Visuals and Implementation news - Leviathan Crossfire

Hey guys and girls (by the way, any girls tracking us? Just wondering...)

Today I'm gonna talk about guns. The reason is that Nestor Chavez, character and weapon modeler for Leviathan Crossfire, has lately finished the last weapon model for the game, the Sniper Rifle. Just like our other guns, it comes in futuristic sci-fi style.

So, summing it up at this point: Now we've got a total of four guns. No pretty much for one game? Well, we've got the basics shaped out: The Assault Rifle with high fire rate and high precision, the Shotgun - with low precision but damage rate you don't wanna have to take -, the deadly Sniper Rifle for shouting Head Shot! from time to time, and the Blaster pistol for low ammo and emergency situations.

These are the most different gun types we can think of, they create the highest variety in the core gameplay. Another nice feature might be something like grenades or a mashine gun with a spinning barrel for the game. Who knows, maybe we'll add such things in a later development phase if the project goes very well. For now, our core guns will allow us to develop interesting different strategy options for our combatants in all situations we will lead them into.

Visuals and Implementation

However, allow me to have a few more words, on a topic that seems quite important to me: Visuals and Implementation. You see, on the one hand, now we've got the visuals of the guns. Meaning, we've got the models with textures done. But, that doesn't mean we've got the guns inside the engine already -- how hard can that be, may you ask. Let me explain:

You need to implement

• Animations for the model
• Implement the animated model into the engine
• Position the gun on the game screen so it looks good
• Control the animations via script
• Adjust animations and positioning
• Adjust textures and shader effects
• Add matching sounds and visual effects
• Do the gameplay balancing

And when you've worked through this list, you got only one gun in the engine, no more, no less. And then it may already good enough to be final, if you're lucky! (you probably are not)

Maybe these points are nothing new to you, maybe the seem obvious, but I hope to give some of you guys (and girls) an idea, maybe a new aspect of what (indie) game design can include, and what happens behind the scenes while you are waiting for precious new in-game screenshots. Oh, by the way, what a good topic transition:

Here is something else we've lately been working on: The character models we presented a few months ago are implemented into the engine by now (remember the list above? Pretty similar story) , and they got a basic AI system working (yeah!). A few words on AI... ohh, nahh, wait -- that'll fill another few sites... not today!

Community Suggestions

A last point, and then you've made it through the whole news post (whohoow!): Some weeks ago we asked you for your oppinions on how we could name our shotgun. Thanks for your suggestions and ideas! We liked most of them, but had to make a decision after all!

redrich wrote: The Widowmaker, for something perhaps a bit threatening. Or perhaps Atomizer, nice and Scifi-ish.

Yeah, cool idea! We liked this one the most, and so - The shotgun will from now on be: the Atomizer. Really cool and scifi-ish, agreed

Yeah, that's it for today... if I kept you till here, I've done a good job!

All the best,

Dominik
(dhk Games)