Spring RTS Engine

653 triangles IIRC. If anyone remembers that concept for a mech mod I posted some time ago, it's based on that (Imperial medium dragoon w/ autocannon).

Two design constraints were "humanoid" (the pilot needs to be able to identify with the machine when piloting it over the neurolink to make the soul field amplifier work and establish the shield*) and "moderately armored" (well, duh, it's a medium mech after all). The head isn't protected that well since it's essentially decoration to ease with identification, the pilot is in the torso and the body has tiny cameras all over to provide vision.

*= I feel that the fluff needs to justify using bipedal robots since that's probably the most ineffective shape for an armored vehicle EVER. Most mech games and movies completely ignore that. But then again most of those have vehicles parking in open terrain about 100m from the big mech so they get destroyed in hand to hand combat. How a 20m target that can't use cover even gets that close to an armored battle group is never explained.

Reminds me of a GM in some way... neat.
Would you mind if other people put random shots of their models in here?

Go ahead. I don't need an entire thread for myself, especially for such unfinished stuff.

There's no story to it, doesn't have a name either. Been doing that over the christmas days but I lack the time to finish texturing it...
It's ~950 tris.

They are both very cool. Rattle I really like the sliding open to reveal the missile launcher concept (I assume thats how it works).

Exactly... I probably borked half of the UV map though.

@KDR:

My only critique is that if it uses cameras "all over the body" then it doesn't need a head that is distinctively helmet-like, imo. And that the antenna would best be done with a four-tri strip- no need to make a closed tri-box when it's hardly going to be visible in-game anyhow.

@Rattle:

That doesn't look like Dune to me, but if you really get a Front Mission lookalike mod done, I will be first in line to check it out

The antenna has only two sides that are separated a bit to make editing easier.

The head looks like a helmet because that's a look the pilot can deal with. I mean, what else should it look like? The head is necessary to maintain a humanoid shape. Also it helps giving the mech a more human character (inhuman looks are reserved for some of the more insane elite pilots like her). This is one of the more cute, friendly mech designs.

Argh: I can assure you it's not dune... I kinda lost interest in it. Hmm something Front Mission alike could be interesting since none of the mechs will have to belong to a certain faction nor look similar in design. It would also be free of IP... hmm.


KDR, isn't that an NGE character?

@KDR:

I'm just musing critically here for a second, so of course feel free to ignore all of this if you don't like what I'm saying- these are just my opinions of course.

The head could be a collection of cameras, on flexible mechanics- fun stuff to animate and give the mech a living feel, especially when otherwise still. It could just be a blank box with a vague porthole- depending on scale, that may be all it needs. Or an armored box with sight blocks, like a modern tank. It can still be head-like without giving the impression that we're looking at a scaled-up dude, basically- right now, this looks like an infantry guy, not a mech. It doesn't have a sense of "big" about it. It needs greebles that clearly suggest scale and give it a bigger feel.

Same thing goes at least triple for the arms and chest. The left arm just has a closed fist. Why even bother? What good is one hand, when the other arm doesn't even have one? If it's supposed to be a functional device for manipulating things, why not just have two small grabbers that use a common "shoulder" but have separated "elbows"?

For the gun arm... why all the patently-useless areas? Why have an extended forearm, or a piece that suggests an iron sight, on a futuristic firearm that is supposedly mounted on a futuristic mech using all-seeing sensor technologies? I like the ammo drum, but how is the mech supposed to physically change it? Where are spare drum mags? And if it only traverses on two axes, why all of the mechanical detailing suggesting more, when IRL you wouldn't need them? Just turn the torso, turn the shoulder, and you have your angle. Why make it more complex than it needs to be?

Then move to the chest. It's a box that looks like a human torso. Ok, that's all well and good, but you have options there. For one thing, if the pilot is sitting up above, then what's there? A powerplant? Suggest things to the viewer- give us more visual clues.

The legs are fine, but generic. Would be more interesting with feet that articulated differently- just a minor concession to the concept that this isn't a big human we're looking at, but a mech.

I guess that what I'm saying here could be boiled down to three things:

1. It's not a very inspired design. Unless you're working from some Anime source that requires this particular look, I'd be more adventurous and find something more unique, if I were you. It's perfectly possible to make something that looks humanoid and isn't "evil" looking but isn't just a scaled-up dude in a suit of armor. There are literally hundreds of Anime designs out there- and you ended up with something straight out've Patlabor- surely you can give us something cooler than that

2. I think that you're cutting more polycount than you should, unless you plan for bazillions of these guys in the mod. It needs some detail work, to suggest a sense of scale.

3. It's one thing to suggest the human form. It's another thing to simply scale it up. I really don't care for Anime mecha that just look like suits of Medieval armor with guns- they just look impossible and unrealistic to me. A really winning design would make more concessions to the fact that these are not only machines- they're war machines, and would look at function over form.

At any rate, that was probably harsher critique than you wanted, and feel free to ignore me- I've been staring at walk-cycle scripting too long today

@Rattle:

Are you looking for something to do? I'm working on something where we need modelers who can skin and do mechanical designs, and we need all the help we can get.

Rattle: I've never seen NGE, tht char is partially a spoof based on a criticism of NGE I read (where they ranted about Ayanami hardly counting as a character instead of furniture so I decided to take it one step further, this one's so out of touch with reality she can't even stand, eat or hold her bodily fluids without help to see how much it takes for a "submissive" character to no longer be attractive). I just like poking fun at the naming schemes and conventions in some anime.

Argh: It's controlled over a neural interface and the pilot is unconscious while using it, seeing the mech as his own body while driving. What he sees is basically him standing in a projection of what the cameras see, it'd take long training to make a pilot able to use something that's not shaped like his body and the Empire has a massive manpower problem. If it didn't need to be humanoid I'd use ant-like shapes. It has more joints than necessary to make the movement match the pilot's actions better and also to provide for some agility during melee combat. I've been thinking about giving them hand grenades or a riot shield. Grenades would be a bit silly for mechs (but then again I am basing this on real war infantry gear) and riot shields would look too much like Gundam even though they would be very useful for increasing frontal armor (not that we can correctly model front armor in Spring...).

I'm not sure what kind of greebles can be used to make it look big. Especially greebles that get modeled instead of textured on. I'm also not sure how much of that would make sense on supposedly very thick armor. It's practically a no-frills design right now, basic shape with armor plates added, a plain old boring mech you get when you're fresh out of bootcamp. The perfect vehicle for redshirts.

The gun arm is based on the 08/15 (a weapon so plain old boring that its name now means mediocre in German), the ammo drum substitutes for the mount. It doesn't have spare ammo drums because I didn't want to animate a reloading animation . Guess I could attach two spare drums to the left hip. Would leave the ammo pretty exposed to enemy fire and close to a critical joint but meh. Back mounted wouldn't work, there's a jet engine there to facilitate movement.

Furniture... haha. Makes sense, she died about every other episode.

Naah, it was about her robot-like personality and how the voice actor didn't have to do much acting for that role. Oh and of course the complaints about how dumb the standard male (the shy, blackhaired schoolboy protagonist that EVERY anime features) was.

If you want to see a fequent dier in a serious storyline try Zero.

No idea why the japs always come up with typical emo looks for their main characters.

Anyway some more WIP goodness...

rattle wrote:No idea why the japs always come up with typical emo looks for their main characters.

*COUGH*


Lets not lot all anime with seed and eva.

That looks indeed like a happy logo.

I really don't think Evangelion looked emo at all. It simply sounded like it, particularly with the terrible American voice actors.

Eh, the manga is better anyway.

So, what is the ETA for this model? Are you considering releasing the werckage as a feature at some point?

particularly with the terrible American voice actors.

That's the reason why I watch most anime in japanese with proper (fan)subs.

I'll finish the model before attempting to do a wreckage. I'm half done with the texture now... probably next weekend or the weekend after that.

Random W.i.p. :

A robot head, Hight-poly :



I was bored, si I 'play' with Rhino.

Its annoying how everyone has to imagine robots as humanoid, almost human but mechanical looking. Afterall wouldnt their designers have done away with the flaws in our construction rather than put them into their creations? Like the head for instance, what point does it serve?