Hello everyone!
Todays work was on the machinegunner NPCs. I implemented the M1919 and the MG42 and I am quite satisfied with the overall resault. They use vanilla "Heavy Weapons" animations, because they look more badass being fired form the HIP!
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Regarding Weapons
I am now more confident with my weapon editing skills. Currently I know how to RESKIN any vanilla weapon with any 3d mesh, which is absolutely good enough for this project. There is something I need to explain about weapon modding tho, for those who are interested:
There are some problems:
Weapon animations are a pain - I have 0 xp with them, so I'm stuck with vanilla or with nagging other animators for permission - but then ...
Custom animations from modders work great on the player, but DON'T WORK on NPCs:
- THEY AIM AT THE GROUND THE WHOLE TIME - ALSO THEY SHOOT DOWNWARDS
- ALSO SHOOTING FROM COVER IS ALWAYS BROKEN - THEY SHOOT SIDEWAYS
For me it's impossible to stay immersed after seeing soldiers shooting the ground with broken arms
I want quality, immersive NPC behaviour.
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I thought HARD and came up with a solution - a compromise, if you will.
Ok, here's the idea:
- I will implement the whole arsenal for every faction - All WWII weapons will be shipped with the mod.
- Weapons will be SIMPLE - no modifications, no custom animations, no nothing! They will be there to look pretty and be functional. They will exist to be used by NPCs and not by YOU.
- Because of this simplistic nature, I can make the NPCs behave very well.
- DOWNSIDE? Reload animations will be broken potentially, but worst-case I can just make the ammo capacity INFINITE so you never see it. I rather see lower quality reloads than broken aiming!
- DOWNSIDE 2: Weapons won't work in 1st person - Sorry, thats the compromise - but you shouldn't use these weapons anyway - They are for your NPCs.
- For personal use - PLAYER should download their own WEAPON MODS.
So TL;DR - I will implement WWII Weapons for NPCs only, for your player character you'll need to select some weapons from the Nexus.
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This took longer than I thought to write up, but I wanted to clarify why I decided on this approach.
Posting might get a bit slow for a couple of days - I have a Surgery exam soon and then I gotta grind out all the weapons. Well at least the USA ones so they can be included in the US Replacer on Christmas ;)
Anyway, have a nice day!
Klem