9 replies to this topic

[HlynkaCG]

I've been doing a lot of CAD and 3d rendering for school of late, and after messing around in blender with the basic mech assets I've decided to have a little fun with it and try to model a realistic Union class Dropship.

Unfortunately there seems the be quite a bit of conflicting Information in regards to Dropship configuration and capabilities. That said pretty much all sources and artist's depictions agree on the following...

• All up (Wet) mass: 3500 tons
  
• Dimensions: 81.5 x 81.5 x 78 meters
  
• 4 Landing legs
  
• 4 RCS pods arranged equidistantly around the vessel's "equator"
  
• 2 Mech bays, one atop the other. Aerotech: Drop Ships and Jump Ships mentions that the upper bay is 50 meters in diameter and accounts for most of the vessel's carrying capacity as such I will assume that the upper deck larger than the lower.

I've started off by blocking off the basic hull as a 80 meter sphere and trimming the base to so that it is the requisite 78 meters in height.

Placing MWO's Atlas along side, the scale appears appropriate. My first step moving forward will be to block off the spaces occupied by the mech bays, landing gear, engines and other major components. The intent is for the model to be fully riggable, without cheating.


Atlas + Gantry taken from MWO game files

For a sense of scale, that figure between the Atlas' legs is a basic 1.8m tall human.



Looking at the same scene with in orthographic view with a reference image in background. The scale of the Atlas itself (17m x 10) feels appropriate but I suspect that I will have to resize the gantry or design my own to make it fit. at 26 meters It is simply too tall to fit within the confines of the ship's hull comfortably.

[Shepherd]

I assume you're getting the gantry from the MWO video where the Atlas hot-drops with all of that great rock and roll music?

I wonder if that's a gantry specific to the Leapord class dropship? That class of dropship can drop a 'mech out from the bottom, but I've never imagined a Union class dropship being able to do that. I've always imagined the Union class popping a mech out from the side. So maybe there is a different gantry to go along with the different method of ejecting the mech?

Since height of the gantry is your problem, make it shorter

[Bishop Steiner]

HlynkaCG, on 07 July 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

I've been doing a lot of CAD and 3d rendering for school of late, and after messing around in blender with the basic mech assets I've decided to have a little fun with it and try to model a realistic Union class Dropship.

Unfortunately there seems the be quite a bit of conflicting Information in regards to Dropship configuration and capabilities. That said pretty much all sources and artist's depictions agree on the following...

• All up (Wet) mass: 3500 tons
  
• Dimensions: 81.5 x 81.5 x 78 meters
  
• 4 Landing legs
  
• 4 RCS pods arranged equidistantly around the vessel's "equator"
  
• 2 Mech bays, one atop the other. Aerotech: Drop Ships and Jump Ships mentions that the upper bay is 50 meters in diameter and accounts for most of the vessel's carrying capacity as such I will assume that the upper deck larger than the lower.

I've started off by blocking off the basic hull as a 80 meter sphere and trimming the base to so that it is the requisite 78 meters in height.


Placing MWO's Atlas along side, the scale appears appropriate. My first step moving forward will be to block off the spaces occupied by the mech bays, landing gear, engines and other major components. The intent is for the model to be fully riggable, without cheating.


Atlas + Gantry taken from MWO game files

For a sense of scale, that figure between the Atlas' legs is a basic 1.8m tall human.



Looking at the same scene with in orthographic view with a reference image in background. The scale of the Atlas itself (17m x 10) feels appropriate but I suspect that I will have to resize the gantry or design my own to make it fit. at 26 meters It is simply too tall to fit within the confines of the ship's hull comfortably.

just to be a pill, if you use TT scale instead of MWO that atlas is only 12-13m tall, not 20.....

[HlynkaCG]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 July 2013 - 01:05 PM, said:

just to be a pill, if you use TT scale instead of MWO that atlas is only 12-13m tall, not 20.....

Obviously the IWM and RPE miniatures aren't to scale, but the Armorcast models were advertised as being 1:60 scale. That puts the Atlas at about 16 meters which is coincidentally very close to the size of the MWO asset (16.7), and the figure I decided to go with.

Edited by HlynkaCG, 07 July 2013 - 01:19 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

HlynkaCG, on 07 July 2013 - 01:15 PM, said:

Obviously the IWM and RPE miniatures aren't to scale, the Armorcast models were advertised as being 1:60 scale. That puts the atlas at about 16 meters which is coincidentally very close to the size of the MWO asset.

I go specifically by the scale from CGL, where their line developer states that Mechs stand no shorter than 8 meters, no taller than 14. Since the Atlas is NOT the Tallest mech (the Banshee for instance, is taller, because the Atlas is so broad shouldered) that would imply shorter. Also the MWO scale has the Atlas at 20 Meters give or take.

[HlynkaCG]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 July 2013 - 01:19 PM, said:

I go specifically by the scale from CGL, where their line developer states that Mechs stand no shorter than 8 meters, no taller than 14. Since the Atlas is NOT the Tallest mech (the Banshee for instance, is taller, because the Atlas is so broad shouldered) that would imply shorter. Also the MWO scale has the Atlas at 20 Meters give or take.

Looking at the proportions of the hull thus far I'm pretty sure I can give the mech bays a ceiling height of 18 - 20 meters and make it work.

Also, looking at it in blender, MWO's Atlas is 19.2 meters tall if you count the aerials. From head to toe it's just under 17.

Edited by HlynkaCG, 07 July 2013 - 01:38 PM.

[Agent Cooper]

I have to say that after years of building these mechs in model form Ive become very familiar with the size these mechs are supposed to be and I have to agree that the Atlas should be NO taller than 17 m.
If Hlynka has determined the height to be 16.7, Im on board with that.
Ive expressed my disappointment to PGI about the size relationships between the mechs as they are presenting them in the game, they are just too big in most cases.
Hlynka, keep at it, its looking great.

[HlynkaCG]

First pass at blocking. I found the wall asset used by MWO when you're looking at your mech in the mechlab and used that to block of a set of 8 mech slots for the upper Mechbay. I also widened the base of the hull to give the vessel the more egg-like proportions seen in much of the art work.



Key (From top down)

• Cyan: Outer hull
  
• Green: Crew spaces, 3 decks.
  
• Magenta: Aerospace and Drop Ship Weapon bays
  
• White: Upper Mech Bay
  
• Red: Lower Mech/Cargo Bay
  
• Yellow: Propulsion Section
  
• Blue: Position of landing legs within hull when retracted

Thoughts...

I like the shape of the upper and lower mech bays as currently blocked out. The lines are clean and suggest a level of underlying structure that does not appear in the source material. That said, there is a lot of blank space at the top of the vessel and I'm thinking about shifting the mech bays and crew spaces upward to fill it. This is a source of concern however as it would necessitate reducing the width of the Upper bay to avoid impinging on the hull.

This also leads to my first serious "fluff" question. As per Dropships & Jumpships The Upper bay contains 8 mech cubicles and the lower 4. I had taken this to mean that the upper was significantly larger but upon review I can find nothing that explicitly says that this is the case. I'm also unsure how I am going to realistically fit the 4 mech deployment chutes and loading ramp into the lower hull without them impinging on the propulsion section, landing gear, or each other. However, If I were to shift the upper bay and crew spaces upwards I could make use of some of the space currently occupied by the lower bay to address this.

[Nathan Foxbane]

Remember this thing still needs internal space to mount weapons or are you going to add blisters later?

Full stats here.

Nice cutaway image here.

[HlynkaCG]

Nathan Foxbane, on 08 July 2013 - 02:22 PM, said:

Remember this thing still needs internal space to mount weapons or are you going to add blisters later?

Full stats here.

Nice cutaway image here.

Thanks, I hadn't seen that color image before today.

as for the Union's stats and physical description, I have a copy of http://www.sarna.net...s_and_JumpShips sitting on my desk