Re Re imagining of the Xcom laser rifle.
polycounter lvl 9
Hey guys. before the new Xcom game was announced I came up with a redesign of the Xcom laser rifle, it was designed to keep the bulky shape and feel of the original but to give it a more modern feel.
I have gone a little way already and below you have the my concept, the current low poly and the wires. it stands at just about 3k tris, which I'm quite happy with. as you can tell the normals are being a pain. but other than that things are going well. I just wanted some input before I progressed. I'm looking to put something really nice on my folio and you guys are pretty awesome with your creative fu so I offer it up to you first.
(NB at this point it still needs to go into NDO for some fine details on the normal map
I have gone a little way already and below you have the my concept, the current low poly and the wires. it stands at just about 3k tris, which I'm quite happy with. as you can tell the normals are being a pain. but other than that things are going well. I just wanted some input before I progressed. I'm looking to put something really nice on my folio and you guys are pretty awesome with your creative fu so I offer it up to you first.
(NB at this point it still needs to go into NDO for some fine details on the normal map
Replies
what you guys think? not sure if it will have enough visual interest. its looking quite flat, which is worrying me.
The rifle stock is modelled wrong.(i'm looking at your concept here heh which is ok)
The middle part where you have the separation between red and grey, needs buffed bevels !
Oh, you could add more details if you want in the middle part of the gun to make it more interesting.
Because the AR platform is one that is capable of firing a huge number of different bullet types, I'd make a rifle that looks real in its construction but has a magazine that looks like it uses energy. Have you played either of the Borderlands? They do a fantastic job of making the gun look like it shoots either bullets or energy, solely through the use of emissive maps.
Good luck bud, and I'm excited to see your progress!
and sunkist, the idea is that the red part is a composite shell over the mechanics of te laser rifle, the inner workings are all housed in the metallic section at the back with removable access sections for maintainance, the idea of te mag is just an up scaled capacitor lol. But i umderstand need to draw paralels. Ill do some sketches in my pad tomorrow at work to see if i can solidify what i can do :-) thanks guys the crits really help.. Even if it hurts to admit im going to have to rework it
It doesn't really read very sci-fi to me and definitely doesn't say "laser", IMO.
It looks like you took the aliens pulse rifle and some regular old machine gun...flattened away all the interesting bits, glued a grenade halfway down and painted it red.
I wanted to redesign the origional xcom laser rifle.. Id post a link but my tabs not playing ball lol. But it was flat sided and pretty simple. It was also very blocky by design. I wanted to bring it more up to date, but i wanted to keep it realistic, glowing guns are not really practical in the real world lol.
So i based it on existing tech and played with the idea that it is basically in function exactly the same as an assault rifle with less moving parts. All that said i see what your getting at especially with the lack of visual interest.. That what im trying to sketch out today.
Im thinking now that i will keep the shape and focus more on using the idea of heat dissapation to improve the design, the other point is the reason it isnt very scifi is that the laser rifle in the game is a very early tech, this isnt set a long ti,e in the future...
That said...I'm VERY familiar with XCOM, its characters and weaponry
I've been playing it just about every day for months in anticipation of the new one. I've even done some fan art for XCOM myself just recently.
Anyway, I look forward to your progress!
Ok this is my sketch, it is a much closer to the origional and b much more interesting. Im posting it just to keep you guys up to date on how im thnking
Good luck with yours!
EDIT
Ok after a couple of hours of furious working on various ideas i came up with this, im really liking where this is going now. the recessed sections will have a grill or vent through witch you will be able to see a few bits of the internals (textured, not geo]. and i have some ideas for panneling etc. i have done away with the mag, i think that you were right, it was a little surplus to requirements, i have added a power core type doodad to the bottom... i feel much better about this now.
Also, I recall you mentioning how you're not a fan of glowing guns because you want your rifle to come off as "realistic" but you're making a laser rifle.
Also, I own the sight you attached to the top and I have to call out that it is noticeably too small. Below is a picture of my rifle and it hopefully points out that the holographic sight is not a small unit at all. There are some red dots that are similar to the size yours is, but they are a completely different design. Should be an easy fix though.
what you guys think?
ok so, rifle low poly has had its make over. tell me what you guys think, it should give a good bake from Xnormal, but i have been known to be wrong about that lol.
oh and thanks for the point on the sight, fixed it now. ill have to go through and clean up the geometry, there is a hell of alot ox excess on the stock. ill post a SS so you can see what i mean.