- 2022 MAJOR UPDATE ON DEVELOPMENTS - 9 March 2022
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS After a long hiatus, the bioroid customizer contest is back in swing, with a new winner Cayelo. First place went to the handler's namesake Cayelo, while returning player tomiroid's beret SgtMallory and scary clown IT took the rest of the podium spots. Congrats to the winners! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! FAILED CHALLENGES AND EMOTES We are close to 1000 animations for Herogrinder, related to the multitudes of actions and their consequences. The following samples are related to failing actions like opening a door or repositioning a cover, as well as some emotes to spice things up! GRAFFITI IN HG ARENAS To immerse players in the arenas of New Horizon Media, special emphasis is placed on designing wall decorations like graffiti or…
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2021 #5 - 24 August 2021
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS We have concluded yet another round of the bioroid customizer contest, with straylight as the undefeated champion, clinching all three podium spots. First place went to GoldNinja, while heavy bioroids Timberrr and Puff took second and third places respectively. Congrats to straylight for the clean sweep and for dominating the ranks! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! TELEPORTATION TESTS Thanks to patented breakthrough technologies from New Horizons Media, Herogrinder arenas will feature teleportation platforms that will allow bioroids to gain tactical advantages and use the arena layouts to maximum advantage. Several tests have been undertaken in NHM orbital labs, to work out the kinks in this novel and never-before-seen technology,…
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2021 #4 - 7 July 2021
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS Yet another contest has been successfully concluded, with a few returning champs to the halls of the Herogrinder champions. straylight took first and third place place with a heavy gunner named Blues and a street punk named Jako, while control rose from the ashes with the GayCowboy. Congrats to the new winners for bringing these bioroids to life! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! DUSTING IT UP Our team of programmers have been working on making Herogrinder arenas more organic, especially for outdoor terrains, where walls and floor tiles meet the dust ground of the base layer…
- Crawling with shields - animation R&D - 18 May 2021
Here is Nándi, the lead animator on HeroGrinder, immersing himself in the heavy shield specialist to find the right poses and skeletons for his rigs. We are amazed at the final result, which reflects the level of Nándi's dedication to the project. ːsteamhappyː And the final result:
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2021 #3 - 7 May 2021
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS Yet another contest has been successfully concluded, with a newcomer among the ranks of Herogrinder champions. ArchElmo took first and second place place with arctic panda enforcer BigChungus and sleek street samurai with dual blades Moxie. Thirs place went to returning contestant straylight, with Rus Federation Gunner. Congrats to the new winner for dominating the arenas! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! A SEE-THROUGH EXPERIENCE While creating our arenas, we have introduced glass walls into our map editor, that can be used for strategic advantages. As for all our walls, th…
- Shaping canyons - 3 May 2021
Moving forward with developing Wasteland Arenas for Herogrinder, our next challenge was to make terrain level deformations, like trenches and gaps, using an approach that is compatible with our current Ground workflow. Here is how a trench will look on the map: For this, we made the trench geometry separately and treated it as a placeable asset. Please note that this trench mesh is just a concept and only for testing purposes. To be able to place it on the map, we have to tell our shader where the trench will be, so we mask out the terrain with a trench mesh shaped mask (the mask is rendered automatically). For the trench texture, at first we actually used the same shader as for terrain, leaving no visible seams between the ground mesh and the trench mesh. The next step in this process is to properly design and model the trench meshes, completed with rocks, garbage, and radioactive wast…
- Coffee break, 2489! - 27 April 2021
When inspiration hits while working on terrains, particle effects, or designs for Herogrinder, we are sometimes moved to capture the essence of our work and share it with each other. The pic is courtesy of Zoli, one of our senior unity developers, bringing us with him to 2489 and totally catching the vibes.
- Herogrinder Map Editor Showcase - 16 April 2021
The most challenging part of designing the Wasteland Environment was how to make irregular and organic open environments on a constrained grid. After a few renders, it soon became clear that rocks, decals, and prop models are not enough, we have to improve the ground as well. The Herogrinder Map Editor’s floor layer was originally designed for interiors: you can place small floor tiles onto to the grid. One problem with the original workflow is the texture tiling size - interiors with repeating patterns look great, but for terrains, the current dense repeating pattern looks like a carpet, and not natural at all. Another problem was the lack of blending between different textures. This wasn’t a problem for floor tiles in rooms but blending would be crucial outdoors for painting soil or dirt, mixing pebbles to road edges, and so on. Fixing the texture tiling issue was actually quite simpl…
- Painting terrain on Wasteland arenas - 9 April 2021
Our arena builder engine has just been upgraded with a brand new tool for painting terrain textures on Herogrinder battlemaps. These have been created specifically for the Wasteland arenas where the outdoor ground is the primary terrain, however we will make great use of it to add flavor to other arena styles like Street or Industrial with an extended set of custom-made brushes. Please enjoy the videos, with the cyber sounds of Daniel Deluxe's "Wasteland" track from the Herogroinder soundtrack.
- Vortex of darkness - 30 March 2021
HG R&D memo ***Classified*** Herogrinder's R&D wing has been converting the dark energies harnessed from NHM orbital labs into usable effects, like darkness. Tests cover huge areas but the energies can be converted into grenades or even single rounds of ammunition.
- Destroying the battlefield - 26 March 2021
All environmental assets (walls, doors, and objects) are destroyable in HG! Many will explode and spread area effects, thus even further modifying the environment. This means you can shape your battlefields and use the terrain to your maximum tactical advantage. No assets can withstand the might of the power hammer! Die MediCore booth, die! All assets must crumble under a barrage of bullets! I said die already, no healing for you! BONUS FOOTAGE: Damn! Hard work, but brute force attacks must be used if interfacing fails to open a heavy steel door...
- Wasteland arenas coming to life - 22 March 2021
After finishing up urban environments with the "Night Market" arena, that will feature both indoor and outdoor areas, and testing fully indoor Lab arena style, we have finally reverted to fully open-air environments that will be the hallmarks of the Wasteland arena style. These arenas are mostly located in former warzones that have been purchased by the New Horizons Media corporation to host Herogrinder battles. The main feature of these battle maps is their open natures, where walls will be scarce but longer range tactics can be utilized. Check out some samples of what we have in mind:
- Lab lighting styles - 18 March 2021
We are currently testing out lighting schemes for our arenas and after playing around with partially outdoor street environments with some indoor mall areas, we have moved onto fully indoor areanas like the labs. Labs are unique for their sterile atmospheres, where crisp lighting is used. However, we wanted to see how different shaders and light textures would work. Also, emissive layers and depth effects add additional scopes to this project, so it is best to test all variations in a single layout. Check out the results:
- Firestorm - 23 February 2021
When grenade blast spawn is not connected to a click...Creating a great sudden-death incineration protocol!
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2021 #2 - 16 February 2021
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS Yet another contest has been successfully concluded, with a new clean sweep by a newcomer to the halls of the Herogrinder champions. BLAHBLAH took first place with nigh soldier Ben, second place with a member of the RiotPOLICE and third place with toxic heavygunner trooper Dave. Congrats to the new winner for dominating the arenas! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! THE NIGHTMARKET We are using the Nightmarket level as a framework for overall level design and a demo for all arena features. These include grids, field of view, lighting, textures, particle effects, character and asset animations, and whatever else we can squeeze into the overall easthetic of the game. The project is coming along and has gathered some pace as new team me…
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2021 #1 - 18 January 2021
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS We have reached another milestone with the Bioroid Customizer Contests, having conlcuded the last contest of the year. We have a new winner in the person of bordi69 with Militec soldier PatientZero. Second place went to straylight with winter thug Iceman and third place finisher was Powertrooper by tomiroid. Congrats to the new winner! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! CONDITION ANIMATIONS There are numerous condition types in Herogrinder, for which we are developing customized animations when the effect is activated and during the idle stance of the character. These are usually combined with particle effects to give the condition a more realistic feel, such as the burning condition combined with flames on the bioroid's body. Here a…
- Herogrinder arenas come to light - 15 December 2020
Now that most arena assets are completed for the game, our designers and and front-end programmers are working tirelessly on making Herogrinder arenas colorful environments and beautiful to look at. We have to keep the general aesthetic of Herogrinder as a primary consideration, to deliver the gritty look-and-feel of cyberpunk spaces and to keep the sharp contrasts between dark and light. So we have dedicated most our recent efforts to playing around with and test lighting schemes and to fill up our arena assets with emissive layers and elements that can bring the entire arena to life. Check out the sample of lighting elements in an urban shopping street setting: To further enliven the environment, all these light sources can be animated, of which the flickering effects and pulses are just a few examples:
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2020 #12 - 7 December 2020
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS Yet another Bioroid Customizer Contest has just ended and we have another clean sweep by a newcomer in the bioroid customizer wars! Wardog claimed all three top spots with some highly original designs - SuperLucha wrestler, stylish mobster Vito and Matrix-inspired Agent01. Congrats to Wardog! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! OUR MAP EDITOR TOOL We did some shader experiments recently to find out how to achieve more variations to our environmental assets without changing or duplicating their diffuse textures. In the Bioroid Customizer, we use a different approach to color the bioroid parts, but to do the same with the environment assets in our Map Editor, hundreds of textures would need to be converted to masks which we'd like to av…
- BIOROID CUSTOMIZER CONTEST & APP UPDATE 2020 #11 - 11 November 2020
CUSTOMIZER CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS Yet another Bioroid Customizer Contest has just ended and we have some new top spots with some returning champs! Veteran entrants straylight and tomiroid were victorious. straylight took the top spot with with S.E.A.L. soldier "Dontmove", tomiroid grabbed second place went to cyber operator "MrPurlpe" and third place was claimed by straylight's gang rider "Jacinta". Congrats to the winners! The race has begun once again! Be sure to share your submissions on social media to collect as many votes as possible and to win a 3D print of your own bioroid! KICKASS MELEE ANIMATIONS While crafting colorful and interactive arena styles and objects, we are also working hard to fine-tune all the animations that will bring Herogrinder to life. These include all actions that can be taken in the game such as movement types, stances, tech and heal skill use but most importa…
- Pow-pow with the double power gauntlet! - 30 October 2020
Sometimes the best attack is an unarmed one, however if you are a specialist of the martial arts, your options are even more diverse now with the power gauntlet.This weapon allows unarmed combatants to heighten their natural attacks and offer the same amount of add-on slots as regular weapons. And two are always better than one!
