Mech Project planning!

Hello there!

TIE Fighter has gone off for music and SFX, so that's out of my hands for a while. So now it's on to the mech project!

Some of you might not have been around when we first announced it, so I'll post up the mech designs again for those who missed them.

It's the same basic frame, but can be loaded out with different arrays of weapon and equipment combinations for whatever the mission requires.

We're currently watching all kinds of mecha anime for reference and inspiration. One thing I really want to do with this OVA/film/whatever final format the thing takes is to deliver things I've always wanted to see in mecha shows but hardly (or never) get to! A lot of my work is like that - I did TIE Fighter all those years ago because there I wanted to see what an empire-focused anime-style Star Wars would look like, and there wasn't any. Before that I did a 10 minute Doctor Who animation because I wanted to see what 1970s Doctor Who would look like with a big OVA budget, Daleks and Cybermen actually being a threat, etc. At the time, the Doctor Who 2005 TV series was treating these iconic designs as a joke, and that's only gotten worse with time.

When it comes to the mecha genre, stuff I want to see generally includes:

-Seeing people do maintenance on the mechs. Having to clean the cameras, take branches and stuff out of the joints, etc.
Patlabor does have an entire side cast of maintenance hangar workers, but it's about the only anime I've seen that does. I'd really like to see the minutiae of pilots keeping their machines working whilst in the field.

-Actual tactics, like using smoke and thermal vision modes for cover etc. I'm sure some anime have shown this but can't really think of any off the top of my head.
The YF-21 fighter from Macross Plus has some cool camera modes, but we never see them being used in action.

-Instead of just close up Gundam fighting, actual long distance battles sometimes. Tanks today can shoot about 2 miles, for instance. I want some sniping and whatnot! There's some aerial sniping in Gundam the Origin, but that's about all I can think of right now. In any case, I want to see mechs firing over two mile distances and having to keep to cover to avoid this scenario themselves.

-Grounded mechs that feel heavy and can't just fly away. Again, Patlabor does this and so does VOTOMS, but most other shows have their mechs equipped with booster packs or flight capable. Which is cool, but why does it have to be the default?

-Seeing how pilots approach challenges of different terrain while driving something that weighs hundreds of tons. Wading through water, smashing through trees, avoiding swampy ground etc. VOTOMS does this a bit, MADOX-01 has some nice urban warfare inside a skyscraper and Gundam 08th MS Team has a great shot in the opening, but mostly terrain doesn't really seem to be much of a consideration.

-"Road trip" elements. Moving in vehicles toward a destination, checking maps/chatting/camping along the way. I don't think I've really seen this in a show!

- Believable "realistic" cockpit controls. Seeing displays for temp/ammo/fuel etc, and seeing pilots lock on to enemies and see the distance, chance to hit, etc. Even my favourite series like Gundam and Macross, which are considered not "super" robots but "real" robot shows with a lot of in-universe believabillity to their mechs, usually have a cockpit with a single joystick and a couple of pedals. How do you move the Gundam's arms with that one joystick? How do you manipulate the fingers on a Valkyrie's hand with a joystick?

In my mech project, I want every function of the machine to be portrayed in the cockpit.

That's about all I can think of for the moment, but preproduction shall continue! After all, these mecha nerd details are all well and good, but without a solid story it doesn't mean much.

Cheerio for now,

-Paul