Pawn_of_Evil

With Finals now over for the semester, I finally found time to work on this thing again. Finished up the texture maps and added a cockpit. I have still not rigged the model, just moved parts around for the transformation. No deformation necessary. Special thanks to Mr. March and the Macross Mecha Manual, as well as W.M. Cheng for his brilliant model. Modeled in Blender, textured and rendered in Modo. Enjoy!

Your final result looks awesome! With that lower poly count, you should be able to drop it into the Unreal engine fairly easily, although you would probably need to rig it if it isn't rigged already.

I have been working on a Source mod myself over the last few weeks, although not Macross related. If you don't have experience with Source, it can be a pain to get custom content into the engine. You might have better luck with Unreal 3, which has vehicle support built in and it is a whole lot easier to get custom content in. You can also make it look better if you have the computer for it.

Finals are over and I can go back to sleeping on a regular basis. The textures didn't come out nearly as well as I wanted them too, probably because I ran out of time. My modeling instructor, who is also a Macross fan, was really impressed by this project, despite the poor textures, I am in the process of redoing the textures so that they look more realistic. I am also in the process of finishing the modeling of the parts used in the conversion to battroid, such as the swing bar. On the topic of a toy: while I won't be making a 1/60 Yamato-caliber toy, I will attempt a papercraft version that may or may not transform if I can find the time during the next semester (in other words: it won't be finished for a long time). Please enjoy these updated pics.

Finally had some time to work on this sucker. The only way I could arrange time was to have this be one of finals for one of the modeling classes I am in. Anyways, he is currently sitting at 961496 quads not counting the hands. I should have a textured and transformed version up by tomorrow, since that is when it is due. Enjoy!

This looks awesome so far! I noticed by the screenshots that you are still using version 2.42. You should upgrade to 2.46, since they have added all kinds of useful modeling tools such as a knife tool and the create polygon tool. They have also made some dramatic improvements to the UV unwrapping system and the rigging system.

The Battroid image is a quick proportion test made using the block in that I did for the fighter. This is why it lacks a head, hands, and finished arms. The higher quality renders are of the same model in jet form, with set smooth turned on and a subsurf modifier added to each piece. Doing this will generally make objects a little too round. This can be countered by adding edge loops close to other edge loops with the loopcut tool, then sliding them with the edge slide tool (in the ctrl-e menu set) until you have the sharpness required. This will drastically increase the poly count, as this model went from 4158 polys to 10044 polys, not counting the polys added with the subsurf modifiers. Alternatively, if you wanted to keep the poly count low and still have edges that look good in set smooth mode, you can select the edges that are supposed to be sharp, go into the ctrl-e menu and choose mark sharp, then add an edgesplit modifier. With the exception of the chest plate, the model is not really textured. I used vertex groups to assign different materials to different polygons, and created a UV map for the chest plate using a simple projection. I do plan on creating the fast pack, and am debating on whether I should do a quick block-in of it now or wait until I have the regular model finished, textured, and rigged. It all depends on how much time I can find to work on it while being a full time college student and working two part-time jobs.

With so many people working on 3d models, I thought I would throw my hat in the ring and model one of my favorite designs. Modeled in Blender.