FO4 Power Armor HD Model Project

[Nukeremus]

Hello RPF!
As I am a newbie to the site and to pepakura and prop building, I thought it fitting for my first thread to be an introduction of myself and my plans to the community.

I have been lurking the the site for some time now and I really appreciate that there is such a large group of people offering up their knowledge of making costumes and props. I have learned a lot from the stickies and the tutorials posted here, without which I'd have no idea where to start. So a big thanks to all of you willing to share some info to make it easier for noobs like me. Hopefully I can contribute something helpful like you have.

Some info about myself:
I have a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and I work full time as a draftsman for a mechanical contractor. We do mechanical piping and plumbing so I draft 3D pipe and equipment drawings for coordination and installation. We do hospitals, water plants, hotels, colleges, and other large construction projects.
Apart from my full time job I am also a musician. I play bass and sing backups for heavy metal band After The Blast and classic metal band EvidenceBlack.
I really enjoy both the Halo and Fallout franchises. I've been playing Halo since the first one came out and I've played every Fallout game except for Brotherhood of Steel. I've even played the incomplete F3 VanBuren thing.
Probably my favorite thing that I have seen from builds on this site has been the integration of electronics into costumes. Fans, lights, etc. I even saw a helmet with a light up visor. That stuff is BA

In the time that hasn't bean eaten by my job and my bands, I've been planning my first project!

My First Project:

I'm going to apologize for the lengthy post ahead of time. I've been thinking about this project for some time, and wanted to wait until I had something to show before signing up and posting.

I've used [ spoiler ] to shorten my post.

Since I'm obsessed with Fallout, I'm planning for my first project to be Fallout related.
I have been playing A LOT of Fallout 4 (500+ hours total) and the thing that I love most about the game is the power armor. Bethesda made a hell of a design for this one; something which actually seems mechanically feasible (at least as a suit to walk around in) and I have only seen a couple of start up attempts at making a replica so far. If not myself, I would love to see somebody else make the new power armor!

So here's where my project begins.

Spoiler

I have a lot of experience as a draftsman and I figured I would apply it to making better pep files for the Fallout 4 power armor frame.
The only thing that I have seen for pep files so far has been this: Fallout 4 T-60 Power Armor Pep files (with frame) - the RPF Basically it's the power armor meshes extracted from the game and converted to pepakura. This is the only file set at the moment! Bethesda ended up simplifying and reducing the polys. Much more than I thought they would have. They mostly used textures to encapsulate the detail.
Here's a decent example: First is the pep model extracted from the game. Next is the model that I created. Last is the 1/6th scale figure by ThreeZero.

Looking at the game model it looks like the toe bar is part of the toe. But if you look at the actual foot, the bar is its own part on a pin/axle.These are details that would be missed if you built the foot using the pep made from the game model. There is also interference between parts that would impair movement if it were assembled, not to mention there are no actual joints or mechanical fasteners anywhere.
My goal is to make a model that works and still stays accurate to the original design from the game. I am drawing everything in SolidWorks because I can assemble the parts and inspect their movement. I can see interference between parts and check for collisions to find problems with the design. I can even stress test the parts as if they were built with composites and see if there are weaknesses in the design.
I might not get that far into it, but it would be cool to see!
For now I'm just going to model this thing and if I can't build it, at least someone can still use it for 3D printing or for making their own power armor pep.

What I've modeled so far

16-09-08

Spoiler

So far I've made the basic models for the feet and calves and I'm currently working on the shin. The shin is the main piece that connects the foot to the leg (hence why there are floating parts still). The feet look so much cooler in polished steel IMO

I was making it from the bottom up referencing the game's models as well as pictures of ThreeZero's 1/6th figure, but with those I could only do so much. Now that I actually have my hands on one of the 1/6th figures, I will be using photogrammetry to generate an accurate model for reference or cleanup. When the whole model is done I will convert the parts into mesh, clean them up, and unfold them for printing!

16-10-12

Spoiler

I've taken the game's mesh as reference to model the shoulder frame.

16-12-23

Spoiler

I've built the fingers and figured out the general ergonomics for the most realistic hand shape possible with simple joints.

If I were to build it

Spoiler

Let me start off, IF (that's a big if) I were to actually build this thing it wouldn't be a "functional" frame. No hydraulics, no servos, nothing like that. While I have knowledge of hydraulics and circuitry, I know nothing about programming and controls. To make a fully functional frame would be a team project. So for this, it would be mostly for show, to see if it could be built. Maybe it could be worn for periods of time if I can keep the weight down. The most important thing to consider would be materials. This thing would have to be built as light as possible while still being strong enough for a person to stand in it and move around. Of the possibilities I've considered, I have decided to make the frame with mud-glassing. From what I have seen mud-glassing would add a little bit of weight but would be worth it if more strength was needed. If it's still not strong enough, there could be supporting rods rondo'd into the pieces. But that would be at the extreme. Some of the smaller weight bearing pieces such as the toes and heels etc would need to be back filled with rondo so they wouldn't be crushed under the standing weight of the average person. Overall the frame would be pretty heavy so when it comes to the actual armor pieces they would have to be made from molded or vacuumed plastic in order to be light enough to be worn. Perhaps some of the armor pieces could be made from foam or rubber where flexibility is needed. A mixture of all materials for various parts based on function would probably give the best result. Really the way the suit is, the wearer would be carrying the weight of the torso and arms the whole time, and lifting the weight of the legs with every step. The full weight of the suit would be felt when jumping.

Here's what I've built so far:
It's not much to be honest. When I made my first attempt at building a pep piece I didn't know much about scaling so it came out too small. This is how far I got when I realized that once all the resin and fiberglass was inside, it wouldn't fit on my head. It barely fit as it was.

So that's it for now!
I hope some of you are interested in what I'm doing. If anyone has ideas about how to construct an actual power armor frame I'd love to hear them and discuss!
Are there are any suggestions for edits to my post? Let me know!

Thanks all!

-Nukeremus
​

 

[Nukeremus]

Re: Nukeremus - Intro & FO4 Power Armor Model

I just took my first stab at photogrammetry. Using my DLSR and a shutter remote, I took photos of myself as I spun 360° so that I could create a 3D model of myself. I'm going to use it to scale things to fit my size. I'll also be using this method to make better 3D files for the power armor frame. I expect the frame to turn out much better than this because its a static object and I can use a turntable.

I kinda look like a ghoul... "What are you looking at smooth skin!?!?"

 

[Nukeremus]

A quick test on a 90° rotation of the power armor. This turned out much better than my selfie model. I still need to refine my setup a bit to increase accuracy and definition, but it's almost at a workable level.

 

[Ein]

Watching with definite interest here. Not sure if you're making these files for your own build or if you're making them available at large, though. The Power Armor is one of those things I have been itching to build for the last year or so, but I've always wanted to start by making an actual wearable power armor frame and then just layering the armor pieces on hard point mounts, in the same fashion as the game is done. I figured the armor pieces could be done out of thinner, lighter material with vacuum-forming techniques on sheets of plastic and then just back-filled with foam and carved as required for fittings.

There are a lot of logistically impossible areas in the existing power armor frame design that would need to be worked out. The hands terminate in the wrists of the suits, for example, and look like they have a grab handle for the wearer to manipulate the grips further down the arm. The way they're modeled, however, makes it basically impossible for the wearer to turn the wrist, since they're mounted to a fixed crosspiece. That'd have to be redesigned to have the arm work in the fashion it does as shown in the game.

Also, not sure how you plan on doing the ankles. It seems to be some kind of ball-and-socket joint, only the socket is an O-shaped ring that seems to magically track the outside of the ankle sphere, at least based on the game files. Doesn't seem like something that could be physically constructed, so you'd have to make some compromises if you wanted the ankle to move. Or, hell, maybe a fixed ankle would be best, but you'd be frankenstein-walking around.

Anyway, very interested. Good luck.

 

[Nukeremus]

Anyway, very interested. Good luck.

All the same ideas here! The plan is to make a working model of the frame itself with mounting points for the actual armor. Hopefully something I can eventually release for others to experiment with. I'm designing it to have movable joints and to be worn, not powered. A powered suit would take hydraulics or electrical motors which is beyond me. All of the joints and movements will be figured out once I have the base model done, and when I'm working through that I will adjust the design to eliminate clearance issues and to incorporate the needed hardware.

The hands and wrists are probably going to be redesigned with the same concept as one of those 90's robot arm toys. An opening in the base of the wrist with a grommet that the handle goes through. Thankfully the fingers already have a channel carved into them which I plan on using to route the tension cables. I could go in depth with the design to make it so that when you move your wrist inward the hand will resemble the same motion as opposed to a straight handle which would make the hand move outward when you move the handle inward. We will see how far I go with it. This is the only image I could find that resembles the idea.

I will have to see how the ankles work out. My thoughts have been to find a semi spherical swivel plate to act as the ball joint, or to get a legitimate ball joint with limited motion so the ankles don't rotate too far. I'd hate to break off the foot because the frame got a sprained ankle from walking on uneven ground haha.

While at the moment I am concentrating on making a detailed model, I'm still thinking about these things in the background.

 

[Ein]

I think unpowered, aside from easier, is the way to go anyway. There are plenty of lightweight materials you can make the frame out of, and it would be easy enough to have it be at least some amount of self-supportive.

I dig a lot of the ideas you've got going here. I've scanned myself, too, for the purpose of this kind of project. I don't honestly think you'll get much out of the scans of the power armor, even though they are pretty clean. At best I'd use them to scale reference things and check proportionality of parts - anything else will require cleaning up way more noise than is worthwhile.

Spoiler

I have some exports of the Power Armor frame open and closed from the game if you'd find them useful, but I suspect you've already gotten your hands on comparable files based on the fact that you've touched on the pep files floating around.



As you can expect, the weird deformations the armor goes through to open up would be physically impossible to duplicate. Doesn't mean you can't redesign it to open as a practical effect, but it would be daaaamn complicated. I see you have the back of the calf hinged, though, so maybe that's your plan?

 

[Nukeremus]

I've got multiple versions of the frame and armors and even found a higher poly one from one of the loading screens and higher poly arms that came from the 1st person mesh I would be interested in having the stanced version that you have. I didn't find that one! Mostly I plan on using the scans as reference. Many of the simplified polys of the in game model are tough to figure. With the scans, I can see the actual curve of the features and make sense of it. I can set surface lofts that follow the true curvature, which will make modeling much easier than building from scratch.

I actually forgot to post up the photo of my scanning setup. It's actually pretty ghetto, and I have some improvements to make to my methods.

The overall idea is to redesign some of the parts and add hardware to allow for opening. The beauty of working with Solidworks is that I can set mates for joints, and ones it's fully constrained I can see how the parts will move and swing out. And if the movement isn't possible it will either move in an erratic (somewhat comical) way, or be locked and not move at all. The way it's looking it will just take some reshaping of the ends of pieces that are supposed to fasten together.

 

[Nukeremus]

Updated my photo scan setup. I'll be doing it this way with the plates and microwave spin wheels until my swivel stand arrives. With the uniform background I should be able to get better masks now. And with the better lighting I get sharper photos with more detail.

This is a huge improvement over the image in my previous post.

All the detail at 1:1

 

[Nukeremus]

Here's a full test on the new scan setup. Now that I am getting good results I will scan just the frame and use the resulting model as reference to for my drawings.

 

[Nukeremus]

I've constructed the scan for the Power Armor Frame. ~160 photos. The sparse point cloud is dense and incredibly clean. Now to wait for the dense cloud to calculate while I am at work...

 

[Nukeremus]

The scan turned out near perfect!! Just a little clean up and it will be ready to convert to a mesh. As soon as I get it into Solidworks and get a scale set, I can start building the real models.

 

[Ein]

Well, that looks pretty damn cool. Any chance you would be willing to share the scans you've got? Like I mentioned, this is one of those projects I've been interested in for a while, and although I have ripped the game files to work from as a reference, being able to check against another source would be handy.

Speaking of which, I did mention I would share the files I had, so here's a link to a .rar with a few options.

I exported them as .fbx with baked in textures, so in theory these should be importable into 3ds / Blender / whatever you use and have properly allocated materials. If not, at minimum the geometry should work.

 

[Nukeremus]

I'd be happy to share my scans. Once I've got them cleaned up and converted to mesh I can export it for you. And I appreciate you sharing the files you found as well!

 

[Nukeremus]

Here's the link to the FBX of the scan:

Frame FBX on Dropbox

 

[ApophisV]

Awesome project, I'll be watching this closely!

I am building a frame myself right now, though using the low budget foam route...

My version will be only a static, non wearable frame to be presented at a booth on a local comic con in winter, depending on the result I might convert it to a wearable frame next year though.

As I am working with screenshots and pepakura files made from the low poly game files (which is more than enough for the basic foam shapes) your scan will be pretty helpful when it comes to detailing! So thanks alot!

Looking forward to your progress on this!

 

[Nukeremus]

I have an actual light booth and turntable now so I'm creating a new scan which will fix the feet and hopefully be more accurate overall. This sparse cloud is much better than the previous one, so it looks promising. In the mean time I've also figured out how to import meshes into Solidworks.

 

[zapwizard]

Great start! Subscribing.

 

[Nukeremus]

zapwizard

Just saw your thread on the working Pip Boy. Excellent work! It's great to see another solid modeler around. Cheers!

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

That might be the most high tech way of making a prop I've seen on here so far. Very cool!

 

[Nukeremus]

The new and improved scan is now finished. In my search for a file format that works nice with Solidworks, I ended up exporting the scan to all file formats at various qualities. You can find those files at this Dropbox link: PA Frame 3D Scan Files

I generated textures as well, but I have no idea how to make them "linked" to the 3ds or obj files so that Solidworks will load them on import. If anyone knows how please let me know!