Weapon Ideations Based on Bungie's Destiny 2
Modeling, Texturing and Lighting Practice With Real World Application
Hands on learning is the only way new skills really stick with me and when I want to learn quickly I find a set of constraints to work within so that my creativity may be focused. I really was intrigued in what it would be like to learn hard surface modeling in Cinema 4D, whether it was a good program for modeling and whether I would even like hard surface modeling. To reach my objectives I decided to set my constraints within a world I was super familiar with, which was the world of Destiny 2 by Bungie. I have played this game with friends since the beginning of even Destiny 1, so I was very familiar with the visual styles and myriad of weapon and armor designs. One of my favorite styles was that of the Escalation Protocol weapons of early Destiny 2 Warmind DLC. I loved the very angular, techno, look and thought it was the perfect place to build some ideas around weapons that had never been part of the collection, starting with a sidearm. The process was really fun and took me through multiple iterations where I moved to Redshift, learned some heavy node based texturing, advanced lighting techniques and HDRI reflection enhancements. The end result was the weapons below with the intent on creating a few more over time.
A Sidearm Powered by Tech from the Heavens
The main entity at the center of the Warmind storyline in Destiny 2 is a very powerful AI by the name of Rasputin from the Golden Age. He harnesses an immense amount of power and protects Earth and it's moon from dangerous alien species. With the design I made for the sidearm, it was a differnet approach than most other sidearms in the game. Most sidearms require a reload animation at the end of the clip, this gun, with it's vents, overheats if fired too fast for too long of a time. The vents on the side of the body of the gun are where the heat would release when it overheats. The rounds for the gun would be constructed in realtime inside the chamber from Rasputin's technology at the time of the trigger being pulled. This introduction to a new style of sidearm would grant a different combat approach where reloading would only be necessary in certain situations with the balance being that a player takes the high risk of dumping all avialable rounds too quickly and getting stuck with the overheated gun needing a cooldown period.
A Sword Connected to an AI God of the Golden Age
Swords were never part of the Escalation Protocol set and I felt this was a really great place to try some different lighting techniques and bring in some of Raputin's signature webbed energey effects. The idea behind this sword is that it would be an exotic weapon that was powered by Rasputin's energy. As normal swipes, it would work like any other sword in the Destiny Universe, but the powered attack would created a ground slam with an AOE effect that would chain to nearby enemies and vaporize them. The animation would be one that looks like the energy surrounding the cores on this weapon and it would go out like red lightning chaining from enemy to enemy. The catalyst would chain to more enemies and have a larger radius for the AOE affect. The design was emphasizing the dark metal and diamonds of the Rasputin language, with the AI logo as the sword's hilt.
