Classic T-51b, model is done but needs cleaner/better textures

[sjohnson89]

+140 views and you havent even bothered to say simple things like "i think the color should be this" or "make this area bigger/smaller", eventhough i specifically asked for guidance multiple times. shame on you people, shame on you. you dont deserve anything. this message is intended for the people that leech and download mods only, and never say anythin or contribute to anything. if you are one of the people that helps and makes contributions to this community, please disregard this message. you are the ones making this community great. i know that your hands are already full with fulfilling other people's requests. those leechers are well aware of themselves!

 

YOU! yes, you. dont just read all of these and close the tab, your feedback and support are precious and greatly appreciated. feel free to share your opinions, add some insight, tools to make this project easier or anything you want. having +100 views but only one or two replies is incredibly disheartening. remember that you are all welcome here.

 

 

 

behold the magnificent ground combat unit!!! (yeah thats a reference to mimiron)

 

so in this beloved game of ours we had many mods that added huge value to it. years have passed but quality work done by the modders kept breathing life into new vegas. if completed, i'm 100% sure that this mod will become one of those, and your name will be on it, along with gratefulness of other players. remember, this game isnt going to simply disappear, and your work will be ETERNAL.

 

t51b was loved by everyone. it was the original power armor. some say advanced power armor (fo2) didnt fit the retro futuristic theme of fallout, but t51b fit right in. the armor had a bulky, muscular, retro look and it was definitely intimidating.

 

...not in fnv though. it was a puny looking joke.

 

i'm aware that dragbody ported fo4 power armors to fnv, and while i'm a big fan of his work, fo4 variants look a little bit too futuristic and they look way too different from the original models.

 

there have been some attempts in the past, but none of them resulted with a noticable difference. well by request we managed to add a classic combat armor mod to nexus, so who knows!

 

i tried to try "do it yourself" way with blender. tried changing the size of pauldrons, making the upper body and legs larger and some other minor edits. none of them was even close to the greatness of the original model, and besides that i'm still a newbie and even trying to select the correct vertices-faces in blender feels like wrestling a bear to me :/

 

so here i am, calling out to a modeler who can work for a worthy project. dont do this for me, do it for yourself, do it for the community, do it for the piece of art that started everything and became the very definition of "retro futuristic art".

 

if anyone shows up i'll be here. if you say you can tweak the default model to make this dream come true, your call. if you want the take your time with a completely new model, what ever you say. it'll be up to you. if you need more visuals-guidance just say so.

 

and this is my personal note to the any volunteer that will step up: i'll be forever in your debt

 

so...here it begins

Edited July 27, 2018 by sjohnson89

[devinpatterson]

i tried to try "do it yourself" way with blender. tried changing the size of pauldrons, making the upper body and legs larger and some other minor edits. none of them was even close to the greatness of the original model, and besides that i'm still a newbie and even trying to select the correct vertices-faces in blender feels like wrestling a bear to me :/

If your changing the size to that degree your probably better off exploring power armor scaling. Here is one example mod.

 

if you need more visuals-guidance just say so.

I think including some examples would be useful. I'm finding it difficult to locate some good FO1 t51b graphics......since the sprites aren't really useful, were limited to concept art, cinematics etc.

 

I was working on cobbling together a fallout 4 style power armor interface for a prototype T60. I think a FO1 style t51b would benefit from the same, it would make power armor "feel" far more like power armor, eliminate the pipboy clipping problem and possibly have other advantages.

[sjohnson89]

this is actually why i made "bulky fallout tactics power armor" mod. equipping a power armor isnt just about size. let me explain it further

 

when you change the scale of the current power armors, you'll have a...lets call this "basketball player effect". average basketball doesnt look very muscular, or in other words "ripped off".

 

body builders, heavyweight fighters or power lifters though, no matter what their height is, have a muscular, wide and ripped off apperance. to illustrate i'm putting an extreme example which is hulk from marvel comics

 

 

 

comparison between normal male, basketball player and space marine picture also shows it nicely

 

 

 

to summarize, the original models from fo1/2 were effective because they were both big and muscular.

 

i also found this thread from the past and it shows that you were already into this type of thing ^^

 

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/274997-t-51b-re-imagined/

 

there was some nice discussion going on in that topic along with useful captions of the armor. i need to find a hd version of that cinematic

 

to illusrate it even further i can toss in some 3d fan arts but for some reason, while there are many apa fanarts, t51b has very few. but let me share this as a nice start, the artist really managed to capture the original design

 

 

 

i also want to say that greaves had a much larger model in the originals

 

hmmm this is all i can think now, i'll make sure to add more whenever i get more info

Edited July 14, 2018 by sjohnson89

[sjohnson89]

here some screens i managed to capture from the remastered intro (they consered the rest so 2 of them from the normal quality intro)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by sjohnson89

[sjohnson89]

 

 

 

 

for some reason i couldnt add more pictures to my previous post, i guess there is a file limit

 

 

[devinpatterson]

In the interest of time (and since were on the same team) I feel I can speak bluntly

 

 

let me explain it further

when you change the scale of the current power armors, you'll have a...lets call this "basketball player effect".

The concept your looking to articulate is called "proportion" in art.

 

I'll explain in a little more detail (but quickly), what I was trying to convey in my first post. It's fine to edit/change the x and y dimensions for width and depth to simulate bulk, but don't change the Z (height) diminsion use scaling. It's the most likely (in my anedotal experience) to eF up the model (and animations), save scaling to provide any increase in height.

 

I'm by no means an expert, but this is how I would do (and have done) it. Let me show you a quick example (construction protectron, heavy lifter);

 

 

 

 

 

I had a much better example of the "Mark" series of OWB protectrons, that had much more extreme edits to their bulk, but imageshack fried it.

 

But you get the idea. In blender they are the same scale, but in game the heavy lifter is scaled 1.1 that provides the height without messing too much with the model, and allows edits for width and depth to create a more substantial bot.

[sjohnson89]

exactly mate, you put it much better than i could so thank you.

 

i actually dont want to change "z" either. besides, if we scale it in every direction proportionally it will be the same armor again. and i'll make sure to use power armor scaling mod too, its essentialy a double dipping on bulkiness, as you said.

 

do you know what i just realized? i was testing stuff on blender (for my bulky tactics power armor) and then i increased the size of greaves (along with kneecaps) by 25%. you cant believe the difference it makes when playing. as far as i've seen all power armor models have very bulky greaves so this can be a starting ground for us.

 

i did a small observation on the classic model and looks like middle-belly area is the thinnest part. forearms are thinner compared to biceps. and hmm i can see that chest armor is much thicker compared to default model.

 

pauldrons...while they have the same look in general this is the most important part of the armor. they seem to be much larger. this is my biggest concern about this project, in game pauldron models suck, they clip and float all the time. i was testing fo4 power armor models in nv (dragbodys port) and that t51b did much better with clipping.

[devinpatterson]

i increased the size of greaves (along with kneecaps) by 25%. you cant believe the difference it makes when playing. as far as i've seen all power armor models have very bulky greaves so this can be a starting ground for us.

 

i did a small observation on the classic model and looks like middle-belly area is the thinnest part. forearms are thinner compared to biceps. and hmm i can see that chest armor is much thicker compared to default model.

Makes sense

 

Yeah, I wonder if that cinematic is the sum total of media we have (discounting sprites, which aren't actually useful). Don't get me wrong the extra pics do help, but I wish we had more media to go off of.....and I haven't found any as of yet (although to be fair I haven't had more than a few minutes to search).

 

pauldrons...while they have the same look in general this is the most important part of the armor. they seem to be much larger. this is my biggest concern about this project, in game pauldron models suck, they clip and float all the time. i was testing fo4 power armor models in nv (dragbodys port) and that t51b did much better with clipping.

Well I could look at it and see if he changed something with the weights, or added some bone weights from other bones, but I kind of doubt that since we have a specific dedicated node (Bip01 LPauldron) which I believe was made primarily for power armor.

[sjohnson89]

i do believe cinematic has the superior version of the armor. i was watching an hd gameplay vid of fo1 and paused it when i was able to have a look at t51b. from the behind it doesnt look -that- much different compared to ours, as in general shape. pauldrons looks...larger (?) and it has the muscular look we previously talked before.

 

that artwork i added describes the front perfectly. fo4 design is somewhat "fat". fo1/2 has that superman look along with being muscular, basically most of the bulk effect comes from the shoulders, arms and legs, proportionally speaking.

 

what else can i add...greaves are larger compared to upper leg guards (quadriceps). i tried to simulate this effect with my tactics power armor, selected greaves in blender, made them 1.35 bigger in x direction and it was much better. later i tested an increase of 10-15% in y direction, i think the result was better. still cant decide though. this artwork guided me a lot, i think most power armors, well classic versions at least, follow this design

 

 

 

i kept searching for fan arts of t51b and for some reason i am unable to find many alternatives, unlike advanced power armor.

[sjohnson89]

devin where are you man? have a look at this, we are wasting our time with the damn model...i never could have guessed that having the classic valve at the back would make it so similar to the fo1 version.

 

 

 

used dragbody's fo4 t51b shoulderguards. obviously it needs some fine tuning.

 

after all these edits i'm 99% sure the default pauldrons are beyond saving. i'm going to keep tweaking it, my current plan is using the default torso combined with fo4 version of t51b, making arms thinner and placing pauldrons a little higher while increasing their size.

 

i ditched the idea of making it similar to the version that is shown in the intro. my current goal is making something similar to the sprite they used in fo1/2, so it'll be pretty simple. i really need some guidance/ideas, please share some of your superior knowledge with a newbie ^^