rei-makes-big-robo

[rei-makes-big-robo]

Day #4: but I sit on a throne of lies..

Is it day 4? it's been days since my last post but I've only got back to working on this today so I'm counting it.. Anyways basics of the Physics gun are implemented but it's kinda a proof of concept. It just takes the mass and multiplies it by a normalized vector to the player multiplied by another thing to make it actually surpass friction and stuff... One cube is 1kg and the other is 10kg but they behave relatively the same with the gun, I don't really like this and think mass shouldn't factor into the force applied but for now it's training wheels until I figure out the physics scales of how I want this game to work. Eventually the plan is for the gun to damage enemies via breaking physics joint constraints effectively simulating dismemberment. I also want to eventually add a grab function but that will be separate of the gun.

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Little bonus clip from the external camera used for IK testing.

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Day #3: I have slept for 4 hours and it hurts

Why do we use AM and PM? It leads to really wacky stuff like ah yeah I went from waking up at 8pm to waking up at 12pm, which makes it sound like I slept an extra 4 hours but in reality I slept for 4 hours and woke up 8 hours earlier than I did the prior day... Time standards are wack af I guess... Anyways onto real stuff, I reused some bits of the IK scripts with some tweaks to drive the gun arm to align with what the player is looking at. This works way better than I was expecting especially with the FOV changing with velocity now. The gun arm is gonna look a little weird once the "shooting" mechanics are in for reasons I'll leave a mystery for now, but hey when has a video game gun ever worked in a way that made complete sense? Next steps are to start some basic UI work and then I'm gonna try to block out a level to test some more mechanics I need to implement.

[rei-makes-big-robo]

Day #2: Legs work??????????????????

There is something incredibly frustrating about knowing you have to use a flawed component... Bonehound having abnormal leg design resulted in IK results looking horrible and just not working with the current nodes.. But after a night of nearly no sleep trying to troubleshoot I woke up dark and late at the peak time of 8pm with some ideas for potential solutions.. The second of the two solution ideas was to add a faux lower leg bone and separating the IK node into two separate nodes per leg. One driving the fake lower leg and real thigh while the other was driving the entirety of the lower leg. This is what I settled on and is visible in the video, is it perfect? Not even close, is it good enough for IK on legs the player can't see? definitely..

Last thing of note, I know I've been doing Day # formats but don't expect that to stay consistent at all I nearly burned myself out considering most of what is here is technically from one day...

[rei-makes-big-robo]

Day #1: Neck works???

Technically not the first day but the first day writing actual code even though half of what's going on here is just the default movement code with some tweaks. Anyways I did a bunch of stuff just getting the neck animated as I want to ensure that Bonehound is more than just a playermodel following a default player rig. To this end I'm going to be animating as much as I can procedurally and it is at this point I've started to regret using a normal armature/Skeleton3D. Godot seems to be kinda limited in how much control you have over bones in script and constraints, which does make sense considering that I am on 4.3 which only really has a solution that is going to be replaced with something better.

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Been almost a year since I completed my first game jam entry, I don't really know if I've learned anything tbh? (Skip to the next set of brackets to skip my dumb vent rant thing that really shouldn't be on this blog) 2024 was kinda a miserable year for me and there isn't exactly a reason to expect 2025 to change that.. For some context I used to have a really bad job that was abusive and frequently pushed me into positions where I would injure myself, stuck working with injuries that wouldn't heal without treatment and no time to resolve them. In 2023 I left that job and have been trying to make it on my own, doing various little bits of things to try to make an income... Needless to say I'm at rock bottom and I've got a pickaxe. I should just apply for positions at some game studios and actually get a job I won't hate but I'm either actually really bad at most things I do or just have a lot of imposter syndrome. Thought about applying to Digital Extremes once cause they seem like a great place to work, but who am I kidding why would a real company hire someone like me? I barely know where to start with a portfolio with how many half finished disasters I've created, the only industry tool I know is Substance painter cause otherwise I use freeware and I'm kinda just bad at things considering how much of my life I've wasted on art. To kinda conclude I'm not exactly doing well and the downward spiral is far from over. (Self indulgent vent rant lore dumping over) Anyways if you haven't already maybe try my game, it's kinda really bad but has some fun moments I think. I'm kinda content with how it turned out all things considered so I guess it's nice to have something I can go yeah this is kinda neat?

Anyways I saved the best?? for last if y'all follow my account you know of Bonehound? Probably right?? you gotta??? Anyways Bonehound is gonna finally get a game probably unless I end up not finishing yet another project again... I updated the model a bit with some refined textures for a flat shading look with baked AO

I kinda wanna redo the gun model but I'll save that for after I get a demo done and published on Itch, expect a vaguely boomer shooter kinda game with weird movement and probably a fishing minigame. Boom there it is my biggest regret with Dreary Fallow, NO FISHING MINIGAME??? How can I say I'm a game dev without fishing minigame??? Anyways if there's interest I'll try to post test recordings of it as I go. Happy new year I guess lol

[rei-makes-big-robo]

still alive (I think).

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New stuffed kitty to hug...

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Some renders of animations I made for Scully the only NPCs in Dreary Fallow. The more time that passes after the jam submission period the more tempted I am to expand upon what I got out in the jam. A lot of the level design would need to be redone but I'd like to flesh out these guys a bit more, give them different shoe colours or hats to differentiate between them.

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Been dead for a hot minute again :3

But to be fair I was busy, with other things and also my first game jam and first time actually shipping a game. It's small but I learned a lot and had fun making something.

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Unnamed wip: Originally this was a smaller part of a Bonehound Spin off which I then spun off into it's own thing. Most of the leg mechanics were designed with the original design in mind but the original spine looked awful and was going to be an utter nightmare to animate in engine. Now I just have an overly detailed CAD model which will be utter hell to bake down into something that runs well in a game engine because I like clear parts. I'm really glad I spent time doing a "realistic" hexagon bit screw in a prior model because it really makes the spine work well.

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VDoom wip shot. VDoom is mecha design for one of my games that is essentially a parody of various mecha designs. (Specifically gundam) It's intended to make Gundam fans cringe but it seems to be causing super robot fans to get excited so uhh...

[rei-makes-big-robo]

this has to be an illegal move in boxing

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Starting the New year off strong with a fun little illustration of the head of Sazabi from Gundam. I should try to do more shaded work but I just get bored of working on a project if it drags on too long and regardless I often prefer the "pop" that this style gives.

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fight animation

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Humpty dumpty experienced horrors which he could not comprehend.

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GUNNNNNNNNN, a Scifi heavier pistol for a Roblox (Gamemode?) I've been hired to do most of the art for. Probably will reuse in other stuff later, maybe add some decals and stuff. It's meant to be a railgun that has some questionable design choices such as yeeting the entire bullet for reasons and being a "Smart" gun that keeps track of how much ammo it has promptly yeeting the magazine out the bottom the second it's empty (Steel toe boots advised).