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Creating a mecha Ankylosaurid


khaja
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Hey everyone. for one of my university modules we are required to model a prehistoric flying or walking creature. I decided to go for a hard surface version of an Ankylosaurid. Known as the armoured dinosaur they are low to the ground and wide with some of this family having a mace like tail that, at current thinking, did have the necessary tendons to be swung as a weapon. So my initial sketch is this (i am by no means a concept artist)

mechasaurconceptreadyformodelling_zpsa6ac4f78.png

the back legs are similar to the front. This needs adjusting for more articulation but it's around right. I have modelled the cockpit gun and most of the cockpit and i'm currently modelling the legs. (APOLOGIES IF I SHOULD BE ATTACHING THESE IMAGES OR LINKING THEM RATHER THAN PLACING THEM HERE) Comments and critique welcome :D

cockpitlegprogresscopy_zpse04c9ff4.jpg

cockpitguncomposit_zpsa4b5dacd.png

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hey everyone, so i steamed through the rest of the modelling progress over the week and have finished with this 46 mill tri monster (any ways to Resample the entire scene without having to go through each subtree or merge everything would be great). I meant to post some pictures of the completed leg the other day but instead it'll have to go here. I'm unfamiliar with 3d coats rendering system, so any tips and tricks there would be great, but i thought i got some alright renders (ok i'll admit, they were screengrabs of the render window as my pc was dieing.). This is the probably the last i'll be using 3d coat for this project but i will keep people posted on how this continues as it will be animated for use in the unreal engine, either as a player character orrrr as an NPC to chase the player.

Anyway the two files attached below show the progress of the leg that i meant to post the other day and the finished dino. There's more work i could do to this model but for now i'm leaving it and carrying on to the next step.

comments and critiques always welcome :D

post-28930-0-56761200-1363221210_thumb.p

post-28930-0-97559600-1363221215_thumb.j

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(any ways to Resample the entire scene without having to go through each subtree or merge everything would be great).

Right click on any voxel layer and choose Merge Visible from the popup menu, but I wouldn't do that until you are done with retopo (so you can work on each part separately).

Just to warn you, it is going to take you a while to retopo this for the Unreal Engine!

Fastest retopo method is to use the spline tool first to do most of the work, then go back and touch it up with the other tools. Use the brush tool to relax the mesh as you go. I seldom use the Points/Faces tool.

Some parts of your mesh may not be easy to retopo in 3D-Coat. Instead it might be faster to just model those parts again in a polygonal modeling app, and then just merge those sections back onto your retopo mesh. It does not take long to send those parts between the two apps.

I hope these suggestions help. Good luck!

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  • 1 month later...
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Oh wow it's been a longggg while since i've posted on here. Oh dear. Anyway this project is pretty much finished now and i was wondering if i could get some critique from the wonderful people on this forum. For the most part i did the low poly in 3s max and the texturing in photoshop as they are what i'm most comfortable. 3d coat had it's uses though. Especially when marking out areas of detail without trying to guess on the UVW's.

There are a lot of images so i won't post them all. However I can give you the link to my photobucket library that contains the images. http://s1288.photobucket.com/user/viper22366/library/ (hope that works) and also the link to the animation video for this project.

Hope you enjoy and yeh critique is always welcome no matter how harsh.

ooo forgot to mention that most of the renders were done in UDK.

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Hey khaja, One of the most crucial things in presenting a model is the lighting, and as of now your model is not being illuminated well enough, so it becomes very hard to comment on anything about the model. I think you should work a little bit more on this and see what you come up with.

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