I was bored

[MadGypsy]

I was bored so, I began modelling a turret. It's just a simple design that I would like to ellaborate on eventually. As it sits, the model is just a bunch of disconnected primitives that I threw together in 40 minutes. I would need to remodel this more singularly before I get deeper into details. Mostly so I can work with a mirror, instead of the duplicate and negative scale way I built this.


40 minutes



another 5 minutes

[PrimalLove]

Pretty! Thanks for sharing. Make sure the base is a separate model if you want to use it for a Quake mod so it can be turned independent of it. This would be cool for a tower defense quake mod.

[MadGypsy]

It would also be cool for the turret game I'm building for android/ios . BUT, I would be happy to share a turret model with you (when I complete one) so you can build a tower defense quake mod. I actually do have a completed turret MODEL but the skin is just flat grey. At this stage in my development its absolutely more about function than looks.

Thank you for the kind reply.

[MadGypsy]

aside.... My game is not Quake related but it doesn't have a consistent theme either. You will be a turret in a lot of crazy places fighting a lot of crazy things. That being said, I want one level that gives a significant nod to quake, visually. Maybe when that level comes I'll let the community here decide about the models and art.

I have a lot of ideas and for once I have a bit of help.

[MadGypsy]

oh, to be fair. This is the image I used for reference. I chose it because it was so primitive and left a lot of room in the geometry for me to go my own way from the base mesh.



I'll stop spamming now. I just wanted to post this so nobody that may stumble across this image will think I'm trying to claim my model is original. It will look quite a bit different when I'm done though.

[PrimalLove]

Cool! Yeah if you finish it that would be great! One of my favorite tower defense games is Sanctum! This model reminds me of that game! Sanctum 2 is also quite good! I recommend. It's a tower defense game in FPS format. Keep us posted on your progress.

[MadGypsy]

I have another trick up my sleeve for my turret game. You will have the ability to pilot 1 of 2 different classes of drones for short periods. 1 drone is basically defenseless and only used to retrieve items. The other drone is for fighting. It will go something like:

Use the turret to get kills and build up an away meter.
Pick a drone and go on a mission for the duration of the away meter, while your turret auto-defends according to the specs of itself.

This way, you get the best of both worlds. Immobile defense and mobile offense/stealth (depending on the drone class). I have many elements of this idea working. It will be FPS style with a few camera variation options that allow more of a spectator view when in turret mode

My game is being built on top of Away3D and Starling. Starling is basically just for menus and other 2D elements so, the actual playable part of the game is entirely built on Away3D. I'm doing this in AS3 so I can nail my concepts very quickly but, it will be ported to an openFL Haxe project before release. There is an Away3D Haxe engine already, so I just need to port my code.

Hmmm, that sentence just made me realize that I never checked for a Starling haxe port. Meh, small potatoes if there isn't one. Away3D can do 2D stuff just fine. Starling has some built-ins that could make my life easier though.

[golden_boy]

Solid base model.

Your turret looks quite a bit like the reference though, if you sell your game there might be copyright issues involved?

[MadGypsy]

@gb - yeah, I hate the 4 legs so, those will go. I dont like the wings either so those will go too. With the remainder, between some more mesh detail and a completely different texture I'm confident that my turret will be little more than inspired by the reference.

Also, the reference turret is totally primitive, my turret will definitely be more detailed. My game supports RTL's out of the box.. I mean I actually don't even know how to go about baking lights unless I do it in blender. That being said I want my models to be a reasonable mid-poly so the RTL's can have some detail to play with. And finally, all of my turrets will actually have 1 launcher and 2 barrels of varying caliber. Just that fact may be enough to break the likenesses.

I do agree with you. As it sits it is too similar. As an aside, If you would like to make a mid poly turret for my game, I would totally use whatever you make. It just needs to be separate anywhere it pitches or yaws and regular ole OBJ is perfect. Of course I would give you credit and probably even some cash eventually.If you wanted to make a map it would be super cake for you. Yet again nothing but an OBJ and basically maps are little more rhan interesting terrain or expansive arenas. I know you are busy and what not. I'm not really asking you to help, I'm just letting you know you are absolutely welcome to, and due to my lack of a theme, you can basically make whatever you want.

[MadGypsy]

I was going to post this last night but it's actually a pain in the butt to do this simple task on a mobile device. I wasn't in the mood. However, now it's today and I'm more willing to accept pains in my butt ( - no homo).

Feel free to tell me "it's bad-ass" whatever but I really want to know what you dont like. There are things about this that I don't like. I'll share them so you can see I'm trying to look at my own work objectively.

1) That magazine thing on the barrel really needs to be reconsidered.
2) it seems a little front heavy (hopefully not because it's a little busy)

Do you think it is still too "inspired" by my reference?
If you were being attacked from every conceivable direction by a barage of enemies, and this thing was spitting out an insane amount of firepower, and that was just level one, would you have fun?

[Spike]

it makes me think of total anihilation.
probably because the polies are far far too visible.
random extra stuff stuck on the side of the barrel looks like it would be too brittle or something. that gun is too large for any projectiles firing out of the barrel to not destroy the barrel. or maybe they're rail guns perhaps?
needs textures. quite probably tiled ones.

[MadGypsy]

noted and thank you.

@textures - I'm definitely not to that phase yet. I need to finish the mesh first.

[MadGypsy]

I took everything you said which currently applies and modified the cannon accordingly. I was with you on the random barrel junk so I ditched the ...whatever it was. I substantialky shortened the barrel, incresing the ratio that the "reinforcement bands" have to the barrel. I also adjusted the ratios of the steps in the smaller barrels in an attempt to gain back some detail from ripping the whatzits off. It doesn't feel compkete to me. It needs a.. .."thing".

sorry the pics are blurry...drank a bit too much coffee today. I also messed up and took the pics in face mode (I like edge mode pics) but it's too much of a bother to redo it.




Aside: regarding the ammo type for this turret - I was thinking this would be one of those laser/photon deals. Basically energy balls with intense impact for the cannon and small regular skool lasers for the other barrels. I actually need one more barrel. All turrets have to be able to shoot the equivalent of a rocket, a rifle round and an smg round. This turret has no smg equivalent.

[MadGypsy]

U think I'm basically done with the mesh. I decided the thing it needed, was for the level of detail of the overall turret to match that of the barrel. In the case of the fins, simply shortening them seemed to remove their prior "blankness". I added a simple cube between the arms, through the barrel to imply the barrel is a slave to the arms. Obviously the decoration on the arms is nothing but a way to balance the level of detail. I mayconvert the center ridge on the arm to a connection of the inset planes. The laser barrels are rotated toward the turret center by 2 degrees. I don't know if 2 degrees is going to end up being correct but, that's where I plan to start. I decided to take the detail along the top of the cannon barrel and make it the smg barrel.



Now I plan to go make some vertex groups and materials, eventually baking that down with an AO map, and see what all that gets me.

[MadGypsy]

I've been playing with baking in blender for like the entire day. I really wish textures weren't my Achilles Heel with carpal tunnel ankles, slaved to restless leg syndrome. Anyway, the model is too "only 8 sides" so Imma remodel it with double the roundness. Technically, I only need to redo the barrel but, I'm going to revisit the entire thing.

I have pictures of so far and whatnot but, there is nothing to see except bad textures assigned to the last version of mesh I posted.