Unit 66 MECHS

2026446 Curtis Hulbert

Task is to create a believable, mechanical, digital 3D model to be used as a worthwhile asset in a computer game

Mood Board

For this mood board I wanted to combine a number of different type of mechs to show the number of different ideas and types that I could possibly combine with my own mech.I wanted to have a battlemech that would have a chunky but sleek look.

Sketch 1

When it came to my sketch I wanted it to look like an actual mech so I made sure that I drew in plenty of pistons, cables and servos, I based my sketch a little of the Warhammer dreadnaught, it’s quite easy to see in the chunkiness and the especially the legs.

Sketch 2 & 3I wanted to focus on possible components for the Mech itself, these sketches show weapons and helmets designs primarily, the weapons are a difference of long ranged and close quarter, the helmets on the other hand show how the Mech could act as different ways and support.

TexturesFor my Mech I wanted to make it look clean and fresh off the production line, full to the brim with ammunition and freshly painted.

For this the textures had to be shiny and futuristic looking, I decided using a chrome texture along with some black coloured metals. The belt feed had to stand out from the actual model though so I decided to put a rubber texture on that so that it could be instantly destinctable from the rest of the mech.

The eyes for the mech will glow with the material editor.

ColourThe colour scheme I wanted to have was to make the Mech look as if it were just off the production line, the steel would have to be polished and pistons and servos would have to stick out amongst the other body work on the Mech, the armour plating and the main body would be covered with the polished chrome the give it a nice shinny effect , the pistons and servos would have a more darker colour to make them stand out amongst the body, the red glow would be put onto the eyes to make the Mech look like it’s alive and would also give an intimidating look to the mech.

Mech arms

The mech arms are designed to primarily be weapons, the other designs I had planned did include other weapons and may have also had other things attached to them which could have related to the different types of mech that relates to the different helmet types.

Mech bodyThe Mech body is big and bulky and represents the type of Mech I wanted to have which was to have a tanky Mech which could withstand a lot of firepower but at the same time deal a large punch back thus have the two large ammunition barrels at the back along with the belt feeds, the armour plating on the front gives the ability to meet enemy forces up front and built for face to face combat.

Creating the body was done using mostly the cube tool and using the editable poly tool to edit the body and it’s components to the shape and way I wanted it to be.

Mech Legs

When I was first starting the mech the legs were one of the first things I started to model after the main body, I wanted the legs to look as though it was separated by different sections and connected by pistons and servos.

I wanted the legs to be connected to a platform on which the body would sit on top of, the platform would be very bulky and armour plated in order to support the body and to distribute the weight of the body evenly

In the end I mirrored the left leg and then put it on the right to save me work and extra time it also mirrors the look and gives the feel and look to overall mech design.

Screenshots

I have doing different parts of the mech in different saves and importing them into the main scene when done

Making the legs turned out to be a pretty easy thing to do, it consisted of me using mostly cubes and from there adjusting them to the correct position and shape, I morphed the shape by mainly scaling the shape first to fit how I wanted, then I converted them into editable polys from then I changed the shape as needed

I then imported the legs into the main scene with the rest of the body when I had done making it look realistic and then deciding to add further detail such as armour plating, pistons and cables

I continued adding detail and platting to the mech , this included armour platting as well as cables lasers and generally scaling areas of the mech to make it seem plausible.

The look of the entire mech with all the components added to the body giving it a imposing figure along with the armour plating and small details that will be added

Textures 1.2I decided that I wanted my Mech to look clean and fresh of the production line, so I decided that I wanted to focus mainly on the shinier textures and the polished ones, the result was that the metal chrome polished texture I added on the Mech gives it a shiny and reflective look, the result looks pretty cool and with the other effects added on such as a galvanised metal for the joints and main components of the mech it makes them stand out amongst the main body and give them a tougher look as if they were hardier.

Next I wanted to focus on the smaller areas and more detailed parts of the Mech such as the rivets pipes pistons and cables , I would also add a self illumination to a texture to put a glow onto the eyes, I did this to give it a eerie glow but also to make it look alive and working.Some of the textures here also are used for the armour plating

Texture exploration

When it came to texturing my mech I have wanted to keep it shiny and to make it look as if it was directly of the production line, but in theory there could be plenty of different textures that I can apply to the mech itself

The first new texture I did was apply a black matte colour to the base and then used a blue matte steel to give a bright look to the mech and highlight the armour

I used the same matte colour as the bottom layer and then used a shiny anodized metal red as it gave a nice shiny effect and makes it look as if it has just come off the

Next I wanted to change the bottom layer of the texture, I wanted it to be a shinier more newer looking version than the others.

This is another variation of the one above except with a different colour, I wanted to see the difference of colour between the mechs

Render 1

Render 2

Render 3

Final render

Ethics and copyright

Although during this assignment the entire point of making this wasn’t to infringe or in any way there may be some things that could offend or could be linked to existing ideas or model already.

One thing that could be a problem is that the mech is equipped with guns and could therefore be linked to violence and could offend some people, such as people who have been involved with war or they may somehow feel intimidated by the mech.

Another problem is that my mech idea, although not copied, was taken from the dreadnaught from war hammer 40k and thus could be seen as a copyright infringement or as a copy, although the modelling was all done by myself

Summery

To summarise this assignment I would say it has been pretty successful as a whole, the modelling was very successful and I managed to model the Mech almost exactly the way I wanted to, I think was because the last 3D model I did I learnt a lot in terms in texturing and editing the model, I managed to create some pretty nice components for the mech.

I learnt some valuable things from my last modelling project and from there learnt to constantly save and back up the files, I also Created different components of the Mech in different saves and then imported them into the main scene.

When I was doing this it helped me greatly as I was able to put more detail into all the components and thus meaning I had less to worry from the file crashing if they were separated, I also found that this helped me to concentrate better on the individual components themselves without the distraction of the whole Mech it was also beneficial in the long term as it made it less difficult to add the minor detail as I wouldn’t have to scale them down to a small size so that I could see what I was working with.

Texturing the Mech was reasonably easy, Seeing as a lot of the texture I wanted my Mech to have where already in the Mental ray section of the materiel editor I decided that using the materials from there would be more beneficial and would cut down the amount of time it take to texture the Mech and thus would allot me more time to sort out any major or minor issues with the Mech.

The problems I occurred during this assignment was that some of textures did not look the way I wanted them too on the Mech and unfortunately I didn’t really have anytime left to get the textures I really wanted from the internet.