New VF-1 lineart

[Doktor Gonzo]

Hopefully somebody has a use for this...

[Doktor Gonzo]

....I'd also happily welcome criticism on any point where the lines or proportions are inaccurate.

[Talos]

....I'd also happily welcome criticism on any point where the lines or proportions are inaccurate.

It's certainly getting there. I'd generally clean up the lines and check the details.

Here's a VF-1S side view I mostly completed recently (it's just missing armaments and cockpit now).

Edited February 3, 2010 by Talos

[Hikuro]

while not a mechanical artist, it's very toy V2 1/60 escque but very cool to look at.

[Doktor Gonzo]

while not a mechanical artist, it's very toy V2 1/60 escque but very cool to look at.

Hikuro,

Good call! It's actually a series of cel-shaded orthographic renders of a 3D model (that doesn't "cheat" on parts resizing/interpenetration between modes and so is subject to the same constraints and compromises as a toy...)

[BlueMax]

Hikuro,

Good call! It's actually a series of cel-shaded orthographic renders of a 3D model (that doesn't "cheat" on parts resizing/interpenetration between modes and so is subject to the same constraints and compromises as a toy...)

Did you happen to render this in 3d previously and made it transform? I still have the video...

[jenius]

Like the V2 toy... I wish the head were in the right place

[Doktor Gonzo]

Did you happen to render this in 3d previously and made it transform? I still have the video...

I did, though as you can see in this new render, I've just tweaked the model to have it take a little more after the 1/60 v2, especially the head placement (sorry, Jenuis )

[chillyche]

I happen to think this is rad. I love models that actually transform without any anime-magic.

[Doktor Gonzo]

I happen to think this is rad. I love models that actually transform without any anime-magic.

I do too - though, admittedly, when I made this model (a long time ago now!) I think I settled on this approach because several people on this board had already built unassailably cool VF-1 models. I knew I couldn't outdo those, so I instead opted to go in a direction they didn't, with a "realistic" and "fully functional" model...

[chillyche]

I do too - though, admittedly, when I made this model (a long time ago now!) I think I settled on this approach because several people on this board had already built unassailably cool VF-1 models. I knew I couldn't outdo those, so I instead opted to go in a direction they didn't, with a "realistic" and "fully functional" model...

A niche is a good place to be. What software did you use?

[Doktor Gonzo]

A niche is a good place to be. What software did you use?

Maya, with some occasional forays into MotionBuilder (the valk is rigged for use of mocap data, though the only thing I've ever done with that is a frankly kind of disturbing animation of 2 valks in Max and Milia livery dancing to Fire Bomber songs....)

[chillyche]

Maya, with some occasional forays into MotionBuilder (the valk is rigged for use of mocap data, though the only thing I've ever done with that is a frankly kind of disturbing animation of 2 valks in Max and Milia livery dancing to Fire Bomber songs....)

If there was a better Maya> Max pipeline, I'd be making requests of you. I guess there's always the old .ma > .obj > .max standby, but that doesn't preserve bones or rigging, does it?

[Doktor Gonzo]

If there was a better Maya> Max pipeline, I'd be making requests of you. I guess there's always the old .ma > .obj > .max standby, but that doesn't preserve bones or rigging, does it?

Nope. Though I believe there's a decent pipeline via the .fbx format, which is Autodesk-proprietary.

[Doktor Gonzo]

Rummaging for more new/old stuff.... don't think I ever posted clay renders of this model, so... here they are

[chillyche]

Rummaging for more new/old stuff.... don't think I ever posted clay renders of this model, so... here they are

Seriously?! C'mon man, that's awesome!

[Rodavan]

Nice one Doc , add textures ...please

[Doktor Gonzo]

Nice one Doc , add textures ...please

Silly question for any of you guys who use Maya -- I just tried rendering NEW shots of this, but it's moved hard drives since the last time I opened the file, and it's having trouble re-associating with the textures in its new location. Anybody know if there's a way to do a batch find-and-replace on the texture paths in Hypershade?

thx,

DG

[Doktor Gonzo]

Nevermind, figured it out. Also found the file I used to generate the battroid ambient occlusion render and did one in full color:

[Temjin]

Looks nice and finish.

[Doktor Gonzo]

Looks nice and finish.

Thanks!

[Doktor Gonzo]

And just to be really silly:

[chillyche]

bwa ha ha!

[Temjin]

flexible wings

[Doktor Gonzo]

flexible wings

"Overtechnology"

[chillyche]

Can we just talk about your render here...

This looks like a painting in a lot of ways. You've done some pretty neat rendering and lighting here. Can you talk about what kind of render passes you used, if you did any post work on it, etc?

[Doktor Gonzo]

Can we just talk about your render here...

This looks like a painting in a lot of ways. You've done some pretty neat rendering and lighting here. Can you talk about what kind of render passes you used, if you did any post work on it, etc?

Sure thing. For the battroid pic, no real post - also no real lighting! It was I guess a supremely lazy way to get some fast full-color results. The color posed battroid is a comp of three passes -- a straight-up color pass with whatever default lights Maya creates, and comped over that in Photoshop, the ambient occlusion pass from above set to Darken (for soft shadowing) and a pass done with Maya's Physical Sunlight Environment lighting mode, which creates a soft, glowey, washed-out look. Comped that on, boringly enough, Soft Light, to give some softness/warmth. For the pic of the battroid riding on the fighter, I did a little more in Photoshop. My machine is elderly and it didn't have enough ram to do a sunlight simulation with two valkyrie models at once, so I made do with just the color render and the ambient occlusion render (which is why it doesn't look as realistic or as naturally lit as the first one.) I merged those two layers. I duplicated the layer and, on the lower down of the two, did a motion blur in the direction of the fighter's travel, size about 15 pixels. Then I offset that layer so that the entire blur was "trailing" the unblurred layer up top. I gaussian blurred the top layer a little also, so it would look a little less out of place over the background. I also dropped its opacity down to 95%, so a little of the color from the backround tinted it. I added a very, very light grain via filter. Then I just dropped in the gunfire and exhaust, and airbrushed in some rudimentary contrails. Think that was pretty much it

[Rodavan]

Cool work Doc , check your mail over the weekend

[Brianw76]

Nice work as always Doc! Good to see you posting this stuff again.

[Doktor Gonzo]

Nice work as always Doc! Good to see you posting this stuff again.

And awesome to hear from you and from Rod! Now we just need to get Datterboy and Vinnie and Les Parisek posting some stuff too, and it'll be just like old times around here!

[chillyche]

Awesome! Thanks for the breakdown.

[Brianw76]

And awesome to hear from you and from Rod! Now we just need to get Datterboy and Vinnie and Les Parisek posting some stuff too, and it'll be just like old times around here!

I've been using maya like crazy for school, I can do just about anything in it now but rig I want to rig my stuff and animate it so bad!!! I'd love to do some compositing and matchmoving with macross models, like the city battles from the first episodes.

[Doktor Gonzo]

I've been using maya like crazy for school, I can do just about anything in it now but rig I want to rig my stuff and animate it so bad!!! I'd love to do some compositing and matchmoving with macross models, like the city battles from the first episodes.

Funnily enough, that's EXACTLY the project I had in mind as a pure blowing-off-steam hobby exercise -- recreating some of the battle shots from the first 3 episodes in 3D. I've laid hands on CityEngine to generate a background setting, I've still got Wolf's awesome Macross model too (and I hope he won't mind me using it, with proper credit given), we've all seen Rodavan's totally awesome Regult, and there's no shortage of great vf-1 models floating around here. Maybe we should try making a group project out of this!

[chillyche]

I've laid hands on CityEngine to generate a background setting, I've still got Wolf's awesome Macross model too (and I hope he won't mind me using it, with proper credit given), we've all seen Rodavan's totally awesome Regult, and there's no shortage of great vf-1 models floating around here. Maybe we should try making a group project out of this!

Um... Macross Aria anybody?

Edited February 14, 2010 by chillyche

[Brianw76]

Funnily enough, that's EXACTLY the project I had in mind as a pure blowing-off-steam hobby exercise -- recreating some of the battle shots from the first 3 episodes in 3D. I've laid hands on CityEngine to generate a background setting, I've still got Wolf's awesome Macross model too (and I hope he won't mind me using it, with proper credit given), we've all seen Rodavan's totally awesome Regult, and there's no shortage of great vf-1 models floating around here. Maybe we should try making a group project out of this!

Sounds like a fun project, I'm willing to give it a shot. We should figure out what shots to do so we can start modeling background elements. I've taken some classes on matte painting too. Haven't had a time to keep up with it though, it would be nice to practice my skills with this project.