FMP Week 25 - March 16th - The Ranger & Haytham

  FMP Week 25 - March 16th

Ranger Creation (Mech #3) & Haytham Texturing

William Marshall

Blog

Now that I'm nearing the end of this project, I've been pushing to get all of my Mechs textured and modelled, ready for animation & feedback. My Third Mech is called the Ranger, which has a different role compared to the Haytham and Rotary, being a long-range variant that is heavily inspired by modern tanks and sci-fi drones. 

The intended role for the Ranger is a long-range artillery piece designed to penetrate enemy armour, much like the role of a modern tank. Additionally, the spider-like construction also allows the Ranger to scale difficult terrain and 'cling' to a larger variety of surfaces, making it more maneuverable than a tread/tire-based vehicle.

Ranger Design

My Design:

Early on in September 2020, I created these 4-legged designs to add some variation to the rest of my silhouettes. When I was considering which Mech to create for my 3rd slot, I decided to incorporate these 4-legged concepts so that the 3rd was more unique and varied. Originally named the 'Scorpius', I decided to incorporate elements from Drillwyrm, E-77 Reaver and Knifedge. The most unique trait was going to be the Scorpion tail from the Drillwyrm, which would be able to fire in a 180-degree arc around the front of the vehicle, most likely some sort of anti-infantry weapon due to the flexibility.

Milanote References:

Star Wars - Spider Droid

Ghost in the Shell - Spider Tank

Modelling

Modelling the Ranger combined elements from the Rotary and Haytham, as it combined both boxy and cylindrical shape design. The main turret/body was constructed by using various tank references, taking into account the slim & curved profile to deflect enemy projectiles. Once the main body was constructed, I was able to create the legs by using a four-boned structure to ensure stability and ease of movement, before using the symmetry tool to place them at 90-degree angles around the lower body so that everything looked symmetrical.

One of my early concepts had a cockpit with two pilot positions, as the first seat would have been for movement and primary controls, with the second seat controlling the weapons on the front and tail. However, when I scrapped the idea of the scorpion tail, it didn't seem necessary to have the two seats, so I converted it into the tank-on-legs concept that you see now.

The entirety of the model was made within 2-3 days, due to the tank construction being the main 'body' of the piece and the legs being duplicated around the mesh. 

Unwrapping

Due to the Ranger having fewer pieces than the Rotary and Haytham, I was able to condense the model into two texture sets, rather than the three I had for the previous two Mechs. If any upgrades or additional pieces were added to the mesh, I'd be able to incorporate those into a third texture set if necessary. 

Any pieces relating to the legs were overlayed on top of each other in the map, increasing the overall resolution, as four copies were effectively combined into one. This also happened for any instances/copied objects, in order to maximize the visual quality. 

Ranger Texturing

When it came to texturing the Ranger, I decided to incorporate ideas from both the Rotary (Camo & Metal) and Haytham (Armour boxes, Curvature, Unique Markings) to get the best of both worlds. I painted the outer layers of the Ranger with camouflage appropriate to certain environments, such as snow and desert. The inner layers were given a standard grey metallic appearance, to ensure that there was a clear 'Primary' and 'Secondary' colour in the scene. The third colour was applied to the armoured boxes on the exterior of the body (to absorb impacts and act as composite armour). 

I also made heavy usage of paintable layers and hard-surface normals to achieve the illusion of greater detail in the mesh. This included things like painted decals, insignia, arrows, hatches and switches. Without them, the Mesh would look a lot more basic and far less interesting.

Haytham Texturing

Last week, I presented the Haytham and some basic texturing for it. Afterwards, I went on to create several variations (much like the Rotary) that would be used in different situations. For instance,

Brown/Black - Stealth Missions, 'Vintage' look, Low-Key

Green/White - Biohazard, Radioactive, Sports

Original Green/Orange - Factory New, Urban Combat

White/Blue - Snow, Blizzards, Storms, High-Altitude

Creating these variations and thinking of their intended purpose gave a greater context to each of the textures, which I enjoyed doing. 

Engine Work & Transitions

Once I had combined all of the varied models and materials and set them up in my engine (using the mockups and inspirations I had created previously), I've been able to showcase the current state of my project more effectively, as I now have some interactivity in my scene, as well as a unique transition which helps everything flow better and feel smoother. These transitions were set up by animations which had a 'Fade In' and 'Fade Out' trigger dependant on whether the scene was being loaded or opened for the first time. The buttons themselves simply changed the scene over with a delay of 1 second to demonstrate the transition working, using simple C# code. 

Next Blog Post - 30th March

By the time of my next blog post, I will be working on these:

• Ranger Improvements
• Mech Rigging
• First Animations