Bionicle® Mask Mechanics

20 Feb 2013

I did this to get an overall impession of how udk works. The controller, pawn, shaders, physics etc. The shield effect is about the same as used in my other video, except I use decals to project the impact effects.

UPDATE! I joined a team working on an actual fan game: Masks of Power

Creating the the LEGO® parts was done in Blender. But unlike the Slizer models, this time I imported parts from MLCad and remodeld them vertex by vertex to be low poly. This still took alot of time, but was way faster than measuring and modeling everything with real parts.

Why am I not making a game?

Before I get bombarded with messages again (like after releasing my Bionicle® Machinima) no, I will not make a game! Apart from this being about a year old, I worked six months on the Bionicle related stuff to learn how to use udk. The mechanics in this video barely work, are bugged to hell and the code is every maintainer’s worst nightmare. I originally planed to release it along with my machinima as kind of a “behind the scenes” sort of addition but quickly withdraw from that idea to prevent even more “make a game” messages.

Still, I came to the conclusion that I should at least show it for I have put many hours into this work. So, don’t try to convince me to make a game! Here are some reasons:

  1. look above: the code sucks, I did it while learning how to use the Unreal Development Kit
  2. The LEGO® Group has given me permission to release my machinima, I haven’t asked them for permission to develop a game and I highly doubt they would give away their license for free.
  3. I would NOT work on a game for years to come to release it for free and I cannot sell it for reason 2. I simply cannot spare so much time.
  4. The work you see here has taken many months and it would need a couple hundret times more to make an actual playable game with story, models, animations, meachanics, menus … and so on, it’s a long list.
  5. I have been there before: I have worked on a lot of projects and free big ones always end up being canceled. I also know very well what it feels like to think your project is very easy when you come up with it at first. It never ends well, trust me.
  6. I am sure I will find more reasons if you are interested.