Spring RTS Engine

Hi. I sketched up a low poly flash tank. Not sure if you guys can do anything with it.



The tracks are narrow, because of the low mass of the tank. Larger tanks usually have wider tracks. The design is not super close to the source material. I changed the rear a bit. I had to develop the wireframe in my head so it might not make sense, structurally or design-wise, in full 3D. I couldn't design on a gun, I like to do shorter EMG's but the original has a long black one afaik.

The blue lines are paneling. I like to think of the design as having several levels:

- Silhouette.
- Flag colors (the unit has large blobs of colors here and here).
- Medium greebles, knobs, thicker paneling.
- Noise, dirt, micro texture.

I like it, i feel that the track covers should be a little taller, and the tracks a little less tall though.

The turret is floating lol

AF wrote:The turret is floating lol

af, that is on purpose....

Yeah, I agree, the proportions can be nudged here and there. Seen from above the height adjustments won't be very noticeable though, but that's no excuse for bad proportions.

I always imagines the Flash being kinda flat though, more of a Skimmer. I didn't see the tank tracks until I looked at it in Spring (screenshot).

Yeah, I left the turret floating... I guess some knob could be put there.

I derailed and read through a TA dev blog:
http://ton-of-clay.blogspot.com/2006/09 ... ff_10.html

There are several parts. Interesting bit about the faked concept art later on. Edit: seems some of the highrez models from the TA intro / Promo art are available... somewhere?

Ok, I made it a bit thicker vertically, and reduced ground clearance (track height). I'm not sure how to solve the turret connection. It's a ball joint pretty much, eh? IIRC the flash can fire upwards like most units.

You may have to hard refresh.


Edit: I'm not sure if the bottom faces should be modeled, they probably should these days, but I'm pretty sure they shouldn't take up much (if any) space on the UV map.

Edit: maybe the whole turret doesn't aim up, just the side cannons. I designed it as a single chunk now.

Made a texture. I'm uncertain to what extent it can/should be flipped. Also, it's tricky to know how much wear and tear to add.

I tried adhering to my detail level philosophy described above.

hmmmmm, maybe I'll model it

can't make out much for the turret

I like it, I like it a lot :D This is my favourite Flash model I've yet seen.

I'm on the fence about the guns, I like both of 'em. The longer one might look a bit better, and have better recoil, but on the other hand it doesn't really need to look like a 20th Century tank gun and the shorter, stubby barrel fits more with the inaccuracy the Flash tank seems to have in every single mod.

The track height is perfect, proportionally speaking the tracks are wider and the hull has less ground clearance than a Panzer IV so that's OK. However, the overhanging armour on either side of the tracks might be better complemented by another armour slope on the side of the tracks themselves, about as far down as the central hull perhaps. That way the armour cover also protects the tracks themselves.

For some reason, the whole thing looks to me like a Lego model. I dunno why, but it feels that way.

Again, excellent tank, I love it :D

Hey Arne, good to see you're still around and sketching :)

Nice sketching man.

Arne wrote: Edit: I'm not sure if the bottom faces should be modeled, they probably should these days, but I'm pretty sure they shouldn't take up much (if any) space on the UV map.

Edit: maybe the whole turret doesn't aim up, just the side cannons. I designed it as a single chunk now.

Yes, bottom faces are generally modelled in nowadays, and yes they shouldn't take up as much UV space.

I grew up with LEGO so the bulkiness of it probably impressed me.

The ground clearance could be increased by nudging the bottom of the hull a bit. It won't show at all ingame, but that's no excuse for sloppy design. the tracks already go partly into the top armour, and they are protected against stuff which falls from above.

The sides sticking out... I'm not sure here. They make the character of the tank to me. It does look a bit dysfunctional having a meaningless edge stick out like that. I did not want to place the tracks further out because they needed to line up with the rectangular bit. I did not want to make the rectangular bit thicker because that would make the tank too blocky.

Perhaps an upside down slope could be used on the bottom side, but it would have to cooperate well with the texture on the side of the track so it doesn't just clip into it.

The Flash is a light tank though, so it may have done some armour sacrifices.

As for the turret.... The Arm has this... what looks like a little blue cockpit window on the KBots (similar to a Zoid cockpit). I didn't do a side view of the turret head, and I haven't quite figured out if the guns elevate independently from the head or not.

As for the guns, I like to draw the EMG short because long barrels somehow suggest range and accuracy. I came up with a color coding system for the weapons once, but it breaks canon and I'm not sure whether I should use it.

The think long barrel really needs a 'bridge' to where it connects (getting wider, looking less stuck on), but I saved those polygons. Overkill perhaps.

Low poly modelling can be fun for its own sake and i assume thats why you're doing it, but of course Spring can afford a lot more polygons, todays hardware, etc.

Love your work Arne, i am sure the model will be made and find a home somewhere. BA isnt interested in new models and while CA's new art is meant to be non-derivative to avoid legal issues we'd probably like to use it just because its slightly less derivative than what we currently have.

Here is an image to give you an idea of the state of some of the current remakes, if you're curious:


And one of my favourite glamour screens.

Saktoth wrote:BA isnt interested in new models

Not fully true, there is a project to replace OTA models: http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=18820

Oh right, you're the guy who did these: http://itchstudios.com/psg/ta/ta.htm ?

I love your work, some really really ace stuff ^_^

some?..


381 tris and the turret needs to be redone

imo:

Went by the sketches


short EMGs look better in my opinion

IMO, texture can be used to model anything which is small and does not produce a silhouette. Then there's displacement maps and all that jazz. but yeah, I may be a bit too conservative. After all, glory shots is what sell, and there's probably automatic LoD or something going on anyways.

The style of my ARM units is angular, often boxes with bevels. Lots of 90 and 45 degree angles (but not exclusively). The turret head follows this aesthetic pretty much.

I do my own color scheme for the arm, two biege colors and a dull gray, to be consistent across the board, but I could change that if you guys use another scheme.

As for whether the front and rear triangles should be stretched out, I don't know. They look a bit longer on the perspective drawing, but it's rather sloppy. It is difficult for me to stay consistent with the different views.