Just thought I'd share what I have been playing at lately, a good friend of mine is a battletech fan and asked me about modelling mechs. It seemed like an interesting challenge so I decided to take a poke at it.  Now 'Mechs (think walking tank) are pretty varied and have a specific look each so what I decided to do was model and rig a skeleton that I could craft different looking armor props for to make whatever specific variant I decided to attempt.  This is what I got so far.. I'm fairly happy with how it poses and adding the superstructure one piece of armor at a time has worked out resonably well.  As you can see only the legs and hips are complete with generic armor of my own design.

Geek Alert

Some AeroMechs are like the Robotech ones (I think) and can kinda transform, but you have a good start for any biped form.  Most of the 'Mechs I have seen are fairly boxy when it comes to the armor; wind resistance (except for AstroMechs) is not really important (unless they modified the rules) but heat displacement and armor thinkness/weight are.  For the largest/heaviest, think "not just the armory, the whole damn building" if you do any of those as final products.  I think the Atlas topped out at 100 tons.

Just curious:  Has your friend mentioned Elemental suits?  They are basically armored EVA suits, but some of the weapon systems are similar to those carried by the 'Mechs, just scaled accordingly.  Something to think about if both scales are wanted. :)

Very nice! :)

Thanks for sharing the WIP... and I like the approach you've taken with the skeletal core.

Are you thinking along the lines of the armoured add-ons to that being conforming figures or smart-props, to the skeleton?

Attached Link: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

You can try here http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page for some spot illustrations.

Quote - Geek Alert

Some AeroMechs are like the Robotech ones (I think) and can kinda transform, but you have a good start for any biped form.  Most of the 'Mechs I have seen are fairly boxy when it comes to the armor; wind resistance (except for AstroMechs) is not really important (unless they modified the rules) but heat displacement and armor thinkness/weight are.  For the largest/heaviest, think "not just the armory, the whole damn building" if you do any of those as final products.  I think the Atlas topped out at 100 tons.

Just curious:  Has your friend mentioned Elemental suits?  They are basically armored EVA suits, but some of the weapon systems are similar to those carried by the 'Mechs, just scaled accordingly.  Something to think about if both scales are wanted. :)

Yeah.. I haven't gotten into trying to model specific 'mechs so the armor pieces I've put on so far are mostly just from my head with a vague mental reference to the phoenix hawk/veritech knockoff that my friend mentioned.  I tried going boxy as that is more the battletech style but I didn't like any of my results, though I have seen others do some great work in that style.

The armor suit guys would probably be better done as an armor set for one of the common figures.  This skeleton is designed to move in a distinctly mechanical way with some extra bones but only one rotation per joint, so the leg side-side, twist and swing are each their own bit of geometry with their own bone and only one roatation each.

Quote - Very nice! :)

Thanks for sharing the WIP... and I like the approach you've taken with the skeletal core.

Are you thinking along the lines of the armoured add-ons to that being conforming figures or smart-props, to the skeleton?

basically yes.  Everything not seen in the first picture is a smart prop.  If the end user wanted working hands they could be modeled and rigged as a conforming figure.  Same with an articulated head/neck vs just a fixed cockpit attached to the center torso

Quote - Does you friend have access to the technical readouts?

You can try here http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page for some spot illustrations.

lol yeah I have a big stack siting beside the computer most from the 90s.  I've seen some great looking models made out of some of these... but a lot of the line art thats included in the books is... well... not super inspiring, to be kind.  I was looking at some of the designs included in the new computer game and some of the 'mechs that looked terrible in the technical readouts are looking very good in that game.

Managed to finish(mostly) modelling a set of armor to hang on the chassis.  Also added in all dials necessary to the body actor to control all movement and proportion of the chassis, so it can now be posed & customised withing the body actor.

Awesome :)

Thats looking good... the concept seems to function well too by the looks of it.

Are you going to add the option of some hands? Or something along those lines...?

EDIT: Ah, sorry... just spotted that you'd already mentioned the hands above :)

yeah... I'm a little scared of trying to make hands.. it seems to me like it will be as much work as almost the entire rest of the skeleton combined...  so we will see.. maybe something more along the lines of a claw like appendage rather than fully articulated fingers & thumbs

If you want a hand that can grab things, just make 2 fingers with a space in between and a thumb that fills the space when the hand closes.

/ / /

Super cool mech! You've done fantastic job here!

thanks!

Just wondering how this is progressing. :)

Cool! Looking forward to see more progress.

I had almost forgotten about this...  Its not so much progressing right now.

 I got the figure rigged and added movement controls to the body actor along with a number of scaling/morphing controls.  And I got that one set of armor completed for it (except the 'head' which i'm not satisfied with.  

since those posted images it doesnt look tremendously different aside from an adjusted smoothing angle which makes it look a lot more like its made of metal rather than clay.

I never did get around to UVmapping all of it or doing any materials.

Work and life got really brutal for me so I hadn't any time to sink into it for a few months

I shall now join the geeks and keep an eye on this in hopes of it eventually going forward again.  

I am one of those rare and elusive female Battletech/Mechwarrior players.  Not the video games, but the tabletop version.  Though MegaMek is a decent substitute when we can't get a game togther anymore 

As I recall many of the 'classic' Mechs got an overhaul several years back and it is the revamped artwork which is the basis of the ones for the new game.  Okay, I more than recall it, I cried when I saw what they had done to my Crus.

Thank you Harmony Gold for yanking the rights to the old artwork, which yes, was a 'ripoff' of Macross.  Though a legal one when it was done.

Done geeking, the mech is looking very nice regardless, if you ever make a Toad that I would be interested in too :)

Well the cool thing (ok perhaps playing a bit fast and loose with the word cool) about it is that the skeleton can be scaled to get a pretty wide variety of stature for the mech, from broad abd stalky to lean and mean, without messing up the rigging.  So once you have the proportions the way you want you can export an OBJ to craft your armor around.  You have to pay a certain amount of attention to the different bits of armor and how they might collide and model accordingly.  The attantion is well worth it however as it leaves you with some believable proportions.

As far as trying to replicate the exact look of the artwork from the games... well probably something I would avoid.  As much as it is a very cool franchise a lot of the artwork was dreadful (mostly with the exception of the borrowed designs).  if you were to work with what I started here it would make more sense to capture the 'general idea' of a particular mech rather than try to replicate it exactly

Quote - I shall now join the geeks and keep an eye on this in hopes of it eventually going forward again.  

I am one of those rare and elusive female Battletech/Mechwarrior players.  Not the video games, but the tabletop version.  Though MegaMek is a decent substitute when we can't get a game togther anymore 

As I recall many of the 'classic' Mechs got an overhaul several years back and it is the revamped artwork which is the basis of the ones for the new game.  Okay, I more than recall it, I cried when I saw what they had done to my Crus.

Thank you Harmony Gold for yanking the rights to the old artwork, which yes, was a 'ripoff' of Macross.  Though a legal one when it was done.

Done geeking, the mech is looking very nice regardless, if you ever make a Toad that I would be interested in too :)

Quote - Well the cool thing (ok perhaps playing a bit fast and loose with the word cool) about it is that the skeleton can be scaled to get a pretty wide variety of stature for the mech, from broad abd stalky to lean and mean, without messing up the rigging.  So once you have the proportions the way you want you can export an OBJ to craft your armor around.  You have to pay a certain amount of attention to the different bits of armor and how they might collide and model accordingly.  The attantion is well worth it however as it leaves you with some believable proportions.

 

As far as trying to replicate the exact look of the artwork from the games... well probably something I would avoid.  As much as it is a very cool franchise a lot of the artwork was dreadful (mostly with the exception of the borrowed designs).  if you were to work with what I started here it would make more sense to capture the 'general idea' of a particular mech rather than try to replicate it exactly

 

Nah, though there were a few battletech mechs that someone had made as freebies a few years back.  As I recall they used to be available on RDNA.  Not there now of course, but I do have the Timberwolf aka the Madcat and the Bushwhacker squirrelled away here somewhere.  Mostly cause I intended to do an image of my longest running BT character, namely she managed to not take too many head shots while in that captured Madcat A.  Never did get to it.

The scaling is definitely interesting, it allows for a lot of variation in a single theme.  Now, what about a 'bird mech' ala something like the Raijin of and of the numerous others?  Not a clone, but something with the digitigrade style legs and the like?  Or a quad?  I have never seen a quad done yet...

those would need different skeletons I would think

very much so, but still something that not many do... if anyone has

the good thing with doing mechs is the rigging is easy.  Simple rotations.  Its all about getting your joint centers centered correctly.  In my work each axis has its own bone, so its very simple.  No complex bends to worry about.