Greetings all! I am mentally exhausted! For the past few days I have been developing a drop-in navigation system for NeosVR and it hurts! I have gotten far enough I think I could seriously consider releasing it as version 1.0 within a month. I plan on releasing this navigation system along side another unannounced project I have been working on the past few days. Now normally I like to announce what I am working on, explaining why I designed things how I did and so on, but this project is more of a gift for a friend than it is for me. I do hope I would be able to break-even off of it, but I am absolutely not expecting to... Wow that sounds bad since you don't know what I am building. Once my navigation system releases (if it does of course), so will my super secret project. :3c
⮺ NeosVR
⮺ Rejects
Let's start with my favorite social game! Lets start by showing my first attempt at a rocket launcher.
This design was scrapped almost immediately after completion because it's just so ugly. That's pretty much the only reason. Also after importing the model to NeosVR I realized I had forgotten to use a solidify modifier on it, so the launcher just looked like it was made out of paper. I just said 'fuck it', scrapped it, reworked it, sketched it, built it, and that design became what the M202-Flash model was. I could say the same things about that rocket. After I designed a few more rockets (Such as the rocket for the M202 for example), some of my friends mentioned how the rocket pictured was the worse out of all of them. Looking at my other rockets, I can not say I disagree, however I do enjoy this design a lot more than the others, but I can concede that it had a very poor execution.
⮺ In-Dev
⮺ "Pathfinding" AI
https://odysee.com/@ArmoredDragon:e/04032023:4
Here is a short video of the gun in action! This tool as of now only can create nodes, link nodes, and delete nodes. Really the essentials. As of now the AI I have created to make use of these nodes only really has obstacle avoidance programmed into it. It can find a player using the node systems, but it can get stuck on dead-end nodes easily. For now, an easy obstacle-avoidance could be published as is for a version 1 drop-in nav solution, but I don't want to half cook this pig. Eventually, once my current NeosVR situation is fixed, I will use a true pathfinder algorithm like 'A*', but that is in the future. For now, just enjoy this proof of concept demonstration.
Here is the very first weapon model that isn't a rocket launcher I have ever created! It truly is a sign of God that Armored Dragon is capable of designing something that doesn't shoot rockets. This weapon is based off of some random image of a pistol I found on the internet. I no longer have the reference image and personally I don't really care to know what the gun was, but just know that it is one of them! I originally was going to have this serve as the primary dev tool that I use in NeosVR, or at least a dev tool for some kind of functionality. At least this was designed with the intention of being used with the navigation system I am creating. However this model also comes with large topology issues and I personally can't be assed to fix any of it, or to even remake it. Again, I don't even know what weapon this was based off of, this model has no strong emotional connection to me. I think it looks awesome and it will definitely work for now, but the final model for the Nav gun will be significantly different.
⮺ Weapons
Here is my second-generation pistol model! This model I actually know what it is based on, the Glock! Which one specially? Now you've got me! If I had this pointed at my head, I would assume it is the Glock 22, but I don't know. This weapon will serve as the base for two of my future projects. For starters, I will use this as a base for my new Dev Tool. My Dev-Tool model will look a lot like Garry's Mod's Tool gun with a screen displaying information and the such, but that won't begin until the model itself is complete. The other project I want to work on is creating a weapons system inside of NeosVR. This system will allow for modularity for different attachments, components, and other things. It will be a lot like how H3VR handles weapons, just a lot simpler. As you can see it is still a ways off, but I have high hopes for this model! I have been extra super-duper careful to make sure I don't make too many errors and I can say it is doing well so far.
Here is an ICBM model I created for use in my worlds! Because of how big ICBMs are in real life, and how massive of an effect they have when they are used, I've not come up with a way to realistically use this outside of display and set design, but I will continue to try and find something useful to use these for. As of now it is a fun little thing to play around with and to look at. The number one use of this model is as a placeholder... for itself? I'm not sure but I think I use them for something like that.
⮺ Avatars
Here is a sneak peak at my new avatar I am making for myself in NeosVR! My current avatar is super unoptomized and very heavy. That is not even including all of the garbage I stuck onto it like plastic explosives and rocket launchers. On the left is the first head I created for this model. I love it but it suffers from prohibitively bad topology issues. This is another case of me saying 'fuck it' and redoing it. Sometimes this is necessary to make an even better product. On the right is my head that I am happy with. I still need to create an actual mouth, but the outside is done. The chest is half way done, but it's pretty close to its final shape. I don't have too much more to say about this.
⮺ Utilities
Here is a very hastily captured screenshot of my portal generator node. I was making this in Blender when I decided it would be a better idea to finish up this blog post :D. This is going to be used in a project I am still blueprinting, but I will share more once the project gets a little further down the pipeline.
⮺ Everywhere else...
Nothing but crickets... I've been helplessly addicted to Neos the past few weeks on my AI craze, I hadn't had a big chance to work on other things in my life. However to remind all of my readers, I am also technically working on Project Exclusion by designing my weapon models. So all of the weapon designs here may be used in game at some point, albeit more refined, but they will likely be there.