WIP - railgun tank

[Pi Mu Rho]

4500 polys

AVI (3.5mb) here - http://www.eradicators.co.uk/neale/feud3.avi

 

[RObErT_RaTh]

Looks cool, but what's it for?

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

An upcoming game. Can't say any more than that.

 

[SidewinderX]

very cool. Not the greatest render, but jsudging from the avi, it's pretty cool

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

I'm not big on rendering. I make models to use in-game

 

[IchI]

I like the base of the vehicle but dislike the gun. Also when The gun rotates up the clip doesn't follow it. Which could look a little stupid when ingame. Apart from that its alright.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

the clip isn't supposed to. When the barrel returns to the horizontal position, the clip extends and reloads it (3 shots). I just didn't animate that bit.

To calrify - as part of the design, this is an unmanned tank. Therefore, it can be lighter as there's less armour, and no requirement to accommodate crew. I couldn't come up with a workable design for a loader that could rotate vertically with the barrel while remaining attached to the base. Hence the system I put on it.

 

[nw909]

Looks hot judging by the anim.

I likes it

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Based on my limited knowledge of rail-gunnery, i'd say it could use more "rings" on the barrel. Or, maybe split the top blade into two, and place them all 120 degrees apart.
That would give the projectiles more stability.

Other more personal opinion things:
The skeletal look of the gun is cool, but the sleek molded base doesn't really match. One or two exposed gizmoes on the base would really unify things.
Also, if it's autonomous, it could use more cameras than just the one, especially since it's aim is independant of the steering.

Those really aren't big issues at all. I'm just struggling to provide useful crits.
Very nice work all around, and a kickass animation.
I'd like to see what this mystery game is all about. :thumbs:

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Thanks for the criticism - I intend to add more "flavour" to the chassis, as well as making a couple of variants (rocket launcher etc)

Hopefully, I can reveal more details soon(ish)

 

[Lupus]

It looks cool, unfortunatley I can't see the animations as I'm on 56k here <hiss>. From what you said though, perhaps you could have ammo bins attached to the back of the turret, this would act as a counterbalance to the large barrel and also allow it to reload while pointing upwards, and you could have the generators sitting at the back of the tank (to power the electromagnets). To be more technical (just incase you are wanting more realism) it is more of a guass gun, as the electromagnetic rings used accelerate a projectile like a particle accelerator (like the gauss rifles in Battletech, oohhhh yeahh baby). A rail gun actually works on a different principle and has two...well....rails, which the projectile travels along, which is how a rail gun gets its name. But anyway, that isn't too important. I agree a couple more rings would probably make it look a little better. I don't really know how animations for shots are done in games, but here is a tutorial to produce a great looking projectile you might want to try (not done by me hehe). I think it would work very well with this tank (if you make the projectile travel faster than shown in the animation of course). Go to http://www.battletech-movie.com/btm/btm.htm , then click tutorials in the top right, and click "making a PPC shot" on the left. This was actually done in Combustion, but you can probably do it in whatever program you are using.

 

[PunisherUSA]

The rings on the gun serve no purpose other than to hold the projectile straight. They conribute nothing to the acceleration. In fact, they'll become a problem with more since they need to be made out of or seperated by non cunducting material, as they would otherwise complete the circuit.

Also, I hope you have a reason for that powerful of a generator. For an idea of how much power it uses...

The military is planning on making a railgun artillery ship. It will be the size of a cruiser, and it will have to power down its engines completely to fire

So I hope this is far in the future.

Here are some pics for the idea behind rail guns.

Once your done looking at my mad paint skills, you can look at a real picture.

 

[Lupus]

I suppose all he needs to do is make a couple of rails that travel from the main area of the turret and along the inside of the rings. Can say that rings are used instead of one whole, solid barrel to reduce weight. I think the rings would need to be bigger though to do that. Hmm, or maybe say they are made from some new composite material that is non-conductive, but very heavy meaning that rings are required for support as a whole barrel would be too heavy.
Maybe have a couple of big chunky generators on the top of the tank behind turret? Oooo, also, taken from Punisher's post, when you have the tank fire you can have it 'land' as it seems to be a hover tank as it requires all the power to fire, and the kick from it would be so large that if it was hovering the tank would not be stable.

 

[EVIL]

Nice stuff Pi, please do add more stuff on it like loose armor shards that would wobble with the psychics, because that is one thing Source gives you the oppertunity @, to make the object and vehicles more dynamic looking by having psychics on it so you can hang stuff on the side that would wobble.. and since its a floating tank you can apply the matrass psychics to strips on the fronth that look like they are made of chained armor shards so it could sweep mines to

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Firstly - it's definitely a railgun and not a gauss gun. The two "blades" are the rails, and the rings are just non-conductive seperators.

The reactor used to power it is contained within the chassis (the loading point for the fuel rods is about 1/3 of the way along the left flank in the recessed area) it would be possible for them to be removed, thus disabling the vehicle

It doesn't hover - there's actually 4 seperate tracks. I toyed with the idea of having the front "prongs" of the chassis pivot up and down to act like suspension.

It can only fire when stationary.

I don't want to add to many physics objects to it, as you're likely to encounter large numbers of these vehicles simultaneously (along with others)

Thanks for the comments guys - I can probably make a brand new tank out of your suggestions

 

[Malambis]

Needs more detail for 4500 polies. Where'd they all go? Whole side of it looks like a box that was chamferred.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

No, it doesn't need more detail for 4500 polys.

My mistake - it's 3700 polys.

Bear in mind two things:

1) This is WIP

2) This is non-production art for a tech demo. Polygon budgets haven't been worked out yet. However, I'm expecting vehicles to all be under 6000 polys, due to the number of them on-screen at any given time.

 

[Malambis]

Looks like those rings are 32+ sided cylinders. You could take a lot of pollies off those and add more detail to the body of the tank with the pollies saved.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

There's no need for me to do that. As I've previously stated, I intend to add more detail to the chassis.

 

[XeNoCrAtE]

Looks Good!
Nice Job!
Love The Video!

 

[Wilco]

Your not making a breed HL2 mod are u?

Sorry but It looks similar .

Is the gun going to be an artillery piece kinda thing or a more rapid fire like a modern tank gun. It looks like an arty piece but that would make it very easy to destroy as it doesnt seem to have any close in defences. not sure on the scale of that but it looks like you'd need the pivot in the tracks to actually get anywhere .

How big is that thing supposed 2 be? there is what seems to be a lookout point on it, so can u fit men into the hull?

 

[xC4RN4G3x]

WOW.....thats a nice tank.....futuristic and all. I like the way u got it all planned out too...nice thinking. I think you should skin it so it could look more realistic....thats all...really nice.

 

[Mechagodzilla]

Looks like those rings are 32+ sided cylinders. You could take a lot of pollies off those and add more detail to the body of the tank with the pollies saved.

I've got to agree there. Even if you're adding more polies to the rest of the chasis, you could cut the polys on the rings by well over half, and suffer almost no loss of detail.

The rest of the tank is balanced very well. It's really just the cylinders that seem problematic.