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[noahwecker]

You're concept art and video look amazing!  Really excited to see gameplay footage from the prototype. 

[cubit]

Dikkop:  thanks we are using unity for the prototype... certainly will be on the lookout for codes soon so will pm you once I get back from a trip.

Thanks Noahwrecker  :D

[Mef]

Were you drawing inspirations from String Theory perhaps?

[Guitarmatt21]

WOW!     Now that the formalities are out of the way, I just want to say the ideas you have so far are inspiring to say the least. But what good are just words when one is inspired? I decided to make an ambient song with natural and robotic elements to match some of the imagery you've shown so far; partly because I've been wanting to try something ambient, partly because I love the idea of nature and this small robot coinciding, and partly because I think I misinterpreted you saying you will be expanding your team soon  .

Anyways, here is Itchy Space Glitch.  http://alexanderandom.bandcamp.com/track/itchy-space-glitch
I can't wait to see what else you cook up and how these awesome mock-ups will translate into gameplay!

[Music Vortex]

I hadn't checked the thread for a while, it's good to see all the progress being made

I loved the "Dishredder Takedown" video, the sound design is pretty good. I look forward to hearing the music you'll put on this!

[cubit]

Sorry for the delay guys, just got back from a trip...

Mef: I hadn't seen that before but I can see why you'd be reminded of it  Just a coincidence however.

Guitarmatt21: Thanks. Great job on your track!  It's still early days in the team expansion side because I'm focusing on the design and prototyping right now. Hopefully will be in a position to look for more help in other areas in the coming couple of months however.

Music Vortex: Cheers MV

[cubit]

Update:

Prototype work continues. We've been trying out a few potential approaches whilst looking for the most effective way to animate the legs. I'll post a more detailed update on all of that soon.

The first approach was using an IK Solver with joint constraints defining the general shape of the leg. The values need to be different depending on the vector of the foot in relation to the body, so we would lerp between values.



The actual bones used in the structure of the POD's legs are minimal and are not visible in the final result. We instead use the position of the IK leg joints to define the path of a curved line (and generated mesh)... as illustrated below.



This approach has potential as you can see, but we want to continue to try some more ideas out before settling. That's the point of prototyping after all and we have no publisher breathing down our necks!

[cubit]

Tonights concept, a POD with some upgrade modules to add 2 additional legs and an exterior chassis replacing the factory standard leg mount turrets...

[PaulCunningham]

This thread is awesome - your game looks great!

[brrrrr]

Wow! It's amazing!
Great art and animations.

[Vovosunt]

My complain would be that the legs still seem too chunky...
They just don't flow as nicely as in the concept and it ruins everything.
I think you should not be afraid of smoothing them more (as cubic/hermite splines).

[cubit]

Paul and Brrr: Thank you both!

Vovosunt: Yep, you are indeed correct  The legs are bending too acutely at each bone point which breaks the flow of the legs curve and it's definitely something that needs improving.

[jctwood]

These concepts are absolutely stunning. I can imagine it working beautifully in full 3D as well.

[cubit]

Thanks Desiderata!

So it's been a bad day today... my home was burgled in the night as we slept! They stole some valuable stuff but fortunately not my computers so at least that's something :/

[jctwood]

I am so sorry to hear about the burglary cubit. I hope you are able to claim back anything you lost and that nothing lost was of sentimental value.

[cubit]

Unfortunately one of the items was my recent birthday gift... but I just have to be pragmatic and take the view that at least we are safe and it's only money we lost, it's very creepy to think they were in the house as we slept! 

[Dikkop]

Send the POD after the burglars!
For the legs you might want to use a skeleton consisting of only two bones per leg and use simple trigonometry to determine the angles for a given position, you can then use a B-spline to create a fluent looking leg. I can elaborate more if you'd like, the downside of IK is that is horribly slow and doesn't look fluent, especially when you have multiple legs.

[cubit]

Hello Dikkop. Thanks for the suggestion, any further explanation of the method you're proposing would be welcome indeed!

[cubit]

Design Update:

I started on some concepts for the POD's interior UI.

I'm aiming for the POD's performance to be tweak-able even without resorting to upgrades. This is work in progress but the example below should illustrate how the player could balance power output from the generator to specific systems. Once the player starts adding upgrade modules and attachments, this would become even more useful.

This is just an initial mockup for a potential layout.


* the KW numbers in this mockup are nonsense and do not add up. Illustration purposes only!
 

[Dikkop]

Alright, so let me first say that I am not sure which methods you already tested so it could be that my suggestion is redundant, but I'll take that risk! :p So, basically what we want is to calculate a curved leg (ideally with multiple segments, but we'll get to that later). The simplest (and fastest way) to do this is to take a leg with only 2 segments/bones so that we can apply analytic Inverse Kinematics. Imagine there are two points, a start point from which the leg originates and a target point where the end of the leg (also known as the foot) wants to be placed. We have to calculate the angles for the two bones in between the start and target bones. Now I don't want to spam this beautiful blog with technicalities so if you want to read up more on the theory behind it, visit this link (Note that the examples are in 2D, but can be easily extended to 3D since it uses the same principles):
http://www.altdev.co/2012/01/18/inverse-kinematics-2-joints-for-foot-placement/
or this one:
http://www.ryanjuckett.com/programming/analytic-two-bone-ik-in-2d/

But since I think you are prototyping in Unity, here is an actual asset which you can use for free (it is not mine, and I did not test it, but the video shows the idea pretty well and I think it is worth a (pod)shot):
http://u3d.as/content/dogzer/inverse-kinematics/2fP

Then, when you have calculated the angles of the two bones in this case, you can use a B-spline (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-spline) or Bezier curve to create a curved leg which uses the bones' begin and endpoints as control points (I think to make it look visually awesome, a leg should consist of many small parts which can be positioned over this smooth B-Spline or bezier curve).

To create a walking animation we use a B-spline (or bezier curve) again, one can simply take the current position of the foot of a leg as start point and calculate a new target point within the range of the leg as end point. Between start and end point a curve can be calculated and then simply lerp the foot over this curve to create the animation.

Finally to create the illusion of multiple segments, you could add weights to the control points of the B-spline to create some sort of dents in the otherwise curved leg.

I hope I explained the idea well enough for you to understand, if not, please ask, I will elaborate more (I created a simple prototype in 2D in Game Maker, which I could show you if you like).