Design Challenge: The Crate

[Protector one]

A box... made of tiny little boxes.
All the little boxes are actually little robots that stick together and... wuh... I don't know, fly? Yeah, fly. When thrown into something, the big box disintegrates and the little robots scatter. After some time, the robots lump back together, a la T1000 yet sans liquid metal.

Oh, this crate idea was inspired by the 'Little Boxes' song (and oddly some Pokemon movie), so thanks TG!

[jillduffy]

Originally Posted by Protector one

A box... made of tiny little boxes.
All the little boxes are actually little robots that stick together and... wuh... I don't know, fly? Yeah, fly. When thrown into something, the big box disintegrates and the little robots scatter.

That doesn't sound like it would be a low-memory object to me...

[EvilLlama]

Originally Posted by jillduffy

That doesn't sound like it would be a low-memory object to me...

could you make the arguement that this new next gen console can handle more memory hogging stuff other consoles can't, so proportionally it's a low memory object?

[Sina Jafarzadeh]

I guess I have to ignore this topic until I myself have those 10 elements. It would be too much influencing
I really like your Cratar thing, Tamar.

[Protector one]

Originally Posted by jillduffy

That doesn't sound like it would be a low-memory object to me...

Well, only during the disintegrating and reintegrating phases. When it is just a box, it is... just a box. Twelve polygons and a texture.
And even for the des-/reintegrating, you could probably fake many separate boxes by lumping sets of boxes together. I didn't say each separate robot-box needs to be a unique object with its own physics...

Of course, there will always be little brats who hack up your game and stack oodles of your space crates on top of each other... and then see what happens when you remove the bottom one. (Search 'Crysis barrels' on YouTube for examples...) The game will cry.

[TG1]

ok, no 3 - Giant Rubik's cube - different color combinations will give it different physical properies

on a side note - this challenge is really making me crazy, I was actually staring at my cat's kitty litter box a few minutes ago, wondering if there is any way I could put it into a sci fi game... guuhhh...

[L33 mk1]

This challenge makes me think back to my college days doing Product Design.. I've just been trying to recall all exotic materials which a futuristic 'Crate could be made from, from an aesthetic standpoint anyways.

My favourite idea so far is the "Retro Box"; a box made from some low-grade material (some kind of strong polymer or cardboard), with a film-thin screen pasted to it, displaying an image of your old school wood crate.

Its great because the lower-res the texturing and the lower-poly the model, the more authentic it would be..

Also to add interest to a room there could be a couple that are out of battery or have a blue-screen error in their control circuits

[TG1]

Originally Posted by L33 mk1

This challenge makes me think back to my college days doing Product Design.. I've just been trying to recall all exotic materials which a futuristic 'Crate could be made from, from an aesthetic standpoint anyways.

My favourite idea so far is the "Retro Box"; a box made from some low-grade material (some kind of strong polymer or cardboard), with a film-thin screen pasted to it, displaying an image of your old school wood crate.

Its great because the lower-res the texturing and the lower-poly the model, the more authentic it would be..

Also to add interest to a room there could be a couple that are out of battery or have a blue-screen error in their control circuits

I like this one, you could also make camouflaged boxes this way.
the "Retro box" idea makes me think of a "Disco crate" same as the good old fashioned disco ball, but box shaped (could this be number 4?)

[EvilLlama]

Does it have to be remotely box shaped?

And another thing I want to point out. Just because it's a Science Fiction game, doesn't mean it's 100% Science Fiction. It could be a sci-fi/horror, sci-fi/fantasy, sci-fi/horror, etc. I really think TG1's idea of using a cat litter box is interesting.

Heck, for all we know, it could be anywhere from a Bioshockish game to Final Fantasy to My Little Pony Goes To the Moon

[Marco Roy]

Hello everyone!

Would any of you like to form a team for this challenge and others to come?

Or is the forum already some kind of big team itself? (This is my first time here)

Thanks in advance!