#048 GAD BA6: Weapon Creation and Documentation

To start off, I drew up some plans for each of the weapons. I did a top, side and iso view of each one, with some rough measurements to get me going. A total of 5 front mounted weapons and 3 top mounted weapons, each with 2 additional "Tier" upgrades. Keeping the weapons low poly is vital, as the game will be for a mobile handset device, I kept in mind a budget of around 1,000 tris for each weapon (not including projectiles).

Pneumatic Spike:
I first off started with a 12 sided cone, then moved on to extrude the base out to create a shaft, as well as a larger more stable base.

Next I created the housing, starting off with a cube, I extruded one side and scaled it down to make a point, then continued to extrude it to make the protruding sides.

For the Tier 2 upgrade, I simply scaled up the spike.

For the final tier, I broke off the end of the spike and duplicated it several times. I then rotated and placed them facing the opposite direction to create a more deadly looking spike.

Chain Saw:

First of all I began by making the sides. I did this by creating a cylinder and a cube, then used the create polygon tool with snap to vertex on. I then extruded the face to make the bridge detail and set in a small area in the middle.

Again, I used the create polygon tool to add the outer face, then divided and extruded every other face. I scaled the faces in and rotated/pulled them to create the teeth.

For the base I used a simple cylinder, then extruded and pulled it at one end.

For the Tier 2 upgrade, I scaled up the blade.

As with the Tier 2 upgrade, I scaled the blade up again for the Tier 3 upgrade.

Circular Blade:

To create the circular blade, I started off with a 48 sided cylinder. I selected every other edge on the outer edge and scaled them up slightly, then rotated them. I then deleted every other line to create quads on the larger surface faces.

Next up, the blade cover. I beveled a cylinder, then cut it in half. I then re-topologised the outer face and added a face to the bottom.

Using the same technique that I used to create the chainsaw sides, I used a cylinder and a cube to create the side. I then used the create polygon tool and extruded the side face in. I duplicated and positioned the piece again to create the bracket.

I re-used the original housing I made the the spike, but cut out a small section. I then re-topologised the faces and positioned it behind the brackets.

Shunt:

For the shunt I used a cylinder, rotating it slightly and cutting it in half. I then duplicated the half and flipped it, merging the two sides together. I then extruded the face and straightened the edges to give the plough more depth.

I used the same brackets I made for the circular blade, positioning them so they just touched the plough.

Again, re-cyling the housing used for the circular blade, I added the housing behind the brackets to create the shunt. For the Tier 2 and Tier 3 shunt weapon I simply scaled the size of the plough.

Spiked Drum:
Starting off with a cylinder, I extruded the edges to create a lip.

I recycled the brackets used on previous weapons, spacing them out on each side of the drum.

Next up, I started adding in some cones for spikes.

I then centered the spikes to the middle of the drum and rotated them around 60 degrees at a time.

For the Tier 2 drum I scaled up the drum and arms, for the Tier 3 drum I added in additional spikes.

Chaingun:
To start the chaingun I created a cylinder and extruded some of the faces to make a more interesting housing. I then added in a single long cylinder for one of the barrels.

I then duplicated and rotated the barrels, creating a 6 barrel chaingun.

I added in two more cylinders, holding the barrels together.

I then created the upper part of the stand by extruding a scaling faces of a cube. I then pushed it up into the chaingun housing.

For the lower stand, I used a cube with a horizontal sub division. I then grabbed the edges on either side and scaled them out.

For the Tier 2 and Tier 3 chaingun, I again scaled up the main area of the chaingun (not the stand)

Flame Thrower:
I started off with a cylinder, extruding and expanding it to create the muzzle for the flame thrower.

I continued to extrude the cylinder, rotating it bit by bit to create a curved pipe.

Next, I extruded and expanded the end of the pipe to create a tank. I topologised the end face in to quads and smoothed some of the edges.

I created a bracket by using the create polygon tool around two circles. I then extruded the face slightly and duplicated it

I used a 6 sided cylinder to create the stand, pulling it up to intersect the brackets slightly. I then extruded it up and in to meet the bottom edge of the flamethrower pipe.

I then added in a elongated cube and a partial section of a donut to create the igniter, deleting any unneeded faces.

For the Tier 2 and Tier 3 upgrades I scaled up the muzzle size of the flame thrower as well as the size of the tank.

Rockets:
To begin I created a elongated cube and beveled it. I cut off the ends and put them to one side, I then used a cylinder as a guide to create a hole in the end. I extruded the edges in to the cube to create a hollow section.

For the opposite end I extruded and sunk in the face to create a indent.

I then duplicated the body of the rocket pod and lined the two side by side.

I used the ends of the rocket pods that I cut off to create the covers of the pods, rotating them up to allow rockets to be shot out.

For the holder I used a simple cube, positioning it to intersect with the lower section of the rocket pods.

To create the rocket I used a cylinder with several intersections. I scaled the vertexes to create the point and extruded the back end to create the rocket funnel. I then extruded out some fins and shrank them down to a point.

I then placed the rocket into one of the tubes and duplicated it across.

For the Tier 2 rockets I doubled the amount of rockets, stacking them on top of each other.

For the Tier 3 rockets I added another 2 pods, this time on the side, and centered them all on the holding block.

Working to my tri budget of 1,000 tris for each weapon, I managed to achieve fairly good looking weapons at a fairly low poly count. Texturing will play a big part in making the weapons look the part. Below is a chart of the weapons with their tri count.

Weapon	Tris:
Pneumatic Spike	188
Chain Saw	782
Circular Blade	600
Shunt	368
Spiked Drum	500
Chaingun	412
Flamethrower	806
Rockets	738 (without rockets)