25 replies to this topic

[Tirick Fire]

I've not played Mechwarrior or Battletech in, well, almost 2 decades, but what I do is design paper models. I honestly cannot say how/why the pique to design strikes me, although this one was clearly influenced by the rerelease of the Battletech rules and my recent exposure to it. I'm keenly interested in getting the box set so I can start to train my kids in the ways of the tabletop battle.

As the title states: Modular Hexagonal 3D hills. Obviously this is designed with Battletech in mind, although anything using hexes could benefit. The hexes are 32mm, although easily scaled to suit any board. Each terrain elevation is designed to match the Battletech horizontal scale (1:1000), and each level is about 10 meters high to scale (1 cm). This was to keep the vertical/horizontal visual scales from looking too out of place. As well I designed ramps to ease transitions and more clearly define 'cliffs' vs graduating hills. As of yet they are untextured; they are hot off the press, I literally finished design about 3 hours ago and build in the last 1/2 hour.

Ideally the bits should be glued together for better stability and rigidity, but I've left them loose to demontrate the different layout potentials. They are a lot more stable that I expected in this state, to be honest.

Please ignore the badly painted Heavy Gear mech, it is the only 'mech' mini I have anymore. The rest are Reaper Fantasy or GW 40K.











Not certain how far I might go with this. I have some ideas in my head for modular Hex boards which will allow for reduction terrain, but my muse is fickle at best. This worked quite well, and held the weight (that bloody mini is heavy!). The angle of the ramp seems just right to prevent tipping.

Anyone interested in trying these out, drop me a PM. Once I have the design settled I'll be posting them up on my site, or a papermodelers.com (or both).

Enjoy!
Tirick

[TWolfWD]

Love it. This is exactly what I was thinking of doing, but decided against it because I didn't trust them to support the miniture's weight when the levels got above ~4. Looks like you may need a way to lock individual peices together. Perhaps slits on each side to allow you to slide a small locking tab in place?

Also, I haven't played Heavy Gear in ages. Thanks for that bit of Nostalgia.

Edited by TWolfWD, 04 June 2012 - 08:27 PM.

[Toxent]

Those are pretty nice. I'm working on a similar project, but mine are made out of polystyrene foam. I haven't thought to take any pictures of mine though.

[Dirk Le Daring]

Good work. I'll try them.

[Tirick Fire]

Thank you all for the comments!

Yes, my initial plan was to glue the elements together, but a locking slot might be a better option. I'll give it some though to a few different designs and then roll it into the final set. I do intend to fully texture these, starting with some basics; grass, sand/sere, snow.

I have a few ideas for buildings as well, although I would be making them as well to horizonal scale, rather than 'mech scale.

Here is a shot the 'mech on lvl 4:



The nice thing about 'scale' hills is the mini is only 4 cm up, rather than 4 inches. Next to impossible to make a 4" paper column stable.

Thank you,
Tirick

[TWolfWD]

Tirick Fire, on 05 June 2012 - 02:17 AM, said:

Next to impossible to make a 4" paper column stable.

Toothpicks and hot glue! Toothpicks and Hot glue everywhere!

[Tirick Fire]

Alright, I am now out of coloured ink, so you'll have to live with 3d images for now. I still have to add the 'slot' to the faces, although I'm intending to go with a vertical slit in each of the faces with a detachable guide/joiner.

I've added some grass textures to the faces, and modeled the rest of the hill elements. Mixing and matching these should provide ample choices with regards to layout. I'd like some feedback on the texture. I wanted to have the levels clearly defined on the hex faces, so that a quick glance could count the layers. I'll release a texture map at any rate so you can modifiy if desired.





I am working on road and track elements next, I might make them before releasing the set.

Thank you,
Tirick

[TWolfWD]

I'm a texture man, let me wip you up something for that grass! Expect another post (or an edit) soon!

Edit Time!

OK, so these are the two I'd like to share, a field of grass and a rock facing. The grass isn't the highest quality up close, but when you shrink it down to 1 inch it looks pretty good.

The resolutions are 512 at the widest edge, which gives you greater than 300 pixels per inch, more than enough.




If you like them, I'd be happy to upload more. They've been doing nothing and would love some use.

Edited by TWolfWD, 05 June 2012 - 07:40 PM.

[Vermaxx]

These are incredible. If you make a distributable product I'm interested, even if it has a cost associated.

Have you considered tiles with two different graphics on the top and bottom? Or are you definitely going 'this one is grass, that one is mountain' due to the side art? If you did the sides with a neutral color and pics on top and bottom, you could fight in a field punctuated with forests; or a barren planet dotted with rocky outcroppings.

Quite honestly, if you make a huge assortment of tiles (which would probably require us to print and assemble ourselves) these could work for modular 40k boards or any minis. Considering how expensive the GW boards are, and homemade terrain is inevitably just a table with stuff set on it; this could be a serious boon to the mini community.

As far as buildings or other raised man-made features (walls, highways, powerlines) yeah they would need to be horizontal scale rather than Mech scale. Best way is probably to make a series of tiles intended to fit together one way for large buildings, individual tiles with smaller building graphics, and generic wall / highway / powerline / pipeline segments on them, and let people just put the desired height mod UNDER them. If you do a wall or pipes please make corners! Perhaps towers with connecting buttresses out to each of NSEW on the hex, and similar substations for power or pipes.

God the more I sit here and armchair quarterback, the more I want you to make an entire line you sell.

Edited by Vermaxx, 05 June 2012 - 08:06 PM.

[Jordan Kell]

Tirick Fire, on 05 June 2012 - 04:51 PM, said:

Alright, I am now out of coloured ink, so you'll have to live with 3d images for now. I still have to add the 'slot' to the faces, although I'm intending to go with a vertical slit in each of the faces with a detachable guide/joiner.

I've added some grass textures to the faces, and modeled the rest of the hill elements. Mixing and matching these should provide ample choices with regards to layout. I'd like some feedback on the texture. I wanted to have the levels clearly defined on the hex faces, so that a quick glance could count the layers. I'll release a texture map at any rate so you can modifiy if desired.





I am working on road and track elements next, I might make them before releasing the set.

Thank you,
Tirick

HOLY S**T!!! You my friend are a TT gamers dream! Totally count me in on these.

[Tirick Fire]

TWolfWD, on 05 June 2012 - 07:22 PM, said:

I'm a texture man, let me wip you up something for that grass! Expect another post (or an edit) soon!

Edit Time!

OK, so these are the two I'd like to share, a field of grass and a rock facing. The grass isn't the highest quality up close, but when you shrink it down to 1 inch it looks pretty good.

The resolutions are 512 at the widest edge, which gives you greater than 300 pixels per inch, more than enough.

If you like them, I'd be happy to upload more. They've been doing nothing and would love some use.

Thank you! I normally handle all of my own textures, although my typical 'medium' is much smaller parts (I have a paper miniature design, with some vehicles, etc), but I'm happy to make this a joint effort. Broad areas and tiling are not my forte. I whipped these into place, replacing the original GIMP generated textures.





Much, much better.

Vermaxx, you have so many good questions! My muse hit me over the head with the project two days ago, so I'm still trying to think through 'the plan'. I'm not by-and-large a texture guy. I prefer to laminate detail (because I'm lazy). That said, better top textures are possible, certainly (although TWolfWD's look great for grass). Mix/matching elements will be possible too. I have a plan (that needs testing) for actual game boards in the same style, which would allow for depression areas. If not, the 'base' of a standard play-mat should work fine.

'Next' is definitely road/rail though. I have the basic road modeled, just need to make the options (turns/forks, risers, etc) and then texture. I am crazy about scale, so I also want to try to make cars/trains to match them. Part of me would love to see scale mechs in this kind of game board, but that might be a little challenging.

Thank you,
Tirick

EDIT:
PS: As far as selling goes; I tend to waffle between the benefits of doing so and the limitations. I do not intend to sell this set, or iterations of it. I'd much rather see this hit a larger base of players and the best way to do so is to distribute for free, without limitation. I do have a paper model store (online), although over half the 'stock' is free. Truly unique ideas I don't mind marketing, but I don't feel this is sufficiently 'unique' in that way.

Edited by Tirick Fire, 06 June 2012 - 03:44 AM.

[Hythos]

Awesome work! So much can be done these years with color laser printers! I wish I had more time for things like this!

[Tirick Fire]

May I humbly offer up tracks/trains:

The train shape (and rough texture) is based of the ICE trains the Deutsche Bahn employs. They elements are modular, so you can have as long a train as you would like. They are also independent of the track, which is comprised of a lot of independent elements. This will allow for destroyed sections (and raised sections) without the need to redesign.

I will be creating a more permanent texture for the train, I've used a placeholder for demonstration.



Enjoy,
Tirick

[TWolfWD]

I'm curious as to how that will come out in the actual paper.

Idea: Paper BattleTech, the Game! I'll code, and you model

[Tirick Fire]

Oh I've made things smaller... My core product is 1:50 posable paper figurines. I have a paper crossbow winch that is about 2 mm across, 1 mm deep.

To 'standard' scale (32mm base), the train will be about 2.5 mm wide and 3 mm tall. (2.5 meters x 3 meters to scale). The wheelbase is broader than a normal gauge track, but I doubt anyone will complain.

I do have an itch to mock up 'true' scale Mechs though. I hate scale discrepancies, and the CBT scale is way off. Actual mechs should be around 1 cm tall to scale.

[Tirick Fire]

I made a few scale markers, to aid with building construction and general sense of world-scale.





I may try to unfold and build these, although there are some prohibitively small elements.

Tirick

[Tirick Fire]

A lot of the parts will be interchangeable with the road elements, which I will start to model/texture soon. I'm still stumped on the track curves, so I might start on roads before tackling that. Bridge elements, both river/depression crossing and level 1 hills. The grade is a little steep (6.5 deg), but in the interests of keeping the incline limited to 3 hexes I left it.





I have a Guild Wars 2 beta this weekend, after which I will collect the first parts together (hills) and release a file set.

Tirick

[Tirick Fire]

Apparently it is possible, if only just, to make 1:1000 scale mechs. For reference, that Canadian penny is about 18 mm in diameter.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

I didn't make the toes, I'm sure you'll all forgive me.

In retrospect, if I was to make this a 'thing', if make it card laminar/folded, in many places, rather than paper box structures.

Enjoy!
Tirick

[Sychodemus]

Nice work. I like the idea of paper better than styrofoam (syrofoam fumes were the bathsalts of yesteryear.)

I don't know if I like the transition hexes so much, though. There are far too miniatures out there whose center of gravity dislikes even the slightest degree of change.

But that is just me. Nice work once again.



*Edited to use the correct words.

Edited by Sychodemus, 12 June 2012 - 06:58 PM.

[TWolfWD]

I don't know how you were able to put those minis togethor, but the look schmexy! I would totally play with those.