Devblog #3 - A Splash More Colour!
Welcome to the third installation of the Main Assembly Dev Diary!
Today we’ll be talking about colours and materials! Two of the main ways to tweak the appearance and behaviour of your creation!
Initially, we decided that each robot would have a palette of three colours. This would provide a consistent theme as all the chassis elements and parts would use some combination of the three, while also allowing for some tweaking via selecting which colour would be the dominant contributor on a piece-by-piece basis. This made it very quick to change the appearance of a bot by swapping out the palette or changing a single colour from the palette.
We also offered a variety of materials from which chassis could be constructed. These offered a wide variety of physical properties and different surface looks.
After the open beta, we received a lot of requests for more colour slots as well as feedback concerning the wide variety of materials and confusion about their purpose, so without further ado, we have new systems and workflows to show you today!
Rather than the entire creation using a fixed palette, you can now use a different combination of any three colours on each individual piece. Want yellow and green motors with a blue body and hot pink seat? We have you covered! In addition to allowing you to save and load from several favourite slots, the most recently used combinations will be there too!
After picking the colours you want to work with, you can now enter Paint Mode! Simply click on parts to paint them with your active colour set, click and drag to apply to multiple pieces in a single stroke, or double-click to perform a fill.
But wait, there’s more! Some parts and materials can use multiple colours! To pick which is the primary, secondary and tertiary active colour, simply scroll with the mouse wheel to cycle through the three active pigments. There’s also a shortcut to swap primary and secondary for quick switching as you paint!
As well as a colour picker tool to sample colours from already painted parts!
Some parts, like the Trail-maker, can even use the primary tint colour in other ways!
A common complaint about the old colouring system was that too few colours were available, whereas materials suffered from the opposite problem! To combat this, we’re trying out a system where materials are grouped into three main categories: Light, Medium and Heavy. Currently all the materials within a category have identical densities and resilience, leaving you free to pick one based on appearance or the presence of aerodynamic effect boosting.
Having selected the material you want to use, you can then apply it to plates and frames in the same way as the paint tool – click, click and drag, or fill!
That covers the major features of the new paint and material tools! We hope the new approach is easier to use, and we look forward to the arrival of rainbow robots using the expanded colour palettes!
Thanks for reading and see ya next week!
Don't forget to Wishlist Main Assembly!
Today we’ll be talking about colours and materials! Two of the main ways to tweak the appearance and behaviour of your creation!
Initially, we decided that each robot would have a palette of three colours. This would provide a consistent theme as all the chassis elements and parts would use some combination of the three, while also allowing for some tweaking via selecting which colour would be the dominant contributor on a piece-by-piece basis. This made it very quick to change the appearance of a bot by swapping out the palette or changing a single colour from the palette.
We also offered a variety of materials from which chassis could be constructed. These offered a wide variety of physical properties and different surface looks.
After the open beta, we received a lot of requests for more colour slots as well as feedback concerning the wide variety of materials and confusion about their purpose, so without further ado, we have new systems and workflows to show you today!
Unleash The Rainbow!
Rather than the entire creation using a fixed palette, you can now use a different combination of any three colours on each individual piece. Want yellow and green motors with a blue body and hot pink seat? We have you covered! In addition to allowing you to save and load from several favourite slots, the most recently used combinations will be there too!
After picking the colours you want to work with, you can now enter Paint Mode! Simply click on parts to paint them with your active colour set, click and drag to apply to multiple pieces in a single stroke, or double-click to perform a fill.
But wait, there’s more! Some parts and materials can use multiple colours! To pick which is the primary, secondary and tertiary active colour, simply scroll with the mouse wheel to cycle through the three active pigments. There’s also a shortcut to swap primary and secondary for quick switching as you paint!
As well as a colour picker tool to sample colours from already painted parts!
Some parts, like the Trail-maker, can even use the primary tint colour in other ways!
Material Woes!
A common complaint about the old colouring system was that too few colours were available, whereas materials suffered from the opposite problem! To combat this, we’re trying out a system where materials are grouped into three main categories: Light, Medium and Heavy. Currently all the materials within a category have identical densities and resilience, leaving you free to pick one based on appearance or the presence of aerodynamic effect boosting.
Having selected the material you want to use, you can then apply it to plates and frames in the same way as the paint tool – click, click and drag, or fill!
That covers the major features of the new paint and material tools! We hope the new approach is easier to use, and we look forward to the arrival of rainbow robots using the expanded colour palettes!
Thanks for reading and see ya next week!
Don't forget to Wishlist Main Assembly!
