Hugh ODST Conversation (Part 1)

[WandererTJ]

Absolutely amazing helmet Hugh. Due to owning all the Halo games, I must say that this helmet looks like it would work perfectly for a Spartan wearing an ODST Helmet build, because it seems to resemble both the H3 Multiplayer Spartan ODST Helmet as well as even The Spartan-ODST helmet in Halo Reach. It just seems to have a sleeker and a not as wide look rather than what you see on ODST soldiers (IMO). And with that, I must say that this has to be my favorite ODST helmet out of like all 20 different peps that I have seen.
It's also really cool to hear from someone at Lockheed who still has time to do projects like this. I'm currently looking into getting an internship with Northrop Grumman and hopefully later followed by a career with DARPA.

Edit: In terms of when you were talking about the butterfly clips, I assume you mean after you complete pepping each part of the helmet and you are holding the 21 separate parts together. Correct? In other words, Holding the 21 parts together using butterfly clips while gluing the individual pieces together

Also, I apologize if I happened to miss it while going through the thread, but are there any particular things I need to do before I print (ie change printing to landscape)?

Thanks!

Yeah, I may not have as much free time as you may think to work on this though but I'm trying my best. I've gotten most of the suit built, including some parts that haven't been pepped yet so I plan on having new progress pics sometime this weekend.

Good luck with your internship, let me know how it turns out! It seems right now that the industry is prepping to start hiring a new wave of employees, so maybe you picked a good time to start.

And yes, you're right about how I used the butterfly clips. I used them to basically hold the parts in shape and use the hot glue gun in between each pair of clips before I removed them. That way you don't end up gluing the parts together off center or skewed and the part shape is guaranteed to look decent.

As far as the pepakura file question, there shouldn't be anything you need to do other than make sure the file is set to Letter under the print and paper options. If you do change it however, you may also have to move the parts to fit on the page.

If you have any problems with the actual pep file I suggest you ask mkshane81 since he works all of the unfolds for the ODST build. Zero202 also has some unfolds so be sure you know which files are authored by who.

If you have any other questions let me know, and good luck again on your internship.

Actually, I'm curious as to how you plan on doing the visor. From what I've seen, most people just use a motorcycle visor, and with as detailed as your build is, I figured you might decide to mold a clear visor to be painted later.
I just think that the ODST visor is significantly different from all the other helmets as it isnt just a curved piece, and thus I wouldn't know what the best way would be to replicate the look appropriately.

Also, I must say that the instructional PDF is about the coolest thing I've seen. Definitely the coolest PDF I've seen, and I've seen ones that had solutions to Thermodynamics homework lol.

And thanks for wishing me luck.

Haha, yeah the 3d pdf files are a great way to impress your bosses at work. Don't ask me why, but everyone I've worked for and our clients have loved them. You can imbed any 3d object if you have Photoshop CS4 or CS5. There is an option to import .obj files and export them as a 3d layer (.u3d) format I think. Then in Adobe Acrobat you can go to the multimedia tab and insert the 3d object into your file and save the .pdf

I'm not sure if the instructional .pdf is very useful now that there is a better unfold of the helmet, but it includes all of the unfolds I personally used and will work on a mac which is good news for people that don't have access to Pepakura.

As for the visor, I've been experimenting with cutting the shapes out of plastic and assembling them. I keep going back an refining the pattern I'm using. I got a roll of industrial (for buildings not cars) mirror tint and have been applying it to clear plastic flat sheets. Then I let the tint cure overnight and trace a template design over the plastic and cut it out with an exacto knife. If you look for the industrial tint it has a higher light transmission (50%) than the auto stuff which is usually around 35%.

The plastic I've been using is a copolymer clear sheet at .005" thickness. It is sturdy and creates a nice fold when you bend it rather than breaking. This is very nice to have for when you are trying to create all of the sharp angles on the ODST visor.

Using a motorcycle visor is a great way to get a nice blue mirror tint initially, but getting the sharp creases to stand out is very difficult. Also, the plastic is too strong to cut with anything but a dremel usually. And as for vac-forming when you pull a visor you are left with a complex shape that you won't be able to polarize without a professional touch, and even then there is no guarantee that the tint will look right after you apply it. In which case most people with vac formed visors just dye the plastic dark or apply a spray on darkening tint.

Now, some may think that using a silver finish tint won't look game accurate because it is not blue, or whatever color. If you keep the tint on the inside of your visor there are paints (for windows and clear plastic) that can be applied to the visor to get you a chrome colored tint. Getting the paint to look clean and even is the trick though, and I'm still working on a method that is easy to do. I'll let you know, but it looks like you'll be able to make a mirrored visor in just about any color you want, good news for Reach projects

And if anyone has gone down this road or knows anything that may help feel free to share!

I found the instructional pdf useful just simply because the .pdo file was an exploded view and I wanted to cross reference the completed helmet in the viewer with others. I havent looked at the difference in the unfolding, but although I know everything I need to know, it wouldve been nice if at the end it gave instructions as to the best way to put all the separate pieces together which you have already told me.

With the copolymer, while it is easy to bend it, I'm sure you probably cant get all the bends in a single sheet. Would there be any advantages/disadvantages to trying to melt together a top visor piece with a bottom, or even to melt the sides together with the middle/front of the visor, depending on how you decide to break the visor up?

As for the finished tint, if you havent had the chance to play Halo Reach, there are different visor colors. Gold like master chief, a Low-Gloss looking black, Metallic Blue/Sky-Blue, Silver, and Default-which I think looks like a bronze, it seems to look like a low-quality gold visor. Now with all of this, I'd love to see people come up with custom colors like a metallic red.

Out of curiousity, how hard would it be to make a mirrored visor? I have a pair of mirrored aviators, and you end up with the metallic color people are going for, and your vision wouldnt be too tinted out. Furthermore, when you are outside, it will look straight up silver/chrome, but if you are inside it may just appear tinted. Idk why that is with mirrored finishes, but i think its cool.

Yeah, that is the trick. I'm not sure that melting plastic together is the way to go, especially with the tinting. You may end up cracking the tint, or causing some other problem that I am missing.

Using a similar approach that Zakuace took, I separated the visor into 3 parts initially. A large top portion, the lower mouth area, and the U-shaped lip that joins the two. The copolymer takes well to most glues, and even simple hot glue holds the parts together very well. The trick is aligning it perfectly, so be prepared to trim.

After trying to build with three parts I opted to tweak my template and use only two parts, since the visor lip is a visible U shape from a distance then a seam joining the two seemed appropriate. With three pieces the lip of the visor came out too sharp and was difficult to make it appear round in the front.



The mirrored visor is easy to do. In fact, that's what I was talking about with the industrial mirror tint that I am using.

50% light transmission is very heavy for a chrome-mirror tint. As long as the light outside of the helmet is stronger than the light on the inside, which would be almost 100% of the time, you will have a perfectly mirrored reflection. For my first test visor, which wasn't pretty mind you, I set it up in one of my helmets and my girlfriend couldn't see my face from the outside, while inside it maintained very nice visibility.

A lot of guys will say the stuff is a pain to work with and a waste of money. But I bet most of them tried to apply it to a visor that was already put together. Which will only leave you with tons of wrinkles (fingers) and water bubbles. The stuff is made to be squeegeed and cured on a flat surface, so you need to put the tint on a new, flat sheet and work out bubbles before you trace and cut into it.

Also, you need to let the tint and application solution fully cure before tracing and cutting on it. As long as you wait long enough the tint won't crease or peel off even if you take scissors to it. I thought that was kind of cool.

Once you have the silver/chrome mirror tint on the inside of the visor you can diffuse it with color on the outside. That's the plan anyway. Finding transparent paint that can be applied evenly without leaving messy brush strokes is the problem though..