Contest: Defensive Structure

rattle · Post by **rattle** » 28 Nov 2006, 14:22

Someone stole my second idea...

I was thinking of a floating piece of rock (stratosphere style) armed to the teeth with a ball lightning thrower in the center of it (see above

*one page earlier) and a rocket barrage system which roates along some gears around the rock... I think I'll still do that when I find some time...

LBPB · Post by **LBPB** » 28 Nov 2006, 17:05

mildesign wrote:so here the files
+ http://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/~fm023/spri ... lstill.jpg +
here is how the animation would look like
+ http://www.hdm-stuttgart.de/~fm023/spring/tamodel.avi +

sorry for my bad english have to improve it aswell ;o)
greets Frank

Really interesting design !

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 28 Nov 2006, 21:12

@Mr. D.: Super model, as usual, and I really appreciate that it was pre-planned for animation so well. I'm very tempted to replace the Holder with it, frankly. But it's not what I'm looking for, for this design- I'm looking for something that feels heavier and more complex.

@Mildesign: that's very interesting. Coupled with a second part, to "transfer" that energy to a target, it could make a very interesting weapon, but I'm having trouble visualizing the second part of the design.

MR.D · Post by **MR.D** » 28 Nov 2006, 21:22

If I can get this directly exported to .S3O it would be alot more usefull I believe.

That way Hiarchy would be kept, and setting it up would be a breeze.

Argh, what are you looking for?
A MultiTurret, BIG GUN like bertha, ANTIswarm, Armored Battery, Stationary Krogoth?

What kind of weapons are you looking for to be on the unit? Plasma, Lasers, electricity, flame, Missles/rockets, something special?

knorke · Post by **knorke** » 28 Nov 2006, 22:26

He is obviously looking for the Stormbringer.

It is some large pyramide tower producing a giant storm clould which hovers over the structure and throws bolts of lighting at the enemy!

The cloud would have to be made with particles and stuff.

Dark cloud gathering
Breaking the day
No point running
cause its coming your way

rattle · Post by **rattle** » 28 Nov 2006, 23:20

So that's my floating piece of rock...

The large fan like thing is supposed to be some antigravity system to avoid realism discussions, the drone got turbo fans though. The drone is supposed to orbit it at a lower (or higher) altitude.

The thing in the middle of the fortress should spin like the time machine in the movie Contact.
It's ~1800 tris at the moment.

It'll consist of 12 pieces and is easy to animate.

With some luck I'll have it UV'd by tomorrow.

mildesign · Post by **mildesign** » 28 Nov 2006, 23:54

Argh wrote: Mildesign: that's very interesting. Coupled with a second part, to "transfer" that energy to a target, it could make a very interesting weapon, but I'm having trouble visualizing the second part of the design.

What second part ?
the particle stream to power up the uplink or what, can't u use sone kind of build nano particle spay for this energy stream
sry for asking stupid questions but I'm a modeler not a modder ;o)
at rattle
nice model maybe you could add some supply wireing to anker it to the ground.

Code: Select all

      _o_
    /  v  \
 x/         \x

great work.

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 29 Nov 2006, 01:13

Did none of you pinko's even notice mine?

rattle · Post by **rattle** » 29 Nov 2006, 02:29

Hmm no I commented on SnipaWolf's one. Sorry bruce...

Some advice: check your smoothing groups (i.e. make some edges hard, hard = no deformation) before subdividing... those feet for instance don't have to look like fat pointy sticks.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 29 Nov 2006, 03:04

@Rattle:

You could lose about 200 tris on the "fingers" by re-modeling them more efficiently. Getting the rings to operate will be trivial, of course. And the underside- the "floating castle" part, should probably be greebled to suggest high-tech antigravity stuff going on, not just ripped-up ground- this isn't a fantasy novel

@Das Bruce:

I didn't see a screenshot, and apparantly missed whatever download link you provided... sorry about that...

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 29 Nov 2006, 03:52

Couldn't be bothered making a decent screen shot.

Link again. http://fileuniverse.com/?p=show&a=it&id=4042

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 29 Nov 2006, 04:02

@Knorke:

While the StormBringer is entirely possible to execute now with FX, and might even look neat, I'm not sure it'd be appropriate to NanoBlobs's futuristic art and design. I had a laugh at the Knight tho

Keithus · Post by **Keithus** » 29 Nov 2006, 04:31

Updated version, decided not to change the basic idea as it isnt actually that similar to the grunt turret (other than hovering).

Tried to make it look less usual in appearance without losing the ability to use mirroring to its full extent for UV mapping.

I figure if the pad can make the turret "hover" above it it can probably "hover" itself.

Open to any suggestions, expecially on where to drop the poly count (I havent created holes in it where I could have yet).

.Obj Format closed and "open".
http://dl021.filefactory.com/dl/f/37bc4 ... e2248d468/

EDIT: screens:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k30/K ... ingie1.jpg
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k30/K ... hingie.jpg

Erom · Post by **Erom** » 29 Nov 2006, 04:48

What's the timing on this Argh? Love to take a stab but I shant have a chance before maybe this weekend.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 29 Nov 2006, 05:01

I'm not in a super-big hurry. I'm looking for excellence, and that's rarely something one can rush.

Dash_Riprock · Post by **Dash_Riprock** » 29 Nov 2006, 06:38

Heres something I just did pretty quickly. I didnt realize you were going for the completely unconventional until I looked back at your post, so I went more for the super-sturdy look.

1400 tris, BTW

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 29 Nov 2006, 07:08

Dash_Riprock wrote:Heres something I just did pretty quickly. I didnt realize you were going for the completely unconventional until I looked back at your post, so I went more for the super-sturdy look.
snip
1400 tris, BTW

Far to sensible looking for nanoblobs I'm going to guess.

hrmph · Post by **hrmph** » 29 Nov 2006, 08:14

That is really nice dash.

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 29 Nov 2006, 09:23

@Dash:

That's a very nice model- excellent use of smoothing groups, good form, nice greebles. I'd take something like it, if it was a lot taller (I want something tall enough to have excellent LOS wherever it's placed) and had a more massive feel to it. The missile launcher is ill-placed, however, and would be a real bear to script reliably- better to have it on a separate turret or operating through more unconventional means, like the floating launcher in Rattle's entry.

Here's Das Bruce's entry, btw: a very unconventional design, which wins a lot of points on originality and then loses them because it wouldn't actually work, and some modeling flaws:

@Bruce: again, this definitely wins points for sheer audacity. However, as you can see, there are some serious issues:

1. The tower has some very bad welding problems, which you can see clearly in my render. I could probably clean the verts up, but other parts need a rework.

2. The gear design looks like it should work at first glance, but it cannot. To flip that gear over would require a physically impossible movement. The easiest solution is to place the gun on top of the top-most gear, and then have the gun slip down into a hole when not firing, preferably with a sturdy-looking door on top. The whole thing would be a bit tricky on script timing, but not as bad you'd think- there are all sorts of good ways to cheat. But, given that you're showing gears for that upwards motion, why not go for broke, and have the entire tower driven by a large sun-gear driven by smaller ones? Something like this quick(and admittedly crappy) mockup:

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 29 Nov 2006, 09:40

@Keithus: Hmm, that's starting to get somewhere

I think it needs some thrusters that pop out've the "bottom" side and blip FX to look like jets holding it in place, or for attitude control or something, and the top/back side of the cannon is begging for some skinny "antennas" or other greebles to suggest a larger size and more complexity. You might want to lose a cannon, too, just to save on polycount- three-barreled cannons always look cool, and you'd save about a hundred tris.

Spring RTS Engine

Contest: Defensive Structure