Case study

Gunpowder Elves

This project is about the creation of 3D firearms for a high-fantasy world in which these weapons wouldn't traditionally show up. Think of Gandalf but he has an AK-47, except my goal is to create guns that are unique to the local setting, keeping them in line with the users and their culture and warfare needs.

Most of these design elements are visible in the weapons' appearance. What matters to me more is how the guns *feel*. The movement, the weight, the recoil, the reload. I want to create unique experiences that leave an impact on the player.

With this in mind I went to work on designs for trench warfare-like weapons for an Elven race set in a fictional world. My plan was to base the designs on guns from the late 19th century. This era was sort of a renaissance in firearms design. There were a lot of weird, unique, impractical and groundbreaking designs all meant to take over the market and invent new ways of warfare. I also took a lot of inspiration from the Franco-Prussian war, which saw a hybrid of battlefield scenarios. That meant a lot of references to work with!

More than enough reference material

Warfare references

Making the guns feel unique was the hard part. During every step in the process I kept thinking about what the player would be doing, moving my arms like I was holding the gun and getting a feeling for every little part of it.

There needed to be more to the weapons, aside from just squeezing a trigger and having a bullet fly out of the gun. I thought about what the enemies would use against the player and different scenarios that they'd find themselves in.

The guns had to be believable in appearance and function, and they needed a sense of logic. No weird things like teeth or bones or glowing crystals. They would be based on existing weapons from 1850 through 1900, they're meant for military adoption and while the exterior could be basic, the mechanics had to be unique.

Designing a fantasy rifle

A classic rifle is pretty simple. It's a long gun, usually bolt-action and it fires 1 to 5 shots. So how do you design a such a rifle for a fantasy setting in which the player experiences something unique? How do you set such a rifle apart from all the others?

Designing a fantasy shotgun

A shotgun is usually one of the most balanced guns in a game. Devastating at close range, but completely useless at a distance. But how do you design one for a race of elves? And how do you make it special compared to all the other shotguns out there?

The basic function of this rifle is very... well, basic. What sets this rifle apart is it's melee function. In the world where my setting takes place guns are relatively new technology and most armies still fight with swords.

The bent metal underneath the gun is meant for deflecting and parrying melee strikes. An enemy attacks with a sword, and the player can time a block which flows into a bash with the rifle's stock. This turns a precision rifle into a weapon which can be carried in close quarters while still remaining practical.

Parrying in action

What makes this shotgun special is it's "twist". When firing a single shot the user needs to manually turn the barrel to fire the next round. It's instant and more controllable, but slower.

For it's alternative fire mode the user can spin the barrels and fire them in succession allowing for a devastating volley. It takes a second to spin up, the recoil becomes near uncontrollable but it's a very high rate of fire.

Because of it's immense power the reload is slow and unwieldy This makes the use of this gun a tactical decision for the player.

Single fire

While designing the rifle I initially looked for "the cool factor", what looked nice and made the rifle visually interesting. I then realized that thinking about it's function and how the player would experience this weapon was the key to creating something special.

I broke down the model in Blender, stripped it of all the parts I didn't like and had no function. I then built it back up with a new design mentality.

Iterative steps in Blender

This design started out as a standard over-under double barrel shotgun. This was way too boring so I thought that having some sort of manual operation would be interesting. Looking at gatling guns from the 1900's, I figured that would be a devastating touch to a shotgun.

Iterative steps in Blender

Explorative rifle sketches

Shotgun sketches

What will the player feel?

I set up a rig to record animations in first person. This allowed me to get a feeling for what it's like to use the guns I was creating, and if it would feel like unique and good looking animations.

I ventured to create animations that would make the rifle feel powerful, and because the user is inexperienced (because the technology is fairly new in the world-building) I wanted the reload to be a bit unwieldy and heavy. It also needed to be somewhat slow to emphasize the power of the rifle.

To emphasize the extreme power of the quad rotating shots, the recoil needed to feel really heavy, and to encourage the player to think about using the single shot versus the auto fire I had the spin-up animation take a while to start, so that the player would need to time their attack.

Unreal Engine 4

To test my designs I created an environment in Unreal Engine 4 where I implemented my models and animations. I've also added basic gameplay features and particle effects.

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