(HL2 weapon) Combine experimental grenade

coldwolf

I'm stuck with this thing:

It's a new weapon for the mod I'm helping out. They call it the Gravitational Influx Grenade or whatever--usually "GIG". They really want a sterile look for it because it goes with the story that you're the first soldier to carry it (it being experimental and all).

So without the option to dirty it up, what can I add to make it more interesting? I was thinking more decals, but of what?

I appreciate any help anyone may have to offer. Cheers

PS: Here's the first version, the one I started scraping up. Just for kicks:

Thurban

Try adding more seams to show that this is something built of components. A normal frag grenade may not have many seams because it is designed to tear itself apart in the worst way possible. But the GIG here is a piece of very advanced tech, so it may be built of smaller parts and encasings. One other thing you might want to think about is the color scheme of the GIG itself. Without knowing much about your mod's design, the combine tend to go for a more clean white plastic Mac look. Take a look at the video for HL2: Portal and check out the design of the turrets and things in there.

coldwolf

Excellent suggestions, thank you! I kinda messed up the shadows in photoshop which have since been fixed, so the plates are better separated. Still going to add better shadowing for trigger the thingy tho. I'd like to try adding more text designating the fact that it's experimental too.

I used the color scheme I did because it's the color of Combine weapons and structures such as the AR2 and Citadel. The plates are lighter because they started out as that clean white plastic stuff you mentioned, but it didn't look right. That scheme is only reserved for things like the Advisors anyway. I think the turrets and such in Portal are not Combine--the premise is that you're in a regular (well, you know what I mean) human lab trying out the Portal gun. Cheers!

aesir

Throw some highlights on it. Its metal right?

coldwolf

Can I let the spec map do that for me, or do I specifically need to paint some on to get a good effect?

Update:

Thurban

Not sure if this is something you might want to run with but I think a lot of the combine tech has some form of a visible energy componant, like the pulse rifle and what not. There is some form of emmitted light, in the form of either an energy source or just a bulb. I do really like what you have but I thought it might be cool.

oh yeah, did we ever get to know what the gernade does? I think I have an idea but I don't want to spoil anything if you don't want us to know yet

zenarion

Yes please tell us!

Valandar

From the sound of things, it either causes things to implode, or causes them to get skwished against the floor by an incredible gravity field.

coldwolf

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causes them to get skwished against the floor by an incredible gravity field.

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Close! It pops into the air and generates a black hole thing that sucks in everything within range and kills them (if they're killable). Nothing new, but it's our own code, so no one can call fowl

Interesting point about the glowy parts. There's going to be a blue LED thing at the end you can't see when it's activated... I think a red glowy line would be good to replace that black and white part (which my team didn't like much). Hopefully I'll have time to play with it tonight.

I'm going to try to add some metallic highlights, but those plates are repeated in the UVs, so no direction-specific stuff is possible. Because of this, I think I'm going to rely on a bright spec map (my team demanded it anyway ).