MSW

Years ago I was...worked for a small video production company that mainly worked on TV commercials for the American midwest market...Did lots of little animated logos and such, a little of everything.. some cell, some stopmotion (it was before the CG "revolution")... I'm no expert or anything like that, but what sort of help do you need?

They redesigned everything...in the Orguss 02 OVA series the actual Orguss 02 title mecha (the only one in the OVA that transforms) resembles a typical Gundam more then a Orguss like mecha...in the opening episode you see something that closely resembles the original Orguss pulled from the sea, it is the repaired and modified (head replaced by machine guns and such), and shortly used in a battle aganst a mecha that somewhat resembles a Nikick...the modified Orguss redesigns (which in the OVA seem the same except for some color differences) are fairly nice, I think, decent tributes to the original design...but the rest are a bit sparce in detail and rather bland... If I get a chance I'll try to do some screen captures and post them in this thread.

Woah! very nice work! One of the big problems I think with trying to model the old Imagic visuals of Tron is that today's software is so much more advanced and geared for more photo real rendering...you pretty much have to program your own 3D rendering software to make it look "right"...er actually that is fairly true for trying to match much of the early CG animation in films ( Last Starfighter for example )...Not only do you need to deal with the thin red/white/blueish lines around certain shapes in Tron, but even the basic way that old software projected perspective is different then the way modern software handles it... Cool work though, keep it up

On the American movie rateings topic... Our rateings system was enacted in late 1969 early 1970 due in no small part to films like Easy Rider...up to that point films did NOT have rateings...the first X rated film was Midnight Cowboy which also won best picture oscar in 1970 (to be fair the film garnered a X then but would likey get a PG-13 if released as is today, the film rateings board was very critical back then when the system was first introduced) At first there were G, PG, R, and X rateings...and shortly after the indroduction of the rateings system the X rateing started to have a nasty stigma attached (as in X = porn...course porn films like Deep Throat sorta proved the point) and filmakers started trying to avoid makeing X rated type films (which opened up the porn industry to exploit the extream ends of the rateing system...rateing thier own films with the XXX (triple X) rateing which the film rateing board doesn't officaly endorse) This was all good and fine until Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom...the film was originaly released with a PG rateing...but because of public and political outcries over the depiction of whipping and beating of children in the film, the dinner scene, and overal violence level in the film...the PG-13 rateing was created as a inbetween rateing of PG and R...This happened AFTER the film was released in theaters, look at any of the original movie posters and promotional material...the PG rateing is shown clearly...Also if you do a search through newspaper archives from the time of it's original release you will find news stories about the rateings situation and proposed solutions....Temple of Doom was re-rated PG-13 for it's video release, not the first time Spielburg and Lucas went back and changed things in thier films. NC-17 came about because of a emergeing film genre following the success of flicks like Basic Instinct...The X rateing had gotten such a stigma from the porn industry that theaters were unwilling to show films with such a rateing, that and most movie goers associated a rateing boards X rateing with the porn industries XXX rateing...so a "inbetween" rateing was crafted to fit between R and X...and eventualy X was dropped all together...G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 now make up our rateings starndards with most films being relsead each year with a PG or PG-13 rateing. To be completely honest, the film review board that designates these rateings is largely political in nature...not politics as in our government kind...but buisness style politics largely controls the decision process...foriegn films are usualy rated more harshly then domestic ones, and films that challange or question the status qoe are typicaly rated against higher standards too...this in turn can effect not only the box office potential of a film (as some poeople are very senseitive in selecting "properly rated films" for thier families to enjoy, and a lot of other stupid stuff) but it also effect the effort a film recieves in promotion and availability in theaters...a R rated Cowboy BeBop film isn't going to get prefered treatment from most mainstream advertiseing markets, etc...but a R rated live action film with "name" stars would get better treatment, and a PG live action film with "name" stars would get even better treatment *treatment = willingness of TV and radio markets to play the commercials, trailers, display the posters, etc...)

Keith pretty much summed it all up, right on the money...but I would recommend Orguss 02, if you watch it with the understanding it really has nothing to do with the original TV show...Orguss 02 has a pretty decent story up until the last couple of episodes (where the "ties" to the original TV show are "exposed" )..but up to that point if you ignore the mecha designs (which are pretty clunky reinterpretations of the original Nikick and Orguss) it's a very different but well done OVA series that the likes of the Squaresoft PSX Xenogears and even Turn "A" Gundam have drawn some inperation from.

Are any of these new linkable transformers alternate modes aircarft? Can two of the same figure link together to form the larger bot? sorry if this is the wrong place to ask...I'm on jury duity at the moment (and still have to work my night shift job to boot ) as such I have near zero time to dive into Transformers research at the moment The reason I'm asking is that I've always wanted to have little figures from an old arcade game favorite of mine named Side Arms (old side view 2D shoot'em-up) and thought that the right superlink figures would be a great base to use for modification/repaint to model the ingame robots...

There was also some stuff in modeling magazine Hobby Japan about that supposed live action Appleseed flick/commercial/whatever...Can't recall the exact issue but IIRC it was around 1988-89 (maybe slightly later) just a short little set of behind the scenes type pics (some showing a bit of Bri's costume detail I think)... actualy it may not have been a commercial or even ment to be seen by the public (as a film would)...I worked for a video production firm at the time, mainly doing stuff (everything from raw grip work to full on 2D cell animation) for TV commercials and education/instructional videos...but we had a number of "proof of concept" projects usually done on a contract basis...typicaly this sort of thing is/was done to try and get investors onboard (show them something to peak thier intrests, etc...)...One of these such "proof of concept" things was for a proposed laserdisk basied video game inspired by Star Wars...basicly we had to quickly and cheaply produce a 10 minute "epic space battle" the client was to then show investors to get them excited enough to invest thier money in produceing the real game...we also did another of these for a proposed horror film (actually did three of these IIRC)...anyway that sort of thing isn't uncommon, and it might be the case with this "live-action Appleseed" thingy...some guy wanted to make a live action flick basied on Appleseed, and invested in produceing a short flick to intice big money investors (or maybe even Shirow himself to sign off on the project)...as the guy owns the flick he might have just shielved it as he couldn't get enough investors (or it turned out real crappy, whatever) and so it's next to impossable to be found online...didn't actor Richard Hatch do something simular with his own self funded Battlestar Galactic "trailer" a few years ago?...it's same basic deal, made to generate intrest in a potential project... Course it could have been a TV commercial too...just trying to provide some info here EDIT: another thought...it could also have been ment as a "show reel" for some small Japanese SFX studio...the common thing companies do is to edit together a bunch of clips from shows/shots they have worked on...and other companies looking for attention also make short little flicks showing off what they can do...it is kinda a moot point when you are a big company like ILM...but when you are smaller like say Fantasy Effects (and other small SFX companies) that sort of thing really helps set you appart when shopping for clients (who may have to wade through dozens nearly identical "show reels" when shopping for a SFX firm to handle thier film effects)...blah...more film insider info

I still love Appleseed...but I pretty much lost intrest in Shirow after the first Intron Depot book and he started produceing a lot more fanservice type pin-ups ... Not that I mind a little fanservice (lord knows I have enough of Oobari's work around here...mainly like him for the dynamic exagerated fluid flexable art style more then his big impossable breasted women though) Nagano is still tops in my book, love his designs and very elegant art style...However Kazumi Fujita is still my all time favorite mecha designer (he so needs a "collected works" book or two...his concept work for Gao Gai Gar is just awsome!)...Shirow is still an exceptionaly talented artist, but I think he has lost his touch over the last decade or so...I only pick up the FSS manga now, dropped MMI after the first two issues...the whole "what is reality" stuff, while interesting, was much better done decades ago through the works of writer Phillip K. Dick IMHO.

very true...But as long as they keep near exclusively produceing FPS, RPGs, RTS, and MMORPGs I'm not a customer...and as long as they exclusively produce platformers, racers, adventure and fighting games...then those that have no intrest in such games arn't customers either...however the video game market is now large enough that there should be little reason not to support both our gameing intrests...I'm not asking for the latest and greatest graphics here, heck good old 8-bit 256 color 2D VGA graphics would be fine by me...so I'm not exactly asking for a multimillion dollar budgit games...I would just like to see some more variety in what is available at retail...something between the rather small and simplistic typical shareware type games, and the big "update your PC every year" multimillion dollar heavily hyped 'AAA' mainstay titles... Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project is a good example of the types of games I would like to see more of on the retail shelves...I don't mean that every PC game should be something like it, rather I just wish such games were more common.

What would we be left with? games like Ikaruga, Viewtiful Joe, F-Zero, Secret of Monkey Island, Soul Caliber...shoot 'em-ups, platformers, racers, adventure games, and fighters...not to mention the other game genres that have died off or became unpopular over the last several years... why must all retail PC games fit into the stale FPS, RPG, RTS, MMORPG genres (okay the Simms don't exactly fit in those groups either)?...It's damn disturbing given that the PC is a open platform to develop for (don't need to have an expensive console system manufacture's development license)...is it to much to ask for there to be pick up and play new PC games along the lines of Jet Grind Radio, Super Metroid, Legend of Zelda, Gunstar Heros, Maniac Mansion, and Mario Kart...All I want is to have more variety of new retail PC games available.

You can make a running mockup of the Akira bike, but it won't perform any where near as well as it does in the animated film...this is because the design is completely counter the design goals of real performance oriented bikes. On a performance bike you want a short wheelbase... at speeds above around 10mph (not the 30mph rocco_77 mentioned) street bikes navigate turns through leaning...the shorter wheelbase allows the bike to take corners without haveing to lean as far as bikes with long wheelbases (also a short wheelbase reduces your maximum turn radius)...for perfomance bikes that are ment to take turns (basicly any form of motorcycle except bikes ment only for drag raceing) you want a high center of gravity (not low like on cars) this makes the bikes more responseive to rider inputs as well as increases cornering ability (as leaning a high center of gravity bike in a turn forces the center of gravity closer to the center of the turn radius)...additionaly purfomance bikes (all types) depend on the rider to use thier whole body to effectively ride the machine and thus place the rider in a possistion where they can use all thier limbs for makeing these changes (useing foot pressure on the footpegs for "body steering" and such...) the Akira bike isn't designed with any of that in mind...it should go strait with little problem, just don't expect to get it around corners quickly...low center of gravity, car like rideing possition (and very little ground clearence for leaning the bike), long wheelbase isn't a good idea for a motorcycle.

blah!...I hope it just ends up as another lame arsed copycat FPS!...I completely gave up on the PC game industry when Monolith mangled the great gameplay potential of the Tron license with that steaming pile of inbreed FPS/RPG crap that is Tron 2.0 I personaly could die a very happy man if I never see the day another FPS, RPG, RTS, or MMORPG is ever released

blah!...Wanky rotory engine powered street cars don't impress me...the engines are kinda cool but only because they arn't the typical multi-cylinder affairs, and they can be okay reliability wise if properly maintained...but the engine design has some rather serious flaws for day to day street use in an automobile...sealing has always and will always be a problem with them, and this is due entirely to the design of the engine itself... RX-7's (and especialy the near "religious" but rather clueless followers) are part of the reason I'm not an automechanic anymore