501 replies to this topic

[Odanan]

Heffay, on 25 October 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

It's possible that the pilots for the lights are smaller people. If we assume the pilot is 2m tall (haven't measure him, but he looks like a beefy dude), the smaller mechs may be limited to smaller people. And there is real world precedence for this; US tank crews tend to be smaller people as well. Look at Phil (aka Sean Lang); tankers tend to be shorter and svelte so they can fit inside better. Especially the drivers, I believe.

Put a 5'2" woman in there, and I bet she'll even have room to do her makeup.

Nah, the problem is: the lighter mechs in MWO are too small (specially the Spider).

In lore, there is not much difference in height from a mech of 20 tons and a mech of 100 tons, except the light one is very skinny and the assault one is very beefy.

Cockpits should be larger, plain and simple. (and the mechs designed with that in mind)

[Odanan]

Bishop Steiner, on 25 October 2013 - 02:11 PM, said:

Star League medicine and diet would have enhanced any likely increase to the human genome (as selective breeding, growth hormones, steroids, superior nutrition and health care are all likely attributable to much of the height increase.). for the last 300 years or so, Humanity has lived in a stone age, and likely stagnated.

Just sayin.

It really depends on the planet. In the first pages of the Battletech's first book, there is a description of a guy who is small, like all people in his homeplanet, because of the planet's gravity.

[Odanan]

Arnold J Rimmer, on 05 November 2013 - 01:26 AM, said:

Haruko.

I love you.

I'm thinking maybe a summer wedding?

Get in the line, bro.

[Odanan]

haruko, on 11 November 2013 - 09:58 AM, said:

I could probably make it even better, I did this in like 10 minutes because my corp mates kept bugging me to make one, so I only really put effort into the top half and just gave it Atlas legs and called it a day.

10 minutes? Ohh come on!

[Nakamura Takeshi]

haruko, on 19 December 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

Ohoho soon as the clan mechs are in-game I plan to, by then I'll have enough classes under my belt to actually make it cool too.

Go Haruko go! Are you planning on doing some animation down the line?

Edited by Nakamura Takeshi, 16 January 2014 - 08:35 AM.

[Arjohan]

haruko, on 21 October 2013 - 10:13 PM, said:

I've considered all those options, trust me, I love the Commando, but it just isn't in scale, when FD drew it up for PGI he imagined it probably being larger than it is in-game.

Spoiler

Allow me to demonstrate:

Here is your pilot in the in-game COmmando cockpit:



Now lets just put it in the Commando head shall we?


Oh {Scrap}! It doesn't fit! This isn't surprising, none of the mech cockpits do (except for the Raven sort of), since the in-game mech cockpits are horribly blown up, with a fish eye effect, if they weren't you wouldn't be able to see anything out of your mechs viewport since most of them are actually pretty small when you look at them in actual scale, I like to handwave this away as; you're just seeing an enhanced composite image of your cockpit viewport through your neurohelm, hence the fish eye view and why they appear larger than they actually are on the model itself.

Ok so, the pilot is in the exact pose he is in-game, so lets just remove the in-game cockpit and he should fit in the head right?


Nope, as you can see, his arm sticks out of the side of it's head, now, sure I could just move his arm but we're trying to stick with what is in-game now remember? Lets see how his legs fit...

Well, he fits....well...not really, he's high enough that he'd be warm and toasty above the ammo loader, engine and it's heatsinks, BUT, he's in the way of the mechs arm actuator joint and the myomer muscles that would come out of it! The red circle is how the entire joint is on the model itself, and no, there isn't enough space for it to pass underneath him, he's practically sitting right next to it, on top of the fact that I had to remove the Commando's neck for him to even fit in the first place.


Well, we can just move him a little to the side right and it'll be fine right?

Nope.


Completely blocked by the eye sensor, which as you can see from the in-game cockpit, it extends past the cockpit, so you can't fit there, not to mention he wouldn't even be facing the viewport.

Lets just rescale the Commando then!


Unfortunately that doesn't work either, as the Commando's neck still completely blocks his feet.

Commando is just broke, only way to get the pilot to fit in there would be to resize it to a size that would be too big for a light, or to have the pilot sit higher up in the head, but then he wouldn't be able to see out the Commando like he does in-game!

Of course, this could all be fixed, by taking the lore friendly option of just saying that the pilot doesn't even use the viewport as he has a compressed 360 degree view through his neurohelm, unobstructed by anything and not requiring him to look through the tiny viewport. But of course, the game isn't like that, as I'm sure you know.

tl;dr pilot doesn't fit in the Commando.

Hello and sorry if someone gave the idea before, I won't be reading 18 forum pages.


There is another way that it would be to redo the Commando cockpit (a little) to something like the MechWarrior 2 Mercenaries Intro.

Basically, make the right side as like the left side (It would be just a big window) and but the pilot in the middle a little above and probably a little backward (In real life scale, around 10~30cm?). Watching the video gives a better idea of what I'm talking about.



EDIT:
A quick edit in the Commando COM-2D:

haruko, on 20 October 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

I've been wondering about that...since it has an ejection handle in the cockpit, but where does he eject from?

Spoiler

The top hatch can blow out but it'd be a tight fit and he might lose an arm if he doesn't tuck in:



And he sure as hell can't eject through the entry hatch, as the thing is already a tight fit:

It's eject, for now, would be a little different: It's ejection would be the ejection of the head's glass, so the pilot can get out. It would be necessary to be close to the ground though but it's a kind of "emergency exit".

Edited by Ryon Kerensky, 17 January 2014 - 09:24 AM.

[NautilusCommand]

So, uh what ever happened to that Cicada and what not?

[AaronWolf]

All this work is absolutely awesome. I now have some amazing backgrounds due to the top pictures. XD

[Chucky D Great]

Just putting this out there. I've noticed that in all your renderings with a pilot you have placed him/her in the full upright position. Specifically with the fighters, you might want to consider using the F-16 style. The pilot is actually reclined slightly. That aircraft also has a pilot height restriction (5'11" I believe) so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that light mechs would also have a height restriction. In another analogy, imagine someone 6' 5" on a 250cc motorcycle.

I believe that light mechs are designed for speed, maneuverability and survivability, hence recon. With this in mind, creature comforts (roominess) is the last thing the mech designer/planner is concerned with They are thinking what is the minimum roomrequired as long as you can fit a pilot in there. However they might have considered lateral padding for the pilot. If one wants to look at a modern tight fitting cockpit try an AH1 Cobra Helicopter. The outside measurements is 3'. Yes I said 36 inches. This does not include the wing stubs. With the armor plating on it the inside is a bit smaller. Or one might consider an F1 race car for tightness. Those things pull some lateral Gs.

Just saying.

Also I would like to say that I love this thread and all the wonderful effort that you are putting into your project.

One other thing. When the Locust is being moved into drop position the pilot should already be powering up and have the “pre-flight” done once the gantry stops.

[Rina Fujimoto]

Hey guys, haven't updated in a long time, to be honest I don't really play MWO anymore, I've been spending all my time with EVE, I still come back occassionally to rip the new mechs.

So I'm gonna do a quick little update, nothing fancy.

The Firestarter looks pretty cool, it has a small hatch on the back of its head for getting in:


For fun here it is with quad UAC!


Banshee is pretty cool looking too, though the hero variant looks kind of silly with it's laser cigar stuck in its mouth, would look better if they didnt use those stupid little laser blocks they reuse for everything now. Here is the standard base



Without the laser cigar it actually has a pretty cool looking "mouth"


And as for how the pilot gets in? Simple hatch on its head! This one was easy:


Here are some shots of it's cockpit, it's pretty damn weird, it has crash bars:


And what looks like shock absorbers?


And some sort of giant bolts on the floor?


btw, the cockpit makes no sense, the structure beneath the "mouth" is recessed and under it's "visor", so there's no way the cockpit could be set up the way it is in-game!

Well that's all for now, see you all when the next new mech hits.

[Heffay]

Welcome back, haruko! Missed seeing your posts here!

[SgtMagor]

might have been better if they used a lighter texture to highlight the mouth area. right now it seems like the whole head is covered in textures that mask any features on the Banshee. thx for the pics!

Edited by SgtMagor, 05 March 2014 - 09:10 AM.

[TygerLily]

Maybe the Commando is more like a big ol' exosuit...that hatch is how he get his Rip Its and Spaghetti-O's between deployments...

[Alaskan Nobody]

haruko, on 05 March 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

And some sort of giant bolts on the floor?

The Locust has something similar (I still need to upload my pics to get other people's thoughts) but looks like a giant speaker. (partially because of the angle it is mounted at)

Edit: missed the actual bolts >.<

Was looking at the coffee holder looking thing on the right

Edited by Shar Wolf, 05 March 2014 - 12:12 PM.

[Cactus In The Rear]

Shar Wolf, on 05 March 2014 - 12:11 PM, said:

Was looking at the coffee holder looking thing on the right

That's the base of the joystick.

Edited by Xanilos, 05 March 2014 - 01:06 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Xanilos, on 05 March 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

That's the base of the joystick.

...I'm going to stop posting now until after the cold goes away.

[DirePhoenix]

haruko, on 05 March 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

Banshee is pretty cool looking too, though the hero variant looks kind of silly with it's laser cigar stuck in its mouth, would look better if they didnt use those stupid little laser blocks they reuse for everything now. Here is the standard base

The Banshee hero is the only variant with the laser port in the mouth. The regular variants will have the laser port in the forehead.

Alex Iglesias, on 04 March 2014 - 11:05 AM, said:

just gonna throw in.

La Malinche is meant to represent the ride of notable pilot "El Guapo"

additionally, the head energy hardpoint is mounted on the forehead of all the normal variants. Only the hero version has the energy hardpoint in the mouth. I thought it would suit the personality of this ride. Toss a flamer in there for a hauptman style cigar.

[Koniving]

haruko, on 20 October 2013 - 11:21 AM, said:

I've been wondering about that...since it has an ejection handle in the cockpit, but where does he eject from?

The top hatch can blow out but it'd be a tight fit and he might lose an arm if he doesn't tuck in:



And he sure as hell can't eject through the entry hatch, as the thing is already a tight fit:

I'm back after god knows how long but I thought I'd mention something.

I found out that a Spider, specifically in lore, does not actually have an ejection function. o.o

[Alaskan Nobody]

Koniving, on 07 March 2014 - 06:01 PM, said:

I found out that a Spider, specifically in lore, does not actually have an ejection function. o.o

You didn't know that?!


......not sure what to say about that.

[Cactus In The Rear]

Why would they need an ejection when they can't be killed?