Having trouble finding the right size for a weapon

Noxielotl · August 15, 2018, 8:28pm

So I’m working on a Voltron (Legendary Defender) game. It’s a personal project that I’m doing to chill because rl is not as fun as ingame :^( though I hope to play with some of my Voltron friendo’s which is why I’m making this post.

Anyway, I’ve just created a somewhat blocky Bayard in blender. A Bayard is a tool which turns into a number of different weapons such as a Sniper, Machine Gun or Sword.

Here is a picture of the Bayards and the reference image I used

What I’m struggling with is finding the correct size for the Bayard to be when being held by the player.

This is the first sized I tried, as you can see it sort of clips through the players hand.I can lower the weapon but then the players hand isn’t actually holding the handle anymore.

This is the second size I tested. It’s bigger and still clips through but it doesn’t look as bad or wrong. But it does look a bit too big.

Which size should I go for? Or should I go bigger or smaller?

kenami · August 15, 2018, 8:38pm

In my opinion, You can oversize or abuse it if the game will not own any package, the Default R15 looks pretty heavy itself, and on a few angle it would completely cover/hide the weapon.

Attacks should look more obvious and flashy so the players see better the action he’s currently doing, at this point, the Hitbox will also become more clear.

EmeraldSlash · August 15, 2018, 10:46pm

With Roblox you shouldn’t be going with realism. Go with what feels/looks right, regardless of how it actually is.

In the last picture, the weapon looks fine to me (although I’ve got no experience with voltron). Roblox hands have never been that great at realistically holding stuff lol

CheetahSp33d · August 15, 2018, 11:21pm

Second picture fits great.

H_mzah · August 16, 2018, 4:11am

The first image does not feel right as the model of the Bayard is quite small, and I can see it being an issue for players being hit by it not realising what’s happening, as @kenami stated.

The second image looks better in my opinion (I do understand your concern about it clipping through the hand) because the model is clearly visible, and as @EmeraldSlash said sometimes realism is not the way to go on Roblox and you should just go with what feels/looks right instead.

BixbyAlan · August 16, 2018, 7:01am

I prefer the second, larger version.

This reminds me of a similar discussion I read earlier from June where people were trying to establish a stud to iRL conversion. @ExtremeBuilder15 had a good explanation for why you need to eyeball certain things like this:

Measurement Conversion

I recently read a book about game design called The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell (great book). In it, Jesse says that when you’re creating 3d spaces you should proportion things like rooms and furniture differently than the rest of your world. Because of how the player is viewing the game (first person or third person) details like room size, furniture, and objects look off, even if they perfectly match the proportions of the rest of your world. He says if your game is being played in third person, you should increase the size of your rooms and objects slightly. If your game is being played in first person you should decrease the size of your rooms and objects slightly.

One of the games he has worked on is a game called Toontown, and you can see this philosophy throughout the third person Toontown world. You could google things such as “Toontown Estate House” or “Toontown furniture” and find pictures of the furniture and rooms, but it’s an older game and I couldn’t find a great picture showing the contrast between a toon and furniture. Suffice it to say, the furniture and rooms are 1.5x - 2x larger than they should be when you compare them to the toons. Part of this is to add to the cartoony, fun feel of the game, but it’s also to help keep the player from feeling crowded or claustrophobic when they’re moving around the rooms.

Not everything needs to follow the conversions exactly, give them some leeway when needed. Just something to think about.

In this case, since the player will be seeing it in the third person, it is expected to make it bigger than life for it to feel proportional.

Noxielotl · August 16, 2018, 4:54pm

You don’t actually attack with the bayards, instead they turn into weapons like these:

Funnily enough, here’s a picture relating to the Roblox event

Noxielotl · August 16, 2018, 4:55pm

True! I just worry that what I think is a good size may not be a good size to everyone else which is why I was looking for opinions. Thank you though!