Bay 12 Games Forum

I meant a visual pop, don't worry. There will be no sound in space, and that's a promise!

My excitement for this game just increased by several magnitudes.

Thanks! It was rendered using the always awesome Cycles. The scratches/engravings are like bumpmaps. Cycles calls it "displacement".


About the robot: It looks cool at first glance, but then my eyes are drawn to the ridiculous looking legs. How is this thing supposed to even walk? Or is it supposed to be a static turret? Either way, the legs are way too small. It looks like the thing will fall over if you sneeze on it. Definitely not what you want for any kind of armed robot. Contrast it with this.

Other than that, technically the model is very nice. There is nothing that seems to be off with the mesh. Aesthetically, I like the entire middle part a lot. I like the thing going on with the neck. The head I don't like so much. First of all, the head looks pretty boring; it's mostly a few simple shapes. Second, it looks different to the rest of the model: it's flat, while the rest of the robot is round, you know? Third, the beige color reminds me of ugly computer cases from the 90s.

One thing it's missing in general is detail. You made it seem like it's still a work in progress, though. Or you could be going with the flat, featureless design that reminds me of Portal. Here's my advice, anyway: make some lines that split up parts of the model. For example, looking at the arms, it seems like they're just one piece. How were the guns fitted into there? I think you should make it seem like it's made of two pieces. Think about cars, and how you can see the lines that seperate the car from the bumpers and doors. Or look at any plastic object nearby. Small details like that add a lot to a model.

So I've been working on a katana for the last 7 days. It turned out... decent. Modelling all of the strings around the handle was something I've never done anything like before. Even so, I think I learned more about katanas than I did about modelling.

Direct link (huge image)

Uncompressed PNG download, if anyone cares

(Another thing I learned: there are no good image hosts that are free. imgur loves converting PNGs into JPGs, and Troovi didn't provide a direct link to the image.)

Anyone is welcome to critique it to hell and back. Don't mind the fact that I worked on it for 4 hours a day and it took 12 hours to render, I want to know people's honest opinion.

Also, more suggestions, please? Something simple, like a coin or a glass or something.

Last panel = Urist McCarpenter

I was thinking about doing something exactly like this, but I never had the willpower to make a topic. I know my way around Blender fairly well, but I want more experience modeling things. Do you mind if I leech off of this thread?

Personally, I would prefer that each robot be the same. All of them look identical, except for their materials and tools.

On a different note, I've slapped together a basic collision mesh for the physics of having a mine cart roll down a track. I'll be looking into track laying next. I was thinking of letting the player define the rails using B-splines or cat-splines so we get smooth tracks (Smooth tracks means less bouncing of the mine cart), but I'll have to figure out how to make this play nice with the voxels, because a naive implementation would end up with tracks that are half in one voxel and half in the other. After that I'll do some more work to optimize the mine cart physics, so moves and derails in a natural way.

I don't think we need any fancy B-splines or anything. Actually, now that I think about it, something like that would work. At first, I was thinking it would be easier to just make a few models for each type of turn. But then, if the voxels turn out to be small, there could be all sorts of possible turns and small chicanes and whatnot. Some sort of curve... thing would work. (You obviously know what you're talking about.)

Also, just to be clear: we're using Unity's physics engine for the entire minecart simulation? That seems like the easiest solution, but it seems like it will be quite slow. Instead of a full simulation, I suggest an optimization: instead of using cylinders or something to internally represent the wheels, I suggest using boxes. The boxes wouldn't rotate, but it would still look natural I think. The wheels would still appear to turn. I'm not explaining it very well.

   I was thinking something along the lines of a mix of your two ideas. It had the stout body of Dread's but the treads of Araph's plus an actual steam tank thing attached like a backpack but supported by the treads. But then again I did not even draw anything and am not the artist so whatever everyone likes.

I disagree with all of that. I thought about making the steam tank a backpack, but then I realized that there wouldn't be much else to put in the torso. Putting the tank in the torso makes sense to me. Also, I think bulky body and treads won't look good at all.

Speaking of treads, I found this random image on Google Images. I think your treads are too flat. The robot will be going over all sorts of terrain, so they need treads to suit them. I think the tread style in the center left (an inverted trapezoid) would work well.