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PETROL/BLOOD - Stosh

polycounter lvl 4
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Stosh polycounter lvl 4
This will be my first contest I participate in on polycount and I'm really excited to work on it. Overall I wanted something crude, but slightly futuristic or had some sci-fi influences on it.

My idea for the vehicle is mostly referenced from the brute chopper from Halo 3 and a morning star mace. Fusing those two ideas together basically creating a big single wheeled bike where the wheel is a giant spike ball. I'm toying around with a few other ideas to nail my design down, but I will reveal more about those within the next two days when I post my concepts for the bike.

Vehicle Reference:

uymABnd.jpg

I'm not completely sure yet what gender my character will be, but I like the combination of Mad Max and Destiny characters. Keeping with that crude and futuristic look I'm going for. One thing I do know is that my character will have a cloak of some type, so that's at least something solid decided :)

Character Reference:

oCv00hu.jpg

Replies

  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    Alright, last week was really busy for me so I didn't get a lot of time on my entry. Wanted to get some concepts up of my vehicle. I was gonna try to create 3 more concepts to have 9, but feeling burnt out from it and I wanted to get some opinions before I go too far ahead of myself in concepting.

    Most of this is more of the Mad Max look because I've been having trouble trying to figure out a more futuristic "sleek" look with a spiked ball for a wheel. So I may go closer to Mad Max than sci-fi. Although functionally my idea was that around the wheel there were highly magnetic plates that would control the spin of the wheel so that it could make hard turns much faster. Which in turn I had to reduce the "whiplash" the rider would get so I added "repulsor lifts" to the sides of the cockpit so it would be less likely to bang into a wall or environment on a hard turn.

    If there are some parts from one concept that you think would look better with another, please let me know what to mix and match and I'll try to put together another concept page.

    1MOfAbB.jpg

    Everyone elses stuff is looking awesome! Can't wait to get mine farther along and begin modeling it up :)
  • Nacho
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    Nacho polycounter lvl 5
    Really nice thumbnails there, I'll stick with the 4 because (I like it) it's difficult to imagine the ball rolling with all that metal around that the other designs have, but i'll change the union between the ball and the driver cause it looks too rigid and change it for one of the first 3 designs. Waiting for the 3d stuff already. Hope I've been helpful and good luck!
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    Thank you for the feedback. I get what you're saying about the frame around the ball being completely made of solid metal not being as "realistic" or logical. That union between the driver and the ball section in 4 and 5 was an idea to have a type of gear axel that would turn the angle of the cockpit as the vehicle was turning as to not put as much stress on the union section during hard turns. I can definitely see how 1-3 look better, but I guess I need to make it look good and functional at the same time. The union in 6 was just a quick idea of ball joints to switch it up from a gear axel from 4 and 5.

    Also, which general cockpit looks better? The "ninja" motorcycle style cockpit, the "podracer" cockpit, or the chopper motorcycle on 6?
  • Nacho
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    Nacho polycounter lvl 5
    Hey, I'm glad I've been helpful to you:). I suppose the ball has it's own engine and the ''pod'' another one (propulsor, etc), so there's no need to transfer torque from ball's engine to the pod, it's just pulling from it. Because of that I'd just put some kind of cables, futuristic chains or anything that's prepared for torsion stress. And the cockpits...I can't decide between chopper or pod, I like them both!
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    In the process of researching ways to create the spike ball, I came across this simple tutorial on how to create a golf ball model in Maya (this does work in Maya 2015). http://www.bmmedia.no/henningb/tutorial/golfball.pdf

    Upon looking at it, I found that I can simple apply the same process to get geometry that would allow me to create evenly distributed spikes around the ball. Although the geometry that it creates is all made up of hexagons. My professors from the classes I took in college had always mentioned it's highly recommended if not required to keep all shapes make up the geometry of the mesh 3 or 4 sides.

    What I wanted to know is if this process I found would be acceptable for this contest and generally within the gaming industry.
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    Here is what my geometry looks like after applying that tutorial I found on the golf ball. I wanted to find out ASAP if this type of geometry would be acceptable.

    7eULVgZ.jpg
  • [Deleted User]
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    [Deleted User] insane polycounter
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  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    I'm confused by the statement your teachers told you? can you elaborate on that? The spike ball currently seems unnecessarily dense. Each hexagon on the surface is 4 triangles and not really being used to enhance the silhouette of the shape. Each spike appears to be 6 sided which is fine but you could also do it with 4 sides is you chose to.

    One way I might do this is to make one spike and a ball - uv them and then distribute the spike over the ball.

    This way of modeling the spike ball stemmed from link I posted that was a tutorial on how to model a golf ball. It was a method to allow me to evenly distribute spikes around the ball itself. It originally looked like a ball with hexagon geometry all over it and a specifically selected a pattern of faces and extruded them to create the spikes.

    What I was told in my past classes is that I should be trying to only have faces have 3-4 sides, basically a triangle or a polygon with 4 sides. I have abided by that principle in all of my modeling. I was just trying to find different methods to create the spike ball and came across this (http://www.bmmedia.no/henningb/tutorial/golfball.pdf) golf ball tutorial that I could use as a way to evenly create spikes. I know another method would be just taking a basic sphere in ZBrush and use radial symmetry to create spikes. That would also need to be retopped, I understand, but this method would be a time saver.

    I guess what I could also do now, is separate the spikes and sphere from each other, create a new sphere that has 4 sided faces, and combine the spikes from the hexagon sphere to the new 4 face sided sphere.

    I know you mentioned creating one spike and one ball, what method would you do that would allow me to place the spikes evenly across the ball?
  • AzzaMat
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    AzzaMat polycounter lvl 9
    I don't know who your teachers are but they really need to go over why we use triangles, why we use quads and why we definitely don't use n-gons.

    If I was doing this (and that would be in 3DS max), I would create a geosphere as it has vertices evenly spaced around its surface. Create a spike and then scatter it onto the geosphere using the scatter tool.

    Tips
    - Use scatter along all vertices
    - Unwrap the spike first so you only have to do it once.
    - Reduce the segments on the geosphere to control how many spikes you have.
    - Move the pivot up on the spike slightly so that it is fully in the geosphere.

    Hope this helps!
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    Remade my spike ball with adjusted geometry. I actually still used the same process that the golf ball tutorial used, but I stopped before the step that created the hexagon geometry and just used the from the previous spike balls and dispersed them out correctly. This way it drastically reduced my tris while still giving me the spike ball look I want.

    vPyGSbE.jpg
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    After modeling out a few of the frames around the spike ball, I'm deciding to run with concept #4 "mostly." A few things I'll probably change around and mess with, but overall I liked what I've started to build off of it.

    mI0Pvb0.jpg

    I plan to use intersecting chainlinks to "fill" the holes I've punched into the frame. Anyone know of any good tutorials or ways to create chainlinks?
  • R0gu3
    http://artforgames.com/infotuts/chain-link-fence/


    Haven't tried it but this one seemed pretty decent
  • Suba
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    Suba polycounter lvl 5
    I absolutely love the idea. Lookinf forward to see more !!
  • Safemilk(Daniel)
    Cool idea, also, I had that Star Wars toy as a kid, so I'm trippin'... Can't wait to see this!
  • looprix
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    looprix polycounter lvl 8
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    UDPATE:
    LBhVTDC.jpg

    Few more things to do in Maya such as create the guns, cockpit, put the chainlinks in the holes of the frame, and any other misc things that might come across either as an idea or just lower the poly count a bit before taking it into ZBrush for a high poly version. I've narrowed down cockpit ideas to either a full "podracer" type or the "chopper" style seating of a harley motorcycle. I'll probably start to make both and see which one just works better with the rest of the bike.
  • Stosh
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    Stosh polycounter lvl 4
    UPDATE:
    JS502PW.jpg

    Created the frame of the cockpit and adjusted the size of the spike ball so the frame around it wouldn't drag on the ground as much. Finer details on the way including guns/flamethrowers, cockpit controls, and chainlinks in the frame holes. Thanks for the support and input everyone :D
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