designing, building and rigging a mech
Hey all!
I normally do animation, but I have a few months off and thought I'd try building a robot rig.
Character setting;
It's half past the future and humanity has gone batshit insane. A cult of AI worshipers "submit to the almighty singularity" and voluntarily replace their flesh with mech. Their arms and legs are cut off and their nervous system integrated with massive robotic limbs, creating powerful and fanatical walking weapons who serve the AI with manic devotion
Here's a couple rough ideas I had
Something with lots of exposed hydraulics, dangling wires, huge limbs with tiny bodies. I'm thinking it would be cool to have the human torsos exposed to the front so you can see the scarred flesh. The upper hips to the lower chest would be exposed. This may not make sense combat wise though, so maybe encasing them in thick glass and filling that with glowing fluid? I want to make it obvious that these are not robots, there's a mutilated human inside somewhere ..
I went with the guy on the bottom left, but the limbs should be pretty exchangeable so when I make the next 'bot hopefully I'll be able to re-use some parts.
The big thing I want to go for is functionality. I want to make these mechs very believable, very industrial. I started blocking out in 3d to figgure out how the hydraulics could work.
Mainly focused on the legs. Something with disk joints for shoulders, should be simple to rig and very industrial robot looking. Like those arm-robots that put cars together. His left hand is pretty non-functional here though. Big hanging cannon, SAM site/rocket pack on his back there.
here's a fully roughed out version
this version is all blocking, just trying to think through how he's put together. Not game ready, I need to re-do the legs so they'll work with rigging. The gun is a bit blocky in shape, need to rethink that, but you can see air compressors all over it and it's actually hanging on a rail so there will be tons of kickback dampening when it fires. On the back of the gun is a huge "jaws of life" pincer that rotates. That whole unit flips up so he can use the pincers as a weapon. Having the jet pack on that little scorpion tail will be interesting animation-wise. I'm not happy with his left hand, the fingers are painfully simple. Was going for some kind of flat punching thing but it's clearly not working.
I'm painting on top of these pics in photoshop to figure out where to go from here, I'll post that soon as it's done. After seeing District 9's there are some things I'd like to change. That movie's mech was the closest thing to what I've got in mind out there.
If you'd like to paint onto these and post any suggestions that would be awesome, I could use some feedback!
Thanks!
I normally do animation, but I have a few months off and thought I'd try building a robot rig.
Character setting;
It's half past the future and humanity has gone batshit insane. A cult of AI worshipers "submit to the almighty singularity" and voluntarily replace their flesh with mech. Their arms and legs are cut off and their nervous system integrated with massive robotic limbs, creating powerful and fanatical walking weapons who serve the AI with manic devotion
Here's a couple rough ideas I had
Something with lots of exposed hydraulics, dangling wires, huge limbs with tiny bodies. I'm thinking it would be cool to have the human torsos exposed to the front so you can see the scarred flesh. The upper hips to the lower chest would be exposed. This may not make sense combat wise though, so maybe encasing them in thick glass and filling that with glowing fluid? I want to make it obvious that these are not robots, there's a mutilated human inside somewhere ..
I went with the guy on the bottom left, but the limbs should be pretty exchangeable so when I make the next 'bot hopefully I'll be able to re-use some parts.
The big thing I want to go for is functionality. I want to make these mechs very believable, very industrial. I started blocking out in 3d to figgure out how the hydraulics could work.
Mainly focused on the legs. Something with disk joints for shoulders, should be simple to rig and very industrial robot looking. Like those arm-robots that put cars together. His left hand is pretty non-functional here though. Big hanging cannon, SAM site/rocket pack on his back there.
here's a fully roughed out version
this version is all blocking, just trying to think through how he's put together. Not game ready, I need to re-do the legs so they'll work with rigging. The gun is a bit blocky in shape, need to rethink that, but you can see air compressors all over it and it's actually hanging on a rail so there will be tons of kickback dampening when it fires. On the back of the gun is a huge "jaws of life" pincer that rotates. That whole unit flips up so he can use the pincers as a weapon. Having the jet pack on that little scorpion tail will be interesting animation-wise. I'm not happy with his left hand, the fingers are painfully simple. Was going for some kind of flat punching thing but it's clearly not working.
I'm painting on top of these pics in photoshop to figure out where to go from here, I'll post that soon as it's done. After seeing District 9's there are some things I'd like to change. That movie's mech was the closest thing to what I've got in mind out there.
If you'd like to paint onto these and post any suggestions that would be awesome, I could use some feedback!
Thanks!
Replies
here's where I'm thinking of going with it
This dude needs some armor. He was looking ready to stack crates, not charge into a fight. Lets add composite metal armor all over his shoulders and left arm, and change his hand to be more of a razor edged battering ram with grabbyclaws on the bottom.
Added some electromagnets onto the bottom of the gunbarrel. Magnetic field arcing the plasma could make for a solar-flare style beam that arcs around. Think a flamethrower that's 10,000 times hotter with 20X the range. Gnarly.
Lets encase the human torso in five inch thick glass, sustpended in ooze matrix style. electrodes all over it would be really cool.
The head needs to be more menacing. Domed scull with lots of camera-eyes, and two big windshieldwiper praying mantis looking appendages to keep those eyes clear. Combined with a few rows of smaller feelers for an insectoid "mouth" and i should be able to animate some really menacing stuff. Also, beef up the neck with cables and chords more tangled than my old consol controllers. A turbine engine on his spine to run all those shoulder joints whynot?
Break up the shapes on the thighs and feet ... show some moving piston parts so when he steps they pop out and shoot some steam ... or no steam either way the motion will add weight to the steps and moving parts are the shit.
Think I'll leave his right arm relatively unarmored. That gun weighs too much, any armor an he's be way offbalance.
Still not sure what to do with those sam site/rocketpacks shape wise. Any ideas?
I'm not planning on doing anything fancy with the textures. It's all separate pieces of geometry so applying shaders would be sooo much easier than unwrapping all those cylinders. Besides, I'd rather rig and animate him. I've never even used set driven keys before so this is a big learning experience. Although if someone would be interested in collaborating on this .....
-Woog
lots of reference pics in there so you can see what I'm drawing from.
Big drumlike rail to make a humpback shape, rocketpack can move along the rail, rotate left and right, it also has a track and pivot point so lots of freedome there. A rocket like this would give him some verticality, and the ability to leapfrog around making jumps up to a mile in distance, but he would leap like a bullfrog, not soar like an eagle.
Gonna redo the chest and neck majorly. They'll be a tough bit, I'm thinking bunched up cables in the shape of neck and pectoral muscles. Some soft rigging, blend shapes, uv maps could get a good effect for cheap there ... ribs are now armored pices that will be attached with ski-boot like straps.
well I'm tired and computer is starting to make sounds like that kid from the grudge, so off to bed for me. Tomorrow it's modeling time!
peace
JFletcher had a cool design for a hanging gladiotor-skirt-like piece, worked well. Might suit this guys wide stance. Gotta make sure it doesn't look to .... nsfw with that shape though
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/1779/highpolywip.jpg
Any thoughts for the gun? I'm open for suggestions
suggestion for the gun: have it shoot kittens.
j/k ... just make sure it doesn't throw the mech off balance