teambeef

JKQuest Weapon Alignment Utility

Added 2022-09-30 11:57:31 +0000 UTC

I thought it might be interesting for people to see some of the development process. In this case the alignment of the weapon models.

This video is a short demonstration of the utility I implemented to allow us to align the weapon models perfectly with the controller location and orientation. Since these old games have weapon models designed, scaled and positioned to look good on a flat screen they are rarely actually located at the origin as we need them to be. Therefore we need a tool (custom implemented in the engine) to allow us to align the weapon models perfectly with the controller so when the player aims down the sights, it fires the projectile appropriately. I used the light saber beams to act as up/right/forward indicators, and show the values for each offset on the screen (which I put into special weapon alignment cvars for when the game loads) making alignment a very straightforward process.

At the start of the video it might not be immediately clear, but the bowcaster is nowhere near the actual controller location. Once I invoke the alignment editor it resets all the important details (scale, right, up, forward, yaw, pitch, roll) to zero, I then go through the process of adjusting each one until I am happy with the result.

We have the same utility in some of the other ports so it didn't require too much reworking to bring it to JKQuest.

Clearly if / when we find alternative models this step will need to be repeated (or possibly not done at all), but for getting things looking decent for this early stage it doesn't take long to do.