Project Overview
Team project at GamerCamp Studios using Sony's Phyre Engine for a ps4 title, the project was in development for around 7 months.
My role as the Character TD/Rigger consists of me working very close to programmers, arts as well as designers. Creating and refining the work pipeline for the artist to follow by providing documentation, testing the engine and creating rigs for robots and characters
XRD is a robot wars style fighting game and is the second game (vertical slide) in the Xtreme brand, see the trailer below.
Xtreme Robot Destruction
Rig Setups
Robot Setup Structure
I worked very closely with the programmers for the physics in the game as one of the key features requested as having physics for the machines so they would feel more mechanical and have more impact.
Running many tests, the physics system for the robots ended up with the structure having 3 separate setups with active rigid bodies (Locomotion, Chassis and Weapon) and using joints as attach points where we could add extra nodes like VFX.
Early physics test
Animated Treads
This was set up separate to the main bot as we used the main bot for collision and we just replaced the visuals with the treads animating.
The left and the right tread animation moving forward were exported separately and animated accordingly through the code.
Simply attaching the joints to a curve and using a short bit of code to determine where each tread should be placed.
Character Rig
Set up a basic character rig for characters, mainly consisting of IK, with extra attributes to save time. This was a fairly simple rig as the characters were not the focal point for this project.
So we did not want to spend to much time on character rigs and animations, the main function for the characters is the provide advice to the player.
After talking with the designers I suggested, as the characters would not be close to the camera, I create a basic face rig and we simply give them a radio to talk into and to help with the immersion we use the Playstation 4 Dualshock speaker feature and this way each player should have a better idea which character was talking to them.
Testing Phyre
Testing within Phyre
Weapon Collision Test
The weapons are physics driven with Rigid bodies attached, by using the Robot Setup Structure. We did many tests connecting each rigid body to another and applying different collision shapes which affected scale and mass.
If we had more time, the plain was to look at adding extra parts flying off armour pieces as the robot gets damaged (using a similar setup to the main pieces and small bits of machinery such as scews/bolts using VFX.
Final Weapon System
Early Test
Destruction
Of course, you cannot have two robots hitting each other without that satisfying explosion with bits flying out.
For this, I broke the models up into core pieces that would be all separate during the explosion and applied rigid bodies.
Environment Destruct
The environment parts were set up in the same way but without the joints. Video shows an early test, the geometry would be changed later for smaller, more broken pieces
Destructible (Animated) Pieces
We also set up destruction for animated parts, where each part would animate and have a collision. When called we could make the physics active.
Explosion Test/Preview
Created a test/preview of the explosion system by having the rigid body parts overlap thus forcing the parts to move apart.
However, this was not used as it is too restricting, not being able to change how the pieces fly apart.
But this was used as a placeholder to give the idea of the explosion
Destroyed Robot Results
Triggering Events
The programmers needed a way to know when to trigger events (sounds/VFX etc).
For example - a leg touching the floor in an animation loop.
Together we found a way to trigger events within animations, by creating extra attributes and keyframing them during the parts of the animation. In the example below, the animation is keyframed when the leg would hit the floor and in the engine was called. As already mentioned we could use this system to trigger VFX at certain parts of the animations and by using the joints to attach them.
Models
I also spend a lot of time jumping on other areas helping out different areas, creating assets, providing feedback and details for the technical requirements.
I created some of the assets myself as seen below.
Axe Bot (/ Hammer Bot)
Playable bot, from modelling (low & high), texture and rig set up
Procedural Pipes
Create 4 different pipes that could be put snapped together easily and used within the level.
Shanty Houses (billboards)
Modelled, textured and rendered out most of the shanty buildings for the background which was then passed onto the technical artist to apply them as a material on a 2d plane as a billboard.
