Macross / Robotech episode 1 CG progress

[Mechinyun]

FINISH THE SDF-1!!! It's one of my favorite projects.

Mine too! Been waiting anxiously for this!

[Dante74]

Look at the detailing on that HUD, amazing!

[SeminNV]

Jay-Lew

How many polygons does the valkyrie have? And what is the size of the texture?

Edited April 16, 2008 by SeminNV

[Jay-Lew]

Jay-Lew

How many polygons does the valkyrie have? And what is the size of the texture?

It's about 265,000 polys, and is made up of 124 textures so far ranging in size from 300 x 100, to upwards of 3000 x 2000 pixels

[Zinjo]

Stunning work dude!!

[chillyche]

Also, here are some close-ups of the mapped cockpit in it's current form.

HO

LY

CRAP!

That is so awesome. Are you insane? You must be insane. Only madmen make something that dope.

[Braddock76]

Sensational work. Keep it up! Cockpit looks great.

[kornholio73]

hey jay,

been watching this thread for a while now and man gotta tell u ur models inspired me. have started working on my own VF-1 and boy it ain't easy, having loads of issues with the leg, inner mechanics and of course transformation.

your textures are absolutely stunning, DAMN!!

attached are some of the renders i did this morning, as u can tell they are still very wip, please give me some pointers if u could, thx dude! my aim was to keep poly counts low as i have a real crappy machine

also working on a Mospeada bike and soilder (the man is imported from Zbrush),

also, any c&c are most welcome!

[attachm

e

nt=52025:mos_wip010.jpg]

Edited April 19, 2008 by kornholio73

[Zinjo]

Wow the Ride Armor is coming along really nicely!

Then again it's much less complex than a Valk...

[Jay-Lew]

hey jay,

been watching this thread for a while now and man gotta tell u ur models inspired me. have started working on my own VF-1 and boy it ain't easy, having loads of issues with the leg, inner mechanics and of course transformation.

your textures are absolutely stunning, DAMN!!

attached are some of the renders i did this morning, as u can tell they are still very wip, please give me some pointers if u could, thx dude! my aim was to keep poly counts low as i have a real crappy machine

also working on a Mospeada bike and soilder (the man is imported from Zbrush),

also, any c&c are most welcome!

[attachm

e

nt=52025:mos_wip010.jpg]

Hey there! Your CG models are coming along quite nicely! I'm really not much for offering critique or criticism as each CG model here is nothing more than different 3D interpretation of the original Macross 2D art. Each artist who makes a CG Valk, or SDF-1, or whatever, brings their own ideas and styles to it. All art is considered subjective anyway, so there is no real right, or wrong way to do it, only what you and others enjoy, or do not enjoy. I just enjoy sharing my work, as well as seeing all the other wonderful artworks that others on this site share with us. ( keep it up you guys, being a BIG Macross / Robotech fan, I love having one place to go to to see all sorts of great 2D & 3D Macross art. Thanks to Shawn & Graham, this is one of the best fan site out there, PERIOD! ) Anyhow, sorry, I'm rambling again, the only real advice I can give you are my own personal insights and experiences I've had with doing my VF-1 in this thread, iF something similar to mine is what you are going for.

- Even with a crappy machine, you can still turn out a pretty high res model, you just need to work on it 1 piece at a time, then put all the pieces together once they are done. Until just a couple of months ago, I wask working on a crappy 5 year old Pentium 4 machine still on an old AGP bus ( CRINGE!!!!!!!!!! ) As long as you hide everything except the piece you are working on, it's not too bad. Even my SDF-1 scene which is around 2,000,000 ploys did ok on the old POS!!!!!! If you are going for the high detail look, then you want to use allot of geometry for your details, faking it in texture can work, but typically doesn't look quite as good. ( Really, the only actual difference between my VF-1, and others on this site, is that I went a little nutty with the detail. I tend to be a bit of a freak when it comes to adding TONS of unnecessary detail to all my CG work. It's a bit odd too considering my unusually SHORT attention span! )

- proportions: The proportions are a bit wierd whe it come to translating 2D art to 3D art, especially with the VF-1's. Unfortunately, in the series, The actual dimentions and proportions of the VF-1's CHANGE from one drawing to another, especially from Fighter to Gerwalk to Battroid and back. So I haven't even attempted the whole transformation thing yet with my VF-1. You can try to find the nice balance with the proportions between the different modes, and I have seen some on this site, that do a pretty god job of it too, but I found that with mine, quick Gerwalk and Battroid mockups show that it will never look perfect in any 1 mode if you go for the balance. So I built mine to look perfect in fighter mode, which makes Battroid look wierd,.( legs are too skinny when the good looking fighter legs go to Battroid legs. ) So eventually, I plan to rebuild some of the parts to proportions that look good in Battroid, then when I end up animating it, I will do a very quick morph between the parts that have changing proportions. ( quick enough so that you shouldn't notice it with the chaos of transformation going on! )

- Textures: Make the textures VERY HIGH RES!!!!!!! It is essential if you plan on showing your model up close. Mine are pretty much made from scratch, except, find yourself a good looking base metal photo, and overlay your drawn maps to it just so that there is a little bit of surface info coming from it, not just pure color. Right now, my model only has diffuse maps on it. Eventually I plan on doing bump / Specular / Reflection maps, as well as dirtying up the diffuse maps a bit as they are a little too clean right now. It doesn't look like it has seen any action!

So that is all the advice I can think of right now. The only other little things I could suggest, from an accuracy standpoint is, the tail fins are straight up and down, they should be slanted outward a bit ( 15 - 20 degrees if I remember correctly ), and I would suggest making the wings a little thinner, otherwise, looking great!

If anyone is wondering about the reference material I used, it was: Macross Perfect Memory Book, and screencaps from the Robotech DVDs. Below is a render of the VF-1 with no textures so you can see how much detail was done with geometry instead of texture, as well as a wireframe. I've also included a couple of texture samples as well to check out. ( Wing and a Leg )

Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any more questions, would be happy to answer!

Thanks!

Jason

[Stratagos]

Hey, great 3D work. Glad to see there are still many Robotech fans out there.

Edited September 1, 2008 by Stratagos

[SeminNV]

Hey, great 3D work. Glad to see there are still many Robotech fans out there.

You are right! We are real fans of Robotech/Macross

We are not the ones who just discuss toys and all that crap.

Robotech/Macross made us learning new things, thus developing our presonality.

You began 3D modeling, and I began 3D graphics programming.

[George Edward Purdy]

Your stuff looks really good, Jay. At one point I was planning on doing a 3DCG version of the original Macross, but I got sidetracked with other things. My first character modeling project in 3Ds Max was Hikaru Ichijo for the intro sequence. I never got around to modeling the Macross or the valkyries. Your valkyries are very good, although I think using meshsmoothed polys must have been really bad for memory management. I was planning to use splines to make patch surfaces based on the model kits.

Nice job, though. Very good stuff, and I've actually seen some of the original F-14s parked at Northrop Grumman in Florida.

[Gabe Q]

That cockpit is something else. I wonder how many of us it would take to make an episode 1 remake. Somebody would have to manage the whole thing and just divide up the work among volunteers.

[regult]

A minor update, mapped the tail fins and the feet / thrust vector nossles. Everything is coming together, most of the major hull parts mapped, just a couiple more pieces, then on to the small details like the Gear, the Gear bays, landing lights, and then the ever so complicated COCKPIT " . . . cring!!!! . . . " That's gonna take a while! I'm on a mission to finish this thing here soon, so you should see lots of small updates here in the next few weeks.

Hope you enjoy!

Hi all, I am new here, but have been a fan of Macross since I was a kid back in the 80s. I am also an aviation fan (collector of diecast models, commercial and military aircraft and avid FS pilot), this is probably the most impressive 3D render of anything I've come across with, and some flyable models in FS9 and FSX have been quite impressive.

Just wanted to point out, from a naval aviation perspective, that instead of "beware intake" it usually says "danger jet intake". Near the exhausts, it does say "beware of blast". This is a transformable mecha, so there is no "up and down" in the conventional sense, but "no step" would usually go on the "upper" surfaces that maintenance personnel would inadvertently step on and damage, so a gear door is usually not the place for "no step", although flaps and other movable "vertical" surfaces do sometimes carry a "no push" placard. As for numbering, if 210 is the number of the plane, then it should say 210 on the wing too (and according to 70's navy practice on Tomcats, the number goes on the flaps' white area, but according to Macross, it goes in the middle of the right wing, the author can totally take the liberty to detail this amazing model as it aesthetically pleases him most!

I am looking forward to the Macross city!

Edited July 29, 2008 by regult

[Jay-Lew]

Howdy all! I finally got around to making a website for my 3d stuff for the first time in a LONG TIME! It's pretty basic right now, but I'll be making it more fancy here some time in the near future. Check it out and let me know what you all think.

Thanks!

Jason

My 3d art site

[fifbeat]

Magnificent work. I'm in awe.

Keep it up.

[Dante74]

Howdy all! I finally got around to making a website for my 3d stuff for the first time in a LONG TIME! It's pretty basic right now, but I'll be making it more fancy here some time in the near future. Check it out and let me know what you all think.

Thanks!

Jason

My 3d art site

Awesome work Jason! I really love that underground cityscape.

[SchizophrenicMC]

If you ask me, it looks more like the SDF-2. More curvy and whatnot. The SDF-1 was really boxy. The SDF-2 was more badass, though. Great job, man!

[Mr March]

I wish he'd finish that model and do some wallpapers. It is by far the best re-imagining of the SDF-1 Macross I have ever seen. I love the smooth interpretation he did with this model. Besides, mac666er has done a traditional model of the SDF-1 Macross in all it's originally proportioned glory, so there definitely room for another interpretation like this one. Anyway, I hope he eventually works on it again. Simply first rate work of which many a professional would be jealous.

Edited October 2, 2008 by Mr March

[Zinjo]

Howdy all! I finally got around to making a website for my 3d stuff for the first time in a LONG TIME! It's pretty basic right now, but I'll be making it more fancy here some time in the near future. Check it out and let me know what you all think.

Thanks!

Jason

My 3d art site

WOW!

I didn't know you did a sunset version of the Macross! Stunning! One of my all time favorite renders of the ship...

Would you post a hi-res version of it here?

[Kremmen]

Stunning SDF-1. There's not really all that much variance from the line art that isn't made more or less necessary by clunky interfaces between different sections of the ship in the line art - I've struggled with those areas on my own NURBS model, which will never be nearly this good. I suck with all poly mesh progs I've tried but I wish I didn't right now, I can only chamfer where meshmoothing would be a much nicer approach. There's really almost no such thing as a truly planar surface on the SDF-1, except maybe the forward hull/guns. You really get the design. Beautiful! Any progress on this lately?

[big F]

Cant belive that I never posted on this thread.

There is always something about CGI that make me think Dang!! I wish I was much better at it..

[Ganbare]

It's projected in to the movie? Or it just still image? Looks awesome, I love the way you add the texture into VF-1. Bring more pls!!

[peter]

Awesome work, I hope you continue your work on episode 1 soon! I think there are a lot of eager macross fans waiting for the finished product!

[logan]

Great! I hope to see more of your work!

[Jedi Dark Knight]

"What a desolate place this is" guys, are you still working on this?

[pengbuzz]

Okay, this DESERVES a Necropost. I know Jay-Lew hasn't been around in quite some time. of what has happened to him. But the level of work that went into this is simply monumental (like the subject he modeled in this topic!).

[Zinjo]

On 5/29/2017 at 10:19 PM, pengbuzz said:

Okay, this DESERVES a Necropost. I know Jay-Lew hasn't been around in quite some time. of what has happened to him. But the level of work that went into this is simply monumental (like the subject he modeled in this topic!).

From what I've seen around the web, he's gone pro and really doesn't seem to do hobby work anymore.

[peter]

On 6/25/2017 at 3:20 PM, Zinjo said:

From what I've seen around the web, he's gone pro and really doesn't seem to do hobby work anymore.

That's a shame to hear.  Would have been nice to see this thing through.  

Holy crap, 7 years ago though.

[Rodavan]

On 7/11/2017 at 6:34 PM, peter said:

That's a shame to hear.  Would have been nice to see this thing through.  

Holy crap, 7 years ago though.

Wow time flies