Making a Dragon

[Jervan]

Hey! So before I left a couple years ago I was working on a dragon. Now I'm back and I've had to restart but I'm determined to get this working! I wanted to make a post that will go through the rough method that I've thought up so that more experienced mod makers could lend a machete to my intellectual thicket.

First of all, model issues.. Collision boxes and hit boxes. I need to do research on these but the first thought I had was to make the dragon made of separate pieces, mounting the wings as an item, the neck/head as an item, and the tail as an item - leaving the main body and the legs / feet as the collide-able part to the beast. Since the tail will be low as well I thought I could check for players behind the dragon periodically and have the swishing tail shoot a projectile to knock them away out to the sides if they get close to the backside. Does this sound like a feasible solution to BLs cuboid collision detection? I don't know enough about hitboxes yet to address any issues that could come up but the main thing would be overlapping the dragons own projectile output via the head / tail.

Another issue here is animating the neck / head if it is an item instead of part of the dragon "body". I'd like the neck to act in the same way the play hips do, the more you move the mouse up the more the dragon extends its neck backwards  and upwards, with crouching going all the way down to the players level to eat them up. No idea if this is do-able.

Finally, the last issue I can think of is flying. Ideally I'd like the spacebar to propel the wings and have it work as a jump without needing the ground. Is this achievable?

Any alternative solutions to the challenges ahead are most welcome. These are the ones I can see, there's bound to be hundreds that I don't so if you spot any holes in my logic let me know.

Still got a loooong way to go but I like having a plan. I'll leave you with a picture of the model I've got for it so far!

[Ad Bot]

[DerpDerp]

Delicious

[Ipquarx]

That mouth looks wayyyyyy wonky, just sayin' yo.

[MYST]

its perfect

[MTrRxx]

Rawr

[Jervan]

Thanks guys, the jaw has still to be attached but I like to keep all my parts seperate - stops me getting carried away

[jes00]

In case you're interested: http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=268205.0

[lordician]

In case you're interested: http://forum.blockland.us/index.php?topic=268205.0

We have code to make the player using a dragon able to "jump" again in the air.
It isn't super complicated and can be easily implemented.
If you need help with that, send me a PM.
It might be interesting to contact us about the flying deal because we had some thoughts about it and we got something slightly more interesting in the works. :)

As for your collision problem, it was the first thing that popped into my head when i saw the model.
Sadly, collision boxes are a bitch to work with (or so i have heard) in Blockland.
Having the wings and stuff attached as items could work, but then it gets harder to animate them together with the playertype.
It still can do animations and stuff, you just can't really do like specific animations for crouching or whatever without it being very hacky.
Collision boxes can be different from the shape and size of the body, it will just cause that some parts will be able to clip the wall however. :/

The model so far looks great though, can't deny that.
It looks big and majestic and i would love to see the end result.

[NotBomberguy]

mmmm

Delicious

[Mr Noobler]

i've never seen one ridable so can u do it?

[Jervan]

i've never seen one ridable so can u do it?

I don't even know if I can get it in game! I'll do my best. Did more work on the model today :)

[plad101]

can we see it rendered without the cell shading?

[Hawt]

can we see it rendered without the cell shading?

plz

[Jervan]

Here it is with no model posing, perspective or shadows - textures are bugged when I imported to MS3D so they're a lot lighter than should be but I just did this for quickness to show you

[Jervan]

Model finished! Going to make the player type and weapons / items now, make movement feel good, see what animations are triggered by the player and then make them for the dragon. Wings will be last!