I'm not sure how to kick this thing off and don't have time to write out the full details that I want to, for now I'll make due with this short comic:

Meet the Crew: Happyapathy and Eve

A lot more to come soon.

This began soon after my large post on attachments a while back, since then I've been creating custom characters and trying new ideas and techniques on them, for fun I decided to assign them roles as employees within the supposed Spiral Spy Workshop my character runs (sort of), over the course of a few months I developed quite a few of these characters who I am going to start showcasing now.

The Spiral Spy Crew

Over the course of the next little while I'm going to gradually profile each one with a character description, what gear they use, a short comic about each one, and some technical talk on what it took to make them, I will also post some downloadable files relating to each one (not the full characters though) for other people to use, often more simple objects as using some of the things shown here are rather complex.

====Happyapathy====

Despite been the owner and director of the workshop Happy spends most of his time watching TV, idly drinking coffee, while leaving most of the work to his secretary Eve and the other employees around the studio.

A master gunman, Happyapathy is skilled in the use of all fire arms and can pull off seemingly impossible shots with ease, however he is hopeless with a sword and is more dangerous to himself and friends then his enemies when wielding one, even sharp kitchen utensils should be kept out of his hands.

The Nameless Snipe

A mysterious snipe who glided into Haven one day on a westerly wind, how he learned to use guns is anyone's guess but what is known is that he is very good with them. From what has been gathered from the strangers he is one badass of a snipe, he shoots straight, hangs out at the toughest bird baths, and does it with the best lady snipes around who find him very charming and manly.

Adorable =/= Virtuous

The iPWN-2

The latest iteration of the iPWN minigun series Happy developed for himself, it features 6 barrels to spew out bullets at an even more blindingly speed then the previous version, Happy once tried to bring it into a Lockdown match but everyone quit the second they saw it so King Krogmo banned it from the games.

The six barrels actually rotate like they should on a minigun but the video I have won't upload ;_;

Happy's little iPWN-2 (idle)
Happy's little iPWN-2 (in use)

iPWN-2 angle shots:

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Angle 5

Technical Notes

- The iPWN-2 was the first item I created that has a custom animation attached to it, in this case to rotate the 6 barrels constantly

- I created two custom animations for the player when using the minigun, one for idle another when firing

- Happyapathy here, like most of my custom characters, is crafted from a custom made blank player template model that greatly cuts down the amount of extra 'stuff' from the model_level.dat player model file that you often don't use.

Downloadable Gifts 1

Happyapathy's custom blank player template:

This is meant more for advance Spiral Spy users, it is a blank player that I have modified to remove most of the preset animations, and attachment slots from, thus greatly reducing the file size and clutter of it, even when fully decked out in gear it will often still be smaller in file size then the model_level.dat file, thus allowing more objects to be put into the scene before Spiral Spy is overloaded. To use this you will have to know how to add your own animations and attachment slots so you can add on to it as necessary, also knowing how to save models is important too.

Download

Nekomi and Kleft remade for optimization:

As an example I've redone the model for Nekomi and Kleft with as much file size optimization as I could, make note of how I've removed the options to directly change a lot of the settings on the model as these are unlikely to be altered after they are set.

Download

@psycho

It's a comic, you need to go to the next image :P

@Atrumvindex

Just unzip it and put the whole folder in the rsrc folder.

==Fuseman and Boomer==

Fuseman is in-charge of scene background construction, including tasks such as laying flooring and erecting walls, he has a knack for mechanics and is a superb handyman.

As good as he is at building stuff up, he's also just as good at knocking them down. Fuseman specializes in the use of heavy weapons and bombs, often making use of a custom built grenade launcher or rocket launcher, when he arrives at the scene of a fight expect things to get very loud, then very quiet.

Boomer

After been shocked one too many times by "friendly" mechaknights, Fuseman got fed up enough that he decided to build his own one that would actually be helpful. The result was Boomer, or technically Boom Bot V4.5 (half of him is built from salvageable components from the V4.0 model), who was constructed from mechaknight pieces Fuseman collected and a few key components he "borrowed" from Bosco's mechaknight (Bosco has yet to notice). Fuseman was even able to find the extremely rare proper left arm and right leg limbs for his mech.

Fuseman was also able to fix the annoying issue of jittering and occasional self shock by replacing the unstable, jury-rigged, Gremlin engine with unstable, jury-rigged, blast bombs. Why he would rather have a mech that could possibly explode instead of one that shocks is a question only he knows the answer to.

While Fuseman has been quite successful replicating his own combat style in Boomer's programming, his attempts at creating a speech modulator that would allow Boomer to say appropriate responses when talked too has been less then successful, especially with the 'appropriate' part. Many of Boomer's programmed responses were downloaded from the Skylark's salvaged movie database resulting in most of Boomer's phrases been quotable one-liner's from the big screen. Boomer's Friend/Foe Recognition is also less then perfect, resulting a number of near tragedies (and leveled buildings) during Halloween and the introduction of Trojan costumes.

Though certainly not as quick or smart as an actual knight, Boomer's greater robotic strength and robustness make him a valuable companion on any adventure, just don't try to start a conversation.

Meet the Crew Comic: Fuseman and Boomer

"Massblast" Grenade Launcher

Designed to use the small blast bombs from the bomb bandolier, these small but potent explosives are loaded manually into the guns chamber from which the user can rapidly launch them. It is particularly effective at dealing with crowds as it can quickly cover a large area with many rapid explosions.

Angle shots:

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Angle 4

"Light Bringer" Rocket Launcher

The Light Bringer rocket launcher is a single shot launcher that uses the unfolding-fin rockets fired by rocketpuppies, so ammo can be replenished from salvaging rockets from destroyed turrets. The user is able to use a laser guidance system to track targets or can fire dumb shots that just go in a straight path. It is meant to be used against large heavy targets such as Trojans or lumbers. For solo user the launcher can be loaded with a rocket been inserted directly down the tube, however it can also be loaded from the rear end by a two-man team to greatly increase its rate of fire.

Angle shots:

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Overview

Technical Notes

Fuseman:

- What makes Fuseman, 'Fuseman', is his bad-ass helmet, it's actually two helmets layered on top of each other which I explain in this very detailed diagram

- I wanted to put a bomb bandolier on Fuseman, however it clashed badly with the Guardian armor he wears, in the end I decided to go with the armor instead of the bandolier

- I always imagine he speaks like the Marauder from StarCraft 2

Boomer:

- Boomer's model is actually fairly complex, its the torso of a mechaknight attached to the limbs of a knight from both of which I removed the texture from the respective parts that I didn't want to be shown, so what your seeing is like some weird conjoined twin of two separate entities bound to each other, as such to animate him involves having to setup two animations, one for his limbs one for his head and body, and have them both run at the same time to look like they are one

Grenade and rocket launcher:

- You can probably tell they are made up of various pieces from other weapons and props that I have re-textured and attached together, see if you can figure out where each piece came from

- The rocket launcher is actually a less complex model then the grenade launcher

- Ideally the rocket launcher would be a two handed weapon but there aren't any animations (or animation combos) that give a good pose for that, as such its a one handed weapon and maybe is just a lot lighter then it looks :/

- The rocket launcher has some collision issues with the knights head and the rockets are actually slightly too big for it, making the launcher any larger would start to make it look ridiculous so please just ignore those facts :P

- I made two custom animations for the player when firing these weapons

Downloadable Gifts 3

"Light Bringer" Rocket Launcher

Guaranteed to increase your knight's badassness by 200% regardless of whatever else they have on, comes with free rockets and rocket firing animation.

Download

actually I just grabbed the rsrc folder from the test server folder and there are A LOT of interesting things in there, enough to make me reconsider how I plan to do certain parts of the FanComic I'm doing. There's a lot of new stuff, especially for the gremlin's and I'm quite eager to play around with it. Crew NPC's also look good and they have added a lot of different eye expressions to work with now.

That said I'm quite irritated to not see any changes to the gunslinger hats and got very excited with something I saw in the handgun folder then got very disappointed when I put it in Spiral Spy. Hopefully OOO will bother to change the gunslinger hats by the time the mission update happens.

anyone tried the download, do the instructions work?