First things first. Last time we we're about to complete Orion's weapons - and we did it.
Orion's final weapon will be the homing missile launcher:
The next thing was modelling the cat in the space suit. You can imagine this took quite some time, but we are very satisfied with the results. Orion got his full bone structure and is ready to move. I also added a cover for the weapon arm which only opens when the arm is moving in and out. It has a gap for the roll which controls the angle of the arm so it's still able to move.
I also added bones to the face for hopefully achieving facial comic expressions and at least maybe a VERY rough lip synch in cutscenes...
Since Orion got his run-animation now and I almost needed half a day just for that run cycle (why do cats move their legs so irregular!?) I needed a pause from animating and switched my activities to the Unity NavMesh System.
Within one evening it was possible to get rid of our two level waypoint system (lvl one for cover detection, lvl two for avoiding obstacles) and reduce it to a one level waypoint system because the NavMesh system is now responsible for avoiding obstacles - and it works like a dream. When NavMeshes are baked correctly no enemy should ever walk through obstacles again right now, even in groups.
In combination with the NavMesh system I also achieved that Missile Drone and Gatling Drone are now walking far enough around the corners to really hit the player when they are following him instead of (sometimes) shooting against the wall or standing still. The problem was to get the muzzle far enough around obstacles but now everything is working.
Few days later all 4 of Orion's weapons were ingame, untextured and attached to the weapon arm. When you switch to aim mode (which is also possible right now) the weapons rotate independently from the body towards the crosshair.
Finally he got textured and performed his first facial expression
With all weapons attached and a competed running circle fighting was also possible. Firing missiles also damages enemies although they might not be hidden directly. Explosions also do damage now!
The reduction of the enemies health depends on how many body parts are in range of the explosion.
After that we shortly decided to complete THE APEX club. The 4 pillars are changing their color rapidly and the giantic half mirror ball on the roof rotates! So come on in - the red carpet is rolled out!
Also DJ fishface got textured, animated and a coat with fur.
You will encounter two of these beasts at the same time!
I then tried to set up a 3D Model according to our artwork
In contrast to the concept art we added some spikes to the single elements of the worm to increase the level of detail. The guns are a little bit thinner, the head has been improved and we now have the tail part and the "tube" which holds everything together.
Then there was new year's eve and I visited Jan directly in January so we could complete our work for the Echidna Trailer and set up a summary what happened in 2013:
Within the last year we've implemented our second playable character, the cat "Orion", we developed new weapons, improved the AI of drones and air units, created the new enemy type "Gatling Drone", the new Boss "Snow Worm Twins" and we revived "DJ Fishface" and also "Vela" for a guest appearance. We've also created a reminiscene to the "Big Bug Fun Club" manifested in our Disco "The Apex" (in memory of the biggest JFG Fanpages ever made) and well - crafted a complete new level which is almost completely ready to play!
The rest of January was spent to complete the Echidna Boss fight and I also needed some time of creative pause to come up with some ideas for story details, attack sequences (look at those maggots :D ), music... :
I've integrated two different death animations because you have to kill one worm first - so according to the mantis boss in JFG you'll see one enemy die during the fight without a cutscene. Since our worms are either jumping or rear up in front of you, you can kill them in the air and watch how they nicely crash into the snow - or you can shoot them in front of you and see how they slowly collapse.
The next thing we are doing now is setting up the meeting point for both characters on the map: The Ruin of Mizar's Palace
Therefore we are also using N64 architecture again to improve and extend it to suit our needs:
E.g. with some outskirts:
And what would Jet Force Gemini be without the coolest video game boss ever (except for the fact that there was a shitty little fluffy bear behind all this!)?
Thanks to the work of Jet Force Gemini APEX years ago who ripped the original Mizar Model from JFG Rom I was able to increase the number of its polygons and craft a newer and more detailed version out of it. He will get a few tweaks before I actually use him, but yeah ... Mizar now really has RESURRECTED!
So far so good... There are still many details to fix, many spots to improve but we are on a good way and we never thought we would actually come this far - so the dream of a Jet Force Gemini sequel is getting closer each day. Slow but constant...
Keep it up dudes!
Best regards,
Marius
