FMP Week 23 - March 2nd - The Haytham

                               FMP Week 23 - February 16th

Haytham Creation (Mech #2)

William Marshall

Intro

These last two weeks have seen the work on my second mech come to completion. This Mech is named the Haytham, which has a different battlefield role compared to the Rotary. 

The Haytham is designed to be an agile brawler which is capable of outputting major damage with the hull-mounted minigun, flak cannon and missile launcher. In order to make it agile, it has had to sacrifice heavier armour to decrease the weight, making strong use of composite armour & sturdy construction to take hits instead.

I learnt a lot from the creation of the Rotary beforehand, as the Haytham was the second Mech I've ever created, such as:

• Normal Details in Substance, saves tris
• Curved/Circular Geometry helps with the high-tech look
• Unique Weapons & Usage
• Pleasing Colour Palettes
• Better Lighting Techniques
• Marmoset Usage

Haytham Design

As I created the Haytham, I took inspiration from several sources:

AMP Mech Suit:

BT-7274:

Milanote Research:

Blueprint:

As previously mentioned, the Haytham is designed to be a brawler and damage-dealing platform. However, it is not designed for endurance or drawn-out conflicts, meaning that it sacrifices heavy armouring and sheer size compared to other models. 

Modelling:

Modelling the Haytham involved a lot of freeform modelling and iteration, as I was attempting to incorporate the feedback that had been received with my first mech. I ensured that I was adding more curved geometry, mechanical joints, unique weapons, connectors (bolts), unique details whilst maintaining a sturdy frame that was true to my original design.

Originally, I had wanted the pilot hatch of the Haytham to open upwards like a modern fighter jet, similar to Titanfall 2's pilot hatch openings. However, when I looked at the AMP Platform, I preferred the look of a forward-facing hatch that opened outwards, meaning that the Pilot could climb into the cockpit by scaling the Mech's legs (also aided by handlebars which I placed at key points, much like rock climbing!)

In the animation, you can see several design changes. On the right arm, I originally intended for a grenade launcher to be added, to aid with the destructive potential. However, the stocky design did not fit well compared to the minigun, so I looked elsewhere for destructive inspiration, finding this:

This is a Flechette Launcher from Star Wars: Jedi Academy. It acts as a thermal shotgun, spraying out hot shards of shrapnel. Since it was quite a stocky, intimidating design with some curvature, I decided to incorporate it into the right arm and extended the length, so that it looked uniform with the Minigun on the other arm, adding my own spin onto the design by reinforcing the frame with additional geometry, adding circular connectors and an ammunition hose at the back to be reloaded without needing a physical magazine. 

Unwrapping:

Just like with the Rotary, I split the Haytham up into three different texture sets, to maintain good visual quality. 

Each part was separated into the Legs, Body & Weapons. Where it was possible, I also incorporated symmetry in order to mirror similar pieces of the mesh and save UV space. This occured on the left side of the arms, legs and chassis. However, the downside was that it was difficult to add custom/unique graphics, as it would be directly flipped onto the other side unless I manually separated the overlapping UVs.

Unity Project

Using my mockup from the last blogpost, I was able to create a 'basic' version of my concept inside Unity. However, this is very rough and has few attractive elements, more focused on the functionality of the buttons and arrows. In order to select the different Mechs and Camoflauge, I aim to use a script which simply hides/unhides a particular prefab when the arrow is selected, meaning that I can cycle through my various meshes properly.

From this point, I will be focusing on creating the other Mechs and Camoflauge textures before more work is completed in the engine. However, improvements will include custom UI buttons, an animated background, sculpted/textured bases for each Mech and some ambient sounds for atmosphere.

Next Blog Post - 16th March

In my next blog post, I will be demonstrating:

• Textured & Rendered Haytham Mech
• 3rd Mech Creation & Modelling
• 3rd Presentation