Post news Report RSS Animating Weapons For Unreal Gold The Easy Way

Making and animating 10 different weapons for a mod for Unreal Gold isn't easy, but there is a more focused way of doing so.

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The science of animations for weapon models are the most messiest part maybe because I just wanted to get the weapons out. First time I've ever been making custom weapons anyways and during the time, I've only been making one or two weapons and been logging them down but I never thought about the quickest way to make the weapons until now. The science of animations for weapon models are the most messiest part maybe because I just wanted to get the weapons out. First time I've ever been making custom weapons anyways and during the time, I've only been making one or two weapons and been logging them down but I never thought about the quickest way to make the weapons until now.

I didn't mind making the custom models for objects and even character models were easy because I'm used to the complexity of those models because they all should be different but when it comes to weapons, it's alot more hard work then it looks.

I aimmed to have each weapon look different. Some may look similar but their geometry shapes should tell the different between them let alone the textures that would go with them. I don't like a re-texture of weapons, because that's tacked on usually. I think different geometry of shapes represents the quality of the kind of mod I'm looking to make.

When it comes to animations, i've got into the habit of putting the essential elements that every weapon needs. Doing each weapon, I've noticed that all weapons need these animations. It's nothing speculator ... they need to look like they are doing something on screen. Commonly, the weapons even in the original Unreal game have the same common factors to make the animations worth while for a first person shooter and I'm sure it's the same for all the other first person shooters out there.

All the weapons NEED and should have the following kinds of animations or movement:
- Drawing the weapon on screen
- Firing on screen
- Putting the weapon away

Those animations are important and should be because on screen models without animations would look static and wouldn't give the idea what the players are doing with the weapons when they are getting access and using them within the game. The game allows players to access and cycle through those weapons, so it makes sense that those animations are placed in first to get a good feel how getting access to those weapons feel like.

No Animations on a weapon and how boring it looks:

... and here are some of the desirable traits which animations could be used for:
- Idling - what the weapon does when the player isn't using and moving around
- Reloading if the weapons has such features in their designs

You can see the effects for yourself... I've put together all the models so far (before I texture and animate all the models) and you'll see how important getting those animations in to simply drawing and put away weapons to make the game worth while.

It's nothing fancy but from what I've learnt, there are the important and well needed use in the game that animation on models need to make the weapons worth while. It's interesting to note that Unreal Gold doesn't have melee weapons like the other Unreal Engine 1 games, which may show the nature of what's in Unreal Gold before the other games were created and released.

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