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Gas Bot


kfmccall

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I like the general concept and hope to see more bot concepts from you :D

 

I think it would need more legs though for balance reasons. Or big feet or something ya know? I think what we're aiming for is as much plausibility in function as possible, but at the same time realizing that there is a point where you just have to say good enough. I know that doesn't give you alot to work on.

Take my lantern bot for example, has four legs so there is no doubt it can balance. It might have a chance of tipping extremely when 2 legs lift at same time, but it wouldn't just fall over. So I think a player would 'believe' that it would work.

 

With your bot it would tip over when one leg lifted, UNLESS like the T2 bots it compensated for this by swinging back and forth (maybe there could be a seperate body piece under launcher that legs are attached too).

And this probably describes the point I was making above best. We want a 2 legged bot, and in reality it may be too complex for steambots. BUT it is a game not reality. So it needs to fiend reality at least.

 

I like the style of the legs, and the joints. I think they work great with what Springheel had in mind. Simple but effective.

 

I like the gear sticking out of the side (although that one would stick out by launcher)

 

I like the launcher mech and the viles. It would be possible to animate it too, Have a slit at top of viles for new one to come out of, roll down slide, get launched.

 

I like the style of the steam pipe, the top is cool.

 

I think we really need heads on the new bots. We were thinking more of a gargoyle head, a mechanical/metal gargoyle styled head. Maybe an animal type motif. Human style might be too much like T2 an we are trying to break that mold a little if possible.

 

Aside from the bots I like your drawing style.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Thanks for the comments, i started drawing some concepts that had animal heads attached to the bots, but they all look kind of awkward. Sticking an organic shape like that on a bulky metal box just doesn't fit too well...i'll keep working with it though and post the progress.

 

Here's another concept for one of the gas bots, i thought it would be cool to be sneaking through a dark hall and seeing this green glow coming from around the corner, alerting our player that one of these guys was coming close. Could the top of this bot be made to shatter from an arrow/weapon impact? After that maybe the bot would go into a rage and charge towards the player, no longer able to hurl these gas cannisters from a distance.

post-101-1182891663_thumb.jpg

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The problem I have with those versions is that they're too "robot like". That was an issue with some of your earlier bot concepts as well. You might want to do a search for steampunk images online to get a better feel for what a steam/clockwork automatons might look like. :)

 

These are particularly good examples, IMO.

 

 

donkey_walker_small.jpg

 

http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/info_faq/steampunk_robot.jpg

 

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/med...sep_2006_07.jpg

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I like the second one alot. It's got a sense of personality I didn't really see in the first one. Sounds weird eh? But I think that's what I like about it more.

 

I think I agree with Springheel though. I think what he means by too "robot like" I would describe as 50's futuristic, or jetsons robot style. It has a feel of what people in the 50's would have thought robots would look like.

Not a bad thing, I like it, but it could use some steampunk embelishments. Like the steam pipe on the first one, that was a great touch that would also look good on this one.

Also, they will be boiler bots so they do need a boiler set-up, furnace most likely. The lantern bot doesn't have furnace but as it's small boiling water is just poured in then it's sealed (I think theoretically that works cause the size and only because it is small)

The 2 remaining bots will be 'player size'. One like you are working on could be 3 feet tall, maybe 3 1/2 - fine with me (about size of player crouching)

 

animal head...I think we are on the brink here. Would be cool to have that kindof motif if it works. Not nessecary if something else better comes along, that's my view. I tried a rough mock up (see Baddcog's Bots page) and the results are ok, but nothing spectacular. So keep it in the back of your mind, but don't kill yourself to make that work.

 

I'd say redo that second one (cause I really like it as a base)

add some gears, pipes, gauge or 2, furnace. Some widgetry but not too complex.

 

I'd also like to see it in Bronze/copper colors like the lantern bot. I'd like to stick to that color/material scheme for the bots. That'll help seperate them from T2 (grey/blue bots) and help give em that steampunk look.

 

Brassgoggles.com has alot of steampunk links, sorry I searched alot of stuff before but don't have links saved. I didn't really find any one thing that inspired me, just seeing a bunch of stuff overall was cool though.

 

Oh, some 'tubes' would be cool. Like from a guitar tube amp, lightbulb looking things w/ electricity. well, maybe... I guess mostly we're wwanting more mechanical, clockworks, steam stuff, tubes might be too much.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Wow! I like that one http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/med...sep_2006_07.jpg quite a lot. :)

 

I also agree, that the robots look to robotic. The beauty of the Thief bots was that they had some personality, while yours look quite mechanical. Also in such an environment, I would expect bots to have more valves, whistles, and such stuff sticking out. Not being so clean and smooth as a more modern robot is built. What I usually envision is stuff like in the home of the inventor from the movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". I think this would also perfectly fit with the inventor guy from ascottk.

Gerhard

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Thanks for all the critiques, especially the references to steampower online, those really opened my eyes up to the importance of researching before drawing. :) Here's another go at the gas bot, all the parts don't really make that much sense, but i hope the overall idea came through.

post-101-1182990442_thumb.jpg

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Yeah, now we're getting somewhere!

 

The wheel might not be too bad, I'll let others comment on that. I think it's cool in the awkward steampunk style.

I think we've already decided that bots using stairs isn't a requirement, although if we do one with a wheel the last should probably be able to do stairs (at least one, maybe 2 of them), I haven't finished the AF/IK for the lantern bot so I'm not sure how well it'll handle stairs yet. I have seen it climb a few but it doesn't really work like the IK will, it kindof floats up em T2 style.

 

I like the face style, with the long mouth for dropping the gas canisters, looks like a chute.

 

I REALLY like the open 'brain' with all the gears, that's a must! It'll be sweet to see all those gears grinding :D

(Probably my biggest regret with finished lantern bot is it didn't have enough gear action)

 

The face needs to be menacing though, I'd say ace the teardrop and the eyes. Or rather redo the eyes so they look mean. I don't know if you checked out my bot thread yet, I'd like to see the face somewhat like my rough version of the lion head. Not a lionhead but 'panelled' like my lion head. Yours is all one piece, mine had a piece for eyebrows, a piece for nose, rivets, ect... that's what I mean.

It's quite possible the mouth will open so a seperate jaw...

 

All the details don't need to be exact, I just ran out of ideas myself and am loving seeing all your ideas. To a degree I can piece together things from each drawing to make it work best for a model/animations. But I would like to work off of a drawing that was 90% complete and something everyone is pretty happy with on the whole.

For example, all those gears in head don't have to make sense in drawing, I can move em around to make em seem best when I get to that point, most likely they will never completely make sense anyway, not like we're going to actually create a real world working model ya know.

 

I still like the fluid, but the large canister on second bot wouldn't work with the face obviously. Maybe there can just be a canister on one side of head with that green fluid in it, bubble particles :D

I also like the glass flask idea, Springheel, what do you think, glass flask for gas bomb?

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Thanks for all the critiques, especially the references to steampower online, those really opened my eyes up to the importance of researching before drawing. :) Here's another go at the gas bot, all the parts don't really make that much sense, but i hope the overall idea came through.

 

Yes. Looks much better now. :) Since we are talking about Steampunk, I would expect that such devices would need more valves and vetns and such, to allow room for the excess steam to escape.

Actually the teardrop might be a good idea to be such a vent. In those times, neccessary construciton was often obsucred with ornaments and such, so I could easily imagine that such a vent might be done to look like a tear.

Gerhard

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I'm with Baddcog about the face and tear. We want something that looks more menacing.

 

I think this version is an improvement, but I'm not sold yet.

 

@ wheel: I don't have a problem with a bot with a wheel on principle, but I wonder what kind of rigging issues that will create. Can the wheel be set to rotate as it moves around? Will it just be animated to spin regardless of how the bot is moving? If there are no rigging issues, then I actually like the idea of it pulling itself forward using two legs with the wheel in the back.

 

@ legs: I don't have a problem with the number of joints on the legs, but I'd like to see the huge pincers broken up into multiple pieces of metal. Right now they look too sleek and sci-fi for my taste.

 

@ gas: If we're going to use gas canisters, then they should probably be the same as the ones on the arrowheads. Though I'd be just as happy if it shot crossbow bolts or darts out of its mouth.

 

The one thing that's missing with this one is a melee attack, and an obvious way to open doors.

 

Actually, I'm not quite sure what we're thinking of making this one. I thought we already had a spider-like concept for the regular attack bot? Is this one supposed to be an elite attack bot? With a little tinkering, this would make a great 'stationary' bot guard.

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I think the wheel can be animated fine, it will rotate on the walk sequence but not on the idle. So in theory it should work fine.

Most likely it would rotate 1/4 per leg walk (left/right) so it would need 4 spokes and a smooth tex job (no seam)

Or it could be 1/5 rotate and 5 spokes...

 

We do have that concept with the rotating heads from Redface, I'd like to go that route also. I also really liked that one. A stationary bot would be cool to have also.

 

kfmccall, sorry, I gotta split real soon so don't have time to find/link. Could you look at the 'spider bot' also and maybe embelish on it? I'm not sure if redface was gonna work on that concept more or not. It's a small pic but really cool, have 3 rotating heads above spider like body.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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  • 2 weeks later...

This isn't a gas bot, I just had this guy floating around in my head this morning. This would be more of a sentry bot or something of that sort. I could probably cut into other parts of the sphere and add gas/arrow launching mechanisms...but i just wanted to post it to get more ideas out there.

post-101-1184085277_thumb.jpg

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I thought maybe we scared you away! I'm glad that is not the case.

 

The round bot. PERFECT style. That's exactly the materials ect, gears... that we need. I like the legs too.

 

The heads, while I like the style of the top/left one alot I'm not fond of the 'twisted/grotesque' ness of it. I think the bots should be menacing but clean? Not sure if clean is the word I'm looking for... I also like how that one is on the geared shaft.

 

3 heads around a shaft like that on top of the round ball (maybe more flat than ball) with four legs and one claw arm up front. :D

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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