.
I explained my ideas like this in the forum:
This ion-beam-gun could actually work with a lot of energy! :P
with a strong beam of photons the object you are pointing at will ionize. so its charged. above the arena is a magnet which will make the object hover.
If you want to get the energy back from the object you just need an electron-receiver ( the left palm). When ionized the object is emitting electrons ( little parts of mass) which you collect.
This is the idea behind the gun. You don‘t need both a leech ray and a build gun. It‘s all in the same weapon.
I tried to paint my idea for the particle effects but I failed so I describe them:
When the beam from the weapon is going to the target, the air on its way will be ionized as well an glow a bit, but there will be no hard edge beam you can see.
When hitting the target the object will glow a bit ( so the player know which object he hits).
If leech ray-mode is active black particles are coming out of the object and are accelerating towards the left palm of the player.
The team liked the idea but I didn‘t like the design as it didn‘t fit to the sleek robots.
Same functions but a better design, accepted and liked by the hole team, next step in production pipeline – the modelling!
I made the last scetches during my examperiod so they are quite simple.
I hope you enjoyed reading this diary,
FreshD
The Builder concept !
Hybrid Mode
