Hi.
Yesterday I downloaded the trial version of 3dCoat and tried it out. Long story short, it’s a fantastic piece of software, and in under 12 hours of work (and then an hour or three of rigging and animating today), I managed to make this beautiful beastie:
You should recognize this creature from the site banner, as well as the “Outsider” concept from the first post on this blog. From a 2 million triangle detail mesh, the low-resolution mesh is a relative pittance at 3700 tris, a number which I hope to reduce further, to the point you’ll be able to have hundreds of the things on screen at once with minimal impact…
There are still some color and model tweaks I would like to make, but so far I’m happy with the result.
In-game, the hopper will be a creature of simple living. Usually found in small groups, they hop from location to location, hunkering down against the ground and eating up a chunk of turf with their mouth-foot, before spitting out the inedible portions and hopping to the next location. Primary defense is hopping away furiously. Secondary defense is the mother of all headbutts. Tertiary defense is to flip onto its back and bite large chunks out of your spacecraft.
Also, for anyone interested, here is the original piece of concept art for the hopper.
More news soon™