Preparing for Custom Items Part 2

I have formulated the system that we will use for custom items. It will be very simple. First, what are the goals?

1.) Easy way to make custom items (for eating, cooking, playing, or throwing)

2.) Easy way to interact with them (grabbing and physics collisions)

3.) Easy way for an infinite variety of characters to animate properly with them (different size custom model hands, etc.)

The first one is easy. We use the fbx file format for making our own custom models and dragging and dropping into the game. This is already being used for the custom character creator.

The second one is an extension of an already existing system. As I've said before, you can include custom collision shapes in your fbx files by including the shape and appropriately naming it with a suffix _rigid_*. The extension for items now supports _grab_* items. These will be shapes that provide the appropriate context for models to be picked up. For example. Let's say you want to make an item (a big item), monkey bars. So you go ahead and build it:

Very simple. Now suppose you want to allow players to grab onto the bars so that they can hang. You will now be able to build individual cylinders that represent the shape that you can grab onto. Like this:

Then I rename these cylinders to "monkey_bar_grab_cylinder". Now, when you export this fbx, Viva will recognize this object and interpret it as a shape that characters can grab onto.

And that's it! You will be able to grab onto the monkey bars and swing across your custom made item! This example showcased a big prop but imagine you made a sword. In that case you would make a cylinder grab shape on the handle.

Lastly, the 3rd goal, proper finger animations wrapping around your object. Because the shape is simple enough to interpret (a cylinder), Viva will automatically and dynamically grab onto this simple shape whenever you try and grab it. Since it's a simple shape, it will be easy to extrapolate the grab animation to characters with really tiny hands or really big hands.

Overall the entire process will be as easy as "Drag and drop, create item, install!" Something along the lines of the following:

You'll also be able to edit some optional parameters like weight and size. There will be a custom item spawn menu like there is for custom characters that you will be able to view and spawn from. This will be very fun! I've been asked if it will be possible to make a first person shooter or create a cooking system with custom food props. Yes it will be possible.

Stay tuned!