Lilttle bot WIP and suggestions

TechSmith

Here's a mech that I've been working on. I'm probably going to be redoing the body. I'm still not sure if the intersecting geometry will work with HL2.
Here's the progression so far.
Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks

JKMakowka

Looks really nice, but you are probably right about the intersecting geometry... oh and nice choice of modeling app

Btw why is your mesh shaded slightly purple? Did you change that on purpose?

P.S.: Maybe you could stay closer to the concept picture with the legs?

TechSmith

Hey wings is a nice little app to have on the work machine. It gives me something to do between annoying customers.

Yes it's purple on purpose. The colored lighting helps me determine face angle better.

I'll be playing about with this more later, including the legs.

hawken

nice looking robot thingie, I really like the grab with big thick lines for some reason!

intersecting geometery is generally considered a no no, find another way.

EarthQuake

Intersecting geometry is fine for hl2, it was a problem back when you ran games in 16 bit with low quality z-buffers that gave you odd z-fighting but is not anything to worry about with hl2, plenty of vavle's models intersect. The rule that its generally a no-no is an outdated rule that only applies to older game engines.

TechSmith

Well that's goimg to make life easier!!!
I'll be reworking the legs and body on friday, so stay tuned for updates.

Toomas

This thing looks really cute !

Enix

Looks like something from Ghost in the shell. Really nice ^_^. I always love bots with this concept, very nice.

lk_

Yeah looks like one of the robots in Standalone Complex.... pretty cool.

Gmanx

Is that for a mod?? I like the character in this, very cute. As said before, a little like the fuchikomas in GITS - which should have been in the first movie IMHO, I don't know if they're in the sequel.

Back on topic, I agree that intersecting geometry is fine, especially on machinery.

What's wings like when it comes to splitting loops of edges/bevelling/switching hard/soft edges? Is the workflow manageable? The concept seems to have no straight edge in sight.

TechSmith

Yes guys it reminds me of a Shirow bot also. Is it for a mod? Hopefully, yes.

Wings3d is a fine modeling program. There are no hard/soft edge settings like in Maya. Thats all done manually. ElysiumGx, and n30 can give you better answers on workflow and Wings other capabilities.

sinistergfx

Wings does have hard/soft edges. Select some edges > right click > hardness > hard/soft.

Also you can auto smooth based on edge angle: select something in body mode > right click > auto smooth (use the little option box to set the threshold).

JKMakowka

[ QUOTE ]
What's wings like when it comes to splitting loops of edges/bevelling/switching hard/soft edges? Is the workflow manageable?

[/ QUOTE ]

If I understood what you ment, then yes, extremly managable, just one button, or directly in the right click menu. Just try it, you will love it (check out the default shortcuts first).

P.S.: Even though intersecting geometry isn't that much of a z-fighting issue with a >=24bit z-buffer, it can still produce vertex lightning artifacts, and looks horrible with normalmaps.
I am not sure about special per pixel surface shaders, like they are used in HL2, but those might, depending on the effect, look bad/produce artifacts with intersecting geometry also.

Josh_Singh

hey is that nutsy's flying thing in the background??? hahah.
Hey could you post your references? what exactly is this little robot from???

TechSmith

Yep, Nutsy's flying thing it is. It's still one of my faves!
If you look in front of the flying thinggs and beside the model you'll see a small pic of a robot. That's all the reference I have.

BTW. I didn't model that version of Nutsy's Flying Thing. I just textured it and did a goofy render for my desktop.