Trying to make a bipedal mech suit with weapons (Concept art included)

I'm working on a level involving Sackboy infiltrating an evil invading alien mothership and frying a bunch of alien Sackboys to stop them from invading Earth. An early part involves a simple Controlinator helmet, but I have an idea for Sackboy to discover an unguarded mech suit for him to use, and then start a side-scrolling shooter section.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iss/mech01.jpg

Here is a basic idea of what I want the suit to look like: A head/torso section with a cockpit and canopy for Sackboy to sit in, and two legs that start stepping forward automatically once the suit is activated. The canopy also lowers for protection to Sackboy once he activates it by starting the Controlinator in the cockpit.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iss/mech02.jpg

Here's where things get complicated. Once the suit's walking, a targeting cursor appears that can be moved by the analog stick. The laser arm cannon on the mech follows the angle of the cursor and shoots lasers when a button is pushed. Aliens come and try to stop you, but they can be destroyed with a few shots. I can't recall if the camel story level in LBP2 allowed for you to do any sort of locking on to enemies with the cursor, but I was wondering if this is possible through the use of tags and whatnot, complete with another graphic to indicate a full lock. Lastly, I want to build a holographic health bar for the mech that displays behind it, goes down as it gets hit by enemy fire, and causes the mech and Sackboy to explode when it goes to zero.

I'm also a little curious about how I can handle layers on the mech. The cockpit will need to be at least one layer wide for Sackboy to sit in it, and I'm not sure about the legs. If they are flat, will the mech still be able to stand?

This is going to be complicated, so any help would be appreciated. I'll also make the mech a collectable object in the level, so anyone who helps can take the finished product for themselves.

An update. I've been working on the legs:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...kiss/legs1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...kiss/legs2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...kiss/legs3.jpg

There are three primary pieces to each leg: The foot, the leg, and the thigh, the last of which is attached to the body & cockpit. How should things be positioned, and pistons measured, to enable them to walk when attached to a body?

And a problem that might be simpler to solve: I messed around with the legs some more after taking these pictures and ended up deleting the one in the back. I tried duplicating the original leg in the front, only to find that I can't move the duplicate (Or the original, for that matter) to a different layer. What's going on here?

Idk how to help really but there are quite few videos on youtube of people showing how to make mech walkers including things like the AT-ST from star wars.

quite simple really, as an inspiring mech builder, these are displayed among tutorials as the above post says!
what style/built is this walker???

Here a tutorial on how to make a working mech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA67dubzCns
I hope it helps you.

I can help you a bit with the weapons. I have a prototype mech that doesn't work that well, but it does have a cool lock on system. I've made it so every 20 seconds, a warning siren goes off and a target surrounds you, after being locked on for about 4 seconds, the mech fires a deadly lightning gun. If you move at the last second, you can break out of the lock on and dodge the attack. To make this, first make a holographic target and set it to follow the player, or the enemy. Also give it's arm a look-at rotator. That way, the arm is always looking at the target. Make it so when you use the attack, the target is emmited and a couple seconds later, you fire. The target is mostly just a visual to show that you are about to use the attack, the arm is technically locked on at all times. This attack would actually work better with homing missiles than a lightning gun, since then, you wouldn't need to keep the arm pointed at the target.

I have a sort of-functioning suit working!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...rototype02.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...rototype01.jpg

It's walking on its own thanks to the use of a tutorial level I found, but it still needs fine-tuning: It doesn't walk very fast and it teeters back and forth unsteadily. I also want to make it so that when I add a Controlinator in the cockpit, the pistons don't start going until Sackboy jumps onto the Controlinator, and I also hope for there to be a canopy that goes over him for protection. Also, how do you program sound effects for the legs moving and touching the ground?

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Originally Posted by Joey9898

I can help you a bit with the weapons. I have a prototype mech that doesn't work that well, but it does have a cool lock on system. I've made it so every 20 seconds, a warning siren goes off and a target surrounds you, after being locked on for about 4 seconds, the mech fires a deadly lightning gun. If you move at the last second, you can break out of the lock on and dodge the attack. To make this, first make a holographic target and set it to follow the player, or the enemy. Also give it's arm a look-at rotator. That way, the arm is always looking at the target. Make it so when you use the attack, the target is emmited and a couple seconds later, you fire. The target is mostly just a visual to show that you are about to use the attack, the arm is technically locked on at all times. This attack would actually work better with homing missiles than a lightning gun, since then, you wouldn't need to keep the arm pointed at the target.

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This might be on the right track, but what I have in mind is for a targeting cursor to be displayed while the mech automatically moves forward, and for lock on to be activated when you hover over a target for about half a second. I should probably focus on getting the cursor working first; I should see if I have the camel from the story mode unlocked and if it lets me look at its microchips.

To make the pistons start going when sackboy gets in, hook it up to the "controlinator output" that thing above the tilt output. This output only activates when there's somebody in the controlinator. You can do this with the canopy too. And use an impact sensor for the hitting ground sound effects.

I've got the controlinator set to have the pistons on when Sackboy uses it, as well as impact sounds for the feet, but is there any way to add sounds to the piston pumps?

I've also made a neon crosshair and placed it on an anti-gravity enabled transparent hologram square. Now I need to figure out the following with the controlinator:

- Make the left stick control the movement of the crosshair
- Make the flat cannon object on the body of the mech swivel and rotate to be angled directly towards wherever the crosshair is
- Make the movement of the mech more stable so it doesn't rock back and forth so much
- Add a health bar (I've loaded up some tutorials and copied objects for this, so I might be able to do this myself)
- Accessorize and add more visual flair to the overall body (Already replaced the cockpit in pictures above with the Metal Gear Rex head after unlocking it by acing one of the MGS levels and put a little antenna on top of it)

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Originally Posted by Behonkiss

I've got the controlinator set to have the pistons on when Sackboy uses it, as well as impact sounds for the feet, but is there any way to add sounds to the piston pumps?

I've also made a neon crosshair and placed it on an anti-gravity enabled transparent hologram square. Now I need to figure out the following with the controlinator:

- Make the left stick control the movement of the crosshair
- Make the flat cannon object on the body of the mech swivel and rotate to be angled directly towards wherever the crosshair is
- Make the movement of the mech more stable so it doesn't rock back and forth so much
- Add a health bar (I've loaded up some tutorials and copied objects for this, so I might be able to do this myself)
- Accessorize and add more visual flair to the overall body (Already replaced the cockpit in pictures above with the Metal Gear Rex head after unlocking it by acing one of the MGS levels and put a little antenna on top of it)

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For the piston sounds just wire the movement stick to trigger the sounds as well. If timing starts being an issue, then you might wanna re-set the walking system by wiring the movement stick/buttons over to timers before getting to the pistons, to have full control over sync times and what not. But then again, I make things way too complicated <_< there might be an easier way than just good timing (which is possible).

For the cursor: Click here - Excellent tutorial and it even tells you how to create invisible limitation, which you will need for your crosshair; You don't want your cursor to go off the screen!

Use a gyroscope for the movement and make the body more stable!

Hologram Health bar: Clickitty here - A good tutorial, though the overall result is a bit insane :P might not be the simplest way to do it :x
Also, can try going for a Timer health bar. Just need to attach an invisible sort of T shaped invisible hologram object to your robot (the roof of the T facing wherever you want your health bar), and then stick the Timer there, and of course, tweak the timer to "Switch visible in play mode".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Behonkiss

I've got the controlinator set to have the pistons on when Sackboy uses it, as well as impact sounds for the feet, but is there any way to add sounds to the piston pumps?

I've also made a neon crosshair and placed it on an anti-gravity enabled transparent hologram square. Now I need to figure out the following with the controlinator:

- Make the left stick control the movement of the crosshair
- Make the flat cannon object on the body of the mech swivel and rotate to be angled directly towards wherever the crosshair is
- Make the movement of the mech more stable so it doesn't rock back and forth so much
- Add a health bar (I've loaded up some tutorials and copied objects for this, so I might be able to do this myself)
- Accessorize and add more visual flair to the overall body (Already replaced the cockpit in pictures above with the Metal Gear Rex head after unlocking it by acing one of the MGS levels and put a little antenna on top of it)

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-Same way as any flying vehicle. wire the left sticks Up/Down/Right/Left outputs to an advanced mover. Bobs your uncle
.
-attach it to your mech via an invisible and 0% strength bolt, and tag your crosshair with somthing. Now make the gun anti-gravity and attach a look at rotator to the gun barrel, and set it to follow the tag of your crosshair.

-Gyroscope.

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Originally Posted by iliketosayblah

-attach it to your mech via an invisible and 0% strength bolt, and tag your crosshair with somthing. Now make the gun anti-gravity and attach a look at rotator to the gun barrel, and set it to follow the tag of your crosshair.

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Is there a specific type of bolt I should use? I tried a basic one and the gun stays stuck in place.

Also, how do I make it so that the targeting cursor won't be destroyed by the lethal laser that shoots out, and how do I make it so that both the cursor and health bar don't appear until you get in the Controlinator?

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Also, how do I make it so that the targeting cursor won't be destroyed by the lethal laser that shoots out, and how do I make it so that both the cursor and health bar don't appear until you get in the Controlinator?

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If the cursor is made of hologram material it just won't be destroyed. As for that and the health bar only appearing when you get into the controllinator... you could wire the holograms to something that will be activated by the controllinator, and they will be inactive and invisible until that happens.

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Originally Posted by SnipySev

If the cursor is made of hologram material it just won't be destroyed. As for that and the health bar only appearing when you get into the controllinator... you could wire the holograms to something that will be activated by the controllinator, and they will be inactive and invisible until that happens.

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There's an input in the controllinator, I forgot what's it called, and playing LBP1 at the moment... but it's at the top-center of the controller, above the "tilt" inputs. Anything you wire using that one input will activate/deactivate whenever you take/drop controls of the controllinator.

Edit: The above input would be great for the health bar. But as for the cursor, you should wire it using any other of the controller's inputs, a button. The reason for this is if you're using the tutorial I gave you to create the cursor and the invisible limitation for it, the limitation will stop the cursor from going off boundaries, but if you move your Mech (and the limitation is attached to the Mech), the cursor will stay in-place and, eventually, -you- will move the cursor off limits unintentionally. There might be a way to stop this from happening, but I haven't thought about it yet, not that I could, anyway <_< Still rather a rookie myself as far as creation goes.

Edit 2: Nevermind the above paragraph's latest lines. Problem could be solved by adding a follower to the Cursor, set to follow the Mech, and whenever you move the cursor, that could also stop the follower by using a gate. Then for re-activating the following feature you could use another button, or something. Or perhaps after you stop moving the cursor, the follower would reactivate... though that might be a bit messy if not done right.

I've made a lot of progress, and have uploaded my work so far in a simple level: http://lbp.me/v/yrtfhn
I still haven't tested having the suit be damaged, because I'm unsure if the health bar can be affected by lethal material like a plasma blast. I also need to make some sort of camera that zooms out to fully show the suit and the health bar on the left side, and slowly pan to move along with the suit as it walks. Lastly, the gun still has some problems; it's kind of finicky in rotating and the velocity of the material it shoots is really weak.

I've made the level copyable, so anyone willing to help give it a download and mess around!

I think you can use a projectile sensor for the plasma blast, because I think that's located in the projectile section. And use a game or movie camera (I would try game first) and hook the controllinator output to it.

I'll copy it and see what I can do. ;)