Create an exotic weapon

An exotic weapon has its own archetype, an exotic intrinsic, a unique normal trait and a catalyst. Studio copies an installed base weapon, assigns the art exported from Blender, and compiles the intrinsic and trait from new behavior graphs.

Before you start

• Install the Blender add-on. See Edit an asset in Blender.
• Open a project.
• The importer supports only the Tommy’s Matchbook frame.

Model the weapon

Point the weapon along +Y, with +Z up. Studio turns it to the game’s axes on import.

Split the meshes into four art parts. Each part needs at least one mesh.

The animated profile uses exactly five bones. In the Sunrise > Weapon panel, assign each bone a different Control slot from 0 through 4. Each vertex must have one bone weight of 1. Mixed weights and morph targets are refused. Materials follow the rules of an original asset. See Import an original Blender asset.

Add animations and particles

For each Blender action, choose its Weapon event in the Weapon panel. Fire and Reload replace those native actions. Idle, Inspect and Named clip add native named animation requests. They have no automatic input binding. Named clip also accepts a Clip name. Blank uses the action name.

You can preview every imported clip in Studio. You can also assign any imported clip to Fire or Reload on the Weapon page. The other native inputs remain fixed.

A particle emitter needs a Weapon event. It needs no art-part assignment. These events work in game:

Use at most one Muzzle and one Eject emitter. Both bursts follow the first-person gun. Studio moves the weapon’s barrel point to the Muzzle emitter, so the tracers start there. The base weapon’s projectile stays.

Each emitter is a point burst from a flat emitter surface:

• Set the emission start and end to the same frame.
• Use 1 to 4,096 particles and a positive lifetime.
• Use normal velocity with no random velocity, object velocity, lifetime randomness or gravity.
• Set Blender particle size to 0.035 and size randomness to zero.
• Parent the emitter to the weapon rig or a bone when it should follow that attachment.

The native burst keeps its fixed sprite material and program. The count, lifetime, speed and position come from the export. Blender’s instance mesh is a preview aid.

Not every event works yet:

Export from Blender

1. Keep one weapon and its rig, actions and emitters in the scene. The exporter reads the scene.
2. In the 3D view sidebar, open the Sunrise tab and find the Weapon panel.
3. Select each visual mesh and choose its Art part. Assign the rig controls and action events.
4. Set Metres per unit to the length of one Blender unit in meters. The default is 1.
5. Press Export weapon. File > Export > Sunrise weapon does the same.
6. Pick a file name in a folder outside the Studio project, and export.

The add-on writes three files with the same name. It writes all three or none.

Keep the three files together. Studio reads all of them.

If the export stops, it names the problem:

Create the weapon in Studio

1. Open Weapons in the browser. Press the New icon on the list header, or on the toolbar of an open weapon.
2. Base shows Tommy’s Matchbook, the only supported layout.
3. Type the Name and the Weapon type, such as Induction Rifle. A stock type name such as Auto Rifle keeps that type’s inventory trait. A new name gets its own type identifier.
4. Type the Intrinsic name, the Trait name and the Catalyst name.
5. In Blender asset, choose the .glb file.
6. Read Imported surfaces. Every surface must read ready, absent or skipped. Clip bursts reads skipped with a WIP tag: they do not show in game.
7. Open the Intrinsic section. Under Intrinsic behavior, press Edit nodes, build the perk’s effect, then press Done. See Edit perk behavior.
8. Do the same in the Trait section, under Trait behavior.
9. Catalyst bonus perk starts on New graph. Fill Catalyst perk name, and edit its nodes under Catalyst perk behavior. Pick existing instead picks an installed perk with normal presentation.
10. Set the catalyst’s stat bonuses and fill the optional fields below.
11. Press Create exotic weapon.

The optional fields sit in sections: Weapon, Intrinsic, Trait, Catalyst, Art and import and Advanced. Click a section’s header to open it. Weapon and Art and import start open.

Names are at most 200 characters. Descriptions are at most 4,000 characters. The weapon icon is a 96 x 96 PNG used as drawn. The intrinsic, trait, catalyst and catalyst perk icons are symbols: a PNG of any size with a transparent background. Studio uses the symbol’s shape and draws the native style around it:

Each perk icon gets a 96-pixel and a 40-pixel image, because compact perk rows show the small one. Blank icon fields keep the template artwork or leave a fresh sandbox perk without an icon.

Create runs in the background. It is one undo step. When it is done, the new weapon opens on its Weapon page. Investment editing internals lists every record it makes.

When Create finishes, Studio also gives the weapon its own copies of the records only the base weapon uses: its weapon config and class record, its art configs and effect, its gear key, and its ornament and catalyst socket types. The catalyst gets its own plug category, and the model stops using the base weapon’s plated textures. This is a second undo step. For a weapon without these copies, press the build icon, Copy shared base records into this project, on the Weapon page.

Studio assigns exotic presentation to the intrinsic and normal presentation to the unique trait and catalyst bonus. Each authored socket keeps only its new plug. The ornament socket keeps only its default plug, because the base weapon’s ornaments carry its art. The catalyst keeps its native exotic item tier. These display choices do not change the behavior graphs.

The Weapon page

A weapon opened from the browser shows its model beside the Investment and Weapon tabs. The model sits on the left, or on top when the panel is narrow. If Studio cannot read the weapon’s art, the weapon opens without a model. Hover Preview notes to see why.

The Weapon page shows the weapon’s name, type and description, and links to its parts.

Hover an icon to see its name.

The import, build and spark icons and the Effects section show only with the project open, for a weapon the project built from a Blender export.

The Effects section has one row per effect:

The import icon, Reimport the Blender export, applies a new export to the same weapon. Geometry, UVs, textures, motion and particle emitters may change. Studio deletes the records of an emitter you removed. Keep the material count, art parts and named clips. Links made in Studio after Create, such as the weapon’s own records and sounds, stay in place.

To change the perks later, open their behavior graphs from this page. To change the item fields, press Edit on the weapon’s toolbar. Item edits may not work in game. See Create items and vendors. That workflow also assigns a custom PNG icon. It also names the frame and tunes gameplay: fire rate, damage and magazine size. Weapon family and the gameplay tables may not work in game.

The model starts in the weapon’s bind pose. Use its animation picker to search and play any clip linked to its presentation rig, including installed clips and every named clip you export. The assembled weapon stays in view while you change clips.

Playback does not change gameplay bindings. A named clip can play in the scene without an automatic input binding. The Fire and Reload assignments are project changes and support Undo.

The native weapon links identify its animation owner. The project also keeps the authored perk graphs and a creation receipt. The receipt identifies the catalyst after a rename and records the imported surfaces.

Replace the weapon’s sounds

Open the weapon’s Weapon page and expand Sounds. It shows with the project open, for a weapon the project added. It lists the sound events the weapon plays through its own records and the base weapon’s. Shared selector configs hold rows for other weapons. Only this weapon’s own row is listed. A name such as ar_ex_tommy_reload3 comes from the base weapon’s animation sound table. Other rows show the record that holds the event.

1. Press the import icon next to a sound.
2. Choose a WAV file: mono or stereo, 16-bit PCM, any sample rate.
3. Studio builds a sound bank and an event of the weapon’s own. The bank keeps the base event’s whole sound tree: containers, loops, volumes and routing. Every sound in it plays your WAV. Studio points the weapon at the new event and copies the base weapon’s records, so other weapons keep their sounds.

An automatic weapon’s fire sound loops while the trigger is held, one shot per round at the weapon’s fire rate. Releasing the trigger plays a tail. To give the tail its own sound, put NAME.release.wav beside NAME.wav. Otherwise the tail plays your shot. Stock shots are stereo and peak at 0 dBFS, so a quiet or mono WAV sounds quieter in game. Replacing a sound again rebuilds the weapon’s bank in place. The game keeps the sound in memory.

Fit the first-person hands

The base weapon’s first-person animations place the hands and the aiming eye at fixed points. Studio does not move them, so model the weapon around them. For a rifle, in Blender meters (+Y forward):

Keep the sight’s opening on the aim line and nothing solid across it.

The base weapon’s Fire and Reload also move the hands. Without arms actions, Studio keeps that hand motion and replaces only the weapon’s own motion, so time the Reload action to it. For the supported frame:

• Give the Reload action 106 frames, one per native frame.
• Put the magazine on the bone mapped to control 2. From frame 14 to 64 the left hand carries it out, brings it back and pushes it home.
• From frame 73 to 80 the left hand pulls a charging handle back along the top left edge, from 5.4 cm to 16.7 cm behind the grip, about 15 cm up. Put a handle there on the bone mapped to control 1, or author your own arms.

Author the first-person arms

Authored arms may not work in game.

The arms can have their own motion for each weapon event.

1. Create the weapon once, then open its Weapon page.
2. Under Animation, press the export icon, Export first-person arms, and save the file outside the project. It holds the arms and the current Fire and Reload hand motion.
3. In Blender, open the weapon scene. In the Weapon panel, press Import first-person arms and choose that file. The arms appear around the weapon with the actions Arms fire and Arms reload.
4. Edit the arms actions. Preview event plays the weapon and arms actions together.
5. Delete an arms action to keep the base weapon’s hand motion for that event.
6. Export the weapon. The export also writes <name>.sunrise-arms.glb. Keep it beside the GLB.
7. On the Weapon page, press the import icon, Reimport the Blender export, and choose the GLB.

An arms action can belong to an added clip too. Give it the clip’s event name in the Weapon panel.

The base clip’s sound and effect events stay on their frames. Studio cannot move them, so keep the new motion’s key moments near the base clip’s.

Limits

• The rig must fit the supported five-control frame, with one full bone weight per vertex.
• Emitters must fit the point-burst profile above.
• The export must hold exactly the four art parts, and the base weapon’s art must have the same four.
• The axes are fixed: +Y forward, +Z up.
• Buffers and images must be embedded in the scene file.
• If the Blender files change while Create runs, Create stops. Export again if needed, then press Create exotic weapon again.
• If the project or the installation changes while Create runs, Create stops. Press Create exotic weapon again.
• The copied catalyst socket type keeps the base weapon’s unlock flag.
• The base weapon’s clip sound and effect events stay on their frames.

These parts are WIP:

• Tracer colour is turned off. In game the tracers kept the base colour and broke while moving.
• Clip bursts do not show in game. The import skips them.

These parts may not work in game:

• The Reload effect.
• Authored first-person arms.
• The HUD silhouette.
• Weapon family and Gameplay values.
• Some perk kinds. See Edit perk behavior.

Related pages

• Edit perk behavior builds the perk graphs.
• Create items and vendors creates other weapons, armor and plugs.
• Investment editing internals explains the records an exotic weapon gets.