This is my first post documenting the progress I have made on my project as of the date of 28/04/22. I will outline what I have done, what I still need to do, what resources I have come across, and areas I am currently stuck on, as well as reviewing some sources of inspiration.
Initial mood/inspiration board:
These are images I had in mind when thinking about ways to augment the usage of hands. I will keep these ideas in mind as I progress further.
Element 1 – Sword Cutting:
What inspires me – I want to create a system similar to the dynamic cutting one from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. The system is very precise and having something like that in VR would be interesting.
What I have done – The sword cutting element is 99% completed. I am able to cut a box and have the created pieces be made based on the angle of the blade, as well as them having realistic physics. I also added a sound effect whenever a piece is cut for added effect.
What I need to do/Areas I am stuck on -There are a few issues regarding collisions in the center of the box glitching out a bit, as well as pieces falling through the floor and not colliding with the flooring. I also might want to add some kind of visual effect to the cuts.
What resources I have – Billy was kind enough to link me to a useful twitter tutorial for cutting mechanics involving the sharpening of a stick with a blade, as well as a chainsaw cutting wood. Whilst the concept of how to follow said tutorials currently escape me, they may prove useful in future edits to the system. The bulk of the system was made following an old VR fruit ninja tutorial I found on youtube made back in 2016.
Element 2 – Claws
What I have done – I have created a rudimentary model to use as controllers for the claw based climbing system. I also spent some time trying to follow a few tutorials online on how to implement it. However, most do not use the most updated XR systems, and thus, were unable to work.
What I need to do/Areas I am stuck on – Finding a way to alter the old code tutorials I have watched to work with updated XR and make my climbing work – Get the fundamental climbing working, and then implement a way of which it is tied to the claws being embedded into the wall, similar to a climbing pick.
What resources I have – Whilst currently not seeming to work, the tutorial by Valem was the most updated I could find online.
Element 3 – Hand Selector
What I have done – Created a UI system available to the player to allow for simple switching of hands for testing.
What I need to do/Areas I am stuck on – In the long term, I need to develop this UI into a radial menu that the player can access with ease. Something akin to the Half Life: Alyx weapon select system would work well.
In the short term, whilst the UI is present, I am having some issues mapping the buttons to swap controller models with ease. Initially, the buttons were only successfully changing one controller back and forth between models, so I came up with the idea to use tags on the objects to allow both controllers to switch with ease. I have yet to successfully implement this.
What resources I have – N/A
Miscellaneous Notes & Conclusion – My coding knowledge is still very limited, and given all the mechanics I need to create by hand for my project, I may need to find some assistance in a few areas. I’ve done some basic research on development of the whip and cannon and also found I have very limited resources to draw inspiration from on how to code them, so I will need to find a solution or possibly re-evaluate my project and its focus and range.