The Catabow

The Original Catabow

Artifact Description

“The Catabow” was a concept I thought of when making the Habitus Mandatum(video) proof-of-concept for GAM-445. The concept takes the form and stock of a crossbow and adds a vertical bow with spoon and a crank to pull the spoon/cradle into firing position. I only had the time to go through the creation of a static mesh without any motion.

The Catabow

Updated Artifact

Tool(s) used

- Blender 4.3
- Unreal Engine 5.1.1

Highlighted skills

- “The Catabow” was given a set of bones to articulate the bow action and made the crank spin with the action of reloading the device.
- The 3D object was refined to allow for these changes
- Created an animation of the firing and reloading sequences.

Reflection

- What did you learn as you were creating it and improving it?
  - I learned how to apply armatures to Bezier curves to achieve this animation.
- What challenges did you face?
  - This was challenging as I have never worked with armatures before GAM-495.
- How did you incorporate feedback as you made changes to the artifact?
  - I have had little feedback to incorporate other than "more polish is always possible".
- How was the artifact improved?
  - Animating the firing and reloading sequences has brought this artifact closer to a useable in-game weapon.

The procedural textures created in Blender above did not import into Unreal Engine. The video below shows the updated artifact as an exhibit in my "Showcase Gallery".