[CA] Walker Designs

[CA] Walker Designs

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Neddie
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[CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

I took on the responsibility of designing the basic mechs of Complete Annihilation to complement Saktoth's Spherebot model and further the long term goals of the project. I'm making the first round of designs in line-up public now, though these are much abridged thumbnails and can only convey the major features of each unit.

I have a few notes before posting these thumbnails, however;

1. These designs are not final.
2. These designs do not convey posture, texture or patterns of movement.
3. The drawn weapons are placeholders for now.
4. The artillery unit has been omitted until an acceptable design is complete.
5. All units are bipedal and humanoid due to initial design decisions, this may change.

Now, from left to right...

Image

1st: Spherebot, you know him, love him, he is the point of reference.
2nd: Anti-air unit, armed with dual anti-air lasers coupled with an enhanced cooling system. Possible performance increase when partially immersed in water. 40% designed.
3rd: Rocket skirmisher, right arm carrying a magnetic drive and nano-synthesizer for local rocket production and deployment, left arm employing additional targeting apparatus. No recoil from drive mechanism. 40% designed.
4th: EMP charger, spindly body designed to crouch pre-sprint while idle, visible energy core in chest. 30% designed.

Image

1st: All-terrain scout, can crawl if necessary, armed with light laser amid ocular sensory array. 20% designed.
2nd: Assault mech, armed with dual EMG cannon, chassis derived directly from Spherebot. Armour extends across back, weapons more compact for higher rate of fire, increased heat production compensated by internal liquid cooling. 30% designed.
3rd: Constructor, prepared with two nanoparticle emission arrays, one in each palm. 30% designed.
4th: Minelayer/Capture mech, right arm contains minimal nanoparticle emission array, left arm contains high power omni-band transmitter. 25% designed.
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smoth
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by smoth »

those designs lack any detail, they just show a humanoid and it's relative size. the silhouettes lack any distinctive definition. I also recommend designing them also with a top down view as that silhouette is the most important.
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Neddie
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

smoth wrote:those designs lack any detail, they just show a humanoid and it's relative size. the silhouettes lack any distinctive definition. I also recommend designing them also with a top down view as that silhouette is the most important.
I'm making the first round of designs in line-up public now, though these are much abridged thumbnails and can only convey the major features of each unit.
They aren't the full designs, note the percentages listed and the sparse descriptions.
[Krogoth86]
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by [Krogoth86] »

Well first things first:
The problem is that they all look alike way too much. So when playing zoomed out and in top-down view there will be only very little difference between all the units. Especially Peewee and Warrior are extremely identical besides the 2nd gun...

I also don't really like that the weapons are of so minor importance i.e. pretty much all of them have normal "hands" and then some small things are attached to the back of the hand and this is it...
neddiedrow wrote:2nd: Anti-air unit, armed with dual anti-air lasers coupled with an enhanced cooling system. Possible performance increase when partially immersed in water. 40% designed.
Does he fire with his arms? Imo no good idea for an AA unit as he would have to lift his arms all the time. Shoulder cannons or something like this (which needs a totally new design though) are the way to go imo...
neddiedrow wrote:3rd: Rocket skirmisher, right arm carrying a magnetic drive and nano-synthesizer for local rocket production and deployment, left arm employing additional targeting apparatus. No recoil from drive mechanism. 40% designed.
Before reading the text I thought he would fire with the left arm... :roll:
You also want him to act like a zombie - i.e. when firing he lifts his arms up and holds them in a way the OTA Peewee holds his arms when firing?
neddiedrow wrote:4th: EMP charger, spindly body designed to crouch pre-sprint while idle, visible energy core in chest. 30% designed.
[...]
1st: All-terrain scout, can crawl if necessary, armed with light laser amid ocular sensory array. 20% designed.
They are all-terrain and so they should look like it and not be bipedal. With the way it is you won't be able to see that they actually are all-terrain lacking a lot of visual communication. Imo spider-like designs are best for all-terrain units - everyone will understand that they can climb up stuff...
neddiedrow wrote:2nd: Assault mech, armed with dual EMG cannon, chassis derived directly from Spherebot. Armour extends across back, weapons more compact for higher rate of fire, increased heat production compensated by internal liquid cooling. 30% designed.
As I told in the beginning: Way too much similarity to the Peewee. Apart from that you really should think about that tommygun design - well you said the weapons aren't final but well ... imo those tommyguns are as stupid as Mavericks wielding revolvers cowboy style...
neddiedrow wrote:3rd: Constructor, prepared with two nanoparticle emission arrays, one in each palm. 30% designed.
Well I don't see anything making him different from the other combat units and I wouldn't like to search just for some black/yellow colors in order to find them...
neddiedrow wrote:4th: Minelayer/Capture mech, right arm contains minimal nanoparticle emission array, left arm contains high power omni-band transmitter. 25% designed.
Well nothing special about him - he has the same problems all of your designs share though and looks very much like a bigger tick to me...

So to sum things up in my opinion you should have WAY more diversity in your designs (and that's not just about bipedal or not) as you want to distinguish your units as fast as possible ingame...
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Erom
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Erom »

Some idle ideas at how to differentiate them more...

Minelayer - I like tall and thin, that's a nice look. If this unit is supposed to have a lot of comm equiptment for capturing, though, you could add a backpack with antennas instead of putting it in the arm. Would make him really stand out especially from above.

Constructor - I see some equipment stashed on his back here - perfect. I would be tempted to give him a heavier build (especially the upper legs) but otherwise the backpack and caution stripes should make him stand out enough.

Scout - I get that you want this guy to look cheap and minimal and small so he can sneak around, but I think you went a little too far with it. I would lengthen his limbs just a tad, and make his head bigger/more detailed - it would make sense that the head sensor array would be the most important part of this guy, especially if he also puts his weapon up there. I just had one idea that might be fun, since you're half way there - make this guy move like a monkey- that is, move with it's hands as well. Would probably look pretty sweet for rough terrain movement...

Heavy - nice upgrade to the spherebot, I like. Especially if the armor is noticeably bulkier - the idea to join the "shoulder" plates with an across the back plate is excellent.

EMP - Love it, both the visible power core and the very light build.

Rocko- Make sure the head is squarer from an above view as well to distinguish this guy. I think I would make the rocket stand out more - make it bigger and bulkier - making this the most asymmetric guy, which would help him stand out.

Anti-Air - This, I think is the weakest of your overall excellent design - he just doesn't look different enough from the spherebot, shoulder work notwithstanding. He needs a large piece of equipment to stand out - some ideas... 1) Make him a humpback, with a large white dome on his back, to house the radar/targeting equipment. 2) Remove the forarm armor and include large, visible laser generators. 3) Weirder idea... Spikes? Eh, I guess they would conflict with the smooth lines... Tilt his head waaaay back (he should be looking at the sky after all. Maybe give him an eye on top of his head? That even might be enough.

I dunno, enough from me, but I think you have a really nice, cohesive set here.
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Erom
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Erom »

[Krogoth86] wrote:Apart from that you really should think about that tommygun design - well you said the weapons aren't final but well ... imo those tommyguns are as stupid as Mavericks wielding revolvers cowboy style...
Both the Maverick guns and these tommyguns are awesome. Why did *craft achieve better success than TA? Some part of that is that TA was much inferior at giving it's units character and interest - the tommygun is an amazingly effective gun design, emotively. It's one of the best modern weapons for that "Oh shit, that's a weapon" feeling.
[Krogoth86]
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by [Krogoth86] »

Erom wrote:Both the Maverick guns and these tommyguns are awesome. Why did *craft achieve better success than TA? Some part of that is that TA was much inferior at giving it's units character and interest - the tommygun is an amazingly effective gun design, emotively. It's one of the best modern weapons for that "Oh shit, that's a weapon" feeling.
Starcraft just had more story and atmosphere. It also has a way different approach - you have only a couple of units with a bit of a comic style, black humour and a bit portion of character. In OTA you command hordes of cold and "dead" robots without a big story and atmosphere but with a great possibility of tactics and strategies (which is the only thing that made TA great as the story really was non-existent / boring)...

So with that said my opinion is that 20m tall mechs shouldn't use a tommygun with bullets in a mafia style as long as you want a serious atmosphere and not something like in "Z". If this is wanted for CA then it's ok but I didn't see a hint of CA going to be a bit humorous / comic style...

Well - maybe we should discuss this elsewhere... :-)
Last edited by [Krogoth86] on 03 Jun 2008, 17:19, edited 1 time in total.
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Neddie
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

Not to be offensive, but you're looking at a bloody thumbnail from one angle in a lineup where I've already admitted that the weapons are not as they will be in the final design. You can't judge the distinctiveness a unit before it is at least rendered in multiple angles.

The hands are intentional, they're humanoid and nostalgic, they have at least decorative hands. If you notice, each hand however is positioned for the task, ahem, at hand - and some of them are incorporated into the weapons themselves.
Does he fire with his arms? Imo no good idea for an AA unit as he would have to lift his arms all the time. Shoulder cannons or something like this (which needs a totally new design though) are the way to go imo...
He does fire with his arms, it is an entirely aesthetic decision which I am unwilling to compromise on. This of all the units should appear almost organic in action, in a twisted YMCA fashion.
Before reading the text I thought he would fire with the left arm... :roll:
You also want him to act like a zombie - i.e. when firing he lifts his arms up and holds them in a way the OTA Peewee holds his arms when firing?
The targeting arm will always be moving, actually, collecting data generally. Scripted movement. The rocket launcher, as above noted not of a finalized design, will generally be held at a downward angle, but not directly down, the weapon should bounce during movement and of course will only be raised for firing.

They are all-terrain and so they should look like it and not be bipedal. With the way it is you won't be able to see that they actually are all-terrain lacking a lot of visual communication. Imo spider-like designs are best for all-terrain units - everyone will understand that they can climb up stuff...
Granted, but given good scripting the clambering biped could give a visual experience unseen before in Spring. I did not, however, decide to make them humanoid for any reason of my own, it was a simple directive that the units would be bipedal humanoids.
As I told in the beginning: Way too much similarity to the Peewee. Apart from that you really should think about that tommygun design - well you said the weapons aren't final but well ... imo those tommyguns are as stupid as Mavericks wielding revolvers cowboy style...
At least you realized the weapon statement at this point. The unit is supposed to look like the Spherebot, the latter morphs into it. Similar structure is only logical. The weapons are unpopular it seems - people want something larger and less feasible, currently a chaingun EMG is the most common suggestion.
Well I don't see anything making him different from the other combat units and I wouldn't like to search just for some black/yellow colors in order to find them...
Posture, profile, animations. All things you can't see here. Trust me, he's nothing like the other units, from the visible components to the movement.
So to sum things up in my opinion you should have WAY more diversity in your designs (and that's not just about bipedal or not) as you want to distinguish your units as fast as possible ingame...
They're supposed to be thematically similar but distinguishable. You discount all the elements currently unrevealed in your evaluation. Allow me and those who decide to work on the final designs to surprise you. I'm trying to push humanoid animation, individual effects, posture and the peculiarities of texture to give somewhat similar bodies entirely different appearances, as well as give some scripters a hell of a fun task.
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Neddie
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

On the anti-air design...

Image
[Krogoth86]
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by [Krogoth86] »

neddiedrow wrote:At least you realized the weapon statement at this point. The unit is supposed to look like the Spherebot, the latter morphs into it. Similar structure is only logical. The weapons are unpopular it seems - people want something larger and less feasible, currently a chaingun EMG is the most common suggestion.
Well it morphs into a Zipper too and so you probably want that one to look the same I guess so ingame you pretty much have three units with a rather similar head, a humanoid design which is quite similar and some shoulder pads. At last the head and the shoulder pads pretty much are all you see in the top-down view and from that point you won't really be able to distinguish them...
neddiedrow wrote:Posture, profile, animations. All things you can't see here. Trust me, he's nothing like the other units, from the visible components to the movement.
Well I wouldn't want to move my units around just to see them because of their animations (especially as they will be standing around lots of times).
neddiedrow wrote:They're supposed to be thematically similar but distinguishable. You discount all the elements currently unrevealed in your evaluation. Allow me and those who decide to work on the final designs to surprise you. I'm trying to push humanoid animation, individual effects, posture and the peculiarities of texture to give somewhat similar bodies entirely different appearances, as well as give some scripters a hell of a fun task.
Well you of course can introduce some differences in texture and animation but the actual form is what is the most easy to spot and with your design you have a bunch of extremely similar units around. I mean some people even complained about Mr. D's Gator and Raider being not as distinguishable as the OTA ones (although I think it's ok) - how should this work then with your approaches?
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Machiosabre
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Machiosabre »

I think the idea of a basic frame with a few changes like size and weapons/armor etc, while logical if you were really building them, is really boring.

I would probly keep standard unit, big unit and really scrawny unit, and get interesting totally different designs for the rest.
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Neddie
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

Well it morphs into a Zipper too and so you probably want that one to look the same I guess so ingame you pretty much have three units with a rather similar head, a humanoid design which is quite similar and some shoulder pads. At last the head and the shoulder pads pretty much are all you see in the top-down view and from that point you won't really be able to distinguish them...
Well, I'm going to increase the height of the Assault form, and the back of the unit is radically different - it has the equivalent of a double armour plate. The Advanced Raider is five or six designs away, but I intended to thin down the structure and remove the shoulder pads entirely. The heads will be similar, as will the torso shape from the front, but above should be an entirely different story.
Well I wouldn't want to move my units around just to see them because of their animations (especially as they will be standing around lots of times).
Of course not, but the posture will make a lot of difference when idle. The anti-air walker has the equivalent of a reversed spinal curvature, the constructor is hunched low, the minelayer/capture mech is the only one who stands up straight.
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Neddie
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

Machiosabre wrote:I think the idea of a basic frame with a few changes like size and weapons/armor etc, while logical if you were really building them, is really boring.

I would probly keep standard unit, big unit and really scrawny unit, and get interesting totally different designs for the rest.
You're only seeing the front of the unit, with the exception of the Spherebot morph tree they are radically different you just aren't able to see that in these very rough thumbnails. Of course, the artillery would be the best example of this, but it isn't up yet.
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TradeMark
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by TradeMark »

i agree that the units should look more different.

this is just a game, no need to try to make them like they should be made in real life... just make them look good and different, thats all we need 8)
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Neddie
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Neddie »

TradeMark wrote:i agree that the units should look more different.

this is just a game, no need to try to make them like they should be made in real life... just make them look good and different, thats all we need 8)
Agreed.

So, do you want me to revise the thumbnails and post new ones, lads, or should I just go into individual designs and post them as completed?
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KDR_11k
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by KDR_11k »

So basically you're saying that everything about these designs is unimportant and the important things will come later?
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Erom
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Erom »

neddiedrow wrote:So, do you want me to revise the thumbnails and post new ones, lads, or should I just go into individual designs and post them as completed?
Take your time. As much as it makes everyone go BAAAAW, a big group presentation like this is impressive.
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KDR_11k
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by KDR_11k »

Until you know you're good you should post frequently to get feedback and not commit the same mistake eight times.
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Argh
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by Argh »

Here are my opinions about this:

1. What compelling reason, storyline-wise, is there for these units to all have a human form? Emphasis on "compelling"- militaries don't make such decisions for political or aesthetic reasons.

2. If there exists a really compelling reason why they all have a human form, why aren't they built off of the same basic chassis, with different attachments to perform different functions? After all, if it's a giant humanoid... it's a giant humanoid. Why waste valuable military resources on lots of variants?

When it comes to military equipment design... form almost always follows function, often to extremes. What I see here is visual designs which don't emphasize function enough. Emphasize function more, and the designs will start looking cooler.

That, and you guys keep ignoring the fundamental aspect of scale, which should have been decided, at a game-designer level, quite awhile ago. If we accept Smoth's calculation of OTA scale, for example, all of them have hands bigger than a backhoe IRL- which is ridiculous in the extreme.

What do they do, with hands like that? Besides dig their own trenches, tear down buildings, and make barriers... all things where a backhoe "hand" would make much more sense... the answer is, nothing. They can't pick small stuff up, for example- their fingers would be over a foot thick! So, why do they have hands?

Basically... if you guys want all-humanoid designs, that's great, change the scale, so that it makes sense, and make stuff look more functional. Functional requirements will make the units look more interesting and cooler while at the same time increasing credibility.

I wouldn't mind at all, if these were all just exoskeletons, with the Flea standing approximately 2.5 meters high. However, when the Flea is taller than my Heavy Mech... these designs make no sense at all, and as a gamer, I'd think they were ridiculous.

Pretty much all I have to say about this.
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AF
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Re: [CA] Walker Designs

Post by AF »

erm this is a game, aesthetics may be the reason they were chosen, afterall not all tanks look the same, you have a huge variety of different looking tanks.

Then there's game play reasons such as differentiating units by scale.

Also there's economical reasons. Perhaps two units do not look alike because the bigger unit was built by Company A and company B did not want to pay licence fees for company A's patents and company B has trade secrets which company A cannot use.

Or perhaps because there's a use for hands that size that exists in that universe but does not exist in ours?

For all we know the galactic market has a huge surplus of robotic humanoid parts making them ultra cheap in comparison to more efficient means of destruction. Why invest in a great killing machine if you can buy 100 slightly less efficient humanoid forms for the same price? Lets say the car industry took off and they started voerproducing mecha components driving the price down and now theyre beign used by the military and the companies are still building the components to save them the cost of mothballing their factories and rebuilding them?
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