Macross Models 3D colelction

[guyxxed]

Full disclosure, I did not make that mapping.  Turns out this is one of the planes avaialable in Macross 30, and can be found in the archive linked in this thread: 

 

Great resource and is where I've been grabbing some of the bits and pieces to build my models, along with the great stuff over on Cults3D.

[PointBlankSniper]

Good work! Definitely gotta stop somewhere if you aren't looking to go down a rabbit hole

I think Klan should have yellow eyes, but that's a minor nitpick. I'll just take w/e cool pics I can get, even if she's there to photobomb lol

[guyxxed]

A lot of the Macross 30 assets have different eye/visor colors from what I expect.  The 25A in SMS CF colors, for example, has a yellow eye whereas all the depictions I've seen of it (including the DX toy) have orange eyes.  Oh well, something for the to-do list.  I'm thinking about a full Pixie Squad group with colors for "the Other Two" as well as Klan, but also messing about with the YF-25 now (my own personal favorite of the 25s).  Will see what I can come up with (as well as what I can find time for).

Appreciate all the input!

[PointBlankSniper]

I guess the inconsistent eye color happens in all mecha. Some gundam are like that too. One color for animation, and another in the kits. 🤪

Between all the inconsistent shades of Klan, theres enough for hand me downs for the other two pixies lol. If you've got something original in mind, looking forward to seeing what you cook up. I don't even remember if those two had any distinct color schemes tbh lol

[guyxxed]

Sorry for the long silence, have been traveling for work and haven't had much time to work on this.  Sitting in an airport for a few hours today and put this together.  Here is Klan arguing with Klan about Klan's new colors.  She certainly seems to have an opinion, but Pixie Squad appears to be intrigued!  

[guyxxed]

And here are the two new liveries I came up with for Pixie Squad 25s in fighter mode.  I tried for something close to the Queadluun colors for each, since the M30 version of Klan seems more like its own thing.  Thoughts, suggestions, comments all welcome.

[PointBlankSniper]

It's becoming an alternate universe where everyone has a VF-25 lol

If you want more suggestions, you can steal more colors from the rest of the franchise. Delta squadron VF-25 for example. Or do something weird like steal nintendo color  schemes. Mario and Luigi? Pikachu? lol. I think a Samus themed one would actually go well.

[guyxxed]

What can I say, I like the VF-25.  😉  Didn't really intend to start dreaming up all these, but it's been a fun rabbit hole to dive down for a bit.  UV mapping a model is a tedious pain in the butt, but once the map exists, repaints are pretty quick and fun, so I haven't minded wandering around like this.  Was fun to look at what others had done and put my own spin on them.  The M30 Klan model, other than being red, doesn't really follow her Q-Rhea colors much, so I tried to make mine mirror the Queadluun colors somewhat when in battroid (pink on the shoulders and hips for Klan, tan on the upper arms for the CF Pixie) and throw some flair onto the fighters where it wouldn't distract from the homage.

A Delta squad 25 could be interesting, I'll add that to the "might do" list.  Also makes me think that Frontier colored 31s could be fun, too.  The models I have of the 31s are fighter only at the moment, I would need to build or find some battroid modes to tackle that project properly.  No rest for the weary!

Here's another view of the fighters since the first one didn't show the squad markings very well.

[PointBlankSniper]

These look great. The CF pixie could totally pass for something in a more realistic setting and nobody would know lol.

I'll patiently wait and see what you cook up next.

[guyxxed]

Still fiddling with the Macross Delta models (and finding it very frustration so far), but took a few minutes this afternoon to paste this together just for fun.  There's a company up the street from my job that refits race cars and had a Porche out front with the Gulf livery on it, so I figured what the hell.  Maybe this is next year's entry in the Vanquish Races from Macross the Ride (though I have no idea what Gulf would actually be selling in the Macross era, since all fossil fuels got bombed into oblivion).  Anyway, something to look at while I puzzle away.

[guyxxed]

For comparison, the one I saw looked a bit like this.

 

[PointBlankSniper]

That's a nice car, and now you've opened the door to a lot of other liveries, including teams for other sports.

[guyxxed]

Back to my original NUNS project, started on a NUNS RVF in order to complete the squad.  Still some tweaking to do, but here's what it looks like so far. 

[PointBlankSniper]

Nice, you got the whole team to work with now.

[guyxxed]

Wrll, it took a lot of internet sleuthing as well as the kindness of a few strangers to point me in the right direction, but I've now managed to get some models of the VF-31's.  These are from the Delta Scramble game and are mapped in very odd ways, but are still very nice models.  Here is a quick attempt at putting Alto's colors on the 31J, which....mostly highlight that Alto's colors are a bit boring.  Iconic, but not as interesting as I had hoped.  Anyway, some pictures while I futz around and see what other ideas come to mind.  And ,yes, the mission container is missing, they're separate components in the game and I haven't finished pulling everything back together yet.  Feedback and suggestions welcome. 

 

[PointBlankSniper]

It looks so much more like the Chronos now lol

I assume the other heads will crop up eventually too

IDK anything about that game, but I'm guessing they split the mission packs so they could swap to sound booster or radome. I wish the double triangular beam cannons from the master file was more canon, and had a 3D model you could use. There's the 3D print model, but I doubt that is useful with all the support structures for 3D printing integrated in it. It's also probably proportionally all wrong for use with the model you have anyway lol.

If you want another color scheme suggestion, I'd say Isamu is a brain dead choice lol

[guyxxed]

The containers are, indeed, set up for multiple configurations.  Looks to mostly be open/closed and different color schemes, but I haven't dug all the way through the model directory yet to see if there are any others (never played the game, either).  Like you said, it's a bit of a missed opportunity that they didn't explore more uses for the mission containers in the show, and this may be an area I try to build some custom items to expand the retertoire. 

The other planes are in there as well, but I only grabbed a few in my initial trawl through the directory.  Are definitely some fun color variants packaged with the game, below are the Freyja and Kaname schemes (though without the idol decals applied).  I've also come across some other fun models, like the Cheyenne and the modernized Glaug.  The NUNS ships and Ragna map available in the thread I linked above also were pulled from Delta Scramble, so when I get some time I plan to go on a deeper dive to see what else I can find.  

[guyxxed]

Also, since you mentioned it, here's a very quick and dirty version of the 31J with Kronos colors so that it looks like an actual military plane for a change.  😏

[PointBlankSniper]

Think you got mixed up about what I said. I was refering to the YF-30 Chronos, since it has a very similar transformation, and has an Alto style black and red on white scheme lol.

The CF VF-31A are Kairos. Seigfried in Kairos colors does look awsome though.

Interested to see what you might cook up if you do end up making custom models for these.

[guyxxed]

Whoops, my bad, I did misunderstand.  I follow you now, and yeah, it does look a lot like the YF-30 now.  

I have plans to sit down this weekend and dig through the rest of the game directory to see what else I can pull out.  I already know the Drakkens won't work with the export tool I have (something about the file structure confuses it and I just get an empty armature), but considering I'm getting these for free, I don't have much to complain about.  

Custom containers seems like a natural direction to go. Certainly the missile container for the 31A is a must, and the fold projector if it's not already in there.  I've seen the designs from the Master File, so will take another look at those and see what grabs my fancy.

Fun stuff, and thanks for the comments, has definitely helped push me to keep playing around!

[PointBlankSniper]

I'm just jumping at the chance to ask for some rarer stuff to get more depictions. I should thank you for taking my suggestions while I contribute nothing 😁

[guyxxed]

No worries, like I said it's fun and helping push me to develop stuff I probably wouldn't be spending time on otherwise.  Case in point, here is a full Skull Squadron version of the VF-31s.  Disclosures:  yes, these are all just 31J models with new coats of paint, and yes, that is the radome from the 25.  Adapting the maps to the other 31s is a bit complicated because of the way they were created (there's a lot of fragmentation of the models, which makes creating continuous patterns challenging, and they also made a lot of the striping by actually modeling new polygons on top of the base ones in order to get crisp lines.  Great if you want the same stripes, but a pain if you want to move things around), so I took a lazy route just to have something to show.  I'll probably go back and update the maps to the proper planes at a future date, but for now wanted to show that progress is still happening.

[PointBlankSniper]

These look surprisingly like they would be right at home in Frontier, somehow even more so than Alto's own Durandal.

Those 3D models sound exactly like the archaic nightmarish hackjob optimized for old consoles that they are lol. Good luck unscrweing them up if you get around to it.

[guyxxed]

Thank you, they did come out better than I was expecting based on the inital go at Alto's colors.  I spent some time getting the heads figured out, and here are the Battroid versions assigned to their appropriate planes (mostly, I kept Michael in a 31J because that fit better than moving him to a 31A, of course that means I should probably move Alto's colors to either the 31C or the 31F, but I think this is good enough for now).

You're right about the models, everything is clearly optimized for being seen on a small handheld screen, which is a bit of a letdown after the quality of the Macross 30 assets, but they are still very nice models (and much better than anything I could have made on my own), so no complaints. I think this wraps up the "Delta Skull Squadron" detour, time for the next project!  😉  Tenjin Hidetaka's art book had some of the discarded ideas for Delta liveries, I think I'll take a look at those and see if any look good enough to put some time into.

[PointBlankSniper]

Nice job, they all look great

If you were to reshuffle them based on head styling similarities to the 25s, I personally think the E's head would look fine as Michael's unit, regardless of the sensor pod that makes it not the A. The F's bulbous alien face would probably stand in well for Luca's faceless design. I think both the C and J are both close to Alto's head. The J has the visor, but the C has a closer general silhouette and dual head lasers lol.

I know nothing about those discarded liveries, so it will be interesting to see you do any of those.

[guyxxed]

The 31F should definitely be Alto's plane, but I don't like the head of the 31F, so I'm not going to use it.  😉  The 31C is my personal favorite of the designs, so maybe I'll do something with that if I get bored.

The liveries from the book turned out to be less interesting than I remembered, mostly just color variants, but a few interesting ideas there, especially the Drakken colored Sigfried.  Nothing's jumping out at me yet, but will think on it and see what ideas bubble up.  Here are some crappy photos of the pages in question.

[PointBlankSniper]

Some of them have kind of interesting patterns, but yeah, colors are kind of drab.

Kind of odd that there was an obsession to have the engines stand out in black for most of them. I think the ones where they blend in with the body in dark blue, or the body is black to match them give a much cleaner silhouette against itself.

[guyxxed]

I agree, I think on the final designs it lends an interesting contrast, a bit like the engines on a Su-33 or the T-50 (apparently Russians have the same obsession 😉 ), but it is funny to see it as the only constant across all of the designs they came up with.  I had actually thought of chaninging them to white when I was making the Alto version, but it felt too much like one of the "signature" aspects of the plane, so I left them dark.  Not sure where I'll go from here, just start futzing around and see what inspriations strike, I suppose.

One thing that has definitely jumped out at me working on these planes is how different a beast the 31 is compared to the 25.  Even though the overall dimensions are similar, the 31 is a much more "massive" vehicle than the 25, way thicker through the midsection and with much heavier legs and wings.  It's practically barrel chested in battroid as well, compared to the wasp shape of the 25.  In many ways, I think the 31 is a "better" design in tems of how it transforms (cockpit right side up with no seat flippng!) and is a very attractive aircraft, but the 25 feels more viable somehow.  More like a fighting craft whereas the 31 feels like a small spaceship (again, a weird impression to be left with considering how much better armed the 31 is, just somehow the 25 comes away feeling more aggressive in my mind).

[PointBlankSniper]

I get that impression too. I think for the 25, its design just looks like any random real world fighter. In battroid form, it's basically a lanky space trooper with a minigun.

IMO the 31 has a lot of aspects working against its image as a warplane. The livery looks like literal racing boats for one. Then the top surface is also very flat and spacious, also like a boat. The forward swept wings, and its inward canted stabilizerss give it fancy show car vibes. For weapons, it's got drones deployed from engine top o calf, which is all sorts of weird for an aircraft or humanoid robot. Then theres a drone charger in the pod, which isn't really a weapon. As for battroid, it's got some clutter on its back, making it kind of like a fairy lol. Overall, it's just very poised to not exert aggression lol.

[guyxxed]

I hadn't thought of them as "boats", but yeah, I see what you mean.  😁  I have the DX toys of the 25 and 31, and I will say that putting them side by side in battroid, the 31 looks like the Hulk, so it does have its moments, but I get what you're saying.  The drones and charger make sense for how they were used in the show, but it would have been nice to see other applications of both (charger becomes microwave weapon?  drones become attacker bits or orbiting pinpoint barriers around the fighters?) rather than just idol group support.  Oh well, it's what my imagination is for, I suppose.  😉 

Side note:  the fact that the wings just fold onto the backs of both the 25 and 31 has always bugged me.  There are plenty of awkward Valkyrie designs over the years, but for the most part, they always found a way to fit everything away somewhere.  The VF-1, anime magic aside, did a great job of keeping all its parts tucked away in battroid.  Just seems like there could have been a more elegant solution on the Frontier and Delta planes than just "yeah, okay, they still have wings in battroid".  Minor pet peeve.

[PointBlankSniper]

Wow, I never realized their size difference was so huge. I've yet to get a 25, so I can't directly compare them. I have a 29 displayed in full super pack gerwalk clutter and it kind of takes up the same space as my 31AX, so I assumed they were similar sized. Never put them in battroid together so I never noticed the battroid height differences. 

I actually like wings on mechs, as long as they look functional. But yeah, just folding up in an unusable position is kind of frustrating.  They could have at least been used as weapon racks with all those pilon mounts, rather than usually being dumped clean for transformation. Kind of a wasted opportunity.

[guyxxed]

Because the cockpit sits level on the 31s, the torso ends up being very thick in battroid as well.  As long as you're looking from the front or a 3/4 view, it's fine, but if you turn it sideways, it becomes very obvious just how much is there and how weirdly deep the chest is.  Still, the fact that it manages to look good in almost every other pose is credit to Kawamori and his design crew, seems like they know what they're doing.  😉 

Minor update, but went back and tweaked the NUNS CF radome I had started before, and finished out the CF squad:  two 25As and the RVF led by a 25F (the 25S would be higher up the group heirarchy and leading multiple squads).  Not sure what to work on next, may tackle some side projects for a bit, but will circle back as inspiration strikes.  Suggestions and comments welcome!

 

[PointBlankSniper]

Now we need a Frontier sequel to see these in action. 😁

[guyxxed]

So say we all!  

[guyxxed]

As a placeholder, while I think of the next project, I've been fishing for what else is available inside the games.  Here are some of the other assets, including the Type 104 Regult, some alternate color 31A's (I like the blue one that looks like a 0D), a fairly well detailed Elysion, and (the nicest surprise for me) the Al Shahal port city.  Something about the way the ground was modeled caused errors with the import tool, but everything else came through pretty well.  It's apparently modeled as two separate 'zones' for the game (port and city), but I've started putting them together into a continuous map.  It's remarkably accurate to what was shown in the anime and Thomas Romaine's concept drawings, from what I see.  Just for fun, I dropped a Thuveral Salaan model in approximately where the military base was shown to be, and, yeah, if it really was there that beast would pretty much dominate the skyline!  For scale, the square on the ground next to it is 1km to a side.  Fun stuff.