Goshawk Posted May 22, 2005 Posted May 22, 2005 Chrono, all I can say is just WOW! major ohhs and ahhhs from here. Quote
chrono Posted May 22, 2005 Author Posted May 22, 2005 Wow, looking good Chrono.I think there's a few things. It's too bad you can't really control the width of the beam. It would be great to start it smaller in the recess, and have it expand later. I think the energy particles prior to firing need to be a little longer, and more random perhaps? It's kind of lightning-like in the show. But I don't know how easy particle effects are to get to look right, so, don't take it to heart if it's beyond possible. Keep it up. Your work is awesome. All valid points. I can control the width of the beam, but only in a cone-like fashion and not like the shows without having to add a time consuming render element. I think that the width is also part illusion becuase of the glow during firing. I also can change the pre-fire particles, but mainly went with the will'o wisp style because it was easier. I'll try the lightning effect next using Meta-Particles. Thanks for the C&C! Now if I can just figure out how to animate the turrent..... Quote
chrono Posted May 23, 2005 Author Posted May 23, 2005 Here's the newer version(same video type as before). I ran into more animating roadblocks than I thought I would. For example: the various pre-fire and beam glows would have to be post-opt'ed, simple light and color changes won't take and for some reason apply across all of the frames instead of a selected set of them, and rendering time is now around 9 hours!!! I also stopped the render short because the beam illumantion just doesn't look right at all! This maybe a one of those months long projects that only get worked on occasionally. Now that I'm really beggining(spl!bah!) to better understand particles I may try my have at a Zen missile launch or a simple Macross missile storm. Beam6.avi Quote
Lestat Posted May 23, 2005 Posted May 23, 2005 Ah! Now I have some ideas... I think one of the things that is missing is a little translucency - you can't see the turret when the beam fires. If you made it like, 90% opacity, you'd be able to make out the outline of the cannon underneath the brightness of the beam. Also, I think the main deal with the particle build-up along the barrel is that it should start slow and build into a much faster (as well as more numerous) pattern. Looking great though! Quote
chrono Posted May 27, 2005 Author Posted May 27, 2005 BLAH! TS totally sucks at animation, even simple stuff like this! Of course it doesn't help that there is only about 60 total pages on animation in the stinking handbook.... I made ALOT of changes and the only things that didn't get changed were the turrent model itself and the plane on which it sits. Everything's been tweaked in some way with the beam itself getting the most rework of all. During all of the changes I really adjusted the amount of particles that I had been using. Before I left all of the particles in the scene while rendering taking up hugh amounts of rendering & CPU time needlessly. Stuff you didn't even see on the screen. I ended up using all of those to give the beam a 'glowly' bit and had hoped to use those for light casting, which I quickly gave up on when a test render doing just that went over 15 minutes. This particular animation is finished. There are simply too many things TS won't let me do to make it any better. I'd have loved to do a clock-wise downward camera movement to a more interesting position, but the current render time is over 15 hours for a 3 second sequence. Anyways I think I'll try my hand at some Macross missile firing sequences next. Beam7.avi Quote
Lestat Posted June 6, 2005 Posted June 6, 2005 Well, this sequence looks much better now. My only complaint is that the speed of the beam itself should be much faster? Looking forward to seeing what comes next. Oh, and it sucks that your renderer sucks. Quote
chrono Posted June 6, 2005 Author Posted June 6, 2005 I agree about the beam speed. I did try to adjust that in post but couldn't get the speed consistant across the animation. It's not so much that the renderer sucks as lack of documention. I was working on a missile launch, but it's taking ALOT of poly's to get semi-decent exhaust clouds!!! So I set that aside for building a zen fighter pod(Gnerl). Quote
chrono Posted June 9, 2005 Author Posted June 9, 2005 I downloaded Media Player Classic for screen capturing reasons. heh kinda of a mistake, because I could see the framerates with it. So I went back and post edited the firing animation getting rid of alot of the niggling stupid stuff. Now I'm happy with it! Beam7.35.avi Quote
chrono Posted June 10, 2005 Author Posted June 10, 2005 New project. The Zen Gnerl Fighter Pod This will be a quick little project because the reference is pretty through and detailed. Leaving little to figure out or puzzle over. My polygon limit will be no more then 175-225,000 and I doubt I'll hit that high a number given the main body is currently only at 47k. Right now it's early in the build so not much detail yet and there are some glaring errors. If anyone have any cockpit imagery they wish to share I can build an interior also. FighterPod06102005ang.tif Quote
chrono Posted June 10, 2005 Author Posted June 10, 2005 One of these days I'll actually get a website built for this stuff. FighterPod06102005side.tif Quote
Lestat Posted June 10, 2005 Posted June 10, 2005 Awesome. This stuff is great. There are too few people doing what you are. Love your turret animations... Gnerl is pretty spiff too. Quote
chrono Posted July 14, 2005 Author Posted July 14, 2005 Gnerl Fighter Pod update. Lots of little things changed and I'm about to extract the final main body mesh, so this is a milestone for the project. C&C is welcome!!! Had to use Photo Bucket for the images. Quote
Mr March Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Sexaaahhh! The body looks flawless. Great work! Quote
neptunesurvey Posted July 15, 2005 Posted July 15, 2005 Thanks Chrono. Those pictures of the Scout will come in handy on the scartch build I'm working on. Quote
chrono Posted July 16, 2005 Author Posted July 16, 2005 Thanks Chrono. Those pictures of the Scout will come in handy on the scartch build I'm working on. 311118[/snapback] While I feel QUITE honored that you think that they are worthly. I have to burst your bubble. They are MY interpertation(spl) of the shape and there are many errors, in my view.(For example the top thruster is fairly off in about 4 areas and the bow ventral surface is pretty damned wrong.) Go with the orginal source material except for that problem prone frontal view! GAH! Horrible! I've got a question for you though! How do you feel about the situation with the side thrusters and their relation ship with those black lines? I've got an idea how I want to go about it but I'd like to hear your ideas on it. Quote
neptunesurvey Posted July 16, 2005 Posted July 16, 2005 You do have errors but I was having problems finding decent closeup line art in some areas, especially the aft end and dorsal views. Those images will help me in the long run. Quote
chrono Posted July 18, 2005 Author Posted July 18, 2005 Yeah I can understand about the clean views. Having the orginal reference material available is great, but it's sooooooo unclear sometimes! This was a little experiment on sinking the black detail into the large rear fins. It was just to see what type of effect sinking this minor detail would have. Frankly I'm pretty happy with the effect, so I plan on using it. However I'll change the shape into a more 'V' like channel or add thin raised bars(via the turrent missile launcher). The depth is roughly about 1/8th of the fins thickness and is a normal extrusion. But whadda you think? Quote
chrono Posted August 14, 2005 Author Posted August 14, 2005 Anyways, after a 3d contest and much overtime, I went with building the channel into the larger fins. I've also finalized the front landing gear and the large rear thrusters. Which leaves me with only the main body to deal with..... OMG..... Quote
chrono Posted August 20, 2005 Author Posted August 20, 2005 Fun in the summertime. On vaction and love'n it! If all goes well I'll be able to finish the Gnerl before next Wednesday!!! YEAH! I've tossed some paint on the model to see what it looks like. Not too bad since I've reworked the top fusulege(blah!) and tossed in that rear groove. Right now I'm cleaning up the extracted main body and looking into adding the various details. The rear landing gear is gonna be tough and I decided not to bevel in that wrap-around black strip and the one that goes down the sides(though I may because it'll add extra visual depth and realism (LOL)). But I need to know whether the bottom black rectangles between the rear thruster cones are missile bays or not? Is that tapered hole in the bottom a thruster? And just how am I gonna deal with those side thrusters!?! Quote
chrono Posted August 24, 2005 Author Posted August 24, 2005 Well I over reached. Didn't take into account how bogged down my comp. would get after I extracted the main body. *grk!* So I've dealt with slow down, numerous crashs, reducing the poly count while maintaining smoothness, AND adding details. *Sigh* ONLY good point is that I've been able to reduce the poly count down 100k. Unfortunatly I'm still over on my poly count by 50K(300K+ right now) and I've still got to add the 6 missile bays(only have to build 3 since it's mirrored), side thrusters(which are complete I just have to build the side and reduce their poly counts), the rear landing gear, the canopy, the little surface bits, and the minor tweaks before I call it finished. Not alot but it'll still be time consuming to do. Gonna have to decide what to do next... Quote
Rodavan Posted August 24, 2005 Posted August 24, 2005 Get a bigger computer ! looking better and better Quote
chrono Posted August 24, 2005 Author Posted August 24, 2005 Get a bigger computer ! looking better and better 322780[/snapback] Oh I'm planning on getting one, but that'll be in a few months. Gotta save my pennies first. And thanks for the comments. Quote
wwwmwww Posted August 24, 2005 Posted August 24, 2005 WOW!!! Great work, can't wait to see more. Carl Quote
chrono Posted September 11, 2005 Author Posted September 11, 2005 Not much to show because I've haven't been motived enough to work on it. That and I had problems getting the rear landing feet cut-out cleanly. Kept on giving me nearly garbage results. Got it worked out and looking pretty damned solid. Also have the missile doors built in and fully movable. Started and stopped working on the side indents for the thrusters because I don't see any easy solutions that don't radially change the area. If anybody has any references of statues/toys that have detailed rear landing gear I'm VERY interested in seeing them!!! Frankly the PM sketchs don't make sense. Also decided upon and have started researching for my next project(the Salan), however since I am totally unable to take any screen captures I have to rely on this forum for help. Quote
Rodavan Posted September 12, 2005 Posted September 12, 2005 Try , try ..... we want to see it finished Quote
chrono Posted September 24, 2005 Author Posted September 24, 2005 Ever felt like your a dog chasing their tail? That's how it's been, for me, for the last week! It seems anything and everything went 'weird' on me. From car troubles, being moved lateraly at work, to using the wrong lighting set-up and having 12+ hour 'test' renders. UGH! I'm just glad it's the weekend.... and that it's american football season! Well here she is, my first finished project in Silo. Kiss my ass truespace!!! BWAHAHAHA!!! Learned LOTS about what I can do and can't in Silo, especially on the mechicanical side/finish side of the program. Needs more tools and I'd kill for a simple Max-like Stencil tool. I'm 75K over my budget and I could reclaim some of it, but I'd lose detail in some areas if I did. I'd really love to personalize this model along the lines of what the Valkries have but both my computer and Silo make it totally impossible. I had wait times near the end of the existing build of 10-90 seconds between moves and tool operations.... I have NO patience for that! Not when I've got 50-200 more things I need to do before I'm done building a section. No landing gear besides what I've done earlier and won't be making the rear between the mesh and the orginal designs have problems that have no decent looking solution. It was bad enough I had to 'punt' on the damned side thruster indent. Soooo enough wordiness.... [WARNING: Images are -teen-sized-] http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...INALfrontan.png It's gonna be a little while before I post anything Macross, because I've gotta do the research for the Thuverl Salan(already drawn a top down ortho of her) AND I just may do some robot work(Shin Getter/Exaxxion) or a Saberhagen Berzerker don't know. Quote
chrono Posted February 27, 2006 Author Posted February 27, 2006 Well it's back! The thread few people care about. Ended up giving up on my last project because it was killing my computer. But that's neither here nor there. I've started working on the Zen's Thurvel Salan. Right now I've spent about an hour on it and am using a different method of modelling for it, which I gotta say is working really nicely and with way less mesh clutter. Give me C&C! Quote
Knight26 Posted February 27, 2006 Posted February 27, 2006 Nice start, will love to see how this develops. Quote
chrono Posted March 1, 2006 Author Posted March 1, 2006 More work done. Resized the width to a more correct size, added the inside of the nacelles whilest tweaking the outside, added the inital bottom, and tweaked nearly everything. If anyone has any detailed shots of the area under the nose I'd like to see them, because that area is gonna be tricky! C&C as always. Quote
Knight26 Posted March 1, 2006 Posted March 1, 2006 Loooking good so far, man you are taking on some tough ones, the zentraedi ships ave to be a serious PITA Quote
chrono Posted March 7, 2006 Author Posted March 7, 2006 (edited) Started adding the rear hanger bay, a more detailed underside, and work on the frontal area(which is a stone cold bitch to work out). Coupla large renders and not screen captures. *ok the attachments are being little bastards about being uploaded, so Photobucket here we goo....* http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...elSalanPer3.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...elSalanPer4.jpg And for the mod people the current poly count is 1644 and about 400 of that can moved to other details. Edited March 7, 2006 by chrono Quote
Lestat Posted March 14, 2006 Posted March 14, 2006 Started adding the rear hanger bay, a more detailed underside, and work on the frontal area(which is a stone cold bitch to work out).Coupla large renders and not screen captures. *ok the attachments are being little bastards about being uploaded, so Photobucket here we goo....* http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...elSalanPer3.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/chr...elSalanPer4.jpg And for the mod people the current poly count is 1644 and about 400 of that can moved to other details. 377745[/snapback] Wow, that is only 1644? Cool We'd be looking at about a 3000 odd poly limit though for the homeworld mod... oh, ok... 4000 maybe... Quote
dante144 Posted September 1, 2016 Posted September 1, 2016 That is sweet! Was anything ever done with the model? A resource for a game or film? Did anyone ever print one out? Quote
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