Mech #1

So over the past couple weeks I have been working on a top secret Mech game. I cant really say much about the game itself, but this is what I can tell you. The player can join one of two teams of mechs. The mechs are fully customizable from body parts to weapons. And the last thing I can say is that you get to blow things up. To sum it up, it's going to be one awesome mech game!

I have been given the tasks of modeling, rigging and animating the mechs. I have been modeling the mechs according to Kai Hulme's concept art which has been great and makes life a lot easier. I had to tweak a couple things from the concepts to get the model to look right and functional in 3D.

Concept Art:

Fig 1.1) Front and Side View

Fig 1.2) Perspective View

3D Models:

Fig 2.1) Front View

Fig 2.2) Side View

Fig 2.3) Perspective View

This project has also given me a chance to learn how to rig models and set up controllers. The rigging is very basic so it makes is less intimidating and gives me a great learning curve and foundation to get to know the process and steps involved. Since the only part of the mech that has to be animated for now is the legs, it makes things a lot easier to deal with. Basically I have got a joint for every pivot where the mech's legs can rotate. The mech I have been working on has human like legs so rigging it was simple, a joint for the waist, hips/thighs, knees, ankles and foot with and IKhandle attached from the hip to ankle. This is like most biped rigs are set up.

Rigging:

Fig 3.1) Rig Setup

Using this rig, I have animated a walk cycle for this mech. This is the first bit of animation I've gotten the chance to do for the year. I had to be careful with how much I moved the legs because I didn't want and clipping to happen. I had a problem where the knees of the mech would snap just after the foot hit the ground and managed to solve this by shortening the stride of the walk. I think I managed to get a pleasing result for this walk cycle.

Animation:

Animation 1.1) Walk Cycle

And that's it for now. I believe I have achieved the desired result and I am pleased with my effort. Feel free to leave any comments or constructive criticism, thanks.