Legend 9, Full Version progress, update 19: The Sapphire Puzzle blog - hexenstar

So far so good, my friends! I've finished the Arc of Death upgrade with flying colors. Success on everything that i planned for it. It is as polished as my Doom-3-Bravo Plasmagun, and feels like it too! And if you haven't seen and heard that plasmagun, then go and check it out, lol. It's the best there is. ;-). Ditto for the Arc of Death. Not even those advanced 3D models look as good! I maybe am bragging a little, hehe, but that was my plan: to make something that would actually surpass those famous 3D models! I knew that no matter how fancy they are, yet they have one weakness: they are stuck inside the vanilla box: flies and ointment, equal parts, lol. So i knew i had a legit chance, if i come up with a solid plan of action. Next post: Mage weapons showcase, the moment of truth ;-) I am excited to present the results!

I have also completed the Bloodscourge upgrade (extended and refined the HWR's wind-down animation), the first weapon upgrade (i kind of recreated~ish the magic attack of Gilius Thunderhead...) and moved on to the most puzzling weapon of them all: The Sapphire Wand. The issue with this one always was that the original had just a single frame of animation. That's not much to work with, for someone with my set of skills. I do my best work when i have some kind of starting point, a headstart. Working from an absolute zero, is not my strong suit, - nothing to hide here, i do what i can. The HWR mod, which i now have access to - has two action frames. That's an improvement for sure, but not enough for what i had in mind. So, the last 10 days i was brainstorming this subject and working on it in Photoshop. I photoshopped multiple ideas of what the wand's action could potentially be. Unfortunately, they all looked sub-par, and after that Arc of Death success - my attempts with the wand looked rather measly in comparison. As if i stepped back 10 years, lol. Eventually, through various experiments i zeroed in on two different ideas, discarding my previous sketches completely. The latter of these was to go the same route as HWR does, BUT - to go the mandatory for Legend9 extra mile.

Thus, i created 4 action frames based upon the HWR 's idea, but taking it further to include more elements. I also used the trick of making sure the animation is reversible, so it can be used as wind-up and wind-down (reversed), providing extra smoothness to the result. Now, it's time to revise the standstill animation and call it a day for Daedolon. I am maybe a week away from showcasing the Mage arsenal. Two weeks to wrap the whole weapons business, and i will finally go back to levels.