TF2 - Polypack - Contrails
I've decided to do a pack for the soldier as I simply like his character... who doesn't like a crazy *cough* wannabe *cough* *cough* soldier? 
Theme: Government Issue
The Shell Shocker
Mortars are weapons for peace loving hippies such as your grandmother who want to stay as safe as they can. What the hell is indirect fire? The only way to kill someone is up close, direct, and personal, preferably with explosives so they turn into a million little tiny pieces. The "Shell Shocker" is the best way to do this. It takes the only thing a mortar is good for - lots of BOOM - and thrusts it in the front line. Your grandmother better cover her eyes.
CO's Colors
Retreat is never an option. And this radio will let every cowardly maggot on your team know. Tell them you've singlehandedly got the entire enemy team pinned down and they better come before you blow them all to pieces. Every maggot who is smart enough to realize that killing is more fun than playing dress up or sandwich eating parties and joins you will recieve a mini-crit damage dealing bonus for 10 seconds after the call.
The Ten Incher
Of all the usages of a bayonet, one trumps all: killing people. Stabbing maggots to death was the sole reason why Sun Tzu invented war. It was the way he fought, it was the way your grandmother fought, and it is the way you fight. And dammit, with these 10 inches of cold hard steel, you are a death dealing machine who WILL personally kill every, communist, America hating, sandwich eating, hippie-maggot you meet. That's an order.
Submitted!
Theme: Government Issue
The Shell Shocker
Mortars are weapons for peace loving hippies such as your grandmother who want to stay as safe as they can. What the hell is indirect fire? The only way to kill someone is up close, direct, and personal, preferably with explosives so they turn into a million little tiny pieces. The "Shell Shocker" is the best way to do this. It takes the only thing a mortar is good for - lots of BOOM - and thrusts it in the front line. Your grandmother better cover her eyes.
CO's Colors
Retreat is never an option. And this radio will let every cowardly maggot on your team know. Tell them you've singlehandedly got the entire enemy team pinned down and they better come before you blow them all to pieces. Every maggot who is smart enough to realize that killing is more fun than playing dress up or sandwich eating parties and joins you will recieve a mini-crit damage dealing bonus for 10 seconds after the call.
The Ten Incher
Of all the usages of a bayonet, one trumps all: killing people. Stabbing maggots to death was the sole reason why Sun Tzu invented war. It was the way he fought, it was the way your grandmother fought, and it is the way you fight. And dammit, with these 10 inches of cold hard steel, you are a death dealing machine who WILL personally kill every, communist, America hating, sandwich eating, hippie-maggot you meet. That's an order.
Submitted!
[B]UPDATE 6/18/10[/B] Just a few more details needed on the[COLOR=SeaGreen][B] Shell Shocker[/B][/COLOR]... [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/mortarrocket-2.jpg[/IMG] Starting on the radio - buff banner replacement (more details on the 3rd page towards the bottom) [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/radio-1.png[/IMG] [B]UPDATE 6/12/10[/B] scope pretty much done... the whole thing (modelling) is also for that matter just need to stick on a few more details [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/mortarscope.png[/IMG] [B]UPDATE 6/10/10[/B] Getting there... [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/scope.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/mortarrocket-1.png[/IMG] (Also putting code tags around all the stuff on the bottom because this post is getting quite large ;) ) [B]UPDATE 6/8/10[/B] Going for a more rounded design to resemble a mortar round... [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/mortarrocket.png[/IMG] [B]UPDATE 6/7/10[/B] Rocket launcher started [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/RL1.png[/IMG] building on my earlier concept [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/rocketconcept.png[/IMG] There are differences between the two.... and reasons why... details below :) [B]UPDATE 6/4/10[/B] ATTENNTIONNNN!!!! MAGGOTTS LISTEN UP!!! New shipments have been coming in (read: model is in game) [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/left.jpg[/IMG] details below [B]UPDATE 6/1/10[/B] I've rethought these items as it quickly became apparent that they won't work. The poncho is out - read a bit about jigglebones and they don't look too good for physics on an entire cloth almost as big as the character... I'll still be toying with a replacement for the buff banner though. The canteen is going to be a misc item complete with its own holder to put on the soldier's belt. A rocket launcher replacement that will have some mortar influences and a bit of a bazooka - mainly want to make it look like a mortar but it still needs to look like a rocket launcher - fleshing that out now [IMG]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8565072/tf2polypack/bayonetmelee.png[/IMG] This is my new melee idea which is a bayonet stuck on top of a broken shovel held in place with barbed wire - don't worry I'm going get to modelling so I have something to post other than my horrible concepting :) ------------------------------- As a melee replacement I plan to do a canteen http://whatpriceglory.com/pic/m1910_canteen.jpg every good soldier should have one and it'll be a simple model for me to work out the kinks of getting stuff in source :) I also was thinking something along the lines of a taunt to put out fire and prevent afterburn for 10 seconds or something but I guess that's up to valve. Secondary... the buff banner is one of my favorite items in game and I'd like to do something with it - always thought the flag looked a little weird so I might do something with a superhero type cape (of course improvised from a military issue poncho) like one of these http://www.swisslink.com/FS/1/Atom17163.jpg also fits in with the backpack as if I'm not mistaken real US soldiers in WWII and Korea carried their ponchos in them And as for the primary weapon I'd like to do something original with a typical US soldier theme... already saw a bazooka being made by someone around here (great idea) so that's out of the picture. May do something with a recoiless rifle that he stole off a jeep and converted for his own use or even a mortar carried on its side that he "taught" himself how to use... I guess you guys can help me decide ;)
Replies
Canteen seems rather lame as a weapon. Seems more like something that would have an ability like Jarate.
Though if I stick with the poncho idea will it be OK since it's all my own work?
Yeah ideally the canteen would be a secondary like jarate (have my afterburn preventer idea up there) but I think for the purposes of this competition it'll count as a melee... should be fine as demo has a bottle
anyways here's my start on the model this morning:
I've decided to make the canteen a misc - need to make a holder for it and also have a new melee replacement... more news soon
any ideas how to make the details on the blade show up in the mental ray render? I'm gonna be using it for AO later and would be nice to have those details...
they give the overall effect I'm looking for
and tri count looks good
I feel I'm spending a disproportionate amount of tris on the wire but don't really know any other way to do it
BTW, any ideas on the AO?
World model is fine but view model still has a couple animation issues I need to work out - good news is that it fits great into the soldier's hand
This is only a base color texture and slapped on AO - I'll need to clean it up some and add some detail to the texture
also need a good name for the bayonet
Sittin' Stick?
In other news, I'm going to move onto the rocket launcher next - here's a concept (again horrible lol)
Based it off of a bazooka and I want to make it look accurate - hence the scope and fins on the end - replacing direct hit obviously
As for the buff banner, I'm leaning towards a radio pack replacement - still don't know how I'm going to work out the bugle... looking at the game files it's actually 3 models (bugle, backpack, and banner) - does anyone know if I need to replace all 3 or can I keep the bugle for example?
@Rogue Trooper - that wouldn't fit into my theme
Drew in some details of what my plans currently are... changed from my concept are the fins - decided to make them smaller to make the overall launcher look like a dart - or more a mortar round
which is where the holes come from - I'm also planning to texture it in a similar fashion (bare metal on bottom and green on top)
Leaning towards discarding the box on the bottom below the handles - it looks like it might cause clipping issues with the existing animations - I do realize that I need to add something else for a more unique shape though
Khthon - messing with that but there are 2 issues... first of all the launcher is so tall that a bulge would have to be real large to make it really resemble a mortar round presenting clipping issues
and secondly I want to have a more or less unique silouette - from some angles a large bulge might look too much like the direct hit
I'll probably end up curving the little bulge I have now a little more and I want to do something with the front end
just did a little modelling - shaping up better than I expected
tris look horrible with the holes lol gonna clean them up some
Spent a bit of time with the scope today - keeping with the mortar theme, I looked into mortar sights
(WW2 era sight)
(not WW2 modern I think)
Main thing I got from that was... they've got a bunch of doodads on them
I don't have quite as many but I don't want to overload the scope with them - I think I have enough dials and knobs but I'll probably add something (relatively) large and blocky to break up the symmetry and circularness of the sight (any suggestions here?)
triangle count looks good
And I've also put him in game - the scope looks a bit weird I think because it's a little bit too far forward - I'll move it back and see how it looks
And 3rd person shots seem to be fine - all (default direct hit) animations look good too
Oh and I might add here even though it's obvious - this is just a flat temporary texture and I'm aware of smoothing issues
Yeah I fixed that
side shot is probably clearer
I think I'm pretty much done with the scope - focused mostly on the left side since that's what the first person view will mostly see
The rocket as a whole on the other hand is also pretty much done - I'll add a few details to the body (rivets, protrusions, etc) and I want to add a couple more polys around the scope and handle joints to the body to make them look welded on
Just finished UVs so this probably doesn't look like that significant of an update - but trust me that little box I had to stuff all the UVs into is very significant
Probably the most complex hard-surface model I've UV'ed so far... or modeled for that matter (yes I'm a semi beginner with modeling) and the results don't look half bad to me
Of course the triangle check... looks good
And some more interesting renders of the final model
Also will gladly appreciate name suggestions
now onto texturing...
Pounder?
The Mortar Strike?
Maybe 'the Bunker Buster'?
Also for your green portion, you've got a little too much green, I'd go more for an olive if you want to fit the style.
I don't think that's much of a problem...
Direct hit
my rocket (textures are still WIP)
This better?
Thanks for that - didn't realize that lol - I have a pretty good idea of my theme in my head just putting it into a catchy name is another matter... "weapons loosely based off of WW2 and korea era US equpiment" isn't too catchy
As for names thanks for the suggestions
Here's some progress on the texture - color band is team colored of course
made it more brown and yellows and darkened etc, I think this doesn't really fit the look I'm going for - you can see my mortar reference on the 1st page has a rich dark green
Gonna keep my original color - took it from the direct hit (you can see it on the scope) so (in addition to what my eyes tell me) it fits into the TF2 palette
Well... it's a giant serial number - I've resized it a bit especially since it was a bit distracting in the first person view but I think it'll help with the identification as a mortar round as opposed to a rocket
In other news, I started the radio model - not much to show yet but I'll post some pics later
EDIT: I found the average of the green, gray, red, and yellow you are currently using and replaced the tip with that color.
Yeah it looks pretty crappy but whatever. IMO it looks better than the yellow tip.