2
Some of you may have heard of MoonUnitBeta's contest to create a Marauder! I was going to submit some designs created through PhotoShop, but the TSA has decided that I didn't need a functioning Wacom Cintiq on my last trip, and without a scanner, making electronic drawings using a mouse/trackball is infuriating. So I decided to give a go at 3D design instead! Because making polygons into recognizable shapes with a mouse has got to be less infuriating than making an adequately sloped/curved line, right?
Unfortunately my only experience with any kind of 3D design is from making map mods for Doom, but that was extremely basic (as in barely) 3D. Also I was still in High School back then. Also that was in the early '90's. Holy {Scrap} that was over 20 years ago!
So practically, that means I have pretty much no experience in 3D. How am I going to do this? I'll be using Google SketchUp, for starters. It's free, and appears simple to learn. Here goes nothing!
To start out, I'm taking a different approach than most I've seen so far. I'm starting with the part the players will see most: The cockpit! The Marauder's design in general is a longer profile with a narrow head-on area to minimize surface area exposed while attacking, so I'll need a narrow cockpit to best make use of the space. A fighter-style cockpit, actually. So I've imported this F-16 cockpit to act as a basic template. It's long and narrow. The default configuration for this cockpit is set with the seat all the way back, and the pilot can't reach the controls on the front panel. Also, when I imported it, it was scaled to be 16m long! Fortunately SketchUp includes a little 2D man for scale, but it was scaled to only 1.5m (~5'0") I scaled 2D man to 1.79m (~5'8"). From the looks of the pilot in the fighter cockpit, if he laid down, the cockpit would be just a little bit longer than him, so I scaled the cockpit to be 2m long. It may still be a little big, but you can always adjust the seat for smaller pilots, you can't make a the cockpit bigger for larger pilots. I then moved the pilot forward so he's actually in arm's reach of the controls, and then made a box surrounding the cockpit to serve as a basic structure template I could build around.
And this is where I start! My concept is that the pilot would get in from a hatch on the top, with the seat scooted all the way back. He straps in, and the seat pushes forward to fit. there's a small shelf in the back that can serve as helmet storage/step when entering exiting the mech.
One of the features I wanted to keep from the earlier iterations of the Marauder is its single, angry, cyclopic eye. It would have other windows, but mainly as little slits like tank viewports, or shutters like the HBK's Venetian Blinds cockpit. but the single, angry, focused eye will be playing key in my iteration. I want this thing to feel heavily armored (as that is another one of the Marauder's key traits), and a lot of other newer takes on the Marauder design seem to have an awful lot of "glass" around the cockpit area.
In an early shot, I was able to get the camera inside the translucent red visor but in front of the pilot's eye to look out the front (the pilot is actually looking out to the side):
And here is what I had after a day of figuring out Sketchup. I was surprised to see how much this looked like the original Marauder's design so far (that will change), and I've still fot a lot of sensor doodads to attach to the front end. Also, the indented rectangle on top is where the hatch will be going:
And here's an in-cockpit view from behind the pilot's head!
Coming up next: side windows and roof slats!
Edited by DirePhoenix, 28 October 2013 - 12:40 PM.
