December 2012 : Second to last update news

I am so close to the final release!

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their support and encouragement you`ve given to me over the 2 years I have spent on this project, you have been a great community to me and I have listened to feedback and advice and taken it into account through every step of development.

History of the project

So a quick run down of the project for anyone thats just joining at the last second of development and for anyone else a recap on history, I started modding back at the end of 2004 when I was leaving high school at that point I didnt really do much I was pretty much the guy that told people what to do, then about a year after that I got into 3d and started doing stuff, but I always wanted to get better.

Come 2006 and I get into college based on what I had been doing mod wise because I didnt have the grades to get in and my work so far got me a better education as a result, during 2006 up until the end of 2007 I worked hard on my 3d skills creating models, levels and other content then from just before 2008 until the end of 2009 I was doing a video game design course at uni to see if I could learn anything new, by this point I had already had some people from the industry say I was decent at modeling low poly stuff.

After a 2 year course in games design that didnt pan out, with the tutor learning stuff as he went and learning new things of people like me who knew abit more than the normal student first starting the course I finished and passed leaving me wondering what to do next.

I started a smaller project just after leaving uni at the end of 2009 but things didnt pan out quite well, thus I kinda gave up on 3d for around 5-6 months, fast foward to March 2010 when I had been keeping some 3d models I did in uni on my hard drive, I found them and remembered what I had been doing and thus wanted to make a come back and started this project.

Project Goals

Original design goals
The original design of the project was going to be a small playable demo similar to the PS1 demo that was avalible back in 1996/1997, 1-2 levels playable but the problem was Unreal script I`ve never been much of a coder I can read it fine but getting it past the debug stage and getting it working has always been a problem So the design since then has been to make a short OVA (Original Video Animation)

The goal of the project is to create a short OVA (Original Video Animation) from scratch using reference to model Armored Core parts, units, vehicles and levels in 3d. After making a come back into 3d modeling and modding the keypoints where as follows.

1. Learn how to model in low poly
2. Learn how to model abit higher poly
3. Learn how to create better textures in photoshop
4. Learn how to Unwrap models
5. Learn the basics of animation
6. Learn how to custom rig models
7. Learn how to use Unreal Engine 3 (UDK)

I didnt expect the out come to be very good, just good enough to show progression after starting out from scratch, the idea has always been to improve as much as possible, but close to the end I had to start pushing stuff out the door to get it done.As a result of getting burned out a little towards the end after going over several revisions of what I wanted to animate, the final version is obviously not too amazing, as I finished working on things I only just realised that I could have probably timed stuff better if I had remembered that 30 frames = 1 second of animation, its funny how you forget things like that when your up to your neck in work.

I`ve learned plenty of new things, but theres still room to expand, and thats always been the focus with this project and the driving force behind it, even when I worked for a short period of time in the video games industry I didnt forget that drive.

Limit Release got its name not just from referencing the Limit Release feature in AC2 that was abused to hell and back in some cases, but it got its name from a personal story, my personal story of determination to get better than I was before over the course of this project, using it as a learning tool to improve on what I had not been taught at uni, and I am happy that it paid off.So heres some screenshots throughout development and also the final trailer to celebrate the occasion.

Screenshots

All these Images are avalible in the gallery aswell as alot more pictures of the work that was done and accompanying videos to show off progress.

Limit Release Final Trailer

So now onto the fun bit, I am thinking of getting voice actors again to do some lines to make the entire animation flow alot better, as it is right now its a nice viewing experience but it lacks story to make it accessible to people who may not know what Armored Core is.

Apart from that its just a case of doing the credit reel at the end of the animation, adding the music over the top in certain parts and adding credit text over the introduction video, which is not as much work as what I had to do to get all the sound effects playing at the right times (crunch time was bad for that).

So yea expect the animation within the next week because of having to get voice actors in, apart from that I hope you have all enjoyed this journey and I hope to see you on my next one (starting soon will tell more about that when the final update is released)

See you in a week or less!

-Dave