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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

ART - Combat Armor


Guest drewid

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So when the aliens are traveling with high speeds they are floating in special tanks which contains this gel. And during the battle with interceptor when ufo is forced to make these incrediible maneouvers all crew jump into tank grab the masks with oxygen(or whatever they are breathing) and control the whole ufo from the inside? Ofcourse in regular flight's there is no need to float in gel-tank. Hmmm slimy idea but i like it ;)
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Guest drewid
nope they don't need to.
There are theoretical devices that can cancel inetia.
Apparently there is some doubt as to what causes inertia which has been cast by quantum physics.

They depend on a particular branch of a unified field theory (gravitomagnetic fields I think). So you can cancel inertial effects along with gravity effects.

I'm straining my brain trying to remember something of the theory I can google search on. I know I've seen a web page on it. It might have been tied in with using scaled up quantum effects to produce a jump-drive. There was a paper at a NASA conference about it.
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Actually that is a good point. If these devices can control gravity to move around surely there'd be a cancelling effect on the inside of the craft. I'd envision it working in the same way as a helicopter's noise cancelling headphones.
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I was about to say, inertial dampeners worked for star trek, do we even need to explain it for ufos? We just say the propulsion fields reduce the effect of mass, which reduces the effect of inertia as well. As to flight suits, they don't move faster than soldiers running on foot in the game, so there's no jostling around during flight. They're more like hover suits than high speed flight suits. You'd wear a gambeson under the armor to protect against abrasion. I've worn steel armor in full contact combat for over 10 years now, and a gambeson is all you need to protect against armor bites (assuming your armor's made right :D ) so there doesn't need to be anything fancier than a padded flight suit.
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[quote name='Breunor' date='May 25 2003, 09:16 PM']I've worn steel armor in full contact combat for over 10 years now, and a gambeson is all you need to protect against armor bites (assuming your armor's made right  :D ) so there doesn't need to be anything fancier than a padded flight suit.[/quote]
Hehe -

Ok, your gonna have to explain that one for me...

Gold
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In the Society for Creative Anachronism (sca.org), I am Sargeant Breunor Isanulf Esquire, sargeant of the Red Company of the Midrealm, former champion to the Barony of the Fenix, squire to Sir Baron Amaranth Wolfsbane. Off topic, so PM me if you want to chat about it. The web site should say it all.
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Ok peeps. There is sense to my madness here, honest. First up I'm posting a concept for the 'T-shirt' armour Xenocide operatives will start out wearing, then going up to personal armour. I envision personal armour being made of earth materials but with the benefits of the research from alien alloys. So it's kind of ballistic armour+. Maybe a kevlar, boron, spider silk and alien alloy (we have to make a scientific name for this stuff) fibre weave mixture that makes it flexible and lightweight.

When hit, the blunt shock from the projectile would be spread across the surface of the armour plate rapidly stiffening it and transferring the load across the armour. The kevlar, boron and spider silk would burn away in the event of a hit from a plasma of laser based weapon, the alien alloy would still remain intact giving the armour protection even in the case of multiple hits.

Without further ado here's the first pics. Edited by Deimos
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Pic no. 2
This is the power armour and frontal view of the flight armour. The power armour is still blue (I know) but I've done the flight suit up in the alien alloy material. Ok so I haven't got the iridium sheen right yet but it's an incredibly difficult thing to draw, I have to think about where each bend in the armour is and how the light affects it.

The differences are that there are control surfaces on the shoulders and the forearm and elbow pads are now one unit. The armour is wider and heavier across the board to reflect the differences in armour ratings. As I mentioned before there are locking pins in the knee joints which lock the legs into place whilst in flight mode. (I was thinking they'd be heigt activated in a similar way to the Porche911 spoiler at speed)

Onto probably the first thing you've spotted, which is the head assembly. This was inspired by anime hardsuits and various other head cams. It's a widespectrum device that is capable of seeing into the IR and UV parts of the EM spectrum. IT rotates around the track mounted on the helmet and projects the full spectrum display directly onto the wearer's retina. The grill at the front isn't an air fliter it's the extenal pickups and loudspeaker assembly.

This and the power armour are the only suits that are fully atmosphere sealed. Edited by Deimos
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I like it. Gives a much more robust and heavy feel than the power armor, which it should.

"fully atmosphere sealed"
Shouldn't those area where the under-armor is showing, be covered then? I know it is needed for the joints to bend at the armbow and knee, but don't you ruin the realism?

Hmmmm.... I'm usally the one who promotes non-realistic stuff :P
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You could say there's a sealed atmosphere suit under the armor providing the air tight fit. The armor itself can't be solid due to mobility. With the head assembly, if you can see in those spectrums, will that eliminate the need for electro flares? Does it give you Jorde LaForge/predator vision instead? Another option for that sensor would be to have a narrow band over the eye slot that picks up the data to transmit to a mini hud in the helmet. Hmmm.... then all it needs to do is scan back and forth, and you've got Kit from Knight Rider! ^_^ Edited by Breunor
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[quote name='Breunor' date='May 27 2003, 03:33 PM']Hmmm.... then all it needs to do is scan back and forth, and you've got Kit from Knight Rider! ^_^[/quote]
I'll kill you if the armour starts talking during a mission... :)

How about making the IR thingey very tiny and put on one side of the helmet instead? Having it as some sort of flashlight.
IR and such for the soldier could be kept inside the helmet. (That way you don't have to care about doing it :))
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Aww, it could talk, just not some effeminate voice like the car. Use Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice! :D

What's the loop in the helmet for? Wasn't that going to be where the camera unit was going to sit? Or some light source maybe? If so, that would be a good spot for the IR unit.
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Guest drewid
Here's another tweak to the personal armour to include breunors protective ridge/collar and rebreather filters. There's more pipework down the back.
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[quote]It's a widespectrum device that is capable of seeing into the IR and UV parts of the EM spectrum. IT rotates around the track mounted on the helmet and projects the full spectrum display directly onto the wearer's retina.[/quote]

Hey -

So does this mean, that once power/flight suits are in game, the player will be able to superimpose these spectral views in the battlescape?

Gold
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[quote name='Cubik' date='May 27 2003, 03:47 PM']But I'm the only one that thinks that the normal uniform combined with a helmet makes the soldier look too much like a pilot?[/quote]
He he, I thought that soldier was just 'special'. Protecting recruit Smith from recruit Smith... And I hope nobody takes offense, I've spent most of my professional life working with the disabled.

I thought you had a drawing where the soldier wore a beret or cloth cap with the standard uniform Drewid. I like the face shield tinted like that, everybody should consider that it will be transparent as well in game so you'll be able to see the unit's face if the tint's not too dark. If there's filters up front, should there also be tubes in back for personal armor? I figured a sealed breathing environment would be more for the flying armor and power armor, and that you'd have to wear either of those when going to Mars. That hasn't been discussed as a set feature, just my opinion. But I would leave tubes for the more powerful armor IMO. It sets them apart that much more.
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Guys, all the 'extra' info I included about the flight suit was just fluff text. For in game purposes the stats and stuff wouldn't actually change any more than in the original. IE the stats are high enough that it seems that they seeing in the dark.

The loops on the side of the helmets are my fault. They should be a part of the armour and contain the vid cam/ mission recorder. I just didn't put a coloured lens in there.
:stupid:

Cubik, they are pilots :D Seriously though, it's just for the concept so in the final model you could have a ballistic kevlar helmet similar to what current troops wear. I don't think having a beret in combat is a good idea because beret's are usually associated with dress uniform. I'd say either go with a beanie hat or a ballistic helmet.
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Guest drewid
I think the beret would be more dress uniform. No soldiers wear that sort of stuff in combat.

The helmet is based on some of the riot squad/special forces equipment which is around at the moment. The biggest difference is tinting the visor and the nose bar.
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This is a progress report on modeling Deimos' power armor. Notably missing are the head and sholder pads. Currently I' at 850 polys so I have plenty to burn after I get the head done. I'm shooting for about 1300 polys.

The sholder pads haven't been modeled yet because they pose and interesting problem for the start pose. With the arms outstreached they would be raised but the character won't have the arms out that far usually so I'm trying to decide on weather to attach them to the upper arm piece or shoulder. Any comments so far? I have taken slight liberties with a few of the pieces to get everything to fit a little better. rest assured the hose WILL be there just waiting until after the major pieces are in to add that kind of detail.

Suggestions or questions?
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The amor is looking good. I suggest having the thighs bulge out more in the front, it's lacking quad development. Perhaps the stomach and chest should also come out some, seems a little thin considering the armor thickness as well. Only needs a few inches in all those areas, and is looking very nice. As you're probably already aware, make sure to give yourself extra verts at the joints for smooth animation.

I particularly like the overhead shot, reminds me of power armor from robotech or something like that, which is a good thing! :rock:
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Noted and changed. All complete @ 900 polys w/o the head.

I'm slightly sparce on the joint polys but I'm manually testing them to see if I can squesk by.

I might end up over budget when this get converted to tris. In theory it should already be in tris but MAYA can be a little odd since triangulating the model causes it to jump up to 1500.
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Guest drewid
First off that's looking really good.
It's got tha combination of smooth curves and hard edges really nicely balanced.

Now some feedback.

I think the lower legs look a little short, maybe the knees should be higher.

The start pose could have the arms lower than that. I know it's unconventional but it's worked for me in the past. you could drop them by 30 degrees no worries.

Another idea is you could have the arms as seperate objects.
The shoulder joints will mainly be hidden by padding, and the bits that arent hidden are pretty dark so you won't see the join. It'll make it easier to rig and animate as well.

If you've been doing Max style vertex snapping as part of your modelling in Maya then it can leave degenetate 2 vertex polys hanging around. This might explain the jump in poly count. these are visible in face mode as a face centre dot in the middle of an edge BUT the will only be visible from the direction of the face normal, which might be pointing into the model, and so be invisible.

You can do a polygon->cleanup with the "remove faces with zero area" ticked. but you might have to delete the construction first history to get it to work. Maya is SOOOO Bad at cleaning up after itself, it's really annoying.
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[quote name='drewid' date='Jun 5 2003, 02:28 AM']I think the lower legs look a little short, maybe the knees should be higher.

The start pose could have the arms lower than that. I know it's unconventional but it's worked for me in the past. you could drop them by 30 degrees no worries.

Another idea is you could have the arms as seperate objects.
The shoulder joints will mainly be hidden by padding, and the bits that arent hidden are pretty dark so you won't see the join. It'll make it easier to rig and animate as well.

If you've been doing Max style vertex snapping as part of your modelling in Maya then it can leave degenetate 2 vertex polys hanging around.  This might explain the jump in poly count. these are visible in face mode as a face centre dot in the middle of an edge BUT the will only be visible from the direction of the face normal, which might  be pointing into the model, and so be invisible.

You can do a polygon->cleanup with the "remove faces with zero area" ticked. but you might have to delete the construction first history to get it to work. Maya is SOOOO Bad at cleaning up after itself, it's really annoying.[/quote]
Thanks:

I've been thinking that too about the legs and have been play around with the verts a bit to get it looking right.

Ok, I'll probably drop the arms by 20 or so degrees.

I was unsure on how we were going to animate and it multiple obhects for the body parts were allowed. I;ll see about slicing the arms if anything it will save on joint verts up there.

I'll run poly cleanup on it but I'm modeling more using extruded faces but I have done a fair amout of vert snapping and merged verts on it.

I've added another zip with the changes. He is still minus a head and I've not changed the arms but it does have the changes on legs and the sholder pads
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Enter the Bastard Child... :devillaugh:

So, firstly, I want to say, wonderful work Vaaish. The Bastad Child has nothing to do with that :D . But, I'm looking at the armor model, and the first thing that comes to mind is:

"DAMN! That would look great with a custum coats-of-arms, modifiable by changing textures! Its a shame that's not an option, it would just be too cool. You could give your favorite soilder his/her unique identifier, much like the fighter aircraft of days past! I mean, I'm sure parts of it would look great with a Eridium sheen, but surly a customizable skin would only compliment that!"

Yeah, so sorta passive aggressive, but thats why I'm the Bastard Child :hammer: ... For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, read up a number of posts in this thread... :rolleyes: .

Praying to the Gods to think it over,
Gold
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[quote name='mikker' date='Jun 5 2003, 11:32 AM']It looks nice. Does it have all 5 fingers, or is it just me?[/quote]
Thanks.

Now can I get volunteers to paint the model... Unwraping UV's for organics is a pain w.o a plugin like texporter and Maya doesn't seem to have one. :D

Think of the model like it is wearing mittens. It saves on polys and for our purposes will work just as well.
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[quote]Think of the model like it is wearing mittens. It saves on polys and for our purposes will work just as well.[/quote]

Hey -

Yes, I agree for in-game...but what about X-Net?

Thanks,
Gold
aka The X-Net Bastard Child
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Vaaish I have a low poly modelling guide which I'll post here. It's good for showing how to unwrap a model for skinning.

If you guys do take this tutorial and use it to post the maps here for the skinners, can you in addition to the map also give pictures of what the model looks like in with it so the guys have a reference of the model to look at while skinning.

Greatgold, you meant what you said didn't you. :D The only way we're going to be able to have the model available for people custom skin is if we don't use shaders. We don't know which way we're going to do the iridium effect yet so it's a moot point asking for it to be modable just yet. If we can get the effect using environment maps, you may well be able to custom skin it. But if we use shaders you won't. As our prioity is getting it working, we'll consider the custom skin option when we come to the which option we have to use :)

Don't worry it will most likely be a +v1.0 thing.
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We can think the effect as having two separate layer (so we get more variety)... The first layer is the paint of the surface and the sheen is just a refractive property of the material than changes the look of the back layer (the painted one)... that should be a good compromise to add more variety... so the shader can be added to whatever object you would like to have that effect...

What do you think?

Greetings
Red Knight
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[quote name='GreatGold' date='Jun 5 2003, 02:28 PM'][quote]
Think of the model like it is wearing mittens. It saves on polys and for our purposes will work just as well.[/quote]

Hey -

Yes, I agree for in-game...but what about X-Net?

Thanks,
Gold
aka The X-Net Bastard Child [/quote]
We can probably model all the fingers for Xnet, the question is do we want a separate finger gauntlet or a mitten gauntlet for the model. I've not seen anything about that here.

Final thing, so we want the head and arms seaprate for animation? Speak soon or his head will be attached. :)


I read through that mapping guide and it is similar to what I do in maya. Texpoter for max helped immensly to reduce this task an I was hoping a similar plugin was out for maya 4+.

For a ship model it really isn't that time consuming to accomplish but when doing a character model it is a royal pain to unwrap the thing. It is one of the reasons I dislike character modeling.
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Don't know about animation purposes but a seperate head for soldier equip screen would be good as we could swap it out for the soldier's assigned head and face. So the player still gets to look at his soldiers ugly mugs in the equip screen but they're fully sealed when going to battlescape.
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Guest drewid
Alias wavefront do a bonus games pack, available from their website, which improves the uv mapping tools a bit. and some of the modelling too. I've not seen anything texporter like, but then I haven't been looking :D

I'm still playing around with it, but it seems to seperate out faces in a similar way to texporter on one of the buttons. (can't remember which right now. plus you can type in uv co-ords which is much needed.

Seperate head certainly wouldn't hurt animation, and would mean we ought to be able to customise in arming and in battlescape too.

On a seperate note I'm wondering if the legs look short because the kneepads are low compared to the joint? Might be worth shifting them to see.


Hey RK I like that 2 layer idea for the texture.
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Will the helmet be off the soldier in the arming screen, like under their arm? If the helmet/head is seperate it's easier to animate I guess, we could make a simple animation of the unit turning its head from side to side when not being moved in the battlescape, like it's looking for enemies. It would add some movement to the game, which IMO would be a nice touch.
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[quote name='drewid' date='Jun 5 2003, 06:24 PM']Alias wavefront do a bonus games pack, available from their website, which improves the uv mapping tools a bit. and some of the modelling too. I've not seen anything texporter like, but then I haven't been looking :D

I'm still playing around with it, but it seems to seperate out faces in a similar way to texporter on one of the buttons. (can't remember which right now. plus you can type in uv co-ords which is much needed.

Seperate head certainly wouldn't hurt animation, and would mean we ought to be able to customise in arming and in battlescape too.

On a seperate note I'm wondering if the legs look short because the kneepads are low compared to the joint? Might be worth shifting them to see.


Hey RK I like that 2 layer idea for the texture.[/quote]
I know about the bonus game pack, the only problem is that is is for maya 4.5 I have maya 4 and I'm not positive it will work especially considering the only unwrap plugin I found for maya is for V3 and doesn't work in V4. :explode:

O that note, yes the knee pad do make the legs appear short, Drove me up a wall for awhile but then I just measured the length of the femur and tibia/fibula so it it pretty close to accurate, same goes for the amrs.

Armor really messes with proportions.

Anyway here is the final version, the head might be a tad small ATM, but the model is 990 polys and in triangulate it is still popping up around 1650.


EDIT: I went ahead and tried the games pack and it seems that most of it works save for about 4 of the plugins
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Looking good Vaaish. I don't know for sure but what Drewid says makes sense to me. Most of my models have shorter thigh armour and longer greaves especially on the ones without kneepads. Its almost a 2/3 lower leg 1/3 upper.

For the helmet it's generally good but can it be tweaked anymore? What I mean is the frontal area. I don't know whether you've seen the Beakie space marine armour helmet, that was one of the references I used in the concept. If youdon't know [url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matthew.wagg/novastarm.jpg"]here[/url] on my webpage is a side view of the beakie helmet.

The concept didn't come to a point as that does but it has a similar cone type look that starts at around where the eyebrows are and comes outward and down to the nose about 4 inches out where its cut off and flattened down to just below the chin. That's to house the rebreather and comms gear. The slope is there so that an advanced HUD can be utilised.

There is also a peak above where the eye visors are which would be where the operative's name would be decalled on.
I hope that's of some help to you :) Other than that it looks really cool.

If you're going to modify this model for the flight suit, keep the helmet the same as the power armour. I've decided I don't like the flight armour helmet, and we should keep some uniformity between the two suits.

However something to bear in mind that the armour on the flight suit is a considerable amount wider and heavier looking. The shoulder area is moulded like it is, not only for its armour protection but also as a stabiliser when in flight mode. The inner parts of the knee has an extra moulding to lock the legs in place so that gross body movement controls direction. The rear of the armour has instead of the moulded look of the front it has geodesic sections on the shoulder blade area and the calf muscle areas. These are control areas for the flight pack. If you're unsure about the look of it take a look in the ufo design thread, there are examples in there that show the effect. I think Breunor posted some ufo designs that show the design. hope that helps :)

RK, good compromise :) Edited by Deimos
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OK I edited the helm, and lengthened the legs as well as movied the joint up higher shortening the thigh.
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Further to Greatgold and Breunor getting the Creative art asset list up and running, I suggested that he might want to run with the fluff text I've written in support of the concept pics for the armour. But GG is too busy atm.

So if anyone in the creative team or prospect for the team wants to use and expand on the ideas I've written up as fluff text in here, please feel free to do so. If you need any further explanation on where I was going with an idea give me a pm or IM (if I'm online) and I'll explain as best I can.

On another note, doesn't the armour look a little like the SPARTAN II armour the Master chief wears. Good thing tm :)
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[quote name='Deimos' date='Jun 5 2003, 11:12 PM']On another note, doesn't the armour look a little like the SPARTAN II armour the Master chief wears. Good thing tm :)[/quote]
Here is the next version.

You know I was just starting to think the same thing myself.... odd since my whole experiance with Halo was a whopping 45min.
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Guest drewid
Coming along nicely. Could move those kneepads up a bit further still I think.

Like the helmet. I can imagine that all textured up with decals and stuff, could stick a small wing ariel on that on one side, and a camera pod on the other.



Maya4.5 plugs only work with 4.5. even our in-house exporters need a recompile between versions, which is annoying.
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