Tim, I wanted to help you in some way so I've found a clear image of a Big Bro holding a Blitzpacker thing

http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery...g-bro-slig.jpg

Hope you appreciate it. It shows that the gun barrell's supposed to be round. Not that it matter's too much, but if you're like that, you might want to change it. :)

Oh, and it shows a sexier texture job.

Hey :) It all has to do with performance, I don't know if you have any experience with 3D modeling but 3D models exists out of triangles. All 3D models exists out of triangles, this means a mesh connected to 3 points (called vertices).
A good example of this concept can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mesh_overview.svg

When a game is rendered it gets rendered by drawing thousands if not tens of thousands of these triangles to make up 3D models. Simply put, the more triangles a game has the better the specs of the computer has to be to be able to run it.

As I decided to have a low specs requirement for this game that limits my game to a couple of thousands triangles per frame. And to do this I need to use as less triangles as I can, this is why it is not actually round as how rounder a cylinder gets, the more triangles it uses. :)

I hope I explained it a bit :)

Edit
To clear it up a bit more I went into my 3D modelling app and created a simple example of what I mean.
As you can see these cylinders get more round the more tri's I use. (the square things are called poly's and consist of two tri's). Also, these cylinders are already shaded to look more round, This will also happen to the Blitzpacker Gun so it will eventually be as round as the most left cylinder. (Same triangle count.)

http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1296256465

Yeah, I know... but.. maybe just a bit rounder? haha... just a few more sides to that 'cylinder' would make a positive difference, particularly if you're going to use the First person view like you said and have the gun in that view.

PS. I hope the texture reference is useful anyhow

Yeah thank you for helping anyway man :) appreciated. :) It will get a bit more rounder with smoothing on, I will quickly do a test with that to show you :) Update in a few minutes. :)

Edit
Crap my virtual machine crashed. :( (I am running 3ds Max on windows, emulated on my Macbook Pro haha :) ) It isn't that stable :p nothing lost though thats a plus :p I will post an In-game version of the blitzpacker gun soon and then we can all decide if it needs more triangles deal? :D

Edit2
Ah AvengingGibbons! What did you do to me haha! I made a quick version of the higher detail Blitzpacker gun and fell in love with the detail hehe, so I think you win :p
Left is the old one, 738 Tri's. On the right the new one with 834. Acceptable increase for the visual benefit in my opinion :)
http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1296257049

btw: I know I screwed the textures up on the new version, will fix that soon haha!

hehe, glad you're happy and it will look so much nicer with the new texture once you've done it! Good luck with your project!

EDIT: Just seen your blue cylinder examples. I'd go with the 2nd one in the lower examples (I think it's probably the same as the 2nd one above it.. but yeah, go with that one)

Thank you :-) Will work on the texture tomorrow then at least one of the most important parts of the game will be finished :D expect an update tomorrow :-) going to bed now.

This looks fantastic! I can't believe I didn't know about this before, although I haven't been on much lately. Graphics are awesome, the idea of Abe with a gun is just insane:D My conclusion is, I can't fucking wait to play this!:D
And great job with the Blitzpacker so far, the textures look great anyhow and so does the 'roundness'.

Tim, I'm assuming it would be possible for custom maps to be made for this too? Like, a slig barracks?

hm why are the maps in munch unusable?

Nice change to the Blitzpacker, I want it on Team Fortress 2 :D

Nice idea, dude!

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments :)

Yeah it's just a 3D object in 3ds Max so everything can be used as levels. The reason I chose Sloghut for the first release was that it connects to Oddworld Munch's Oddysee, it's a part that players recognize and the last thing I want to do is make a custom map that actually doesn't have any 'odd' feelings :) Of course after the release I could add new maps including custom maps. :)

They aren't unusable :) (Where did you read that?) They are just compiled into .nif files (Used by the Munch's Oddysee) to use them in the tools I use to create games I have to convert them to other files, which is a bit more extra work but is worth is :) They do however need a lot of tweaking because they weren't designed for a FPS game, they were made for a third person game with a linear game story so I need to create more paths and walkways everywhere to make it enjoyable :)

Time for your opinion!
So guys! Which Blitzpacker gun do you like better, the pre-Munch's Oddysee one (top picture) or the Munch's Oddysee one? (bottom picture)
I think the pre-Munch's Oddysee one looks freaking badass but I'm not making this game just for me :) Share your opinion please! :) (Thanks to http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/togg/ for the images)

http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...litzpacker.jpg

well the one you reconstructed is ok :) and it will ad more visibility

The one with the Soulstorm brew at the bottom.

Scraby hit the nail on the head. You don't want the cans stuck in the way when you're trying to point the gun at ememies. The animation of the cans loading into the gun would distract your attention from movement in the distance, like enemies. So, have the cans load at the bottom so they don't get in the way of aiming or distract attention.

Plus, the bottom one has the more obvious handgun shape, just looks much sleeker :)

Hm... I think I will have to follow the crowd on this one.

Although, I say keep the the sort of octagon-esque design of the barrel you have at the moment. I think it looks best that way. Even imaging it without the imperfect textures.

In short, keep the current model, and have the barrel on the underside.

I'm also going with everyone else. Scraby and Gibbons do have an excellent point so definitely the one on the bottom:D

Meh, I like the pre-MO blaster better anyways.

yeah,it would be quite wierd cuz you cant see from the barrels and probably anyone could bust ya :D

A real quick update from my mobile to let you know I'm still alive :-) I've been really busy with college but had a little bit of time to work on the Blitzpacker gun, texture hd is all doen on it, model is being done as soon as I wake up :-) Thanks for the input on the Blitzpacker Gun versions :-) means a lot! :-) Going to bed now :-)

Edit (The following morning)
So here's the new Blitzpacker model and texture :) Tell me what you guys think :) I had to redo the whole texture and it is now 1024x1024 instead of the original 128x128.
http://www.buoyancyinteractive.com/o...zpackerNew.jpg

Cool. You need to do something with the edges (like,t he crevices, where one metal part meets another). There's other stuff that would make it better too.

An easier thing that I think should be done is this: The barrell isn't the right colour. I know in the first big bro image, it looks sort of black (dark grey), but in the second it's the same material as the ammo-loading part. I think this one looks better.

EDIT: Try ...'baking'? an ambient occlusion map that u can layer onto the texture. Let me know if you know how to do this or not 'cause if not, I'll send you the tutorial i used a while back. It's a way of making objects look like they're self-shaddowing in ambient light. (Not sure if my terminology is correct, but I tried :)..)

whoa looks nice! :D i like it

Wow, looks nice, and did you use the moon for the middle part?

Small update, ran into some network glitches with the first person mode (think because my code is way to rough). Weird thing is Third person works fine and I haven't even plannend on using it, so what are your opinions, Third person... Yes or no?

While I figure a way to improve that I've been busy on pulling objects from Munch's Oddysee and put them separated into the Unity engine so the level design van be tweaked very easily. Counter is at 124 unique objects already.

@Hulaabeo, How do you mean "moon"??

well im okay with whatever you do :)

I'd prefer first person.

1st person and 3rd person?

How compatible are models between 3DS Max and Blender, because I'm taking a class in Blender at my University, and would love to help model things if you need, thought you see to be doing a good enough job!

Probably easily compatible. I say get making if you wanna, coz you'll easily be able to open your models in max one way or another.i know that max opens .3ds files, .max.. and (probably) all modelling software can handle .obj files (in max, you have to import these).

From what Tim said, it sounds like you could just model a level in blendr and then save as an .obj that would go straight into the game engine (no need for stopping at 3DS Max along the way)

.obj files can both be opened in 3DS Max and Blender. And I'm sure most game engines accept .obj, if not that then .ace or somesuch which may also be available from Blender (not sure).