Akilae

AFAIK, the absolute last UC gundam would be F-91 (well, and the Crossbone Gundam manga series...). As someone said before, it was meant to be a TV series, before something happened and they turned it into a movie. Pity. So ideally, to get the chronological order right, you would watch: 0079 0080 0083 Z ZZ Char F-91 Do I have that right? G Gundam is pretty good, just don't take it seriously and you'll be fine. Watch it for gits and giggles. Wing is a poor excuse of a Gundam series... Seed isn't too bad, at least they went old school with the mech designs.

heh.. not sure if I can buy their explanation of why Shion is without glasses... so she's gonna walk around the entire second game squinting?!?! Maybe she also went to a Lasik clinic along the way...

Beautiful. The story gets rather convoluted as it progresses... and its quite infamous for LONG dialogue and cinematic sequences, but much better than, say, MGS: SOL's presentation of dialogue.... Comes highly recommended from everybody I know, and often ranked before .hack. I heard Xenogears is even better, but having made the mistake of not picking up the game when it was available, Xenosaga would be the next best thing I guess. One thing that most Xenosaga players miss: Try to spot ALL the tributes they pay to almost all myths, ufo/alien theories, sci-fi, etc.. there are quite a lot. Xenosaga 2 is due out soon isn't it?

I probably have no idea of what I'm talking about... but how about putting something in for engine exhaust? I know you took out the blue flaming stuff cause it looked hokey.. how about some sort of distortiion, just something to let viewers know that the engines are actually in use? Just my two pennies... cause right now the plane looks like it's hanging there... maybe a slight motion blur? Also, speaking of dirt streaks... most planes have streaks along the edges of the wings, wing roots, what not.... any chance of working those into your model? :-p

Somehow I'm expecting Dave to jump in and enlighten us with the entire development history, pros and cons, etc... After that whole photoshop F-16 deal... are these F-117s the real thing?

The last time I saw the anti-piracy ads at the theatre was in NYC, near my university. When the commercial came up, everybody either laughed or giggled, and paid it no heed. Speaking of which... previews do seem to be taking up more and more time. Heck, with all the Nike and VW commercials, that's almost an extra 20-30 minutes in front of the feature presentaiton. Reminds me why I liked the university's own theatre: no previews, just movies.

Holy $#)(&*$#.... and I thought I was arriving in Japan just in time for GitS: Innocence... now I'm leaving too early!!! aahh!!!!

So I guess.. The Rock, Flashdance, etc.. were also Simpson collaborations? hmmm... shame.. I guess that's why I've been noticing a drop in Bruckheimer film quality... EDIT: yeah... just checked the Bruckheimer site... all the better films were indeed Simpson collaborations...

Just out of curiosity.... what are wrong with Bruckheimer films?

It looks dated because it is... it's already been released for quite some time in the Asian countries. Well, it's also semi-intentional... That gamespot article is VERY dated, all the payment methods have already been ironed out for Asia. It's either a monthly access code, or a by-the-hour point system. Personally, I don't see why they don't use a Western-world based subscription system (well, I do, cause most ppl who play are kids, no access to credit cards for monthly subscription), but since I'm in the business of selling point cards, I'm happy for the income they bring Honestly, stay away from RO and Lineage... those two games are so steeped with your typical Korean/Chinese bot/script kiddies that it isn't even fun. FFXI is a much better game. Lineage II promises to be good... but the public trials so far have been lukewarm... all graphics and little else.

I was just reading "Skunk Works", very interesting read... the co-author, Ben E. Rich, used to direct Lockheed's Skunk Works, and points out that almost all of Skunk Works' most famous spyplane designs (U-2 and SR-71) were all thought up and designed within Skunk Works, then taken to the military. He laments that recent approaches to aircraft design (military -> designer, rather than designer -> military), have a rather negative effect in terms of cost and design effectiveness.

mm... which part is this? I don't have the manga with me, but I'm sure I can give you a general idea if I knew which part of the story that was...

The last bin can't be just the enterprise-a.... you can see some saucers with the nacelles attached directly, and some with the sensor dish attached, some with the engineer deck attached directly... a la the Miranda maybe? Either way, I'm sure in that bin you'll find almost every other ship from the original Star Trek, and maybe even more...

yeesh... a few months away from the CG board and the board is filled with monsters... I actually got a question for Mighty Gorgon(and all other CG masters here..) though, since my abysmal modelling techniques don't seem to be cutting the mustard... Do you guys model using NURBS, Sub-Ds, or pure vertex modelling? I started modelling using vetices on Blender (hey, I don't have $2000+ to blow on 3DS, Maya, or Rhino... and I do believe in legit software usage =), and while the results do seem to work out, the surfaces are often uneven, and any time I need to make a change, it's a friggin lot of vertices to move around. I managed to complete half a VF-2SS (fuselage, chest plate, wing, and arm) before finally giving up due to constant changes... Sub-Ds seem to be nice, although I'm not quite sure how one models with Sub-Ds. Do you build a rough frame, Sub-D, then tweak the frame to satisfaction? NURBS just escape me completely... EDIT: cut out unnecessary information..

MORE SPOILER!!!!! He really just ends up there..... I mean, all they're taking out of the manga is him being carried on a horse by a skeleton. Albeit the skeleton does play a far more important role in the manga, he is virtually non-existent in the anime. Unless they plan to do a sequel, there's really no point in dragging another character into the anime near the end. Well, come to think about it, the skeleton does kick ass when he comes in to save Guts... but then there's the whole duel with the minotaur that would have to be drawn :-p

hehe.. I was actually thinking of the next level: thermoptic camo.... but mirrors would work just as well in space

I forgot where I read this from... so it might be totally inaccurate. Having a *black* plane is actually very bad camo... at least on earth. Consider: even on the darkest of nights, the sky is full of stars. A black plane would simply be a black outline, not the most visible, but still quite noticeable. Didn't the Germans do this kind of research back in WWII? Their conclusion: mottled camo. If it all boils down to dogfighting though, I think invisiblity would be less important... anything to affect the enemy's perception of your speed and heading would be more so. Just my amateurish $.02

Alright... I thought that was gay, till I put my name in and got.............. Grandmaster Buttefly

The main "good guy" mech for L-Gaim here was also further redesigned and refined into the "good guy" mech for FSS, Junchoon ODK. One of the most interesting things to do in FSS: look for L-Gaim easter eggs. There are a ton, right down to details in the mech design. It's good exercise, and Nagano is VERY detail oriented. Which is probably why it's going to take forever for him to finish FSS... The thing about Gundam designs... they're all straight lines, and downright blocky. Nagano's figure more curves, and are oftentimes more elegant.

The KOG is part of the Mirage series... makes sense, since they were all designed by Amaterasu himself. Some useless Mirage trivia: Junchoon is also a Mirage (it uses the Mirage series generator, and Amaterasu rebuilt it as Junchoon ODK). The Mirage design was inspired in part by the Bang Doll. KOG (Knight of Gold) is actually a series in and of itself, spawning many subtypes.

Is that the FX box set? Or the AC set?

If you can wait two weeks, then I'll have all my sources ready for a word-for-word translation... but I'm sure some other MWers will have it out by then =) I'll just try to band-aid it for now, and see if somebody will drop by later for a proper rescue :-p In short, she's prophesizing, if my memory hasn't failed me. She speaks of her and her sisters (Destiny Three Fates), their birth, their evolution, and how she is the hope of their kind (fatimas). I think she also prophesizes the death of Coelus III(I guess...) caused by Amaterasu, but being that the wind (here meaning Coelus) is eternal, it will return some day (Coelus VI). I could have this whole thing mixed up with the other time when she speaks to Coelus III's queen... cause THAT part stretches on for quite a few pages. I'm almost certain the she's talking about the future of fatimas though... Speaking of translations... anybody have a good translation of the German F.U. Rogner is uttering when he makes his appearance in Book 10?

slightly OT.. but for a bunch of people (yes, counting me...) who seem to idolize size and detail... why not snag a Tamiya 1/32 F-14A? I built one way back when, and it's still the most impressive thing sitting in my display... if only my niece hadn't tried to play around with it and broke the landing gear, nose cone, and the nozzels...... maybe I'll snag another one and paint it better this time around :-p Unless, of course, I'm missing the point TOTALLY and we're talking about 1/48s to go with the Yamato Valks... and pre-assembled to reduce the hassle....

True True... even the AF and USN guys seem to agree that: "The debriefs usually involved the AF guys citing gun video as clear proof of their superiority while the USN guys would caveat the results by stating that the Eagles were all morted prior to the merge. " (c'n'p without shame from the Usenet discussion :-p)

man.. the first ever fully functional Akira bike... can't wait to see this thing on the road =) I don't know much about motorcycles, much less FF bikes, but the whole concept does indeed seem feasable, according to this pic just need to get the whole design down, since it's the design that makes the Akira bike