thank you. I'm not an expert in the field so I don't know why they do it this way (my best guess is that after the round is deflected it looses much of it's penetration ability) but like half of modern tanks have this turret shape. Some examples are later leo 2s, T-90s, Merkava mk4s. This is supposed to be an IDF tank so I tried to keep some resemblance to general design traits of merkavas.
it was the perspective. The first images and the shadows made it look like the turret was mounted in an odd way. Plus I'm used to seeing the bottom of a turret more flush with the hull of the tank like most American and West European designs.
i dont like the tank no offense but the top just looks to rounded and devoid of details compared to your mechs. If you want i was thinking of contributing to the same universe as ive got loads of similar themed universe vehicles that would suit near future mech combat as both of our universes.
I had some difficulty designing a tank that would look feasible a few decades into the future. I know it's pretty bold atm but that's because I'm still pretty early into it. I intend to add most of the stuff you see on modern tanks. The european and soviet mechs took me a long time, I've worked on this for a few hours
It would be awesome to combine our efforts if you wish. If your models work within the basic rules of the universe.
Well, May I suggest to dig around the internet for renderings and presentations of the Future Combat System from the US Army, the whole process has been canned by now but if you want to see some ugly- as-hell high-tech light tanks, they're the ones...
On the other hand, immerse yourself in Israeli armoured vehicles. They're the kings of modding existing hardware and coming up with innovative idea's for high-tech warfare, especially in an urban environment. (APC's built around tank chassis with multiple remote muliti-weapon turrets etc etc, cool stuff!)
I did, those US army vehicles are so damn ugly and uninteresting imo, lol. Maybe if I'll be making a britannian tank later on I'll follow that philosophy.
The stuff they make in israel isn't anything new or overly innovative, others have made tank based apcs before (mostly in the ex soviet bloc countries because they love to recycle stuff) and automated unmanned turrets are used by many modern armies. I really love ukrainian made BMPT-84, that's what you call serious infantry protection, lol. Merkava can carry a few troops inside too though. The one thing that really sets israeli vehicles apart is their idea of reapirability, apparently they are like some of the easiest vehicles in the world to maintain, and anything can be removed and replaced quickly in battlefield conditions.
The K2 really is cool, but realistically speaking pretty much no modern MBT has a serious advantage over any other.
If I would ever get around to finishing everything I already started I would love to move on to some apcs, I also want to do some light all terrain vehicles akin to humvees. I also would really want to make command versions of mechs. But this is moving pretty slow. I've been working on the city scene with the soviet mech, but it's all the boring stuff that has to be done but can't really be displayed until the final image is done. Nothing overly exciting about road signs Will be extremely busy in next few days and going for a 4 day canoeing trip on the weekend so probably won't have any updates until next week. If you want to join in we could even do some cool combination scenes with my and your stuff.
yeah im off to france for 10 days on wed so ill chip in with some vehicles when u get back, id like to come up with an APC that can be outfitted in different ways, you will have to do the renderings however im not to good at that.
Here are a few wips from the command apc decided to keep it as a hovercraft and no wheels. The reactive armor needs changing and still needs little features but this will be the basic shape.
well im off to france so I finished that model for you, added wheels instead in the end and ill send you the 3ds file to your email. When I get back i can make texture maps but you will have to apply them im useless at that.
that's awesome liam, I like the wheeled version even more
ladies and gentlemen I present to you the biggest waste of time and polygons you'll see in a while: 3d bolts on bolt on armour panels, lol. I'm definately doing this with textures next time around.
Also if anyone's interested I finished the city scene with the soviet mech. Gallery link.
yes, it's going to be an IDF tank so I tried to keep it in merkava design lines. It seems to be a general idea that it's hard to make out the mech in the city scene, but when I try to somehow make it more visible it looks pasted on and as if it's not part of the scene
what about illuminating it from the moon or stretlights/spotlight from another vehicle? Was just thinking as well how are the mechs transported about, to big for trucks and planes, can go in a ship but not if it has to go far inland. Any plans to design a transport aircraft?
Hey that's actually something interesting to think about. Well train is the first thing that comes to mind, but it would need some form of jointed base because I don't think your could fit it onto one car. Well I mean they could walk, lol. And especially the newer models will have a wheeled mode so if a road is available they can move around much more efficiently than walking. It would be one hell of an aircraft though.
Currently messing around with a new paintjob for the european mech
yeah i had an idea of a maglev and train but also of an airship ( sounds crap but its got potential of heavy lift capabilities when compared to an aircraft that would use so much fuel to carry these things), they could walk lol but if the theater of war was 6000 miles away they would take a while lol. Ive been thinking about it a lot and have a few sketches that ill be posting soon.
the thought of an airship crossed my mind as well, but it seems the disadvantages would be too many. Apart from being slow it's vulnerable as hell. I mean you could probably bring those things down with high caliber sniper rifles, lol
you could but if you controlled the airspace and brought them down behind your foward line it should be alright, there is no reason they couldnt be armored either? I know DARPA and the US military was pondering the idea not so long ago: it was called the walrus program walrus heavy lift, also if its helium or such and not hydrogen its not flamable and its already proven that small arms fire has no effect. I read a report on tests the RAF did and basically even with hundreds of small puncture rounds from 7.62 mm fire its still only lost around 3% of its lift capability. Ill look around for the report and post it when I find it.
EDIT
'A series of structural vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600, an earlier airship built by the Munk team to a similar pressure-stabilised design. Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. The airship is virtually impervious to automatic rifle and mortar fire: ordnance passes through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the vehicle was able to complete its mission and return to base. The internal hull pressure is maintained at only 1–2% above surrounding air pressure, the vehicle is highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small arms fire or missiles'
Here is an image of a skyship 600 the same type they did the test on: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Airship_at_Floyd_Bennett.jpg
And pics of the walrus concept Walrus HULA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Google Image Result for http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_WALRUS_Aeros_Concept_lg.jpg
I dunno it seems in modern warfare the line of battle is a vague concept at best. I guess you're right about armouring them, it would increase their weight quite a bit though. The main thing against them I think is that they're really slow. I'm pretty sure these mechs would be able to move around faster than an airship. I think the best option for fast long range transport would be conventional aircraft.........minor assembly required, lol. An-225s could lift up to 250 tons, considering the further advancement of technology maybe you could make a more.....uhh...fat plane to even carry the whole mech without having to play lego every time you load/unload it.
These are from an elite european detachment, don't know about name yet, maybe ritter der alten welt (does that make any sense? I forgot most of the german I learned in elementary/middle school). I want to make an image from this but I'm struggling with making a sort of woodland like terrain around them. I tried a few trial versions of terrain creation software and all of them seem great when you do those really far out shots of mountains and such as they show in their website galleries but really not so great for close up shots.
Haven't had a lot of time for 3d lately hence the lack of updates. I'm scrapping the drone I started a few pages back with this thing. It started out pretty much as my first experiment into proper sub-d modelling (something I've always been afraid of). I've actually made the missile first and then just started randomly making the plane around it, lol. We'll see where it goes. I've also built a new rig but one of the 8 ram sticks didn't work and they made me send them back all of them to replace. It's been like a freaking month and a half now and nothing, will probably call them again soon. It should give me the freedom to be a little less concerned about keeping the poly count within my current P4s low limits, heh.
Anyways on the plane, I know its a bit early. the "2 strips" that cover up the lack of any system where the wings meet main body are just there because I can't come up with a good variable wing model yet.
These are from an elite european detachment, don't know about name yet, maybe ritter der alten welt (does that make any sense? I forgot most of the german I learned in elementary/middle school). I want to make an image from this but I'm struggling with making a sort of woodland like terrain around them. I tried a few trial versions of terrain creation software and all of them seem great when you do those really far out shots of mountains and such as they show in their website galleries but really not so great for close up shots.
ritter der alten welt
Translation
knights of the old world.
Makes perfect sense.
Maybe adding capital letters as it is done in German:
For transport, you might think about something like the Boeing Pelican. It was an ultra-large aircraft study with at 500 ft. wingspan that was able to lift 1,400 tons while skimming about 50 ft. above the wavetops.
Edit: I found an old sketch of a plane based on the Pelican that I want to do someday: the QC-42 Leviathan!
Berkut, Carrara is a fairly reasonable scene renderer. v6pro is available through a cheap DAZ magazine offer (Free along with Hexagon 2.5 FREE) and generates trees and terrain.
I'll send you the link to the cheap magazine offer PM me.
BTW, great looking work, if you need someone to render these in a scene, you know where I am.
I've played around with some demos and I think vue is the way to go. But trying to do anything interesting in it is impossibly slow on my current machine, will have to wait till my freaking ram finally comes back for the new pc.
Kilminster, thanks dude, will keep that in mind if I ever manage to finish that image, heh.
Mikey, looks interesting. At the speed I'm doing this stuff at though I don't know if I'll ever get as far as making a transport. I have 4 models in progress right now for this universe, and like 5 scene ideas
Magnatude, thank you but I think I'll go with vue. And thanks for the rendering offer, but I'm one of those people that want to do the whole thing start to finish.
to show you guys that I haven't gone silent again, heh
I started (I know another wip) a generation 2 overhaul of the soviet mech. The reason being that I want to try making an action shot and the mechs I have finished right now would never fight according to the story. I want to make new dawn mechs stand apart a little bit too rather than just have a different paintjob. Anyways the new dawn upgrade to the kodiak: (I'll prolly rename it too rather than just kodiak Mk...) Still a quite a few things to do
Posts
It would be awesome to combine our efforts if you wish. If your models work within the basic rules of the universe.
On the other hand, immerse yourself in Israeli armoured vehicles. They're the kings of modding existing hardware and coming up with innovative idea's for high-tech warfare, especially in an urban environment. (APC's built around tank chassis with multiple remote muliti-weapon turrets etc etc, cool stuff!)
And last but not least, have a look at the most high-tech tank currently in production; the South Korean K2 battle tank:
K2 Black Panther - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
k2 tank - Google Afbeeldingen
The stuff they make in israel isn't anything new or overly innovative, others have made tank based apcs before (mostly in the ex soviet bloc countries because they love to recycle stuff) and automated unmanned turrets are used by many modern armies. I really love ukrainian made BMPT-84, that's what you call serious infantry protection, lol. Merkava can carry a few troops inside too though. The one thing that really sets israeli vehicles apart is their idea of reapirability, apparently they are like some of the easiest vehicles in the world to maintain, and anything can be removed and replaced quickly in battlefield conditions.
The K2 really is cool, but realistically speaking pretty much no modern MBT has a serious advantage over any other.
http://ve.ida.org/rtoc/open/SIP/sipgifs/stryker-3.jpg
http://xbradtc.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/stryker_050101a_0ntyoa2005-01-31.jpg
maybe you could do a force of Unmanned FV's controlled from special command mechs
Here are a few wips from the command apc decided to keep it as a hovercraft and no wheels. The reactive armor needs changing and still needs little features but this will be the basic shape.
ladies and gentlemen I present to you the biggest waste of time and polygons you'll see in a while: 3d bolts on bolt on armour panels, lol. I'm definately doing this with textures next time around.
Also if anyone's interested I finished the city scene with the soviet mech. Gallery link.
Hey that's actually something interesting to think about. Well train is the first thing that comes to mind, but it would need some form of jointed base because I don't think your could fit it onto one car. Well I mean they could walk, lol. And especially the newer models will have a wheeled mode so if a road is available they can move around much more efficiently than walking. It would be one hell of an aircraft though.
Currently messing around with a new paintjob for the european mech
EDIT
'A series of structural vulnerability tests were done by the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency DERA on a Skyship 600, an earlier airship built by the Munk team to a similar pressure-stabilised design. Several hundred high-velocity bullets were fired through the hull, and even two hours later the vehicle would have been able to return to base. The airship is virtually impervious to automatic rifle and mortar fire: ordnance passes through the envelope without causing critical helium loss. In all instances of light armament fire evaluated under both test and live conditions, the vehicle was able to complete its mission and return to base. The internal hull pressure is maintained at only 1–2% above surrounding air pressure, the vehicle is highly tolerant to physical damage or to attack by small arms fire or missiles'
Here is an image of a skyship 600 the same type they did the test on: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a1/Airship_at_Floyd_Bennett.jpg
And pics of the walrus concept
Walrus HULA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google Image Result for http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_WALRUS_Aeros_Concept_lg.jpg
Anyways on the plane, I know its a bit early. the "2 strips" that cover up the lack of any system where the wings meet main body are just there because I can't come up with a good variable wing model yet.
ritter der alten welt
Translation
knights of the old world.
Makes perfect sense.
Maybe adding capital letters as it is done in German:
Ritter der alten Welt
I like those two.
Edit: I found an old sketch of a plane based on the Pelican that I want to do someday: the QC-42 Leviathan!
Neat mechs!
I'll send you the link to the cheap magazine offer PM me.
BTW, great looking work, if you need someone to render these in a scene, you know where I am.
I've played around with some demos and I think vue is the way to go. But trying to do anything interesting in it is impossibly slow on my current machine, will have to wait till my freaking ram finally comes back for the new pc.
Kilminster, thanks dude, will keep that in mind if I ever manage to finish that image, heh.
Mikey, looks interesting. At the speed I'm doing this stuff at though I don't know if I'll ever get as far as making a transport. I have 4 models in progress right now for this universe, and like 5 scene ideas
Magnatude, thank you but I think I'll go with vue. And thanks for the rendering offer, but I'm one of those people that want to do the whole thing start to finish.
I started (I know another wip) a generation 2 overhaul of the soviet mech. The reason being that I want to try making an action shot and the mechs I have finished right now would never fight according to the story. I want to make new dawn mechs stand apart a little bit too rather than just have a different paintjob. Anyways the new dawn upgrade to the kodiak: (I'll prolly rename it too rather than just kodiak Mk...) Still a quite a few things to do