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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

ART-Artopod


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Remember that it would only be 2meters in each direction though. The legs aren't any thicker than human. The main body would have a good layer of armor as this is supposed to be the aliens' toughest robotic unit. I could see making it less of an egg shape, and maybe sharper angles to give it a fiercer/insect look.
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Lets see, I like your new concept Bruenor. But I never did like the invid units, they just seemed odd to me, In fact, most of the anime robot armors seemed odd to me :D.

 

Perhaps make it more like a spider's middle body (not his a$$, the other parts though.) That might look pretty good.

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I did this in class today. I was going to wait to post it until I had vectorized and tweaked it but I think I will post it in it's notebook form and then vectorize it.

 

I was originally inspired by Bruenor's picture you see above and a few days later I read a little snippet about the War of the Worlds by HG Wells.

 

The little dude there is shown for suggested scale. He looks kind of like the actor who played Littlebear in Event Horizon. Weirdness.

Sectopod_Concept.jpg

Edited by fux0r666
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I also like that body look, the legs would need to be shortened for it to fit through doorways (if it's supposed to), but the torso looks sweet.
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Naw, I don't think it looks anything like the strider in half-life 2. I think, if anything, they both resemble the what that wells described the tripods in his novel.

 

I didn't get any inpiration from the striders and actually went out of my way to change the leg configuration so that it wasn't the same. The resemblances are coincidental and unfortunate. With the different leg configuration it would move quite differently.

 

Did the original sectopods go through doors? This is about 3m in height that the previous posts perscribed.

 

The thing about having the legs so thin and having three of them is that you avoid resemblences to terrestrial creatures and machines. On the same vain, the body is supposed to be between twice and three times as tall as it is wide.. which would make it look considerably lighter in three dimensions.

 

I have never seen the striders in morrowind.

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And while nothing's set in stone, the current space constraints included a typical ceiling height of 2.5 meters. Your human doorways are 6'8" / 2.03m tall (at least in the US, is it different in other countries?), so you'd want it to have access through wider doors. RK said it could be coded to 'hunch down' a little as part of its movement through lower spaces, but IMO the easier solution is to keep the design from being too tall. But I like the tall look as well, and the sectopod might just blast away any obstructions it encounters in the end, right? :D
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Why not? The humans do, about time the bugs started blasting holes in walls and stuff ne wayz, they only did it by accident in UFO they should use it the same way we do ( soz, know this really an AI suggestion )
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I like that sectopod, however the tentacles are a bad idea. Beefing up the legs a little would certainly help with the look of the toughness.

My other niggle is that its too biotech in its look. If it were more mech than creature it'd be a perfect candidate. Remember that it has to fit in with the rest of the alien tech and still retain the xcom feel, which this concept does to a certain degree but it also looks exactly like a tripod from war of the worlds, which could lead to problems. Remember there is an RTS game of war of the worlds.

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Does it look exactly? In the book they are only briefly described. The tentacles are straight out of there. I just thought that it would be way more creepy of it had arms with which to manipulate the environment.\

 

Okay.. I'm getting 'the alien tech should look like it's almost alive' and then 'okay, the alien tech is too close to looking like it's alive.' The round and bulby look I got from the plasma weapon models. How would you suggest unorganifying the look? I could put squarish and circular panels on the carapace and divide the leg armour into pieces...

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The panelling idea is a good one. A long time ago we decided that the organic living look has been done to death so we'd stay away from it.

 

The sleek look of the main body is cool and the legs are cool, I personally feel that you're onto a winner with it especially if you use the panelled look. As a suggestion try using the geodesic styling for the main body as that'll retain the overall sleek look to it while adding in a xenocide feel to it.

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Here is how I figured the three legged sectopod would negotiate doorways..

 

timeframe one it would get to the door.. heh..

 

it would then hunker down and lunge through careful not to hit it's head

 

then it would collect it's legs on the other side of the door

 

and stand up straight..

 

of course it could collect it's legs on the walk too and keep going without missing a beat.

sectpod_doorway.jpg

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In fact, you just make the normal walk animation include that hunkering/bobbing motion and it will hit the door way in stride hopefully. IIRC Sectopods are terror weapons only, right? Were they ever seen anywhere else, and has anyone seen them inside buildings? If they're always outside the height makes no difference. Their size and looks are there to cause terror, let the little monsters root the humans out of buildings it can't reach... Having some short tentacles as psi receptors or a sensor array would work. What about balance as it walks? Meaning, could it have several prongs or something on each leg to increase the footprint?

 

I think the sleek look will be accomplished with the iridium sheen, so a faceted body or rounded will look good, this thing will stand out no matter what. ^_^

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With tile based moves it would be easy to animate the walk through doorways, but with freeform it could reach the doorway at any point in the stride. So you might want to get some programming/animation input as to how it knows when to duck and all that.
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It's a coding issue.

Is your sectopod is heading for a door.

Check for distance, is it less than two strides?

If yes then stop at the next loop point and and fold up the legs.

 

It's a bit special case - but anything is possible.

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I am not an animator and as of now I don't have the time to put into concocting an animation. My girlf friend is a professional animator and she has all kinds of literature on the subject but it would take a while to digest. I'm currently very busy at school. Maybe if you give me a few months?
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Heh, you think she wants to join the project? :D

 

Anyway, I like your concept fux. But since we seem to be shying away from the almost organic look, you might want to make it look more mechanical, with plates, doodads, stuff that makes it look armored.

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There's also the option of giving it 4 legs. While unigue, a 3 legged walker is not very practical for traversing varied terrain while blasting apart the enemy.
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It would be up to the animators to convince you that they are viable. I think that with a certain amount of subtle body movement and a little weight shifting it would walk smoothly and convincingly. Before any foot left the ground you would just have to give the body impulse in a direction away from that foot ... like two legged walkers.
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My girlfriend has been at my shoulder since I was thinking of joining and I she agrees with me on most things artistic... and due to the rigorous nature of her training she's even more critical. I don't even draw good enough for her.

 

So what you would be getting is another version of me without any of the scientific argument and a whole lot to say about peoples' personal technique and skill...

 

And I don't think you want that.

 

No, no. Definately not.

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Well, if she is so good that her skills can compensate. An extra animator might be helpful.

 

Back to the sectopod, How about making it have five legs? That would certainly look alien.

Or look like a wounded bug, :D

 

You're right fux0r, balance can be animated in, it might look odd having it sway back and forth as each leg is picked up and moved forward, particularly if animation speed is set to fast like you could in the original game. :wacko:

 

Perhaps if the default position is a crouched one, and only when it stops does it check for collisions as it stands upright for a better field of view? If it's walking crouched low, the feet can be under the body enough that you can get away with "virtual balance", just have it sway a little as it moves and not worry about perfect balance. I think that's the simplest option and lets 3 legs be used, which would look pretty cool.

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It would sway slightly and smoothly like the hips of a horse.. And the closer the legs are together the less it would have to sway. If it remains very tall with a limited angle to it's stride I think it would just come off looking very smooth and creepy like those clowns on stilts..

 

*shivvers..*

stilts.

 

 

And I don't know if my skill is making up for my critical and argumentative nature... I think if I'm perceived as hostile (which I'm not.. actually, it's much worse. Most of the time I have a slight smirk on my face), that she would be perceived as insulting or arrogent... even though she would just be criticizing based on technique.

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  • 2 months later...
Crix is starting to model fux's concept as time permits, so far he has worked on the legs:

Sectopod.jpeg

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Funnily enough we will be animating tripods at work in the near future.

 

Looks like there might be issues with keeping feet still with a reasonable number of keyframes. I'll keep y'all posted

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  • 2 months later...

The last I heard, Crix has been real busy and his home PC was down, I haven't heard or seen him around for a few months. Tiskaite, if you want to pick up on the modeling part of this, based on the finalized concept we have posted earlier in this thread, let me know. I will PM Crix to see if he's still around and/or working on it as well.

 

I agree with the others that your concept seems too human for the sectopod/artopod. But if you're up for making the X-Net (under 6000 polys) model based on our concept, let your 3d juices flow! If not, after I finish tweaks on the Grey I'll probably start this guy up.

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