[CONCEPT ART] Link Gun

[Gooba]

Heyo!

Sorry I have been gone so long, I moved into a new apartment and couldn't get internet setup until today!

I wanted to post this here so everyone could give feedback on it. I think its in a pretty good spot, but there is always room for improvement. I changed the front area to the tri-barrel configuration to reference the UT3 version more and to make it feel more futuristic. Not sure if I'm sold on it yet, as it might be better to keep it feeling less futuristic on purpose, but I thought it was an interesting change.



Double-barrel congifuration.

[HenrikRyosa]

I think I preferred the earlier version. Also why the color change?

[Gooba]

I changed the color, because as far as I know, the color of the Link Gun is going to be blue. I'm not sure on the exact hue, so maybe its supposed to be more teal than blue but not sure.

I'm gonna mock up the other version soon, so we can compare the two against each other. I think the tri-barrel helps a little in firstperson view, but it also makes the gun feel kind've gimmicky instead of practical. I will try to resolve the issue

[SX]

If the link gun's going to be blue for team games, sure I'm ok with it. But if it's going to be like that for normal DM... No.

Epic, I understand you want visual clarity, but don't change what has worked before. Please? There's nothing wrong with the green plasma for the link gun, there's nothing wrong with the red rocket launcher, why change what has worked before in terms of visual clarity?

I do like this concept, nice and burly.

[Menubalk]

If the link gun's going to be blue for team games, sure I'm ok with it. But if it's going to be like that for normal DM... No.

Epic, I understand you want visual clarity, but don't change what has worked before. Please? There's nothing wrong with the green plasma for the link gun, there's nothing wrong with the red rocket launcher, why change what has worked before in terms of visual clarity?

I do like this concept, nice and burly.

I've already talked about this with Epic in length, even posted pictures of 4 separate link guns (pulse, 2k3, 2k4, 3) proving they always were green, and they didn't budge. It's gonna be teal.

As far as the concept goes, this is beautiful. I think you nailed it on the first try

[Wail]

I've already talked about this with Epic in length, even posted pictures of 4 separate link guns (pulse, 2k3, 2k4, 3) proving they always were green, and they didn't budge. It's gonna be teal.

As far as the concept goes, this is beautiful. I think you nailed it on the first try

Don't be silly, there isn't even a model for it. But if people stop voicing their opinions against a needless coloration change, then chances are it will happen.

The idea is misguided because it assumes people are incapable of distinguishing between weapons that differ in (a) form factor (b) exact hue (c) emissive properties (d) firing sound, even (e) the posture of the player holding it.
In Counter Strike, I really am not going to be able to tell you at a glance what weapon an opponent is using from the color because ALL of the weapons are typical dark / gunmetal (or -- even worse, all of the weapons are colored with whatever garish skins someone has chosen). Yet it's quite easy to distinguish what weapons they are actually using in gameplay. Why is that? Because the weapons have unique firing sounds, player postures, shapes, etc.

Heck, in Counter Strike, the guns don't even have easily distinguished visual firing effects. Yet the clarity of which weapon is which is not degraded.
Over here in UT we have an advantage in that most of the visual effects the weapons fire are unique. Sure, at a superficial level the Bio Rifle and Link Gun are green, but shooting blobs of goo and bolts & streams of plasma is pretty different. People will not confuse those even if they are 'the same color.'

Meanwhile the push for a more bluish coloration on the Link pushes the weapon closer in visual identity to a weapon that shares much similarity in functionality, the Stinger.

[SX]

Don't be silly, there isn't even a model for it. But if people stop voicing their opinions against a needless coloration change, then chances are it will happen.

The idea is misguided because it assumes people are incapable of distinguishing between weapons that differ in (a) form factor (b) exact hue (c) emissive properties (d) firing sound, even (e) the posture of the player holding it.
In Counter Strike, I really am not going to be able to tell you at a glance what weapon an opponent is using from the color because ALL of the weapons are typical dark / gunmetal (or -- even worse, all of the weapons are colored with whatever garish skins someone has chosen). Yet it's quite easy to distinguish what weapons they are actually using in gameplay. Why is that? Because the weapons have unique firing sounds, player postures, shapes, etc.

Heck, in Counter Strike, the guns don't even have easily distinguished visual firing effects. Yet the clarity of which weapon is which is not degraded.
Over here in UT we have an advantage in that most of the visual effects the weapons fire are unique. Sure, at a superficial level the Bio Rifle and Link Gun are green, but shooting blobs of goo and bolts & streams of plasma is pretty different. People will not confuse those even if they are 'the same color.'

Meanwhile the push for a more bluish coloration on the Link pushes the weapon closer in visual identity to a weapon that shares much similarity in functionality, the Stinger.

+1.

The Bio Rifle and the Link Gun are green, but one's neon green and the other's a more whitish green. But the point still stands.

[Sir_Brizz]

Don't be silly, there isn't even a model for it. But if people stop voicing their opinions against a needless coloration change, then chances are it will happen.

The idea is misguided because it assumes people are incapable of distinguishing between weapons that differ in (a) form factor (b) exact hue (c) emissive properties (d) firing sound, even (e) the posture of the player holding it.
In Counter Strike, I really am not going to be able to tell you at a glance what weapon an opponent is using from the color because ALL of the weapons are typical dark / gunmetal (or -- even worse, all of the weapons are colored with whatever garish skins someone has chosen). Yet it's quite easy to distinguish what weapons they are actually using in gameplay. Why is that? Because the weapons have unique firing sounds, player postures, shapes, etc.

Heck, in Counter Strike, the guns don't even have easily distinguished visual firing effects. Yet the clarity of which weapon is which is not degraded.
Over here in UT we have an advantage in that most of the visual effects the weapons fire are unique. Sure, at a superficial level the Bio Rifle and Link Gun are green, but shooting blobs of goo and bolts & streams of plasma is pretty different. People will not confuse those even if they are 'the same color.'

Meanwhile the push for a more bluish coloration on the Link pushes the weapon closer in visual identity to a weapon that shares much similarity in functionality, the Stinger.

+1 totally agree on this.

On the concept, I'm still not sold. I don't mind bringing some notes from the UT3 gun over to this game but the barrel just doesn't sell it for me. It looks wide and bulky from 1p and it just looks confusing and odd from 3p. However, I think part of that is that I just don't get the ends of each of the barrel tips. it looks like rubber bumpers or something.

[piemo]

Hum I gotta say that I liked the previous iteration more ( the one with 2 barrels ).

I'm fine with the color change is this is going to bring more clarity, but I'm not so sure about the shape. For what I can see in the 1st person mock-up, the weapon looks way way way too big, while having a vertical barrel would help solving this issue.

Also as I suggested in the previous thread ( in the contributor forum ), I would like to see the handle incremented in size, so that it will become more recognizable. Right now, watching the silhouette, it looks like a general assault rifle with a grenade launcher, and it offers no real distinctive personality under that point of view.

Keep it coming!

[Wail]

I changed the color, because as far as I know, the color of the Link Gun is going to be blue. I'm not sure on the exact hue, so maybe its supposed to be more teal than blue but not sure.

I'm gonna mock up the other version soon, so we can compare the two against each other. I think the tri-barrel helps a little in firstperson view, but it also makes the gun feel kind've gimmicky instead of practical. I will try to resolve the issue

I think that kind of clears up one question I had. Between the first person view and the side view, I was envisioning two ways the the shape of this could actually be implemented:



The first way was the most likely, but I feel like we already have the Rocket Launcher with this kind of tri-barrel design. I would really rather see something different for that reason alone.
The second way is really weird and ungainly-seeming, but I'm not automatically opposed to it. I just don't see how that kind of design would play into the weapon's functionality so it was the less likely probability.


I wasn't super keen on this concept when you initially posted it on the Contributor Forums but it grew on me the more I looked at it. I still think this is not quite there, but I really prefer this design. I iterated a bit on it to try and give it some more of the proportions and features I'd like to see.




Speaking to functionality, one of the ways that I have always envisioned the Link as functioning is as so:




Sorry for the poor quality of artwork here, but I hope this conveys my point. The primary fire utilizes this spinning wheel barrel mechanism. When secondary fire is activated, the outer barrels retract, and you see there's a central barrel that all of the smaller barrels feed into, focusing the beam.

[Daniel Bauwens]

I love the way it looks, however I do believe 3 barrels is too bulky. If you could use the same design (the 2D one) and have two barrels, one up and one down, I think it would look fine.

[Raixs]

When shooting in the middle part. What is this gray details, reminiscent of the barrels? Maybe they should be removed? And that leads in misleading. The rest is up to the handle with butt done perfectly.

[TotesAmaze]

Hi Gooba,

Nice work on your link gun concepts - I have some feedback for you:

Your dragon design does indeed have a distinctive silhouette, but I'm unsure about many parts of it. The large bulky fins at the front don't seem to serve a purpose, and their nozzles at the tip never fire anything. The ammo belt is cool, but I can't get along with the angle it's at. One thing I do really like is the rotating cog/lit up cylinder in the centre of the gun.

I have to admit I would love to see a return to the revolving barrel of the pulse gun. It makes the weapon much more satisfying to fire than a generic laser gun barrel and works well with both firing modes. I like the barrel in your concept but the rest of the gun looks out of place in comparison - there isn't enough there and the gun looks front heavy due to the chunky barrel not being balanced out. The rest of the gun looks quite generic also.

This might help - it caught my eye the other day in a supermarket, and I immediately thought link gun. Obviously this is a toy and it would need bulking up but something about the slanted panelling and the pulse rifle barrel made me think it would be a great inspiration for you...i hope!

[HenrikRyosa]

Game weapon design rule #1: Never draw influence from or compare with a nerf gun / super soaker / other toy :P (unless that's the style of your game).

[Chong]

Nice concept Gooba.
Had you done any other concepts for the link or is this the first one ? Someone mentioned previous iterations but I couldn't see a thread for it.

This is the direction I had pictured for the link gun, departing from the UT3 model and going back to the manufactured, utilitarian feel that it had previously.
And this is a really cool concept capturing that brutal, bulky feeling of a gun designed with funtionality above all else But...

But when I look at the weapons we have so far in the shock rifle, flak and enforcer and if you look at what is left with the bio rifle, rocket launcher etc
I'm starting to think we have enough gritty, mechanistic weapons in the line up. and the shock rifle is in danger of being the only real futuristic / sci fi gun.

With that in mind maybe it might be worth leaning a little more towards form over function.
Being an energy weapon lends itself well to that proposition because it isn't bound by any physical design contraints like say the rocket launcher and biorifle.
I'm not saying it should be sleek and sexy like the shock rifle, it can still be bulky but maybe refine the lines a little and tone down some of the brutal shapes.

As we keep going I think we're going to have to start thinking about each weapon in relation to the others so that by the end we have 9 weapons that cover the full range of what UT is,
From industrial / mechanical to futuristic / sci fi.
I don't know if it's something that's been talked about because we tend to focus on each gun as seperate entities in thier own seperate threads but I think it's important not to get become too narrow.
The beauty of UT is that it covers a pretty wide spread of design ideas and it would be a shame to lose that.

Hopefully you can see where I'm coming from.

TL;DR: More sci fi, less mechanical.