I will yet again admit that having scaleable sizes for players needs to be added into Brickadia.

It seems the past two weeks have been fairly quiet in terms of community content, but that doesn't mean I haven't gotten anything to showcase for this week!

However, even though it's been fairly calm, I myself have been busy animating small things for different projects.

While I can't show them at the moment, it's basically me coming to the conclusion that I should be using FireAlpaca more to animate than Clip Studio Paint (but don't worry, I'll use CSP for everything else plus filters). Apart from that, I still need to get to changing the schedule banner on the top, but I do have a good idea the things I plan on adding to the blurb that you'll actually find regularly in the articles for each blurb once I add them, so keep an eye out for that!

For this blurb, we'll be taking a look at news regarding vehicles, and some of the details behind it, stay tuned as it's pretty exciting!

With all that out of the way, let's take a look at what the community has been up to:

It has recently been revealed that as of right now, vehicles are now being currently worked by one of the developers, Sixmorphugus!

Credit: Sixmorphugus

So as of June 2nd, 2024, work starts on building for vehicles. It's fair to imagine this having been the result of the building system being reworked, so it's only natural that vehicles are worked on next since you have to build vehicles first to use them in the first place.

On top of that, we're also told two different things that are being worked on for building vehicles, namely the ability to rotate joints to aim at the mouse in Mouse Mode, and a brand new brick catalog called Mechanics.

Let's consider the first part, joint rotation.

Sixmorphugus describes the ability to rotate a joint by aiming towards a surface. I would be the one to guess that this is specifically in regard to setting specific angles for a joint rather than just swinging around a structure on a joint with the Manipulator tool and freezing it there.

But what does he mean by Mouse Mode? In case you forgot, it's just placing bricks freely with the Placer tool.

With those two things in mind, one could assume that there's going to be a way to place joints and also hold another button in order to rotate that joint, similar to how there's a bind for row-placing and drag-placing bricks.

Now for the next part: Mechanics!

First we've seen the Entities as a catalog get added, and now it seems like we'll be getting Mechanics. But as what?

Credit: Sixmorphugus

Given how it has been described as a means of connecting objects, I'd speculate that the Mechanics brick catalog would just fall under the Entities catalog, but since it's being described specifically as a new Brick catalog, I'd have to assume that it's just a whole new tab on the top of the building bar in the Building menu.

Recently, it's been revealed that we're getting two new physics connections for joints, those being Bearings and Sockets.

For those that aren't aware of what exactly these things are traditionally, a bearing is a tool that allows for smooth rotation while a socket is a connection point.

Keep in mind too that we also have the regular physics joint already showcased for physics builds by the developers, meaning we have three types of joint connections now.

Or do we?

Credit: Sixmorphugus

So not only do we have those two additional clearly defined connectors, the slider, the rail, and potentially even more connections coming soon. On top of that, we also have a means of welding objects together with the Manipulator tool. I imagine this will be akin to how LittleBigPlanet does object welding, where you also drag the object to another object, hold a bind, and the connect together.

With the slider, I'd imagine the length of the connector will be variable, so much so that I can see the size of it being editable by the Resizer tool, drag-placing with the Placer tool, or all three in addition to the hypothetical bind I mentioned earlier with the joint angling with Mouse Mode (which, now that I mention, could likely be the C button when Sixmorphugus describes what bind could be the one to bind/couple two entities together).

The rail that's also mentioned doesn't sound entirely new, as it sounds akin to the railing behavior mentioned all the way back in Interactive Brickadia: Next Steps development blog written by Sixmorphugus. I would like to think they are the same since they likely require connecting an entity to one end of the railing.

In addition to all this, it's also revealed that wheels for vehicles will not be bricks!

Credit: Sixmorphugus

That's not to say they won't be brick pieces aesthetically, but you should get the idea here.

I had speculated before that for good non-wobbly movement in vehicles that there would need to be some sort of actual wheel piece of some kind. The question, however, is if there will be a system to customize those wheels to be variable in size and design. However, we do have confirmation for painting wheels, at least.

So with all this, it's fair to say that we'll potentially be seeing a lot of different connection types in the future. Given how socket connections were described in regard to how connections would be made, it would be awesome to see something similar to that in regard to gears, where they are just entity objects that connect to each other and are able to work with each other without the issue of convex collisions getting in the way of not being able to slot the teeth in with each other.

Again, I would also think that being able to edit the size of wheels, proportions, and design elements would be a huge plus in regard to making the dozens upon dozens of wheel designs people would want to make or try to recreate in Brickadia.

Let's consider this for a second too:

Credit: Sixmorphugus

With the addition of these connections being in the game, one interesting thing that would be great to see in this game, taking cues from LittleBigPlanet, would be the addition of connections like rope, springs, and elastic strings. While one could say they all sort of serve the same purpose, I think elements like these serve both a functional purpose and an aesthetic purpose. People who want to recreate alleyways with dozens of clotheslines, ships that have rope all over, or even the means to create marionettes would definitely see those types of connections as a huge plus. I also like this idea considering it would probably keep people from making strings or ropes made of dozens of microbricks. One thing too that would be cool from that too would be to see the rope sag if the length of the rope connection is longer than the distance between the two connection points.

But let's not fool ourselves into thinking this can't be an addition that could be implemented before or even after release. Given the fact that the new brick catalog is going to be called Mechanics, it isn't hard to believe that these ideas could be added at some point. Then again, it would probably take a good bit of time to add to get JUST right.

We'll just have to see what the developers have in store for us, but I for one look forward to the next development blog they have in store that will likely cover all of this.

But stay tuned for the next blurb, as we'll be taking a look at some blurb-exclusive content regarding music in Brickadia!