Vehicle Design Approaches Part 3 - Characterization

Going off the previous research I've created a set of building blocks for bashing together models quickly for rapid 3D prototyping. I'm going to focus on the player characters tank for this initially because this is one of the most important vehicle in the game. 

Fig 1

Fig 1 is the model kit. For the modelling kit I decided to leave out basic body shapes because I think that would limit the creativity of the tanks right at the start of the design. 

Fig 2 - Attempt 1

These initial 2 designs are ok, they have a couple of basic identifiers on them like the hatches and main cannons. I feel that they are boring though as there's nothing really unique about them at all and they have no elements that would help characterize them.

Fig 3 - Attempt 2

I found a great piece of research in the Vertex 3 magazine in an article called ''Storytelling with vehicles'' - Matthias Develtere.

'Vehicles should tell stories as well, just like characters, weapons and environments do.' [Matthias Develtere 2015]

This quote is exactly what I want my vehicles to do. I don't want them to be the same old vehicles, I want each type to have a lot of story involved in its design. Matthias talks a lot about how using asymmetry in a design is an advantage because, the assets created can be used multiple times without looking all identical. This would be useful for things like ammo crates and small sets of repeating equipment. This will be a good way to add more clutter to a design without as much work.

For the third design I began using exaggeration on parts of the model to help give it some interesting features. The main exaggerations are making the body very stubby and also making the turret much thicker and shorter.

Once I had created the main body I looked into adding aspects to give it character. I wanted the tank to be something similar to the characters home, so I took some inspiration from pack mules and loaded tonnes of junk on and around the turret. I then focused the design down to a few major assets on the tank to explain the tastes of the characters and how they could use the space. For example next to the machine gun is an open case full of ice and drinks, once of which is open with a straw pointing towards the open hatch. On the other side there is also an old CRT TV and an old games system, these don't just show the characters have an interest in games but also gives some idea of things available in this time period.

I'm pretty happy with this being the main design for now whilst I prototype. I'll probably make a few changes before I create the final version for the game later on.