The Ascent Project - Highpoly Descent Models

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:51 pm

Valhalla tower docking control to unidentified approaching vessel...

I have been a die-hard Descent'r since my childhood and, to make a long story short, thanks to projects like D2X/ReBirth I was able to relive those awesome memories. After beating both Descent I and II, I was so overtaken with nostalgia that I wanted... heck, needed to pay some form homage to these awesome games.

As a 3D artist I decided to put my skills to work and hence The Ascent Project was born as a complete remake of every single character model of the series.

It should be noted that despite having taken artistic liberties I make a point to preserve both the concept and “soul” of the original in-game models.

This project has become quite dear to me and I hope you enjoy my recreations as much as I have enjoyed making them.

I decided to start with the models from Descent II in order of appearance per the briefing screens of the campaign.

Without further ado,
For full-resolution downloads and backstory of the project and models please visit the links provided below or http://theascentproject.deviantart.com/

The Ascent Project's GuideBot:

dA link: http://fav.me/d55rix6

The Ascent Project's P.E.S.T.:

dA link: http://fav.me/d56hg73 (this one actually has quite a bit of back story)

The Ascent Project's I.T.D.:

dA link: http://fav.me/d57dz6a

The Ascent Project's P.I.G.:

dA link: http://fav.me/d58d0sx
Quite a bit of sci-fi thought went into making this guy, if you're interested in knowing please visit the dA link and read the description (you can also see/download the full resolution image!)

The Ascent Project's Bandit:

dA link: http://fav.me/d597qki
Almost 4 times more polygons than the PIG!

* * * UPDATE * * *
The Ascent Project's Smelter:

dA link: http://fav.me/d5a7wlu
Please visit the dA link of this bot and see it in full-resolution (and maybe read my little piece of fan-fiction in its description)!

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 11:03 am

Woah! That's amazing!

That's it. I'm installing blender.

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 11:38 am

Nice! My instinctual reaction was, "Gah! Who let that darn guidebot out?!"

Looking forward to the next one... I'd love you see your take on Diamond Claw or Old Scratch.

Valin Halcyon · Post by **Valin Halcyon** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:48 pm

You might be ahead of me on this, but are these models going to be usable in D2X-XL? If I remember right, Diedel had to do a good bit of tweaking of models other people had submitted to make them work right.

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:42 pm

Isaac wrote:Woah! That's amazing!

That's it. I'm installing blender.

Thank you! Glad you like it and found inspiration in it. Good luck with Blender!

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:43 pm

Foil wrote:Nice! My instinctual reaction was, "Gah! Who let that darn guidebot out?!"

Looking forward to the next one... I'd love you see your take on Diamond Claw or Old Scratch.

In time...

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 4:56 pm

Yup, Karx (and the rest of the D2X-XL community) have a long term goal to get hi-poly, hi-res versions of the robots in with everything else D2X-XL offers. If we can use your models that would (probably, I'm no expert) save a lot of time and look great.

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:00 pm

Valin Halcyon wrote:You might be ahead of me on this, but are these models going to be usable in D2X-XL? If I remember right, Diedel had to do a good bit of tweaking of models other people had submitted to make them work right.

Since all of this project's models are being created without polycount constraints it is not really my intentions for them to be used in-game. I'd be receptive; however, if someone feels like taking the models and shaving polygons - or maybe in time I can recreate them at a friendly polycount

.

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:07 pm

Alter-Fox wrote:Yup, Karx (and the rest of the D2X-XL community) have a long term goal to get hi-poly, hi-res versions of the robots in with everything else D2X-XL offers. If we can use your models that would (probably, I'm no expert) save a lot of time and look great.

I'd definitely love to participate in that project if my models are found acceptable.

sdfgeoff · Post by **sdfgeoff** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:49 pm

Amazing work there.

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 3:05 pm

sdfgeoff wrote:Amazing work there.

Thank you!

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 3:49 pm

UPDATE: PEST is up!

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sat Jul 07, 2012 3:56 pm

I really like the tapered thin lines of detail on theses.

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Sat Jul 14, 2012 7:59 pm

UPDATE: ITD is up!

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:40 am

Cool!!!

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 12:47 pm

Looking forward to what you can do with the bigger guys...

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 7:44 pm

P.I.G. is served!

@uToPL@y · Post by **@uToPL@y** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 10:35 pm

Wow! is too short a word for what you've done here!

Your stuff looks like it would be used in a CGI SciFi movie about the trials and tribulations of the Material Defender!

I too have longed to relive some of those old memory's as well, but when I decided to do a remake of the series for the Unreal Engine 2.5 - I wasn't going to bump up the vertex count to the extent you have accomplish.
Mainly just enough to make them look better than the originals, possibly using 2-3 times the count - and do the rest with detail textures and a shader or two for specularity & masks.

But yours put me in mind of the Into Cerberon Mod on ModDB for the D3 engine done by: HeXetic and his crew with the new weapon pickups they made.

I've been working on mine off and on for awhile now whenever time permits, between other projects and such - just taking my time trying to do it right the first time through.

So, when the time comes to convert your models to work in Dietfrid's D2X-XL engine - I'd be pleased to see my name on the duty roster to help with whatever needs to be done, except coding though.
It's been far too long since I've done any useful compiling to even recognize a bug - unless it was crawling across my monitor of course!

Valin Halcyon · Post by **Valin Halcyon** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 8:43 am

Are you doing Descent II first? I was looking forward to the D1 bots...

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 1:38 pm

I love the pig. By the way, it's up-side down

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 2:42 pm

Valin Halcyon wrote:I was looking forward to the D1 bots...

So predictable

And PIG is right side up. Look at the level 1 briefing.

@uToPL@y · Post by **@uToPL@y** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:49 pm

Valin Halcyon wrote:Are you doing Descent II first? I was looking forward to the D1 bots...

Hmm, not quite sure to whom you are referring?
Since TheAscentProject has already stated that he is currently working on the D2 bots.

TheAscentProject wrote:I decided to start with the models from Descent II in order of appearance per the briefing screens of the campaign.

And since I'm doing a remake of 1,2&3 I guess i'll start with the D1 bots and see if you guys even like my work! If not, then I guess I'll have to work a bit harder!

As I said though, mine will only be for in game use - nothing as close to movie bots, similar in appearance and quality of 'Transformers'!

Although I could at least try to emulate some of the look and feel of what TheAscentProject has done, sort of a happy medium so to speak.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 9:53 pm

TheAscentProject wrote:P.I.G. is served!

The others look good as well, but I especially like what you did with the pig.

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 8:02 pm

First things first, thank you everyone for your support! Secondly, everyone's favorite enemy: the Bandit is up!

Skyalmian · Post by **Skyalmian** » Sun Jul 29, 2012 8:17 pm

Given what you can do with models, who knows what you can do with levels...

Enzo-03 · Post by **Enzo-03** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:08 am

I'm not quite sure I like the bandit. :<

Foil · Post by **Foil** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:25 am

Arms seem a bit long, but otherwise he's my fave so far. Of course, by "fave" I mean "the one I feel the strongest urge to chase down and kill".

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:42 am

I agree with Foil, the arms are to long on the thief bot.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 11:14 am

I don't think the arms are too long, I think it is just the proportions playing tricks; they are thin which makes them look longer than they really are. Put some more "muscle" on them and they probably won't seem so long.

Still excellent work anyway.

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Jul 30, 2012 6:04 pm

I like it!!

@uToPL@y · Post by **@uToPL@y** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:18 am

Another awesome addition! As usual!

It'd be cool though, if when the bandit gets animated - if the arms were like tentacles that would poke and grab at your ship to rip the weapons and other parts from the fuselage!

Providing of course Diedel has implemented some sort of texture damage system, or even deformable models that could show actual damage with wires and pipes protruding from the ship.
Or simply just detachable outer pieces, which is probably what I'll end up doing in my mod - to try and make the experience a bit more realistic than most other mods using the UE3 engine.

I still have a ton of planning to do for all the detailed intricacies I want to include, but I should have a small mod crew helping me soon enough - can't wait for my first release though! I'm gonna have so much fun killing all my friends again!

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:31 am

I was just chuckling at myself on the response I'm about to give to the comments on the Bandit's arms: they are barely long enough! And they are supposed to stretch out even further!

At their current extension this guy can't clap in front of his face (yes, with the shoulder rotated), so for them to do their job (and look cool doing so) the arms have to reach out further - this was part of the reason why I decided to add the feature to partially retract the arms into the shoulder assembly - so they wouldn't look excessively long in the unposed presentation.

Oh and @uToPL@y, they are supposed to be fully flexible tentacles that do exactly what you said... As a matter of fact, you just wait and see what I'll be posting soon

In any case, thank you guys for watching and supporting my work! I do appreciate the feedback! Cheers!

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 9:55 am

You should wiggle its arms around and make it say "Danger Robinson family! You have a head-light. It must be stolen for your protection!"

@uToPL@y · Post by **@uToPL@y** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 6:59 pm

Isaac wrote:"Danger Robinson family!"

"Danger! Danger! Will Robinson! something approaches." LOL!

* Sits idly by(twiddling opposing tentacles - ahem, uh - thumbs) waiting to see what awesome new content is about to be posted, refreshes page - hmm!

Looks in disbelief at first post addition

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:48 am

Isaac wrote:You should wiggle its arms around and make it say "Danger Robinson family! You have a head-light. It must be stolen for your protection!"

"Sir, you have an earthshaker missile. That's not something to play with. Don't worry sir, I'll keep that safe for y-[Insert thief death sound here]"

TheAscentProject · Post by **TheAscentProject** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:11 pm

Well my friends - this is it, With more polygons than the sum of all previous models (and I don't spam turbosmooth), in the making since late February 2012, pages of sketches, and around 10GB of total content; this is the big one, the crown jewel, the flagship of the fleet (so far) - for your viewing pleasure, the Smelter!

Please visit the dA link as imgur's tiny file size (by comparison) does not do the model any justice! Over at dA not only can you see the full-resolution image, but you can also read a little piece of fan-fiction I wrote around this bot (right in the description).

Alas, here is where my weekly uploads will end as you are now caught up with me. Just a couple of weeks ago I began sketching the Diamond Claw and this week I started a new semester... I won't lie, it will be a while until the D.C. is ready... I hope you don't forget about me as I definitely will not forget about you, this project, or the awesome support I've received. Thus, here, with you all as witnesses, I promise to work on the D.C. every spare moment I get.

My friends, it's been a pleasure and, with all of me, thank you so much for all the support!

... Prepare for Descent!

PS: Hope this makes up for the Bandit!

SilverWolf · Post by **SilverWolf** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:23 pm

Very nice, indeed. Have a good semester. (Indeed, classes are starting, that means I'll have a pay-check again! Yay!)

Isaac · Post by **Isaac** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:44 pm

Oh wow! This is awesome!!! The smelter rules!

@uToPL@y · Post by **@uToPL@y** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 3:37 pm

TheAscentProject wrote:Well my friends - this is it, With more polygons than the sum of all previous models (and I don't spam turbosmooth), in the making since late February 2012, pages of sketches, and around 10GB of total content; this is the big one, the crown jewel, the flagship of the fleet (so far) - for your viewing pleasure, the Smelter!

WoW! you weren't kidding when you said just wait and see!

That is so awesome! I aspire to your skillz with a polygon! Can't wait to see it in action!

Sorry to hear you can't spend as much time as you'd like on future additions though!

Well, take care for now - and I can only hope you'll be able to take classes you enjoy as much as your work here!

Enzo-03 · Post by **Enzo-03** » Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:10 am

I saw that smelter and I just died.

Happily ever after.