3d Stuff

[paulson games]

I started on a phallanx, it's the last of the 3 destroids varaints that share the same leg base. Basically a mech with garbage can arms that shoots lots of missiles

There's a lot more detailing work to go on this, I've only roughed it out at this stage.

[mangozac]

As wild and over the top as that design is, I actually quite like it! Interesting to see parts of the "roughing out" process in 3D modelling too...

And just think, if you replaced the missiles inside the pods with jet engines it could fly!

[Vaaish]

Nice start on that one!

[paulson games]

Back when I was a kid I always thought this design had the ugliest head, the head is actually just a set of searchlights and the cockpit is the tiny tank style visors on the chest.

There is a version that's listed as being offical that sports a mini gun in place of the search lights, but there's no offical pictures of it. I may end up doing a seperate gun piece to build that design as an option.

I think with a couple tweaks it could be a very interesting design, it does have a very functional if clumsy look to it. I would probably enlarge the cockpit windows to make them a bit more pronounced.

Since this is meant to be a long range mech that engages with AA missiles I would give it a large sensor array or a radar foil to help better track targets. I find it odd that they give a radar foil to the mech with the flak guns but not the missiles. It is a bit weak compaired to the other designs as these typically dump all their missiles in one shot and then retreat from the fighting.

I'd also add some small back up weaponry either under the arms or on the chest, supposedly the offical design has two defensive lasers but I don't see them anywhere in the drawings or in the animated series.

This is a screen shot of a variant that appears in one of the episodes that has a bunch of extra sensors, although it's not the mini gun version.

[paulson games]

I went back and made some revisions to the rifleman to help with casting. The body was looking a bit too squat so I raised the height of the cockpit and also seperated the ammo bins to help with casting. The radar array was thickened up and given some extra detail. The feet also recieved a slight modification to remove some of the undercutting around the heel.

Shouldn't be more than a week before I have the parts cleaned up and ready to cast.

[Vaaish]

cool stuff, though I might be a bit biased.

[Seb]

Indeed very cool. It is nuts seeing how far your 3D skills have come. For comparison, can you post one of your first models alongside the next project you complete?

I agree the missile mech is old school, but has a certain charm with such over the top weaponry.

- Seb

[paulson games]

The first model I did was the long rail gun, it was basically the same design that I am still making but I've revised a bunch of things on it. The original printing quality was crappy and cleaning it up by hand didn't help it much as a lot of the detail lost some of the hard edges and the lines weren't all that straight.






When I reprinted the rail gun I made a few tweaks to the model, namely adjusting the various depths of the panel lines. The original print had all the basic geometry as the current version but a few lines and raised detail were so shallow that they didn't show in the inital print. After the cleaning you couldn't see the weak details as they were removed, but you could see marks on the master print where they were supposed to be but they were too small on the computer model to print properly.

This is the updated model that benefits from the 3d mesh being redone with printing constraints in mind and also a kinder cleaning in place. It has the benefit of additional 3d experience but also a lot more experience with the cleaning process with the prints. I don't clean them quite as agressively and go a lot slower now. Very tedious but it makes for a much better sculpt.



The battlemechs being my newest work show the progression and also have some much tighter areas in terms of scale and detail. They also benefit a bit as I was following pre-established designs so I didn't have to create as much in my head as something that's completely new, it's always easier to copy something than raw scratch building.

At this point I think I'm able to take the modelling past what the current printing capacity is with moddler and I'll be trying some of the companies that Mad Robot has been using. It's significantly more expensive but I think the print quailty may let me make even finer details.

I'm still a huge fan of moddler's service so I will likely continue to use them for test prints or models that aren't over the top on detail. I'm looking at doing some 15mm scale stuff which is probably too fine of detail for their printer and will need the higher end stuff.

[Seb]

Actually that is a really good pair to make comparisons. Same product, but months of experience apart.

Thanks, was very interesting seeing the difference; let alone reading why there is such a marked improvement.

[paulson games]

These are probably close to a year apart maybe longer. I got the new version reprinted last summer, the original version might have been upwards to a year and a half older, man time flies.

[paulson games]

Glaug in progress, tons of work to go before this is able to be printed.

[blind pig]

OK, so it is a bit off-topic, but SOS Components here in Australia have made a 3D printed BULLBAR for a Mitzubishi Triton ute! This thing is huge and made in one piece.



http://www.3dprinting.com.au/

[mangozac]

Wow I'd hate to be paying the bill for that! Obviously from a printer with a very large build envelope. Actually I wonder how they normally do them. Handmade? CNC routed from foam?

[blind pig]

The size of it is what got me!

Injected moulded plastic is the norm, I think.

[paulson games]

Dang that's a huge build area, I imagine they have a custom built machine. Most of the pre-built ones are a smaller standard size with a build area under 2 ft, but I imagine some gear head could adapt a blueprint plotting table with a printer for something huge like that.

It is very impressive and I'm sure it wasn't cheap. Very cool.