Hey all,

Think I had better introduce myself and this project. I am Dave I go commonly by the name Moodydata online, Im a graduate from Uni, my field was video games design. Now seeing as I can hardly find any jobs going anywhere, I work on various 3d game projects and just recently I started up one, based on an old model i made a while back, anyways I have been adding to it constantly, and making new parts from what reference I can gather so I figured I would find an AC community to give me feed back and well .... here I am.

This is some of the progress so far.

Dev Work










Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXsJBnVU6NI


Hope you like!


Project Details

What I aim to do is create a short 2 level demo for the game featuring some random parts that can be put together to form various varitys of ACs, similar to AC1s demo on the original Playstation , all hopefully made in Unreal Development Kit, the high detailed stuff you see at the moment is going to be normal mapped onto lower detailed meshes to keep the detail but provide smoother frame rates.


-Dave

Wow, I'm impressed. The models look pretty nice. I'm not sure how much you can value my words, though, I had only a little experience with Maya over five years ago, and I can't even recall if UT2 supported normal mapping. It's a good first impression, though, you've got a lot more footing than most fan games. From what I recall, nobody has ever gone farther than maybe a few rough models, and this is the most grounded forum you can expect of AC fans. Maybe "fans" isn't quite the right word, but you get the idea. My plans for an AC fangame is patching Last Raven for emulators, but I'm lazy and a compsci major, so there ya go.

Anyways, while the models are nice, I think we would be interested in what direction you are going to take the game. Is it going to be like AC1, AC2/3, AC4, or something kind of new? I guess on that note, do you have/are working on a design document for the mechanics, or if you're going to "wing it"? I guess I should back up and ask, are you're planning to include multiplayer? Without multiplayer in AC, I think this forum would have shriveled up and died years ago. The people who are left tend to look at it more seriously than any other forum. Maybe it is because of that, but I am confident that this is the only AC forum where you'll get an honest and well thought out responses, at least as far as the game part of the, er, game.

@Avatar_Zero

Thanks alot , UT2 doesnt support normal mapping but UDK will as it runs Unreal Engine 3 not 2. As for the direction im taking im trying to get it to play like the older AC games rather than AC4 and FA, the only reason I added in the VOB unit is because I wanted to model it, I am working on a design document outlining all the things that I want to do and want to get done, and I definately will be having a MP mode in there.

I`ll post the Doc up once its done

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.

Been working for quite a while today on this one , 1 of 3 energy weapons planned in the Dev Doc

Another Lazer blade for choice

Found a gold mine of reference for more parts , so i may end up with more than i planned , if anyone that views this thread can leave comments so far about the models shown , or feedback that would be nice while i am making more.

-Dave

Questions:

Are you removing the look-speed imposed by the leg turning speed stat?

Are you removing auto-aim?

Will the controls be customizable?

Will mouse sensitivity affect how quickly you aim?

Will you maintain the requirement for non-quad/non-tank legs to kneel in order to use back cannons?

Why weapon scrolling? Allow me to select my weapon at a touch of a key, there's no need to scroll through the whole list with just one button on a keyboard.

More Q's as I think of them.

Tips:

Don't expand your part list. Stick with what you have in the design doc and get that done.

Make placeholders for the art, get the mechanics working, then work on/add the pretty stuff later.

Don't be afraid to put your own touches on the series. If I wanted to play an AC game that was out, I'D BUY IT/PIRATE IT/EMULATE IT.

First off, thanks for the feedback Corsair.

Time to get down to answering all these questions..

- The larger parts will effect the look speed , so the heavier the AC the longer it will take to turn , when it comes down to legs , heavy leg type = long turn time.

- I think its best keeping Auto aim/ locking , or atleast adding a function in to turn it on and off for those who want/need it.

- The controls , will be customizable the ones I am using as an example are just really really rushed.

- Keeping with the old style yes, then it requires some kind of stratergy or plan to use those types of weapons.

- Weapon scrolling like i have said will most likely be taken out when I tweak the controls.

Thanks for the tips and questions

I think this is the kind of game that would benefit from having the engine done first, then all the parts assets later. After all, the original AC demo didn't even have customization, and it looks like you already have enough for one AC, or nearly that. I'm just thinking, it might not be worth trying to make the AC lock-box system on the PC, since it really isn't made for it. Even if you fix the turn rate or whatever, someone could just crank up their mouse DPI to circumvent it. I'm not sure how one would implement this, aside from just having the AC turn to face where the mouse is pointing, but not be as fast at doing it (lagging behind a little). I'm not so sure you can make AC work with just a keyboard, even trying it with a simple edition like MOA is pretty much impossible.

Most things are already in Unreal in their basic form its just a case of editing them to suit , as for the rest , Ill get it working eventually.