Doktor Gonzo

Tober, Yeah, this model is for whatever reason one of two or three that I've just kept tinkering with through the years. Most other ones I just finish and put away, but this one I've just kept using as a testbed for new things I've learned, new ideas etc.

Still haven't had a chance to work on this -- but I did promise I'd try to post, so here's some longstanding WIP...

Life goes on. Found an older copy of my vf-1 model on a backup CD and have been renovating it. It's almost up to snuff again. Maybe some new pics soon!

Horatio: interesting! Any chance you might be willing to post some full renders of this model?

Absolutely stunning, Rod. Now dirty it up a little!

I hear ya, Tober. I've most definitely been lax on backing up, and I've blamed most of it on a lack of funding (times have been tough of late and jobs have been sparse, so I haven't been able to replace failing hardware -- both my backup RAID drive and DVD burner have died in the last year and I haven't replaced 'em yet, so those modes of backup fell by the wayside.) Nevertheless, I thought I was safe with the 2 redundant external drives, since I NEVER took both out of the house at the same time... 3 Tuesdays ago was the first time ever, in 3+ years of ownership of these particular drives. So..... sick joke is right!!!

Bizarre. I've been gone from this thread out of sheer depression because, 2 weeks ago, I lost all my models too (along with my music, family photos, documents....) My neighborhood was all flooded out so I was crashing at my parents from the week and basically living out of my backpack, and I had both my external drives in it. Fell asleep on the train on the way home from work and when I woke up... backpack was stolen. I've since managed to recover some stuff, including my VF-1 model (minus textures) from places like the temp directory on my home machine, but the vast majority of my digital life is GONE. So Dat, man, I feel your pain.

Love it!

Looks good!

Nice stuff!

The better part of a decade on, and this model STILL makes my jaw drop, Tober.

Az! Great to see you, man!

More fun stuff

The cg VF-1 I made a while back featured such a compromise (albeit things like that are much easier to do in cg, but still, mine is a "realistic" model with no anime magic or part-swapping): I have a long beaver tail as in the lineart, and at transformation time, rather than just hinging over, it first moves FURTHER rearward on an armature extending out of the backplate/dorsal surface -- that way, the hinge sits lower on the back and the top of the tail section is still flush with the shoulder lights in battroid mode. If anybody cares, I could render a detail shot showing what I mean.

Let's say I'm back from a looooong vacation. Meanwhile, Dat's started a new thread for MW old-timers, and obviously you're invited. Break out Max 2010 and get some VF-4 awesomeness up there!

Sorry guys, got caught up late at work, only had the energy to set up a single render when I got home... so I figured I'd do an "apples to apples" with Dat's awesome first shot!

Awesome, the support craft don't get anywhere near enough love.

Working on a new render or two! And, if I might expand your list, Dat, we also saw amazing stuff back in the day from: Ruak Jay-Lew LesParisek Tober Vinnie and I'm sure others I'm forgetting...

OOOOOH, me too!!!

Love it!

No, absolutely right. I didn't understand a thing about GI/final gathering or faking it with ambient occlusion when I did this render (now, I STILL don't know a thing about 'em, but I 've been in the room enough with people who do to know that I can use 'em to get the kind of deep, soft-edged shadows you're talking about.)

I remember trying really hard when I did the materials for my VF to capture the narrow, irregular specular highlights of hullmetal like that. Tried my best, but don't think I really got there: VF-1 render Maybe this is something else to revisit...

Mental Ray isn't THAT bad -- just stay away from all the fiddly physical illumination bits!

Pretty sweet! I'm primarily just proficient in AE. I took a class in Shake once and I used to be okay in Combustion, but it's been years and I don't remember much. As for backgrounds, LA would also work fine as a cityscape subsitute. You should shoot some plates!

Brian, I'm totally down with comping into live plates, either exclusively or mix-and-match with digital backgrounds. As for where to get 'em, the GOOD news is that I'm in Manhattan, which would make a pretty good stand-in. The BAD news is, I don't own a video camera Here, my reel has a bunch of shots from my thesis project for school salted into it. The project is a few years old now and pretty rough in places, but it had a good mix of all those kinds of elements in it: valks, plates, camera tracks, digital background extension, etc. http://homepages.nyu.edu/~pfb206/reel.mov