Construction Decoration Set! (as promised from the R60 Livestream)

Hello folks, and happy May!

Spring is well under way of being "sprung", so-to-speak, which means it's time for Spring cleaning and building! At least, that's the lame excuse I'm going to use for why I've only recently finished all these lovely construction deco pieces that we promised folks from the R60 Livestream...

Honestly, though, I know it's been awhile, not only since R60, but also since I last had a chance to create a fun post! The last post was full of little delicate pastries and other small goodies... This time around I got the chance to put together some things for you that will allow you to set up a construction area for building cool stuff on your property at a nice and large scale! So here we go!



"What the heck is going on here?!?!?"... you may well wonder... This is me going a little nuts testing various configurations of the deco objects I assembled on my little village-sized property on my test map! To give you an idea of how I got to this, let me tell you a story that starts with Starr giving me a small task that essentially just said "We have various construction decorations; cranes, pulleys, etc... They just need to be turned into player decorations... Make a set of 3 of them...

Well, by this point, you know me...and not only did I need more information to go on, I really felt that this was an opportunity to go "above and beyond" that simple task to create a set of "somethings" that would really make ME happy if I got my hands on them as a player... I, of course, imagined much more than just three simple items to throw around your yard...

After taking stock of what we actually had available, I made the determination to create a broader "family" of Construction Decorations that are more correctly "finished" compared to the meager items that we've purchased from various 3rd-party sources... For instance, though we do have an enormous "crane" object, and we've used it a few times in various places, it needs significant work before it can be actually handed out as a player deco (re-scaling, proper new collision shapes that allow it to be placed using the deco-tech, the addition of something to finish off the rope that hangs down and can be seen to be a "hollow" mesh, etc.)... We also have a "pulley" object, but it's very tiny (literally two pulley "wheels" connected by rope with a hook on one end and an unfinished end of rope on the other), and it wouldn't do for a stand-alone "prop" (it needed to be attached to the crane or some other structure)... Plus there's a variety of other individual things that I could assemble to look like little "staged" areas of construction with stuff that might do, but they needed some serious assembly, collision re-work and testing (for functionality's sake), along with a quick pass to help "normalize" the various textures and materials used across the array of individual objects I chose to work with...
My goal, in this case, was to create more than a few "stand-alone" props, and instead create a true "family" of deco props meant to allow players to create a entire "construction themed ZONE", so to speak, to really make your construction efforts look cool while "in process", and giving you all at least one true tool (scaffolding assembly) that would actually help you create bigger, cooler stuff using many of the other building decos you already enjoy using... As such, here is the list of items that have been created (six in total) as an entire "family' that can be used together to create the feeling of an active "construction site", while still making them all primarily using only objects (and bits of objects) already found in our game in various places:


Construction Scaffold Walkway
- this "centerpiece" to this entire deco "family" of prop objects is a large, multipurpose single-level (5 meter tall) scaffolding platform and access ramp that not only looks cool by itself, but can also be stacked atop itself as desired (while standing on top of the upper platform) to build up to whatever height you may need, to make it easier when constructing tall or large-scale props (or combos of props, such as building blocks and "outside" chimneys) when building on your property. In addition, I was able to get this prop to adopt the player-house tech that allows it to not only have other deco objects placed on its horizontal "floor" surfaces, but ALSO allows the hanging of small-enough wall lanterns, and wall sconces for candles and torches on its four primary support beams. This is something that we hadn't thought possible before (concerning deco objects), but after much testing and paring down of possibilities, I got it to work AND got it to allow the whole thing to be picked up and moved with all attached objects remaining in their assigned locations! You can even set the crane (seen below) on top of this as well! This is the only prop among this "family" (all made from 3rd-party items) that I needed to take into 3DS MAX to change and re-import its geometry as a new mesh to suit our needs. As such, it was fairly easy to make "function" as far as placement went. The time-sync, in this case, was making all the other deco-placement scripts function properly.


Construction Crane
- a prop to be used to indicate large-scale construction "machinery". It looks great, is partially the scale of the larger world-builder prop I'm sure you all have seen here and there, and has been outfitted with another "pulley and hook" world-builder prop that couldn't stand alone by itself. This whole device now looks a bit more "complete" (although under close scrutiny, it's evident that it couldn't do the things it looks like it should be able to do at first glance, such as tilt and rotate its "arm" like an actual crane)... This was the second most difficult prop to make function as a deco, due to a variety of poorly-made collision boxes that had to be remade and re-positioned, plus the "rigging-together" of the pulley/rope section attaching it. I started to try to fix its mesh (to make it look more truly functional), but it would have taken too much additional time, so the effort was scaled back... Still a beautiful piece, though.


Construction Stone Wagon
- this complex prop consists of a wagon filled with multiple sizes of simple, rough-hewn stone blocks along with piles of stone rubble "filler" to look like the kind of thing often used while constructing walls in the Middle Ages... This has been set up to be a "shelf/table"-style prop so that it can hold other props placed on any of its larger horizontal surfaces (you'll see images of this later). There are piles of rubble on the ground around and under it as well, to make it seem like it's meant to stay in place for awhile, while the area is "under construction". This was a fairly simple prop to assemble, but as with many of these props I composed, figuring out the reasons why certain collision and mesh shapes were causing issues with placement functionality was the real time-waster... I actually temporarily broke the build with this one! Yay! It's all fixed and ready for use now, though...


Construction Planks
- a complex prop consisting of a variety of smaller world-builder props such as some scrap-assembled construction tables, a number of different, decent-looking wooden planks in several piles (either on, beside, or under the tables), and even a static hand-saw of a variety not available as an actual stand-alone deco. It kind of ends up looking like some kind of crafting table, but it's really just meant to be a gathered collection of "in-progress" wooden boards... They all needed to be stripped of extraneous and over-complicated collision shapes, and new generic collision created, but this one came together fairly swiftly, and was both place-able and functional as a deco almost immediately. This, too, has been set up to be a "shelf/table"-style prop so that it can hold other smaller props placed on it.


Construction Ropes
- a fairly simple, but decent-looking prop used to create a little rope-storage deco item that can be placed all over a construction site to add visual flavor. There is a small coil of rope hanging on a peg, a larger coil sitting beside the post, and a small length thrown on the ground around the base. Additionally, it is set up to allow small wall lanterns, hanging wall candles, and small torch sconces to be placed on any side of the post that doesn't have the hanging rope hung on its hook. This came together fairly easily, but required a LOT of experimentation to get it to be place-able properly as a deco, along with allowing it to share the wall-deco tech normally reserved only for player house walls. The result of this, however, is what allowed me to outfit the Scaffold Walkway, above, with both the ability to have place-able deco on both its horizontal AND vertical surfaces. Quite exciting!


Construction Barricade
- a prop to be placed in front of anything "dangerous" looking to the general public. This is made from an existing sign we use to designate unfinished scenes, as many of you may have already seen. However, that sign is written in English, while THIS sign has been changed to be written in Runic so as to fit better into the visuals of the world. This, by far, was the easiest one to convert to a functional piece of player deco, but it makes a fun addition to be placed all over any construction site you choose to create!

Now, of course, seeing these as individual items gives you a good idea of what to expect, but nothing gives you the effect they are supposed to have as well as placing them together as a "family"! Here they are all chaotically crammed in among one another in my test scene!

It may all look like mass-confusion at first (because I intended it to ), but here you can see all six of them gloriously working so well together (plus a few additional props that work nicely with them)!

Below you can see a close-up of the wagon full of stone, the barricade, and the rope-storage post. Please note that I have placed several additional items on top of the stones (such as the head of lettuce and the pickaxe), and I've even leaned a deco shovel up against the wagon's side... They all play so nicely together! To the left you see the ramp up the nearest scaffolding. At ground level, a wooden streetlamp like the one you see here makes for some excellent illumination in and around all the elements...


Turning slightly left you get a close-up of the scrap-tables of lumber (with a few extra tools set atop it), the ropes again (this time with a small hanging lamp that works nicely with these pieces hung on the post), and more of the scaffolding with another cart of stone tucked away in the background.


Further left still you can now see the crane again, with a protective wall around its base made of multiple barricade objects! You can never be too careful!


I think I used eight or nine of the scaffolding walkway pieces together to make the bulk of the visible impact here. Each piece itself is fairly simple, but start stacking them up on top of each other, and building them up side-by-side, and you'll quickly achieve something of grand proportions! To the right, in the image below, you can see the lamp I have hanging off one of the main support beams, plus a little gift box peaking out on the floor above! All for the sake of testing! This probably excites me more than it should, but getting that to work was both tough and rewarding!


As a quick aside, you can see here, below, an image of me placing one of the scaffolding platforms one atop the other. That's about the best place to stand when doing so, and you can get the sense of scale in proportion to most characters... It can work either aligned just like the one below, or it can be turned around each time for even faster ramp access as you see in this image!


Before I started testing all these pieces, I realized I had to dismantle the barn I had full of OTHER test deco objects (remember my "barn of treasure"?)... I was loathe to do it, because of the time I'd spent filling it with piles of gold, zombie containers, and sweet treats,...buy once I started creating this construction site I ended up having a blast! It was so cool to play around with different lighting schemes and walking around underneath all the scaffolding, and it was so easy to place them in all sorts of complex-looking configurations!


Once I had them all placed at various levels, I then realized that it was also a lot of fun hopping around between the different platforms and objects, and up and down the ramps... It had the feeling of parkour! I wish our game could make your character tumble athletically when you land, if you jumped a great distance or height. I had to settle for rolling sideways and then taking huge leaps of faith... And rightly so! Falling off these things could be dangerous! They are definitely not "OSHA compliant"!


Anyway,...that's all for this post. Hopefully you found it amusing and are looking forward to playing around with the pieces too! I'm not sure how Starr will decide to distribute them, but I'm assuming a certain number of them will be provided to those who participated in the R60 Livestream. Hopefully additional ones can either be crafted, and/or perhaps purchased in even greater quantities so that you can go wild creating a huge "under construction" play-scape like I did! For the time being, here's a final image of my test character sitting down after this madness, and enjoying the view, with my feet dangling while precariously perching on a bench I set up at the very edge of one of the platforms!


Take care, my friends, and enjoy the rest of this fine May weekend!

Sincerely yours...

Scottie ^_^

 

Good work! Wow!

Thank you for being so passionate about giving us something appealing that people will actually love to have. This is a reward to be excited about!

 

Amazing work Scottie! Can that sign post in runic also have a version with normal letters?

 

Those look fantastic Scottie.. thank you for making us something that looks fantastic, but is also fun to play with. Can't wait to try them.

Oh and kudos for finding new deco options for deco items. Does this mean we might be able to hang lights and pictures on room wall dividers in the near future?!!?

 

WOW!

 

Fantastic work!

 

WOW!!! These are definitely worth the wait!!!

They are outstanding!!!!!!
Kudos Scottie

 

Amazing!

 

Great work as always!

 

AWESOME!

 

Awesome! Great work!

 

Great work as always @Scottie ! These look amazing and there is so much potential for decorating / building.

 

Man... cool stuff

 

Fantastic!! There’s look great!!!

 

Hey there! I actually created that barricade sign from one we already use that has the words "Under Construction" in English script. But, unfortunately, we have to reserve that for use as a developer tool only used in circumstances where a game scene (map zone) is in an unfinished state, even though players can walk around in it... For example, when I was in the middle of revamping areas like Xenos, we would place one of these in English near the entrance area for each map so that players would see it the moment they arrived... The English script made it seem "out of place", and thus a noticeable way to inform players that the zone was still being worked on by us developers... For similar reasons, and for limits due to translations and the huge number of languages, we can't really do them in other language scripts either... So, for the sake of it being a "player deco" meant to fit within the fiction of the world, any items with lettering need to remain only in Runic script... Sorry about that! ^_^

 

You are all very welcome, and I'm so glad you like the potential for what you see!

As far as the room wall dividers go, that's a PERFECT example of what I'm going to try to add that functionality to... Being able to hang wall decorations on room divider walls has been something that I wanted since they came out...and it bothered me that you couldn't... I'll be doing some test fixes to some immediately, to see if I can make that happen! Wish me luck!

 

Thanks so much, everyone... And I totally agree, Oakenhammer, I honestly didn't realize the fun these particular assets could bring until I started really playing with them during testing... I'm hoping what I discovered concerning hanging stuff on vertical deco surfaces can be retro-applied to most of the really obvious ones!

 

This is actually just exactly something I needed.

Thanks @Scottie

Is there any chance some of the stone rubble, boulders, and blocks and such could be standalone deco, created by dragging granite from your inventory to the lot? It would be one step in getting all of the crafting materials turned into deco components, too.

 

Possibly so! I'll ask later on if Starr would be OK with me providing smaller sub-sets of these props as well... Possibly the stone rubble, as you mentioned, individual stacks of wooden planks, the coiled rope on the ground by itself, etc...