NCRF Helmet WIP - highpoly (Patreon)

final piece of the ranger set, the helmet; done with the HP model for it.

since this is a pretty iconic item, I took my time with it, wanted a looks accurate model that had all the details from the original promotional material, including things like the hoses or antena that was missing in the original NV game.

since the hoses are specifically made to fit with the rest of the outfit, they will be removable (or rather equippable as a separate item) to allow this helmet to be used with other outfits or pieces. I also don't know how well they'll deform during animation when the neck moves or twists, so it's best to have that feature anyway. I'm assuming that's why they weren't in the original game as well. The neck cover will also be removable, hopefully.

when I was making this, I was also toying with the ideea of having a version with clear lenses alongside the default red glowy ones, so that you can see the head/eyes underneath. The model itself technically supports it, it's aligned to the head/eye level, there's proper holes made into the mask mesh and the lens frames have a back side, so all that needs to happen there is to just have some simple alpha transparency on the lens material to make it work. That being said, whether this actually will functionally work well or make it in the end ... well, we'll see. I'm mostly worried about clipping with the head mesh, so it may not be a thing if that is too severe or distracting.

most of the mesh is sub-d modelled, so the lowpoly asset should be done extremely quickly here by just removing a couple of control edges. Probably not going to do a lot of low poly work like joining pieces etc, since with the exception of the hoses, the helmet is a solid object that will not deform during animation, so I can not care about topology or model continuity that much.