ART-Artopod

[Breunor]

That guy's coming along nicely!

[Whitewashed]

Now that looks like a Sectopod!

[Foozball]

It sure does.

 

But its too big. The body, I mean. The torso (thorax?) needs to be a little smaller with respect to the legs. That's just MHO, though. :wink:

[Breunor]

Did you see the concept art the model was based on? It's earlier in the thread, I expect it's being used for scale of the model. It looked pretty close from what I could see.

[Vaaish]

looking better now, though I'm not too fond of how that sphere on the bottom meshes into the legs. How about making the torso thinner so it looks more streamlined? Edited February 24, 2004 by Vaaish

[Guest drewid]

Do the legs need "mechanical" joints or do we say they use "smart materials" and can therefore bend?

 

I really like the ridge down the middle of the back, that should be picked out in the texture, it'd look cool.

 

I can see what Foozball means about the torso, but perhaps its only that the underneath bit (that the legs attach to), might look better for being a bit flatter.

 

 

BTW guys, the name "Sectopod" is copyright Atari, we can't use it directly.

[j'ordos]

Wasn't the new name 'Artopod'? I'll change the title, though I'm not scanning the thread to replace all Sectopods :whatwhat:

 

Nice thing though, but where's the uber-plasma-cannon?

[Tiskaite]

Yeah thanks bout the comments, but as i wrote, its WIP, its hard to get it perfect , but im gonna do my best. And i was wondering if the plasma cannon model was done, or should i create a new one?? Just good to know ,)

[j'ordos]

I think the Artopod should get an entirely new one, but that's just me.

i don't know if it's more powerful as a heavy plasma in xcom, but I'd like to think it is

(maybe something closer to the craft plasma cannon?)

[Tiskaite]

sure ok, il make one just thought it was worth asking..

b.t.w , the skin, shall it be completely new or any special requests?

 

-EDIT-

 

Added weapons, made the "shell" (or body) thinner, for streamline or waevah u call it. Added some other small details, just look:

 

http://server6.uploadit.org/files/Tiskaite-xeno_pod_3.jpg

 

or ?

Edited February 24, 2004 by Tiskaite

[Tiskaite]

doooh, wrote autopod instead of artopod.. %#!%! DAMN BEER

[MagicAndy]

looking very nice!

 

personally I thought it was better when the body was bigger but oh well...

[Vaaish]

looks quite nice, now lets see that thing skinned

[Tiskaite]

yep, i have to work alot this week, but i probably get some time to skin it

[ATeX]

Wow, tiskaite is great on lots of creative terrains :o

 

 

What program did u use? 3DSMAX? Looks incredible! Keep up the good work

[Tiskaite]

haha thank you, well i can basicly do anything exept coding.

 

I used milkshape 3d, my 3ds max wont start anymore.. so i dont use it..

 

and the render loooks uglier than the model really is.

actually, this flatshade printscreen is nincer than the rendeR: http://server6.uploadit.org/files/Tiskaite-xeno_pod_31.jpg

Edited February 25, 2004 by Tiskaite

[Breunor]

That guy's looking really nice! Should it have 2 weapons, or just 1 that hangs from under the head?

[red knight]

I was going to suggest the same... those two weapons there looks a little odd.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Whitewashed]

With 2 weapons it looks like one of the Star Wars mechs. Maybe one below the head would be better, or even better, integrated inside the body. I think that would be the best solution. You only see the tip or maybe a hatch that opens when it's going to shoot or a plain hole or something...

[jelorol]

I would add a single weapon, hanging from another tentacle, just below the head. Maybe the head could flow itself, like the trunk of an elephant...

[ATeX]

it does look a bit like a bot, like the robot in robocop which has two massive machine guns as arms.

 

maybe it would be better to change it to one, yes, but it's still an awesome artwork

[Deimos]

That is going to be such a bitch to animate Just random thoughts here but maybe something to add to the 'alienness' of it. Instead of making the thing 'walk', how about the whole leg assembly rotates around its central axis. I'm thinking along the lines of how a full beer barrel is moved.

 

Still it does look top notch Tiskaite. I kinda like the twin weapon pod thing. Nothing like a quick nod to a starwars ATAT

Edited February 25, 2004 by Deimos

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

What about a single weapon in the 'mouth'? Along the lines of how the Terror disc was done...

 

-The Captain

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I'd perfer a turret mounted right below the head, but that's just me.

[Anthraxus]

Yeah, we don't want the Artopod to just be a Terror Disc with legs.

[Vaaish]

I think it looks fine with the two cannons, ad three and it'll look overdone, leave only one and you have the silt strider body from morrowind.

[Breunor]

I'm partial to the concept art fux0r did that was approved by the senior art members after everybody agreed that it looked good... which has 1 gun hanging from the head.

 

If we later find that the walking animation doesn't look realistic, then we could add another leg perhaps. We know that would work. But the 3 leg design added to the alien look, and yeah Deimos, a non-typical walk might work well. I think we could get away with a little "invisible balance" as it walks, we'll have to see how that goes.

[Tiskaite]

i was thinking that it could have two weapons on the back , on top of the "shell" or keep the two weapons on the head, and they could use them not only to shoot but to poke the soldiers to death, stab them, , would look pretty cool, one weapon is stabbing a soldier, and the other is firing at another

 

also , for the walking, maybe it could jump with the back legs, and land on the front, then the back legs land, and it moves the front leg up, then it repeats that, sort of like jumping with a stick in your hands using the stick as a leg. ?

 

Sounds good? no?

 

 

Thanks for the comments, it makes my really proud to work for this project =)

[Vaaish]

fux's concept has two cannons.

[Tiskaite]

indeed that was what i thought, when u look at the "crawl under doors" concept art pic, u can see two.

[Breunor]

Sorry, I stand corrected. I was only looking at the big pic, but even that suggests 2 as well. Regarding the question of the type of plasma weapon, perhaps just using on the scale of the plasma rifle in size, and having both fire at the same target would work?

 

i'm sure there's some page of alien damage stats out there showing how much damage the thing does, probably like a heavy plasma. So splitting it into 2 weapons they would just be smaller. I think you currently have that size in your model, considering this guy is 2m by 2m by 2.5m tall in size.

 

So nevermind what I said, it looks just right! (see, just slap me around some, and I can be shown the right way!)

[Tiskaite]

! you are funny

 

i had this idea, but i forgot. D:

[kelfka]

Yes it looks a bit like the star wars walker. But I think it's what makes it special.

And keep the 2 weapons it looks great!!!

[Tiskaite]

yeah thank you

[Whitewashed]

they look a little loose as it is and very easy to shoot off, you'd think they'd have the weapons better protected. Or is alien alloy all the sudden impossible to cut through even with plasma weapons?

[Tiskaite]

now you are getting to realistic

 

hehe

[Breunor]

Articulated weapons allows much better accuracy and reaction time than embedded weapons. Consider making the power armor with the arms encased in the chest armor, and having the weapon strapped to the side so your body's better protected. Then try to move your entire body to target that moving alien, and life begins to suck....

 

So the aliens rely on the armor of the Artopod (which is pretty good btw), and allow it better killing power with this design.

 

I don't think the Artopod looks like SW walkers, beyond the fact that they're upright with long legs. There are about a dozen things that make them different compared to that. I don't think we have any issue at all there.

Edited February 27, 2004 by Breunor

[Foozball]

Or maybe it should shoot out of the 'eyes'?

[mamutas]

Legs are too thin. They also do not look mechanical at all. Are they organic? I kinda expect to see some sort of joints.

Also foot prints are too small. It makes the machine to look unstable. Imagine it needs to move the weight on two legs to move the third one. Human has foot which has quite big area. This machine will have two legs with very small surface area for center of mass to reside on a line connecting the legs. It could fall very easily, unless... Unless it moves its legs very very quickly.

[Tiskaite]

read the other posts before complaining.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Careful, Tiskaite. Mamutas is one of the head programmers. He wields much power here...

 

Personally, I have no problem with the concept. It is up to the modeller and more importantly the animator to make it believeable.

[Breunor]

I think the legs will be ok regarding the joints, texture can show the seams where it's articulated. Later we might have to add some extra faces for smooth animation at those points. And we can add some width to the feet later as well, have it flare out a bit for a wider base to balance on.

 

When you get a chance Tiskaite, can you attach your working copy of the model to a post and I'll look closer at the "knees", and we can also keep it on the server as a safe backup until your final version is ready. I'm the paranoid type when it comes to losing models to crashes, I've lost several in the "non-paranoid" days...

[Tiskaite]

no problem, il post it tomorrow probably, and mamutas, all models look 100 times better with skin on them.

[Tiskaite]

Hmm , ok so i didnt post it as soon as i planned, but i had alot in my personal biz to do. D:

 

But anyways, here´s the model, .ms3d and .3ds

artopod_tiskaite.zip

[Breunor]

Thanks Tiskaite, I've copied the zip up to root/artassets/models/ in case you need to reference it in the future.

[Tiskaite]

I dont really understand what you mean there. Since all my access is for the forums only.

[Breunor]

You should be able to get to http://www.projectxenocide.com/artassets/models/ and see a list of files, which you can download by clicking on. There's no login required for read access, you just can't write or modify that way. And we're working on getting you more access.

[Tiskaite]

roger that

[j'ordos]

I take it the model itself is ready here? Aside from some small artefacts in the .3ds-file, it seems. Well, I was asked to finish this thing, and in that case it probably still has to be animated and skinned (yes, I know I'm smart, always have been :wink1: )? Which I could try, never animated before but there's a first time for everything I guess

But, since the original is an .ms3d-file that max can't open, I'll have to work with the .3ds and I hope I don't lose any functionality with animating that way?

(unless someone can convert that .ms3d to a .max file?)

Edited December 12, 2004 by j'ordos

[Vaaish]

The original model has some issues that I think would be better if we just started from scratch using the concept piece from Fux. I have the old model in 3ds if you want to take a look and make a judgement call about it would be easier to start over or tweak the existing one.

 

Right now we aren't going to be animating since battlescape is a long ways off. Primarily it would be great to just get all of the models created and skinned.