A stealth variant of the Moebius Zero from Gundam SEED, built as a game asset from concept sketch to rigged animation. The Moebius Zero has been a favourite since SEED, and its four gunbarrel pods are what make the rig interesting.

The finished Terra Stream, rendered in Marmoset Toolbag
The finished Terra Stream, rendered in Marmoset Toolbag
All four thrusters lit, with the linear gun extendedThe thruster cluster close inThe nose, showing the panel wear and the unit serialThe gunbarrel pods from behind, with their caution stencils

A space frame rebuilt for atmospheric combat

Terra Stream is my premise: surplus space airframes converted for combat in atmosphere. Working out what a space frame needs in air was the part I enjoyed most.

  • Low-visibility paint with orange decals, worn by weather and debris. Serial MZC-101LV, 1st Fleet, Earth Alliance.
  • Propulsion rebuilt for gravity.
  • Barrel detachment dropped for structural strength.
  • A nose camera with computer vision and LiDAR.

From sketch to render in seven steps

  1. Concept art in Adobe Photoshop
  2. 3D model in Autodesk Maya
  3. Texture painting and authoring in Substance Painter and Designer
  4. Rigging in Autodesk Maya
  5. Rig scripting in Python 2
  6. Animation in Autodesk Maya
  7. Rendering and presentation in Marmoset Toolbag
Wireframe over the hull and the forward gunWireframe on the thruster cluster, where most of the polygon budget wentThe gunbarrel pods and the linear gun in wireframe. The same topology repeats four times.

The polygon budget goes to the silhouette

The mesh is all quads, built for a game budget.

  • Radial loops on the pod caps and thruster nozzles, which are seen in profile from every angle.
  • Flat hull panels stay cheap and take their detail from the maps.
UV layout for the barrels and machine gunUV layout for the main body and rail gun

Four texture sets, two at 2048 and two at 512

Each part is unwrapped into its own shells and packed by hand, with no stacked parts.

  • Main body and barrels: 2048.
  • Camera sensor and connector: 512.

Five maps per set, painted in Substance Painter

Each set exports the same five maps from Substance Painter.

  • Diffusion, metallic, roughness, ambient occlusion and normal.
  • The camera sensor set adds transparency.
The barrel controls driving all four pods in the Maya viewport.

Seven control groups, built by a Maya Python script

With the pods kept on, the rig needed seven control groups instead of one detach mechanism.

  • Barrel movement, barrel wing, barrel suspension, machine gun, booster adjustment, booster movement and rail gun.
  • Each barrel is its own hierarchy, and all four have to move the same way.
  • The script rebuilds the rig against a changed model, so revisions never break hand-placed controls.