Limit Release

Moodys Video Updates # No.6: T_T Sleep is out oy my reach x.x

2010-11-20T20:49:00.000-08:00

Moodys Video Updates # No.5 : Help I cant Turn off!

2010-11-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

I have still had hardly any sleep...

Moodys Video Updates # No.4 : Sleep or not to sleep?

2010-11-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Moodys Video Updates # No.3 : Behind the engine

2010-11-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

Moodys Video Updates # No.2 : Animations!

2010-11-20T02:10:00.000-08:00

Decent animation by me?! this is blashphemy!

Moodys Video Updates # No.1 : Story So far...

2010-11-19T22:37:00.000-08:00

Video Update 1

A update of where we are up to at the moment in development aswell as a first hand look at me!, Moody, the major player in all of this :O

moddb posts

2010-04-13T16:58:00.001-07:00

Make sure to frequently check moddb As I posted on there alot now.

Over night power boost

2010-03-21T20:52:00.000-07:00

almost 4am, working on the parts again to final bake them, I wont rest until they are done , and I have to wake up in another 5 hours, oh well no sleep for the determined!.

Concepts and Ideas #1

2010-03-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

So , I did this post because someone wanted to know more about what I have instore and what ideas I have for this "Fan Game", well for starters if or when made, its going to just be a small demo, thus 2 levels offline 2 levels online, I intend to leave the rest to what ever community is formed when I am done, mainly because I intend this project to come together quickly and be a nice portfolio piece.

So ideas... where to start?

Levels

Offline: 2 levels, 1 includes a VOB Section , 1 is a night time mission , 2 online levels , 1 based off one of AC1`s multiplayer levels, the other is going to be a cityscape.

Weapons,Kit and AC`s: It was brought to my attention ages ago , that if I merely put all this stuff out that people online will go straight for the good stuff , and thus it will kill it due to the fact that everyones using the same stuff, So the other day I had an idea to make it similar to Battlefield, you get to chose your class , Lightweight, Medium or Heavy, then based on that you get a selection of parts.

But for the weapons and gear, you have to unlock those, the idea was based on the concept that you get so many kills or do a certain thing ingame, and get rewarded with new parts, so say... 100 kills in total gets you a Karasawa for arguments sake, but at the start everyone gets a standard rifle.

Aswell as that, I have decided on the game modes, warfare will be one, where the AC teams battle to control all the points on the map and destroy the enemys base, and the other is death match/team death match, where you pit your AC`s against each other to see who is the better pilot.

Gear, Gear as in extensions and back parts, I am looking fowards to tweaking , specially making the shield extensions actually emit a larger shield, and also having the stealth generators work similar to the cloak from Halo, some interesting tweaks, I have easy ideas to balance them too , so theres no worrys when it comes to being unbalanced gameplay wise, I also had an idea for when an AC gets destroyed and has to respawn, their gear is dropped like in any game , and thus the player nearest can pick up their gear ,and quickly recustomize if they feel that the other gear is better use, once they are destroyed though the picked up gear is too.

Also in the event that I am unable or unwilling to complete this project , I have a backup plan that will see someone taking over from me, this will only happen if things to do with family and other personal stuff gets in the way , as I dont want this project going on forever like some of my other projects I have been with, but its none of your concern as either way you`ll get some great stuff.

That is all

-Dave

Proportion Tweaks

2010-03-18T07:38:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

thought I would post this on the blog as its alot easier then cramping up moddb with it. So off to a flying start today, the pictures above represent some stuff that was brought to my attention, some I just need to confirm with people and others I am using to show tweaking I am going to need to do.

So first off , the thing thats been bugging me with the AC is the arms, after looking at the reference they need to be slightly longer at the back and thinner in the center areas, I modeled all my stuff off a 3d figurine, but it seems that compared to the original art works the figurines are way out on size terms.

Also .... the blasted legs, in the games it shows the legs exactly the size I have them, and yet people seem to think they are wrong, and actually I agree with them ,the games are wrong? what? you might ask, but no , if you look at the picture in question of the red AC , its thigh section with the same legs I might add, are actually bigger vertically than the normal ones ingame, which leads me to the conclusion that they where increased in size after Last Raven, as the picture I think is from Portable.

The Karasawas grip does need to be moved back, but not as much as it would seem , the grip is still near the middle of the guns rear portion , but slightly more towards the end.

And finally the Head Unit does not need to get any bigger, or smaller just needs to be moved backwards slightly , as all standard head units stay within the neck portion of the core from visual observation.

I will make these adjustments soon

Low Poly done :)

2010-03-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

1 Complete AC done

Tons of Development

2010-03-17T14:42:00.000-07:00

So what can I say other than wow, since I started this project, I was kinda struggling from the beginning, modeling stuff in 3d again after god knows how long of taking a break from it, confronting my worst fears in art , unwrapping , rigging and texturing , and also getting everything looking great.

But now things are going well , everythings quite high quality , definately compared to my old work from past years gone by, I am pleased that It has been so good to get back into this stuff ,and also learn alot more than when I was at University.

If you keep up to speed with the moddb page then you`ll know whats going on more a less as soon as its done, so I wont go on any further.

Development so far...

2010-03-13T15:25:00.000-08:00

Everythings going well, been baking textures and working on the low poly versions here and there , a few small errors but they can be sorted , otherwise everythings fine.

Cant wait till one AC is done.

Check Point

2010-03-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

Little teaser :O

Locked on target..... firing!

2010-03-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

Finally after alot of tweaking low poly models with test normals are starting to become easier to create and are looking good aswell, its given me alot of hope, I have already done one head test piece, and am working on the original Facinator Core I did ages ago now, if that works then boy im gonna be damn happy.

Project Target is still in sight, unfortunately for that I just got battlefield bad company 2 so it might be abit behind schedule , but theres no stopping me from completing this project,not now.

Nothings going to stop these hands from completing what I started.

Low Poly MK2 = Freaking win

2010-03-03T12:17:00.000-08:00

So I have been working hard on a low poly ver of the MK2 since this morning when I posted the other video, and boy has it been a very good day, I began work on the low poly model , and ended up doing a explosive bake on it, thats when you take all the parts of the model , seperate them out then bake them individually then put them all back together again.

And damn I am happy with my results,I had the 3d Studio Max viewport shader for normal maps on when I took these screenshots but it shows off what its gonna look like anyway, and damn I am happy now things are going the way I want.

Karasawa..... MK2

2010-03-03T07:43:00.000-08:00

Why just have the MK3 when I can have the MK2 aswell?

God Damn Stupid 3d Studio Max ¬_¬

2010-03-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

Ok , Leaving a note for myself here cause this got annoying today...

What ever you do, when you render a damn normal map texture and complete map, make sure for autodesks sake that you have the damn render options set back to normal in the main options and not set to video, cause ffs you know how annoying that is when you click render, and the damn thing trys to render every damn frame you used in a video but as a texture?

100 damn textures , exactly the same as the last, on the damn desktop, and it doesnt stop rendering em until its done, so all the work done was lost so far... god damn it.

More R&D

2010-03-02T07:18:00.000-08:00

Its funny in an ironic way, I visit a few forums for feedback and then next thing I know the entire AC community is looking over my shoulder constantly. Well, as crazy as the pressure is to make things go well , or atleast make something decent looking to please people, I need to remember that I started this project for myself and everyone else comes after that, so even if I dont finish if I can get some really great art of it ,I`ll be happy. Just hope the community will see it that way :/ Anyway, today I was messing with normal maps, developments slowed while I figure out how to use them effectively with models that look decent and will be amazing to look at eventually, its a case of balancing the polycount with textures thats getting to me cause some of the stuff comes out and looks utter crap :s Anyway heres a video to document the stuff I have been working on.

R&D Unreal Engine 3

2010-02-27T17:06:00.000-08:00

During R&D today, I found that most cylinders on 3rd person objects in UT3 use either 8 or 10 sided cylinders, which is helpfull for when I get around to modeling stuff like the gattling gun and cylinderical shaped things, because I can save on the poly count, Also some areas of models that you really want to make stand out are kept as 3d , where as others that only add smaller detail, are done as normal maps, knowing this will allow me to plan out my lower res meshes in advance so they can look the best I can make them.

What I sent to Epic...

2010-02-26T08:25:00.000-08:00

Hope they like it :)

Didnt have the music in obviously.

God Damn it stupid internet ¬_¬

2010-02-26T04:42:00.000-08:00

Just when things start going well , and I get my matinee for Epic done, the net refuses to upload to a filesharing site , or any file upload site for that matter, so the chance of me hitting the deadline is slim, the request was for an uncompressed file at the right scale, but at the moment I am concidering compressing merely to see if it will upload, the scale will be the same, the bit rate wont be obviously.

Still awake...

2010-02-25T22:26:00.000-08:00

Still awake never went to sleep, stayed up to do some stuff for "Epic Games" for todays deadline to submit something for a documentry about UDK.

Screen grab is using High Detail Models.

Going all out, 1:15am, Crest Core here I come!

2010-02-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

Its 1 in the morning , felt sleepy , instead of going to bed, got myself a coffee and some chocolate , now I am waking up again ready to do the final high poly part so I can finally advance, I need to start kicking it into over drive again before my deadline and this will be the final push towards the low poly stuff, so I can manage it easy.

Lets do this...

Back on the Job

2010-02-24T05:52:00.000-08:00

Back on the project Finally , 22 days before my deadline for the low poly models , that means I really need to kick it into over drive to get things running again.

Got myself a Coin Op Fig from Japan the other day on Ebay to see about more reference , its small and the pieces are hard to put together but it was worth the money, think for future I might get the snap together kits though as they are higher quality and detail. The size of this fig is roughly half the size of a Halo Series Figurine.

So anyway, Im working on the legs now, well these ones , I know I said I was gonna do a really heavy set, but atm I concider these to be quite heavy,that and finding good reference for a decent heavy set was tough, anyway here I go!

Check List of core gameplay mechanics

2010-02-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

-Armor Point Counter must have 4 digits for health, this must be different due to various parts equipped.

-Radar Must be situated in top right corner
-Boost Guage must be able to work properly
-Heat Guage must
-Lock on ability
-Boosting
-Various Text warnings and notices in HUD
-Garage system, character part customizing and swapping
-Parts unlock system

Just some of the things that need to be thought about to get things rolling.

Planned parts , and a well deserved break

2010-02-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

2 More parts to go, even though I said I was completely done with the high poly models on moddb , 2 doesnt make that much of a difference, what I plan to do is skip the enemys for now and focus on the core element of the game , the AC`s and their weapons, once I have gotten them ingame or atleast down to a suitable and acceptable ingame standard (from my point of view), then I`ll work on enemys.

For now , I am taking a 2 or so day break so I can have a rest from all this damn modeling lol, even the best have to have some time to chill, besides which AvP should come soon, in the UK its got a later release obviously compared to US release dates, so its coming out on the 19th , but if I am lucky cause I ordered it over the net I can get it quicker :)

2 more parts and then win :)

-Dave

Going back on what I said ... ^^;;

2010-02-16T11:32:00.001-08:00

Yea , so... Im partially going back on what I said in one of the last blogs about taking some parts out , Im back playing AC2 atm , and If I can get good enough reference Ill be using the parts from that to fill my quota before doing enemys and transports and such, as I have already completed the tank legs , for those who dont look at moddb....

So yea .... Im happy atm enjoying the older games :)

My Birthday! :O

2010-02-15T06:46:00.000-08:00

Had a great Valentines day, and then my birthday after :O, working on tank legs now I have some reference , for all those who want to know what I got , Money and chocolate :)

Slight change in plans...

2010-02-11T17:45:00.001-08:00

I have altered my plans for parts and also coding slightly , I have posted on UDKs forums in hope of gathering more coding assistance , and I am also canceling the tank,quad and inverted leg types I had planned because I just simply dont have good enough reference of them to go off.

Instead I will compensate by doing the Cronus Vixen Legs and Arms,A heavy set of legs,another medium set of legs, and the 2 shields I promised.

-Dave

Parts counted , Parts left

2010-02-11T10:35:00.000-08:00

Parts Done

3 Heads
2 Cores
3 Arms
1 Leg
3 Extensions
2 Blades
3 Missile Pods
2 Shoulder weapons
1 Bazooka
2 Laser Rifles
1 Flame Thrower
2 Grenade Launchers
2 Rifles
1 Smg
1 VOB

29 Parts So Far

Parts left to do

3 Legs left
1 Core
2 Shields

Only a few more parts to go ...

2010-02-10T12:59:00.000-08:00

Spent ages today trying to get the bloody Cronus Core done because of a lack of reference took me ages to find decent stuff , and then build time on top of that made things abit rediculous.

Either way, I have one more core to do, the heavy type , then its onto the legs unless I choose to do another core....

First Checkpoint almost reached :)

2010-02-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

HUD Prototype Finalized, Sandro Hired

2010-02-07T17:55:00.001-08:00

First off , im back again just logging stuff again , I got some comments recently about my spelling, sorry its never been really good if I make any mistakes just be sure to correct me ^^;;.

As for the HUD, I think I have a decent final ver produced, time will tell if We can get it working, and by we that brings me to my next note.

I know I said this was gonna be a one man show , but I thought I could use some very friendly help speeding stuff up, I managed to draft in one of my best friends Sandro to help try and speed things up when it comes to getting stuff like the HUD ingame so hopefully we`ll see it ingame in the future only time will tell ,until then I have high detailed parts to finish and then low detailed ones to start and then normal map and texture.

Laters!

HUD in the works

2010-02-05T17:55:00.000-08:00

Been doing a prototype for the HUD kinda need a font atm ....

High Detail Karasawa Low Detail Ingame Model = Normal Maps

2010-02-02T14:04:00.001-08:00

So Today I think I have finally gotten the hang of normal maps, I am still experimenting , but this series of pictures charts the work flow today , from start , progressing all the way doing , messing around with various lighting and other things for instance , this version of the Karasawa is still just the test version mainly because the Unwrap I did was a really crappy planar just to see what it would look like as a test.

As it goes further down, I mess around by baking a colour scheme onto the map just for fun, to get an idea of what it will look like ingame when the colour is on it, then afterwards I render what it will look like ingame with a specularmap on it, in a viewport shader setup.

Items Done so far...

2010-01-31T17:56:00.000-08:00

Head :CR-H98XS-EYE2
Core :CR-C06U5
Arms :CR-A92XS,CR-WA69MG & CR-A72F
Legs :LH09-COUGAR2
Extensions :ANOKU,CR-E90AM2 & IWATO
Back Units :WB04M-NYMPHE2,ZWM-M24/1MU,CR-WB78GL,& CR-WBW94M2
Arm R : NICHIRIN,WH04HL-KRSW,CR-WR76RA,CR-WR93RL,CR-WR73RS,WR07M-PIXIE3,WR05L-SHADE
Arm L : CR-WL88LB3,CR-WL95G,JITEN
Boosters : VANGUARD

Total Parts : 24

More Done :O

2010-01-31T15:58:00.000-08:00

A Sniper Rifle and more on the way!

2010-01-31T09:13:00.001-08:00

Yet again quite accurate , today i hope to get atleast another 2 parts done to make up for the lack of parts from yesterday.

Another Lazer blade!

2010-01-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

MWG-KARASAWA

2010-01-28T19:17:00.000-08:00

Keeping in tradition with Armored Core , I thought it fitting that I add one of the most powerfull weapons into the selection , the ever returning Karasawa lazer rifle , always the most powerful lazer rifle , and always in every single game...

Design Document

2010-01-28T07:23:00.001-08:00

I thought at this point it would be good to post a simple design document up so heres a shot at it.

Limit Release Design Doc

One Sentence Description

Armored Core, old style with high detail

Short Summary

The demo I want to create will basically handle like the old series of Armored Core games 1-Last Raven, but will be more detailed and built from the ground up on a more up todate game engine than what the original producers used.

Target Audience

Armored Core fans,Mecha fans and generally anyone thats interested in giant robots blowing stuff up.

Platform

Windows

Unique Selling Points

- High Detail
- Customizability
- Free
- Multiplayer
- Co-op

Game Mechanics

Controls

- Mouse to look around , left mouse is primary fire , right is alt fire , scroll wheel scrolled is sniper zoom.

- Tab is scroll through weapons.

- A,W,S,D are normal move functions for moving fowards , backwards and strafing, jump is spacebar , boost is double spacebar(in mid air), crouch is C, floor boosting is spacebar and fowards when on floor.

- F is Melee , used for lazer blades.

- E is use , mainly for opening doors and activating things.

- Q is Extension , used on extension parts if any are equipped.

- V is Night Vision/Flash light depending on the mission

- M is Map view, showing the entire map.

Score System

After each mission , your score is based on how many enemys you killed , how much damage you took , and how much ammo you spent afterwards its all totalled up and your given your score based on the average of all the various factors above.

Win and Lose conditions

During each mission or multiplayer match , you can win and loose in a number of ways , you Win if you ..

- Complete the mission
- Destroy the enemy unit (multiplayer)

To loose you ...

- Go out of the designated area of operations
- Get Destroyed by loosing all your Health

Visual Style

The visual style is reminicent of the old armored core, just with higher detail on an upgraded engine.

Assets Needed

- High Detail Meshes

AC Related

: 2 Extra Choices of Head
: 1 Extra set of light arms
: 4 Extra sets of legs 1 of each type (light,Heavy,Quad,Reverse Joint)
: 2 Extra core choices 1 light 1 heavy
: 2 Extra choice of booster 1 light 1 heavy
: 2 Extra Extension Parts 1 shield , 1 mobility
: 3 Energy weapons , Karasawa , Lazer Rifle , and Pulse gun
: 1 Flame Thrower
: 1 Sniper Rifle
: 4 Extra smaller weapons , 2 blades 2 shields

MT Related

: 1 Walker type MT
: 1 Crawler type MT
: 2 Flying type MT

Other Assets

: 3 types of turret , 1 long range , 1 SAM , 1 short range

(All assets need to be high detailed then reduced via normal mapping methods to low poly)

Audio Style

I plan on borrowing Audio from the older Armored Core games to complete the Audio Section , that includes music , voice overs and SFX.

1st Wave of new body parts!

2010-01-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

So until now i have been focusing on weapons, so this time i decided to work on other parts aswell i`ll probably get more done before the end of today cause i normally stay up late working on things , but check these new arms out anyway , 1 heavy set and one machine gun set :) high detail of course.

I uploaded the references yet again too for you to look at.

2nd wave of weapons

2010-01-26T16:46:00.000-08:00

Hey all back again , this time with more weapons , high detail as usual , works been slow as i have been taking a short break from it, hope to start working on the rest soon :)

First wave of High Poly Extras

2010-01-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hey again all, today I started on the new weapons to be used in the demo hopefully when its all done and dusted, 2 new high poly versions which will then be translated into low poly include 1 missile pod and 1 lazer blade, see below at their high polyness and then the reference images used.

Another fan game project starts

2010-01-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of development on this fan game that I plan to make for the Unreal Development Kit, the aim is to force myself to learn new skills such as normal mapping, texturing decently, and animations, so that I can achieve my goal of being over all better than I was when I started the project.

The project is small compared to other tasks I have taken on but still requires work on the main sections code and kismet wise, it will require me to learn all about the Unreal Dev Kit aswell in the process.

The mission plan is simple

Develope a demo with 2 missions based on the original Armored Core demo for the Playstation, with the skills I have collected over the years plus new ones I will be forced to develope I hope to get some customizbility into the plan aswell as weapon swapping, colour changing and more.

List of things I will need to model.

- Atleast 2 more sets high res AC parts for customizbility
- Atleast 2 more of each weapon class for weapon swapping
- All low res assets for normal maps
- At least 4 different types of enemy high res then low poly for normals
- 2 sets of turrets , 1 celing type , 1 ground type

So far I have

- High res AC model
- High res weapons
- High res Vanguard Over Booster

Gallery