A MLRS from the AFV family I drew for the Total War setting. I assume it’s firing at the fuzzy wuzzies.

So, here’s my first attempt at a booktok trailer, just like all the scammers keep wanting me to buy from them.

So far, every vehicle in the tool starts life as a parametric OpenSCAD model.

• Each vehicle has a JSON manifest in the game’s pack. It names the source file and its includes, the units (the CAD is in millimetres or centimetres, the game in metres) and which way is up and forward. Then it lists the parts: the hull, the ramp, turrets, wheels, etc.A part is a SCAD expression the source’s own modules draw, rearramp() or turret(), plus a colour group and, for anything that moves, a joint: the pivot, the axis, the range, and named states like down and stowed. Where a number is needed, a pivot or an angle, it’s written as an expression in the source’s own variables.
• The importer pulls the source over the network from the manuscript’s mirror.
• Export part by part. OpenSCAD’s CGAL unions are slow: a whole model takes close to a minute, its individual parts seconds. So the tool generates a driver per part that uses the source, repeats its top-level assignments so expressions can name them, and exports each part on its own. A part placed by a transform (the turrets’ translate/rotate/mirror) has that transform measured off four marker cubes exported through it, so pivots and axes can be given in the module’s own frame.
• Proof. This is the step where Claude Code earns its keep. Every joint state that has its own SCAD, e.g. the ramp drawn “down”, is checked against the rest mesh turned about the pivot by the state’s angle. A wrong pivot or a wrong sign fails the import. Then the parts, posed as the composition poses them, are compared against the model exported whole.
• Clean up in Blender. The same script runs headless in Blender: the CGAL facets are welded into a mesh with its normals checked outward, the frame turned to glTF’s conventions, the scale set to metres, smooth shading split at 30 degrees. UVs are a box projection in metres across the whole vehicle at rest, so a texture, or a camouflage pattern, lands at true scale and continues across parts. Each colour group becomes a material; each part becomes a named node, a moving part’s origin on its pivot.
• Write the asset and its sidecar. Out comes a .glb and a sidecar JSON: every node, its joint in the glTF frame, the named states, the materials and their roles, markers such as where the EM drives sit, the gun mounts with their limits, the proofs’ numbers and the source’s hash. Plus a provenance entry in the pack, so a check can later tell whether the asset still matches its source. The whole thing is deterministic: the same source and manifest write the same bytes, and a –check mode rebuilds to scratch and compares.
• Godot reads the sidecar. On the engine side there is one class for every imported vehicle. It never names the barge or the Droopy; what a model has, what moves, about what and how far, is all its sidecar’s. Each part becomes a mesh at its place; a joint becomes a node on its pivot that hinges, steers or spins. A material whose role is “paint” gets the hull shader, which paints camouflage in the asset’s own frame at true scale, and a moving part carries its paint with it. Each part’s own triangles become collision, on a body that moves with the joint, so a lowered ramp can be walked up and a hold stood in. Gun mounts become turrets that traverse and elevate within the set limits that were computed from the CAD so a gun never passes through its own hull and its bullets can’t hit itself.
• A physics stand-in takes the parts as convex hulls, with the mass, centre of mass and inertia the vehicle’s record gives. That way a laden truck settles on its springs and the barge flies like a dead elephant.

Obviously, this one hasn’t had much detail work done on the OpenSCAD, but you get the idea.

The autotrucks are the EUAF’s do it all cargo movers. Five axles, hub motors, four steered, hydro-pneumatics suspension, emdrives and pressure sealed crew comparments for shelter though they’re mainly intended to be remote driven or slaved to something like a utility vehicle.

A landing barge can carry up to 12,000 tonnes at a pinch. It takes forever to climb to orbit with that load, but fortunately, the plan is that it’s the way down where you’re taking fire. Just hope you never have to evacuate a planet.

All sorts of things happen at training fields. Not sure if this Droopy pilot ever got his wings.

These are the first baby steps into the 3D world, but I’m already very happy with it as a means to give a sense of the feel I want. Proper fidelity might be nice, but even with Claude Code’s help I don’t think I have the time budget to bring it where I’d want it. But I will keep developing it and see how far I can get. In any case, this one page has more imagery than I’ve had in total until two weeks ago.

I’ve also made a few animations, including a 20 second announcement video for Dropship Down. Coming soon ™.

Probably final version of the front cover for Dropship Down. By Daria.

Epub ISBN: 9789083478333
Print ISBN: 9789083478326

This is a rather early version that’s still missing a lot of details like several of the bay doors, missile racks and emergency chemical thrusters, but it’s a start. I’ve added a Droopy and a Landing Barge for scale. The two cylinders are for habitation, they counter-rotate at 2.93rpm. I’ll spare everyone the rest of the technical mumbo jumbo about why everything is the way it is.

I’m going to have to go through the text and the stats page since things always become clearer when you draw them. Need some small changes so the text is consistent with the model everywhere. I’m going to add details and then import it into Godot soon(tm).

Then some shots to show the articulated gun. The idea is that the range of motion for the gun is so large that the vehicle can fullfill AA and Artillery roles to a far greater extent than a more conventional design. Of course, this thing is also 12m long and 5m wide, weights 300 tonnes and can fly (see emdrives SPOILERS).

I think this vehicle only really starts featuring in book III, so I’ll publish the name and specs when that is out. I’m still struggling with the edit of book one, so don’t hold your breath.

For those who missed the last few posts, this is a screenshot taken with the photomode in my Godot tool. The model was drawn in OpenSCAD and then imported into Godot through Blender, using Claude Code for the drudge work.

The utility vehicle in the foreground is an extremely rudimentary model, I still haven’t decided whether it should have windows (read the book to find out why it doesn’t really need them). The tank actually features in a later book, and we’ll just call it the ‘really big tank’ for now. Behind that is the the Droopy Dropship, which features heavily in the first book and beyond that is a landing barge which may still be too small, and it may still need big fins on the back, making its shape a little more like the experimental NASA lifting bodies.

All these vehicles are drawn in OpenSCAD then imported into Godot 4 through Blender with all of it being sped along by Claude Code. Still have a lot more vehicles to do for some of the scenes I want to make, and also some more props. It’s going to be a while.