Designing the new PhysGun

Steam punky would be a cool skin

anything without an angled foregrip looks a bit strange.

Here's my concept, building off that reciprocating saw idea from earlier. With a portal-gun-like part for the front part (I love the claws) and a Key-LOK angled foregrip (sticks out 45 degress to the left instead of straight down) painted blue to match the s&box aesthetic

Fixed it up some more, removed the battery. The blue stuff is the outside of a beer glass tinted blue

Gotta be honest. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the Milwaukee/Hercules style Physgun. It being plastic kinda rubs me the wrong way, it's too modern.

Older tools like this drill from 1913 seem like better inspiration to me personally.

Also, here is your AFG concept.

of course you edited it to have a vertical foregrip and no claws 🤦

No... I just did a 1:1 aspect ratio gen and could not be asked to re-do it with the original photo. 

Was just showing the grip...

From over 3 hours of prompt engineering and 200+ generations I cherry picked some designs that stood out the most for the Physgun.

Keep in mind these are a collection of designs that can be included in the original or at least give some ideas.
Since the original Physgun was 2 handed, I focused on getting the same configuration and patterns.

Feel free to pick through and if you want, put together the design choices in your own concept art.

edit: Trying to prompt in the metal arms were a nightmare for AI to get right, so imagine some having that part.

some nice elements in there I guess, I like the canister look from the bottom left one.

hear me out... the physglove. the animations could be so expressive, and would give the player instant visual feedback when rotating/freezing etc

I kinda like the idea of a glove, can imagine a screen on the underside of the wrist, with maybe a dial you can spin with your other fingers.

I'm not totally opposed to a physics glove, HLA did it.

Hammer 👍

Since Garry is designing the new Physics Gun, why not add new modes for it? Like a water gun mode, lava gun mode, Gravity gun mode (why this one? Because it's better than having to switch between guns and it saves space too!). Maybe even some exotic modes like a laser gun mode, explosive beam mode, maybe even a drill gun mode (for mining servers or for servers that can use mining as a way to earn the fancy green paper known as money!) And another cool concept is that you can change the color of the beam, as well as even make a separate editor for people to use to make their own physics gun model. And my final concept for it is that the new physics gun could have a limit to what it can hold, and if it gets to far over that limit (for example, the user gets a warning by the beam flickering some or the beam bending more than it should), the physics gun would rather just overheat and shut down for a estimated time, explode from holding too much, or the objects your trying to pick up just stays grounded. Also, here's my cool concept for the Physics Gun! (Sorry I used AI, I suck at drawing...)

Edit: I just took a look a a Garry's Mod workshop item called "Gwater" (The second version of it), and that could be inspiration for liquid modes like water gun mode, lava gun mode, acid gun mode, blood gun mode, glue gun mode, and lots of others! And they're could also be a injection gun mode for the new Physics Gun too, so messing with NPCs can be more interesting (I got the injection gun idea from People Playground)

I’ve been thinking about this one a lot, and I always come back to the glove/hand idea. It would take up minimal screen space, open up creative possibilities for future cosmetics, and work great with gestures if VR is ever implemented. Others have already expressed similar ideas in their own way, and I’m totally on board with them.

dall-e isn't ambidextrous and eats way too many carrots...

I actually love this idea - certainly can't wait to see it eventually become a reskin

The physgun from Half-Life and GMod is such an iconic tool. It’d be fun to keep something similar and maybe slip in a little Half-Life easter egg as a nod to the original gravity/physics gun.

while i'm nostalgic for the original physgun and would vote that first any opportunity if were facing a reality where we need an original concept I'm actually really liking the glove idea a few posts above by zzlint. maybe an extra indicator on the back of the hand for animations though.

the glove feels like a natural evolution of the technology shrinking over time. However I would love to see the 3 extension arms make a return, that feels iconic