114 replies to this topic

[Navid A1]

For those wondering, the rest of the Timbers and Dires will go through their own quirk pass as well (in future patches, likely next month), to match the general direction (e.g, Survival quirks) you see on these two new variants.

Edited by Navid A1, 15 July 2021 - 02:50 PM.

[Aivazovsky]

W W
Amazing work. Masterpiece! Thank you, Mark!

[Ronbo]

I was under the impression the TBR BH was a take on the Bounty Hunter, was wondering why no C bill decals or a more duller green as used on the Marauder BH?

[Navid A1]

Ronbo, on 15 July 2021 - 03:06 PM, said:

I was under the impression the TBR BH was a take on the Bounty Hunter, was wondering why no C bill decals or a more duller green as used on the Marauder BH?

Pretty sure you can change to whatever color you want. And I think there is a Cbill decal in the game.

[Mark Nicholson]

.

[Gas Guzzler]

FupDup, on 15 July 2021 - 02:05 PM, said:

Are the C-Bill variants of the TBR and DWF going to get quirks similar to these? Because right now those quirks are better than the existing quirks on the chassis, even though the hardpoints are already decent on their own merits. This isn't like the Stryker pack where they had inferior hardpoints so they needed extra quirkage to be viable.

There is an entire quirk pass coming, remember?

Must we be so negative?

[Gas Guzzler]

When do you guys expect to announce the next pack?

[Daeron Katz]

Gas Guzzler, on 15 July 2021 - 04:52 PM, said:

When do you guys expect to announce the next pack?

Hopefully towards the end of this month.

[w0qj]

Yeah, that's very clever, flooded Canyon Network!

Gives incentive to change your mech layout to put heatsinks into your legs!!

armyunit, on 15 July 2021 - 11:52 AM, said:

Wow, gotta say, I really like the little bit of flavor added to Canyon Network!

[ghostrider]

Looking good guys, can't wait!

[yrrot]

Now the real question: when will the models for those elementals show up in the MW5 editor. For reasons...

[Clay Endfield]

I gotta say Mark, it's not only cool to see the process, but wholesome to see the passion that went into it; from the concept work, to the test beds, to the finer tweaking, to the final product. I hope to see more modeling details of both MWO and MWM5 in the future. Keep the passion alive, and thank you for the hard work; consider my Warden Preorder a commission. Cheers!

[Heavy Money]

Mark Nicholson, on 15 July 2021 - 11:33 AM, said:

So, given that I was involved in this pack end-to-end, I figured everyone here might enjoy a bit more of what went into it. But first, I found that old creepy clown banshee jack in the box we talked about in the vlog.



I had started experimenting with some ideas for this skin very early, I think at the time all that had been set was that it was going to be clan 'Mechs. We'd done skins related to Battletech:The Animated Series before, with the Mauler and Bushwacker heroes, but I wanted to try pushing it a bit more. I'd loved this show as a kid, and had been into battletech for a couple years already. The computer generated scenes had particularly attracted my attention, and it's stuff like this show and Reboot that had really gotten me interested in 3D modelling to begin with.



When looking for reference from the show, I also found the animated timberwolf's colors rather interesting, and I did some experimenting using those colors as well. Later, as planning on the pack started, I gave these test images to Alex Iglesias to start creating skin concept art from. As you can see, we went through several iterations, and eventually abandoned the brighter colors in favour of something that felt a lot more like the 3D outlines, as well as feeling like the enhanced imaging look in MechWarrior 2 (which is just black meshes with colored wireframes).



I can't recall the exact timing of when I'd gotten the idea to do Elemental bolt-ons for this pack, but they'd been in the back of my head for a while before. When the variants were chosen, it just seemed to fit. A pair of Clan Wolf chassis, both having Wolf in the name, and that's also the clan that develops Elementals in the first place. This is exactly where you should see them! So I got Alex to rough out some sketches, and we went from there.



Later, once I'd gotten going on them, I did some scale tests, to see how big they should be. I wanted to make sure they wouldn't overwhelm smaller chassis, nor feel too tiny on large ones despite only being used on these two special variants. So once I had a rough 3d model, I posed some up for review.



After that, modeling. Knowing I wouldn't have time for anything but the simplest posing rig, I knew they had to have a really big range of motion. Testing how far you could get without the geometry clipping on itself proved a bit difficult, given how chunky the armor is. I used some techniques I'd learned making gunpla, which really helped, like having 2 joints in the knee instead of only one.



The materials for them came along rather quickly, as it's the exact same setup as the 'Mechs, and yes, the Elementals are colourable.



The exciting part, getting them all working together! I originally had a stretch goal of trying to put some idle animation on a few of them, something subtle, where they'd stay still for a while, then move a little bit. It was ambitious, and while I really liked the idea, I knew it was unlikely I'd have time to do that before the deadline. As I expected, there wasn't time, and so they remain static.



I hope you all enjoyed this, and I'll be watching this thread for a couple days, answering as many questions as I can, so please ask away.

As a fellow 3D artist, its great to see more about your process! Would be happy to read more if you feel like sharing.

[KursedVixen]

I wish the elementals ragdolled when they were shot off.. also as I commented on the video, 5 elementals is a point not a star a star of Elementals is 25... hope i can make the lines on the special ones red to match the wolves from the one episode of the cartoon even though it was just elementals. or blue like how adam steiners mech showed up. or something.

Edited by KursedVixen, 15 July 2021 - 09:42 PM.

[GargoyleVine]

jump jets quirks for a whale... ha ha ha ha, that is some funny stuff

[KursedVixen]

GargoyleVine, on 15 July 2021 - 09:33 PM, said:

jump jets quirks for a whale... ha ha ha ha, that is some funny stuff

that's jump jet capacity not quirks....

[Aidan Crenshaw]

KursedVixen, on 15 July 2021 - 10:10 PM, said:

that's jump jet capacity not quirks....

Read again. It's got both

[Navid A1]

GargoyleVine, on 15 July 2021 - 09:33 PM, said:

jump jets quirks for a whale... ha ha ha ha, that is some funny stuff

: )

Well... I'm assuming you don't know what is going to happen to Jump Jets in July patch.
That quirk won't be as funny as you think.

[Wid1046]

The new camo pattern looks amazing. Do you have plans to make it purchasable for all mechs at some point? It'd be a shame to only have it for two of the mechs.

[C337Skymaster]

Navid A1, on 16 July 2021 - 12:28 AM, said:

: )

Well... I'm assuming you don't know what is going to happen to Jump Jets in July patch.
That quirk won't be as funny as you think.

Haven't heard anything more than the rumor that "The cauldron is updating them". My desired end-state for JJ is for my DWF to be able to lift itself through an opening in Crimson Strait and land on the upper deck. I envision extending the reticule shake to be anytime a 'mech is off its feet (even a non-JJ 'mech falling off an edge), to balance the super-high poptarting that would suddenly be possible.