Hello [Code_Name: MEVYE] [Location: CLASSIFIED], welcome back!

Today we will talk how we 3D modelled and programmed an element of the environment, the Piston, by Rafael "Bones" Plaza.

First we wanted elements in the environment that generated some noise as point of reference and as a tool of level design to show the player the direction he has to take, we had before the generators , but we needed another type of element. So following our setting of sci-fi industrial, we came with the idea of some type of hammer that would hit the ground, it would create a good impact (pun unintentional) and add to the feel of the game, creating some sort of rhythm.

Modelling time! during the process of thinking how exactly the "hammer" would be, we decided to go for a piston style hammer. This way we use less space in the level and the animations in the future would be easy to implement. 

The model is made up of 5 parts, this way it would be easy to animate in Unity and make the effect of a piston when the arm extends completely. Keep in mind this is made by game design students, so 3D modelling rules may not apply, as we are interested to have functional elements in-game, instead perfect 3D. On the other hand we directly control the results we get by modelling us directly, such as easy implementation in Unity.

Unity time! this is when the 5 separate parts come in handy. We create a prefab where a parent has all the parts as children for easy animation.

By this time we decided to do the animations by code, instead of the usual animation clip of Unity. By this method we would have full control on the down and up velocity, rest times and active methods, also being able to change all this on the fly with public variables.

In short, each child moves its max distance down and when it reaches this value the next child will start to go down, until every part of the piston is completely extended and is hitting the ground. The "up" movement is the same method but reversed, starting with the last child to the first, this is the reason why the object was divided into different parts.

Thanks for reading and don’t make any noise! 🤫

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