Plasma Rifles never lie (WIP)

[Ifafudafi]

I'll spare you the fancy intro. It's a Halo 3-style Plasma Rifle, with small model edits, new 2048x2048 textures and reworked shaders. Effects are in progress as we speak, and I hope to get it reanimated afterwards.

Gun positions achieved by Yelo Battery.

Here's a standard holding position. Note the indention in the grey metal and the purple segment added onto the back (which actually has the "gun" shader this time.) Also lights and the heat meter is actually on the rifle as opposed to hovering right beside it.
http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/4333/plasmarifle4af4.jpg

Here's a Doom-esque down-the-middle view. This shows off the depth differences added by the indented metal. You can also spot the little "grid" visible on most H3 Covenant metals. This is on the front of the gun, too, but the lighting didn't show it very well.
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/5416/plasmarifle3kq5.jpg

A side/under view, displaying the high-resolution texturing.
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/5055/plasmarifle2pn6.jpg

A direct side view, revealing the little lightning streak (I'll replace this with a shader_transparent_plasma as soon as I get the effects going) and the re-textured luminous tips.
http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/3450/plasmarifle1kq4.jpg


There you have it. Comments/crit/praise/+rep/sex welcome.

[ICEE]

I think that on the lower half of the plasma rifle the texture sort of makes the flatness of the model more obvious. You could smooth it out a bit.. other than that (and the sort of unattractive origin) I like

[Hotrod]

It's not bad, but the blue metal on it looks too much like a purple-ish black at some areas. If you changed it so it's a bit more of a blue color, it would be great.

[Ifafudafi]

Also keep in mind that this shit looks so much better when you can see the reflection maps in action. As soon as I get some effects going, I'll upload a video for y'all to see.

The grey metal has always been a concern of mine. I can never seem to get it right, no matter how many times I try; right now I'm working under the assumption that the positioning of the gun won't show off too much of the inner metal, but I'm trying my best to read up on working with 3ds Max so that I can pound out the details.
I'm also having trouble perfecting the reflection color. It's either too bright, too dark, too purple, too blue, or something else. I added a slightly yellowgreen tinge like in Halo 3, but I may just take that out to try to lighten up the whole thing.

[ICEE]

Well keep tweeking it. im sure you'll get it right. and pleeeease post progress often because PR's are my favorite weapon and Im interested to see how it turns out

[Heathen]

I dont know the vocabulaty but it looks....funny. Idk what it is. Also, the grey part with the lines....on the default picture, it looks like chainmail :/

[DaneO'Roo]

It's ok, but for 2048, that's incredibly redundant.

[Ifafudafi]

Most of everybody's concerns (both back in the Gallery thread and here) seem to be the grey metal, indirectly or otherwise. When I try to add detail, it looks cluttered and almost rocky; when I leave out the detail, it looks far too smooth and doesn't take advantage of the high-resolution, and I can't find a happy medium between the two

I'm working on effects as of now, but I'll definitely revisit this issue as soon as that's done.

[ICEE]

You could edit the model so it actually isn't to smooth? Or would you have to re-unwrap after doing that?

[Ifafudafi]

Yeah that would be pretty complicated; all I've done currently is change the alignment of the verticies.

Still, I've gotten the effects taken care of and I'm almost done with the animations (overheating sequence & posing are all that's left.) Once that's finished, I'll throw together a little video for y'all.

[ICEE]

Good. I'm an anims whore so I await your video.

[Bodzilla]

It's ok, but for 2048, that's incredibly redundant.
beat me to it.

[Ifafudafi]

Animations (mostly) complete, video up.

9EBKU3QF0Vw
I have no idea why the Related Videos are all testicles.

EDIT: Higher-quality .wmv download. (http://files.filefront.com/Hot+Plasma+on+Rifle+Actionwmv/;10917126;/fileinfo.html) (Filefront)

[ICEE]

Your overlays and moving animation could do witha bit of tweeking, as with the firing drives the gun to close to the center. the melee returns to origin in an odd way, but otherwise I like.

[DrunkenSamus]

It's pretty good. Also at the end of the video, there was a video with a picture of testicles. :gonk::gonk:

EDIT: OH GOD THEY ACTUALLY DIDN'T CENSOR IT. It's a video on how to check the healthiness of your testis!

[Heathen]

I dont know bla bla testicles

"Hot Plasma on Rifle Action"?


E:
Also, shameless plug for the blood and grenade?

[Hotrod]

The animations are great, except the melee could use some work. I find that it faces downwards too much while he's both hitting the guy, and when he's bringing the gun back. Maybe if you made the gun face up a bit more, like the original PR animations, then it would be perfect. Besides that, I love it, can't wait to see this in-game somewhere, if it will be released in a mod.

[Ifafudafi]

Ironclad- If you could specify what you think needs to be improved about the animations, I'd appreciate it.

Heathen- No, this is not shameless product placement for my grenade & blood; both are kind of hard to leave out of a weapon demonstration.
And I was bored when naming the video.

Hotrod- The melee always seemed funny to me; I planned to work on it more once I got this damned overheating sequence in.
if anyone has pointers on how to get it to work, halp pls D:

[ICEE]

ok, sure. excuse my laziness before.

Ready: I liked the ready, though I didn't see it enough and it seemed like youtube lagged everytime that part of the video played, but I liked the style and energy of it.

melee: the melee seemed to be to rotated to the left, like he was stabbing with the front (if that makes any sense). I would try to make the melee seem like hes smashing with the bottom of the gun, not a quick swing. That would make it look more forceful.

fire: theres waaay to much recoil. For fully automatic guns I find that its good to keep the firing animation very minimal and short, and in the fully automatic firing overlay make the drastic recoil.

overlays: some of them seemed positioned awkwardly or just to dramatic of a change from the origin.

grenade throw: it looks fine to me, except the hand seems awkwardly positioned in mid throw. The palm is facing down to much.

there ya go. hope that helps

[n00b1n8R]

What the fuck did you take the holograms off for?
That was one of the reasons the PR was so cool. :saddowns:

[Heathen]

it might be his settings mb?

I remember way back one kid ingame said he didn't even see the little meters.

I think I saw them there though...

[Ifafudafi]

If by "holograms" you mean the heat meter, I attached it to the gun because that's in Halo 3 and because it looked awkward to me otherwise.

Also can't figure out how to get the side thingies to come out during the overheating animation. Halp plx D:?

[teh lag]

If by "holograms" you mean the heat meter, I attached it to the gun because that's in Halo 3 and because it looked awkward to me otherwise.

Also can't figure out how to get the side thingies to come out during the overheating animation. Halp plx D:?

Erm... what exactly do you mean? Are you having trouble actually animating the sequence (nodes are broken or something) or are you having trouble compiling correctly? Assuming the latter, remember that when animating overheats...

First-person overheating.jma - start of animation. Origin to overheated.
First-person overheated.jma - looping animation of overhated position
First-person o-h-exit.jma - end of overheated animation.
First-person throw-overheated.jma - throwing grenade while overheated
First-person overheating-again.jma - drawing weapon while still overheated


As for the rest of the anims, my only real problem is with

Melee - the position is a bit awkward, doesn't look like he's hitting with the gun's main bulk. Play with the rotation there.

Fire - too much recoil.

Origins - a bit too low and centered for my taste. It also seems to be aimed a bit lower than the actual reticle.

[Ifafudafi]

I know what the animations are and how to sequence them; my issue is that I can't get the little vents on the side of the plasma rifle to open up.

Also, melee is fixed, firing is fixed, but the origin just looks ugly in any other spot I put it in.

[teh lag]

I know what the animations are and how to sequence them; my issue is that I can't get the little vents on the side of the plasma rifle to open up.

I'm confused in that case... I'd just move out the nodes that have the fin geometry linked to them. As long as the geometry is properly linked, I can't think of a reason for them not to open.

[n00b1n8R]

If by "holograms" you mean the heat meter, I attached it to the gun because that's in Halo 3 and because it looked awkward to me otherwise.
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

[Ifafudafi]

http://images.wikia.com/halo/images/7/73/1179041973.jpg


Also the overheating animation problem is probably due to fucked up geometry; not only did I use the Bluestreak importer but I also did some model editing which may have screwed with it. I might have to improvise and come up with some new thing or something. :phonegonk:

[FRain]

On your melee you need to have the upperarm come from the top. He should be smashing down. If you got that, basically I mean that the upperarm should be below the plasma rifle while smashing, not above.

[Apoc4lypse]

heh... I kind of liked the mele lmao...

it looked more like a smacking motion, apposed to an actually mele with a gun.. but when I think about it, idk how else I'd hit someone with a plasma rifle, its sort of a one handed deal and I can see my self just haphazardly swinging it at things if I needed too XD.

Looked neat to me, but thats just my opinion, I also liked the overlays, but thats probably because I feel like first person shooters often don't really do this correctly, no one in real life ever holds a gun in one spot when there moving.

I'd be happy to see overlays that somehow demonstrated this, but tbh idk how possible it is, I don't really animate weapons. (like your shooting, you have the gun up and ur firing, then when moving around u don't always have it like ready to shoot, u sort of kind of jus throw it around more so)

Cuz honestly no one normally runs with a gun while holding it ready to fire unless there trying to shoot and run.

At least, I don't play paint ball like that lol...

Overall I liked the animations, I didn't pay attention to the grenade throw tho, ima re watch it in a second.

As for the model and shaders itself for some reason it seems too dark to me :-/ otherwise its pretty neat, btw the reflections look :awesome:

[Rooster]

gg on the PR. I like what u did wth glowing parts... wow, that sounded noobish.

[Heathen]

Dont use "gg" and "u" Makes your posts seem not so noobish...

[Rooster]

ITS B-E-A-Utiful!!!

[DrunkenSamus]

It kinda looks like Humphrey Bogart eating a tricycle.

[Ifafudafi]

gerdemmit ppl stop bumping my old WIP threads >:X

For anyone still interested, I've been toying with the animations and shaders; might have something to show later.

[Pooky]

I'm interested in this and the plasma grenade being in a map I can play! :awesome: