Props WandererTJ's Halo Props & 3D Models

Hey all!
WandererTJ here, and I have had a few props I've been wanting to make for myself for quite some time.

I will be using this thread for a few reasons:


Projects Planned:



Sadly, at this time, everything is a work in progress, but until I have things to list in this OP, feel free to check out the following:
https://grabcad.com/tanner.jones-1/projects
WandererTJ's Mjolnir Mk. V (Custom) - S-128 - [Hybrid Build] [Pic Heavy]
[TUTORIAL] Personalized Halo 4 UNSC Bio Cards (Image Editing)

...and as always, for those that haven't yet seen them, be sure to check out these threads if you are working on your costumes/armor:
[FOAM] [GUIDE] List of Options for Supplies, Tools, and Methods Used for Foam Builds
Resource Thread - Gloves, Boots, Compression Shirts & Pants, and More

Kig-Yar Point Defense Gauntlet (aka Jackal Shield)


Details of this Design:
Currently, the shield that I am designing is a hybrid between all of the games.
I am using the design of the "Plasma Energy" from Halo 4 and I'm deriving a somewhat unique design for the central "Emitter" using screenshots from prior games as references (i.e. Halo 3)

The shape of the Plasma Energy is perfect compared to what you see in Halo 4. I've taken a model that was extracted from the game, converted it so that I could open it in SolidWorks, and then I proceeded to measure it out so that I could get the shape perfect. Unfortunately, the size of the extracted model wasn't in a real-world scale, so it is possible that the overall size might be off.

Goals of the Design:
The number one goal of this is to create it with DFA (Design for Assembly) in mind.
What this means is that I plan to minimize the number of parts in the design and create it basically so that everything that will be inside the central "Emitter" will be sandwiched and held comfortably in place by the front piece and the back piece of the emitter which will be screwed together.
I will however be adding a battery panel though. That way you can open it and replace the batteries and have access to an on/off switch without having to disassemble the prop.

In addition to a DFA assembly, the build will include but may not be limited to:
• Light Panel or something similar in the "Emitter" of the shield
• Light Ring around the circumference of the "Emitter" so the source of the plasma energy is illuminated.
• Lights will Pulse
• Batteries are easily accessible
• (OPTIONAL) External On/Off Switch
• (OPTIONAL) Sound FX - Thoughts?
• (OPTIONAL) EL Wire Around the Outer Edge of the "Energy" of the shield - Thoughts?

Design Plans:
I have figured that the best way to achieve the shape of the Plasma Energy of the Shield in the real world, would be to take a sheet of plastic and perhaps use Blow-Forming to shape it.
Downside to that is, I'm not confident that Blow-Forming would work for a dome as shallow as this one, so....
I'm thinking that rather than actually blowing the dome, that if you have a front+back circular open frame that the plastic is mounted to and have it suspended so that nothing is under it, if you then heated the plastic, you might be able to get it to sag down in the middle in order to achieve the desired Dome Height.
From there, the question is, how does one heat a piece of plastic that is larger than your oven? I don't know...
Then, once that is completed, how does one cut around the edge as to not leave it jagged at all?

From there, the appearance of the Plasma Energy would be airbrushed onto the plastic.
There are two patterns, one is a subtle abstract hexagon pattern that most might not notice, and the other is the strongly colored energy that comes out from the middle and goes out to the edges.
I strongly believe that airbrushing the design would be better than attempting to use EL-Wire to try to get the same effect. It would be hard to diffuse the EL-Wire across the shield and it would turn out to be extremely heavy in the end.

For the Emitter in the center, it should be fairly simple once the design has been completed, you'll just need to 3D-Print it, either with your own computer or via a 3D-Printing Service such as Shapeways.


HELP! OPINIONS WANTED!
1) Would anyone know what the actual ratio in size is between the diameter of the shields (specifically in Halo 4) to Master Chief or really any of the Spartans if you know their height?
I currently have the diameter of the shield set at 48'', as I thought that a 4-ft diameter would be an approximate scale of how big they are if you scaled Master Chief down to 6-ft tall. Again, I'm not 100% on this, so opinions are welcome.
2) What material would you recommend for the "Plasma Energy" of the shield? What thickness? How would you form/shape it? How much would it weigh?
3) What would you recommend to use for the Light at the center of the Emitter?
4) What would you recommend to use for the Light that goes around the circumference of the Emitter?
5) What batteries would you recommend for this?
6) What would you use to get the lights to slowly pulse on and off?
7) Does anyone think that having a string of EL-Wire around the outer brim of the shield would look good? (I added it in version 2 of the shield, but I didn't think it looked great)
8) Does anything think this prop would benefit from having Sound Effects?
9) How hard would it be to get the lights to flash and have Sound FX if the "Plasma Energy" of the shield came into contact with something?
10) Would it be better to have a physical on/off switch or would it be better to save weight and make it so that the on/off is dependent of whether or not batteries are in the shield?
11) How many people would be interested in the classic oval shield design with the cutout on both sides?

What I'm really trying to gauge from you all is different methods of approach to this, and I NEED to know the physical dimensions of all of the electronic components so that I can make the appropriate adjustments to the model for them to fit.

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Now for the designs I've been working on.

Looks great so far! Really looking to the ODST sub-machine gun

Okay, so it took me a while, but I think I've finally finished editing the details and the questionnaire for the Jackal Shield.
I hope to hear some ideas back from you all!!!

LoneLegionary said:

Looks great so far! Really looking to the ODST sub-machine gun

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, at the current time, it's going to be a LONG time before I get to the bottom 3 items of the list.
I definitely want to make things perfect before I call things complete on one design and move to the next.

For the shield material I think thin lexan would look really good, only issue I see is getting the curvature on it

I can't wait to see you pull of the point-defense gauntlet!

I personally prefer the classic oval design to the newer circular one. It takes me back to HALO: Combat Evolved, when I first them on the level "Halo".

I think it would behoove you to keep your reference image in mind here



Personally I would stick with the recent Halo 4 design, as it’s more interesting. I think the center-grip style is a little nicer in general, and perhaps necessary, due to weight distribution problems. It would give you better control of the angle the shield sits at, certainly.

..So you want a TON of light to come out of this thing.. especially across 4’. It may be easier in many ways to make it smaller. I know a guy with a 4’X4’ vacuum-former in Colorado, though.

It should also pulse, slightly, and they seem to generally be two-tone: orange and yellow, or blue and purple..
I see two interlaced arrays of 3W RGB LEDs, how you position them depends on where you have room..

You could perhaps get away with a longer, smaller string around the brim, but they’d need to be fairly omni-directional, or possibly two wide-angle strips back to back.. depends upon your diffuser.
Speaking of diffusers, I would suggest possibly using clear plastic and scratching or etching the main surface to redirect light outwards. You could machine it all pre-forming, do it by hand with a dremel or sandpaper.. quite a challenge either way. Would it be possible to separately illuminate the rear and front surfaces?

You may need to air-gap the LEDs from the shield diffuser, employ some ventilation for the electronics. Know anyone with a metal-capable CNC mill at their disposal? This would be awesome fully realized in two-tone anodization, and it’d help a lot with heat dissipation.

I’m not sure how accurate you’re intending to be here, but:
-if you’re emulating the style of the halo CE jackals, I would definitely add the indentation on either side. I think they are also symmetrical across a plane bisecting the shield between top and bottom- that their profile is an arc and lines tangent and equal in angle and length. Additionally, the shield seems to have a gentle peak at the apex and base- though this could be a result of its ovaloid proportions and low-polygon-count geometry.

Durability will be something you want to consider here. Stuff gets banged around at conventions. Perhaps a design with LEDs and delicate wiring around the brim is not a great idea. A large, thin flexible plastic sheet sounds pretty good, though- the thin material can dampen edge shocks, flex before transmitting force to the center boss. Edge impacts and abrasion where it’ll touch the ground at the bottom will, I think, be your primary concerns

Vrogy,

I'm not worried about torque from the shield or having it rotate my arm at all. I have that figured out fairly well.
The idea is to have all of the shield mounted to a member that extends to both the wrist and the elbow; at the wrist, a handle sticks out, and at the elbow, it is connected to a joint that leads to a member that goes up your arm.
The member for your upper arm would be attached to a strap that would connect either to its own harness or to the rest of your armor straps. I'd probably have its own harness, otherwise the weight of the shield could make your armor look uneven.

You can see a quick concept of what this would look like below:


I'm glad that you agree on the approximation of the size of 4-ft. I do think I may have thought it was a bit larger in the game, about 4.5-ft, so I might be able to get away with making it a little smaller, which should make making it considerably easier. Might do 42'' rather than 48''.

Also, I can see that we have similar dimensions for the emitter at the center. Comparing the size of the diameter of the shield to the height and width of the emitter for the older design, I was able to come up with the fact that the oval shape is about 12'' tall and 6.5'' wide.

Also, while I like the "Energy" of the Halo 4 design, I actually don't particularly care for its emitter which is why I've chosen the older design.

As for the cutouts though, I suppose I could add them on both sides, but I guess the best question to ask is: What looks more "Halo" to you? What would make it convince people that it is a Jackal Shield? That is partially why I've gone with the central emitter design that I have, but I suppose I could revisit the cutouts as well.
Though... when there is 2 cutouts, they are differently shaped than what I have, and I would prefer having a model for the old design that I don't currently have so that I can get them to be perfect like I have the shape of the Energy for the SolidWorks model I'm currently working on.

I don't currently have access to a CNC machine, though I might be able to contact a teacher at my old high school and see if they can help. For the shield emitter, I was thinking of mostly going with plastic though.
I hadn't thought of ventilation though, so I'm glad you brought that up.


As for the lighting up the entire shield, while I'm sure it is possible, I think that it would probably be best to simply only try to light up the emitter, and just paint the shield.
Otherwise, the weight will add up very fast.
While the amount of weight isn't a direct issue, the issue is that it is an uneven amount of weight distributed on your body for long periods of time.
I have a 36'' round boffer (full-impact foam sword fighting) shield that weighs about 8-lbs and after an hour or two your spine feels sore.

Do you have any product suggestions for the RGB LED Array?

To my knowledge, there has only been one other person (RFPnoodle) who has made a Jackal Shield.
She posted about her Jackal build a long long time ago here on the 405th, but unfortunately all the pictures in the thread are dead, but these are how her's turned out:
For her shield, she used a parking garage dome mirror (the shallow kind), and she had it specially ordered to come without the mirrored coating.
Very effective, but I would definitely prefer mine to be larger.

I do believe that she effectively got it to look like a Jackal Shield without lighting the entire thing up, so hopefully what I make will successfully appear to look like one even though I'll be a Spartan.

You'll do as you please, but I'm pretty sure their shields glow.

For LEDs, just google '3W RGB LEDs'. It's all there. If you want it to pulse, look into arduinos and their various accessories for a fairly simple solution.

A more nuanced approach to support it - it should be light, by the way.. A couple kilos, depending upon the type and thickness of plastic- would be to place the handle within the dish at the center of gravity. You can input physical properties in Solidworks to calculate that, moment of inertia, and more. Shouldn't be a big problem, though, 1-2mm lexan is at around 1.6kg, should be able to hold that without too many problems.

It may be even simpler to reduce the scale some. A 40" shield of 1.5mm lexan would only be approximately 3.2lb.

Okay, so last night I managed to scale the shield down to 40'' which should be better for lots of reasons.

Vrogy, yeah, their shields glow, but they are also made up of technology that doesn't currently exist... well, not on our planet at least.
(If the technology does actually exist, whoever brings it up can gladly waste their money on it, I think I'll pass ).

Glad you and I were both thinking of the same thickness. 1/16'' should hopefully be perfect for durability as long as I take care not to drop it square on its edge.
I definitely don't want to crack it.
Oh, and the boffer shield I mentioned earlier should hopefully still be heavier in the end. It is made from 1/4'' High Density Polyethylene.

...and you are right, it would be REALLY cool to light the entire thing up, and maybe I'm just hung up on the idea that it won't be that feasible.
In my mind, I would guess that you would run LOTS of EL-Wire all on the back of the shield attached somewhat at random (so it looks more like energy).
I would guess you would attach it with Hot Glue which just adds more to it and if you then wanted to power the shield for the same amount of time you would have without the EL-Wire, you'll be carrying a lot more batteries.

Maybe there are better ways, I'm not really sure. i just see the price and the weight of it adding up extremely fast. Last I checked, wire and batteries weren't the lightest things in the world.

I know I will eventually need to figure out how to light up what I have listed under the jump below, maybe in figuring it out I'll have a solution for the Jackal Shield as well. I definitely like what I've seen from Sean Bradley in terms of the Energy Sword, so hopefully I can replicate his success for the Energy Dagger.

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In other news...
Took a little break from the Jackal Shield to work on something else in the list.
To be honest, it was a bit of a pain trying to get it to be one single solid body, but I finally got it figured out.

I don't think the model will allow me to Shell the body (make it a hollow body of X thickness), but once I figure out how I want to model the piece that the blade comes out from, I should be close to finishing it. Downside is, the blade was the easy part haha.

So far, it has been a really fun learning experience since I usually make more standard geometric shapes when I model.
Now I can't wait to model up the custom medieval swords I want to eventually make!



The views are:
Top
Side
Bottom
Front / Back

Let me know what you think!

Dagger looks nice. Those edges chamfers? Loft, through cut from top? If you post your feature tree I know I'd be interested.

I know this guy's accent is grating, but his general process is valid. . I think you could use vinyl masks and sandblasting to set up your shield diffuser as well.

Thanks Vrogy!

In case the tree in the picture isn't completely clear, I figured I would explain the steps a bit:
First I just did a basic extrude from the top view (full thickness, one side only, with the intent to mirror the entire body in the end).
Then I cut it down to make it wedged towards the tips.
After that I created surfaces using 3d sketches to create the profiles in order to use them to create the sharp edges of the blades. This was the most annoying part. I ended up redoing this and it came out perfect on the 3rd try.
The surfaces were used as bodies to bisect the solid body which would let me separate the body into 3 pieces, the top edge, the bottom edge, and the main body with the freshly cut blades. The bodies that split off from the main body were removed.
After all of that, I simply used the flex tool to give the entire model the curve you see in the game. It's really hard to notice, but I have a screenshot of it and that's how the game model is too.

I'd say that it is probably about 92-95% accurate.
I DID use chamfers on the rear edge and the hole in the center, they don't meet up flush with one another, there is a flat surface between the top and bottom, whereas they should come to a sharp edge like the main part of the blade.
This is where 5% of the error is.
I could go back and fix it using surfaces to cut the edges, but I was pretty satisfied how things ended up at the end of the day and I needed to move my focus to other things.
I will probably go back and fix those edges on another day.

As for the other 0-3% error, while I was using the game model for reference and I was taking the profiles of its curves and converting them to 2d sketches so that I could bring it into my model, there is still some possible error that turning a curved shape back into a flat shape could cause error in the end.
Regardless, at 95%, it's hard to make it better when what you are first given is a model of not many polygons.



Below is a screenshot of the Game Model's "Sheath" (if you can call it that) of the energy dagger.
Not exactly sure how I want to start attacking it, it is certainly interesting.

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Back to the topic of the Shield, this morning I was thinking that the shield doesn't exactly have to be transparent.
Translucent would be pretty acceptable, and maybe with that in mind, some sort of photoluminescent paper could be laminated between two sheets of clear plastic and the green LED ring I have shown in my pictures might actually serve to try and light the shield up.
Maybe not the best idea, but I suppose it's a possible solution, idk...

I did watch your video, and that's actually really cool! (Totally added it to my favorites actually)
But I do have a feeling that while it works very well for flat surfaces, I don't think it work work to light up etches in a curved shape.

Great thread you got going here, I would like to formerly express my gratitude, haha :thumbsup I'm particularly interesting in your mention of the M45 and those ID cards, will be keeping an eye out. And thanks for pulling that jackel shield build out from the woodwork! I'd never even considered making one, but now my mind is racing with ideas.

Keep it up!

WandererTJ said:

Below is a screenshot of the Game Model's "Sheath" (if you can call it that) of the energy dagger.
Not exactly sure how I want to start attacking it, it is certainly interesting.

Click to expand...

If you can find and apply normal, texture maps.. that would help a lot. Most of the detail on these isn't in the base mesh.

Vrogy said:

If you can find and apply normal, texture maps.. that would help a lot. Most of the detail on these isn't in the base mesh.

Click to expand...

Not sure if I've discovered the texture map for it, I'll definitely have to look again.