NEW THINGS

- HANDS! 

- Weapon animations!

- New models for the grappling hook, pistol, and assault rifle

- New weapon: the shell launcher

- New area of the sandbox, meant to test environmental modifiers

- new weapon handling physics, such as weapon rise

- water can be raised/lowered

- water can have currents

- acid, and gas volumes

- air currents

NOTES

- hand models/textures are not complete

- minor animation glitches, such as the shell rotating during the shell launcher reload animation

- There is an audio bug with the rocket launcher which causes the lock on sound to repeat when locking onto a blank area of ground. Switching to another weapon, or locking onto a valid target stops the bug.

Been quite a while since the last build - this was definitely unintentional.  I finished work on the environmental modifiers shortly after the last build but got SUPER carried away, and ended up folding in a feature which I had been putting off since the beginning, but was nevertheless sorely needed: hands! Hands, and with that, actual weapon animations. As late as I am, good lord has it been satisfying watching the process unfold. Things are still a little janky, but it has gone so far towards making the game feel like an actual product. The introduction of animation, however, introduced the unexpected issue of some of the early weapons not being designed with articulation in mind, which obviously made animation impossible. After all, you can't really animate something with no moving parts; at least not in any compelling way. So with this update, the grappling hook, assault rifle, and pistol all got shiny new models, with plenty of moving parts. The grappling hook redesign in particular had the added benefit of actually making a little sense now, as I can now have it react in somewhat of a believable fashion to where the hook is anchored, or when the player yanks an object towards them. 

In addition to the new animations, a new gun has been introduced: the shell launcher, which works a little differently than the other weapons in the game. The shell launcher is a light weapon that, instead of using traditional ammo, fires whatever grenade the player has equipped. This gives the player more expression with how they use their grenades, as it not only gives them more range, but also causes them to explode on impact.

Outside of animation, a new area of the sandbox has been introduced specifically to be used as a testing grounds for some new environmental features. Located along the south wall of the main sandbox area (just west of the machine den) is the Environmental Testing Chamber, which is where you'll find examples of water currents and changeable water levels, which move any object floating inside them; acid, which harms the player and destroys certain objects; gas, which does no harm to the player but causes them to choke over time; and air currents, which blow objects (or the player) around the map.