Pheylan

Horatius MK III is done.

Ok, the other day I wanted to examine the engine glow from my earlier models (which were done in Lightwave) and try to replicate it in Modo. But dumb me forgot to write down what I did!

I figured that I could always go back and look at the original files, right. Well, you know how that one goes.....they're no where to be found. I don't know how I could have lost them.

So now I have to start over and retrace my steps.

This is what I've come up with so far. It's not bad, but not quite there yet. I think it needs a little more cyan color and maybe a tad brighter.



Also, I'm trying to re-create the laser effect I did. I'm having better success with that, but It may take a slightly different workflow in Modo then Lightwave.

P.S. I can just imagine how cool it would be to glance up and see one of these cruising by over head! I bet they would make a similar warbling sound as the Martian tri-pods in the 1953 version of "The War of the Worlds".

I still remember Dr. Forrester when he remarked..."This is amazing.!"

Continuing with my experiments in texturing.

I'm currently fiddling with two different versions of the green pattern....one camo and one plain. After endless tweaking to see what this or that button does, here is where I'm at.





Here is a close-up of the surface features and logo image. I made it back when I built the MK II in Lightwave and imported it into Modo. For some reason when I applied the textures, none of the shaders would work on the top and inner surfaces of the front hull halves. I discovered it had something to do with the "cull backface" setting. When I turned it off, everything was fine but then the textures would project onto the hull inner surfaces! Spent an hour trying to figure out why it was doing that with no luck. So I gave up and just assigned separate materials for the panels that the logos are on, copied the shaders and everything was good to go.



Btw, the hull number designates that this tank is assigned to the First Cohort of the infamous 13379th Strike Legion (The Harbingers of Death). Many a veteran would pause at the sound of their name for it is a unit that has never been defeated in battle. They also have the honor of combat testing most of the newest equipment being evaluated for service, so it comes as no surprise that they were chosen to put the MK III thru its paces.

And the Aeneas.

I made a few minor changes, but mostly it remained the same.




I figured out how to export better line drawings from Rhino for the schematic panels, so I was able to bump up the resolution for these. I also went back and edited the previous sheets....because I'm a perfectionist.

Romulus Recognition sheet updated. I went for a fresh out of the factory look.



*Edited for clarity.

Evening

Earlier, I was watching some size comparison videos on YouTube of various sci-fi game vehicles (Halo, Elite Dangerous, etc) and so I thought it might be interesting to take an inventory of what I've built so far.

Here's a composition of every vehicle with the exception of the Viper. It's still in the roughed out stage, so I didn't think it looked presentable. The rest are done or nearly completed.

The first row are all Commonwealth/Renegade Legion vehicles and the second and third are TOG.



It's helpful to get a good idea of how the scale of each model interacts with the others. Looking at the Vespasian, I think it might be a tad too big for a light tank so I'm going to re-size it down somewhat. In contrast the Wolverine looks kinda small-ish so perhaps I need to size it up, oh about 5% maybe.

In the meantime I'm going over some models and making misc. changes here and there, doing mesh cleanup and so forth, before continuing on with anything else major.

Keeping the momentum going.

For my next addition, I returned to something I've been tinkering on for quite awhile. The Horatius was the very first grav tank model that I worked on when I started this project, so it's a little special to me. The only thing I didn't like about it was the positioning of the 150mm Gauss cannon on the main hull in a tank destroyer fashion.

Well, this new model is my fanboy design.

My semi backstory:

A supercomputer was programed to come up with the ideal medium grav tank and out popped the Horatius. The original version had the gun located on the turret. All seemed well until an unforeseen flaw caused the turret traversing mechanism to freeze up after a few hours of continuous firing of the main gun. To remedy the problem, the 150mm was moved to its current position and the Horatius MK II was put into full production. However, despite the fact that the vehicle was a success on the battlefield and only in service for less than a decade, TOGSOG decided to put out a call for a new tank that could potentially replace the Horatius. Several designs have been submitted and are currently going thru testing. The leading contender being the Lepidus, by the Ssoran firm SS'ta Shekaa (the Ssora are a race of reptilian bipeds).

Not wanting to lose its lucrative contract Haneppas Industries, the manufacturer of the Horatius, decided to put in their own bid. To save time, instead of coming up with a new design from scratch, they re-vamped the existing one. New armor plating, state-of-art avionics and increased power were all added. Most importantly, the 150mm Gauss cannon was moved back to its original position vastly improving the tanks tactical capabilities. Both the Lepidus and Horatius MK III have their strengths and weaknesses and only time will tell which will win out in the end.

Ok, what did I change:

Increased the size of the turret, moved it to the centerline of the vehicle and further forward to its center of gravity.

Moved the 150mm Gauss cannon back to the turret (as mentioned above).

Moved the 3/6 laser to the right side of the turret (because I think it looks good there).

Uprated the Vulcan II to a Vulcan III and placed it in a mini-turret on the upper rear of the main turret.

Moved the sensor domes to the rear of the turret to clear the line of sight of the Vulcan III.

Increased the number SMLM missiles from two to six and moved them to where the main gun was located.

Replaced the 50mm Gauss cannon with a GMDC-15 (Gatling Mass Driver Cannon).

Added a commanders hatch and some misc. details.

Some components are just blocked in so still have some modeling yet to do.







Here's a comparison of the MK III vs the MK II on the right.




*Full disclaimer: I'm not sure but I believe I read on some blog site a long time ago, that another fan outlined their text version of a Horatius MK III but I just want to state for the record that I came up with my version independently, so any similarities are merely coincidental.

Some more blocking in on the Spartius' main hull. Next, I'll start building the spline cage and begin patchworking. Probably will take a few tries before I get it just right. Also, added in some sensor domes and a few other details.






I did some minor work on the Wolverine by adding in these undercuts to the forward hulls side panels. I believe they are big sections of armor so I think it makes them look pretty cool.

Good evening.

For those of you who might remember from the old F3D days, each time I would finish a 3D model I would create a recognition sheet with all the stats and background info for that vehicle. Well, I'm in the process of updating all the ones that I've made so far and want to upload them here as well.

First up is the Horatius.




Every now and then I'll post an update here, and as I (hopefully) roll out a new model in my other thread, I'll create an info sheet for that vehicle. The hard part is making the 2D ortho views shown in the bottom panels as technical illustrations. It was/is a long tedious process, so it takes awhile to produce one of these....but it's worth it.

*Edited for clarity.

Hello everyone.

This is my first thread here, but I've been a longtime lurker. I used to hang out at Foundation3D before that sadly went off-line. While there I began an ongoing project where I wanted to try my hand at building models based on the Renegade Legion universe. For those not familiar with it, Renegade Legion was a series of board games that was put out in the late 80's - mid 90's by FASA Corp., the same company that made the more popular BattleTech.

Although I'm not a board gamer myself, I've always been fascinated by the stories and artwork in RenLeg, which is why I chose this subject. Also, I wanted to do something that I've never seen before and up to that point no one had done high detail versions of the armored grav vehicles in the game, so I set out to be the first.

So far I've completed six models and started a bunch more including this one - the Bata Revo (Wolverine) Light Grav Tank. This my favorite design so I'm picking up where I left off with this wip.

Here's the metal game miniature that I'm using as my main reference. I'm also referring to a lot of game art.







And this is where I'm at so far. Most of major parts are done but I still have a lot to go.





The hardest part so far has been building the forward hull section and it was a royal PITA! I don't know how many hours I've spent rebuilding and tweaking this thing, but I'm finally satisfied with the results and now it's onto the turret.



I hope you enjoy it.