Mass CG project ...

[Mr March]

Hehehe, cool, rough little animation

[Skypoet]

Download doesn't work! Please help I'm in need!

[DatterBoy]

Right click and then "Save As" and you shoul be good to go.

:Dat

[Rob]

ok so i saw all this awesome stuff of all you guys and desided to try and make some cg valk also, all that like what a year ago?

now i get back to this thread and see that your all pro's now .

oh well ill show my stuff anyways allthough its total crap in comparison to your stuff.

lots of stuff missing from the valk yet ,sigh no time to play.

would like to resculpt the legs as a starter.

hate those hands.

be gentile now

Edited April 20, 2005 by Rob

[Rob]

oh and offcourse its like you all can see totaly based on the 1\48.

[DatterBoy]

Hey Rob. Looks good to me so far. Much better than what I used to have when I started. I think what stands out the most is the sharpness of the model overall. Rounder edges would help a lot. I can see you have some bevelling but I've always felt the valk was more roundish and less squared looking. Struggle with it all the time. Your jet mode already looks great, but it's the battroid mode that generally needs everything to be modified to make it work.

As far as the legs go, I believe they are the hardest part and have remodelled my own several times over.

On the hands, I'd check some references if you're going after the DYRL style since, apparently, only 3 fingers actually go behind the plat eon the back of the hand. Didn't know it myself, so now I have to redo. I think the Hasegawa hands look the best.

Love the thumbs up and welcome back!

:Dat

[Rob]

thanks for your kindnes (bowing)

i am allraidy pretty proud i was able to do this stuff , long time ago i made a model of a valk with 3d studio max (i use maya now) and it was worth nothing hahaha it was based on a 1\55 toy as that was all i had back then .

i think i showed a pic of it on the boards ,not sure if it was in the new one or still at the old mw boards.

i also hope to find a way to do daylight better as mine shows to much shadows .

it looks like dirt.

btw to smooth lines out on the polys what do you use ? i us the smooth normals tool.

[DatterBoy]

You using MAYA now?

:Dat

[Hurin]

Rob, I dig the "Buddy Jesus" thumbs-up pose!

[DatterBoy]

Hik 1S

[Rob]

dat sjeeezzzzzzz that one is beautiful. cant see if its the real thing or cg.

i hope i can do that some day lol

oh and yeah i use maya now version 6

[Rob]

anim test , its a simple animation its not totaly rigged or something just has all the bones and i moved them where i wanted to bone by bone.

valk anim

i did this as i wanted to try out some animation lol.

i know ik know ! i should first finish modeling it

oh that thumps up pose i made as i was making a skin for a friend of mine who has a ciber cafe and shop.

the yellow i choose as a background so i could easely cut the valk out in photoshop.

Edited April 21, 2005 by Rob

[DatterBoy]

Animations are lots of fun. Good work, Rob. Hopefully we'll see more here soon.

:Dat

[Goshawk]

Awsome works, just awsome!!

[DatterBoy]

Holy crap, 14 hour render...

Edited April 22, 2005 by DatterBoy

[Rodavan]

awsome render Dat

Rob - Good work , keep it coming

[Rob]

omg dont you have a rar file with alot of those type of renderings?

btw what kind of pc do you have? 14 h for a rendering ?wow you must a buttload of bitmaps and lightefects in there.

my pc specs.

p4 2.8 ht 800 fsb

dual band 1gb 400mhz ram

graphics card fx 5900xt>softquadro fx3000

Edited April 22, 2005 by Rob

[DatterBoy]

Athlon T Bird 1.2

Geforce 2 64MB RAM vid

512M DDR RAM

So basically, not a real pump system, but itdoes the job. Looking to move into the P4 arena soon and possibly aPCI Bus vid card. Would be nice.

This render in general was 3000 x 2000 so it took a long time. Was trying to get it to squeeze as mcuh detail out of the render as possible. The one posted here is a reduced copy.

Using Mental Ray with Caustics and GI, Ray Tracing and well.. basically,every feature pumped to the MAX. Wish it had HDRI.

:Dat

[Aztek]

That looks frikin pimp Dat. Your valk has come so damn far since your earlier versions. You're definately leading the pack around here lately.

Have you thought of softening up your glossiness on the wing skin? It seems really reflective for something that goes on flat. I've only seen gloss paint used on fighters in the intakes. Maybe I'm overthinking the valk, but since I'm always around aircraft it just screams at me to NOT make it glossy.

When a fighter gets a new paint, it looks really flat. Nice and grey, but flat. Over time weathering, foot/hand traffic, washes, scrubbing and such it "polishes" up. The intrinsic flatness (roughness) of the paint smooths out and gives the appearance of a semi gloss paint in certain lighting. But since I'm not around valks day to day, I can only guess. Maybe they are glossy and I'm a meathead. It's just a personal pref of mine.

Right now your valk would totally kick my valks ass, so please don't take this personal!

[DatterBoy]

AZ!

Good to see you back man! Thanks for the kind words.

To be honest, I prefer a flat looking myself. I haveno real interest in aircraft outside of the valk itself so I do whatever people yell at me to do. In this case, people kept telling me to make is have some reflection, but I don't know how much to give it but I agree the mirror look probably is not appropriate and should be lessened.

Just so I know, if it were to have some glass, which parts would it be and what color paints reflect the most?

As for who's valk would kicks who's ass, far as I see it, each of us has our own interpretation. Right now, though, I think ROD's weapons would kill us both.

I'm still awaiting the return of BRIAN and DOK...

:Dat

[Aztek]

Dat,

K, here's where I'll back peddle a lil. White and light grey is notoriously almost always a gloss or semi gloss paint in the fighter world (and heavy for that matter). Usually reserved for special purpose aircraft, i.e., AWACS, Demo teams (Thunderbirds), and Airborne Command Aircraft, etc. This paint makes it highly reflective and hence more visible from land and air targeting. That's why the majority of the fleet is flat and subdued.

Then there is the valks. While I'd put my last dollar on the fact that a cannon fodder aircraft is most definately non-gloss, the lead aircraft and maybe even the entire skull squadron may have gloss tendencies. Since they are the best of the best of the fleet, maybe they go for the flair instead of the work horse plainness.

So, I'd say, in relative terms if glass is 100 percent gloss, and your paint is 70, it "should" be kicked down to about 40-50.

Some reflection and gloss but not always immediately apparent.

Dude, go to www.af.mil and dig through their photo section. It is broken down by aircraft type so it's easy to search through the library. Some pics are like 2000x3000 pixels so the details are sweet.

Dig around and try and find your balance. Look at any Thunderbird photos, and if you are going for a white gloss paint, those will be your best reference.

[DatterBoy]

AZTEK,

That site is awesome. From looking at it, I'd say most paint schemes are pretty flat, and I really do prefer the flat look. I really dig the Tenjin paintings on Hasegawa model kit boxes and am wanting to go in that direction for the final look so I think I will knock down the reflection a whole lot.

Still modelling the valk though. Want to add a koint system that allows for greater posibility without comprmising the look and would like to incorporate a joint system like the PG Gundam Strike, but i think that may be a bit much.

For now, added side armor and arm/shoulder joint detail cuz it looked generic before.

:Dat

[Aztek]

Dude, I really like your armpits.

It looks more "macrossy" than mine. I may have to rethink the direction I'm going in. Do they stow away during the xform sequence?

Here's a pic that I used when I modeled mine. I've been trying to get them to fold open to reveal the ducted thrust, but it's an engineering nightmare.

[DatterBoy]

I'm not altogether sure what I'm looking at in that picture... is that the flaps for the side armor with vents underneath them..?

As far as folding away, right now, I simply hide them in the other modes. The side armor is one big piece right now since it's modelled for meto see if it looks right. But since I am trying to work this thing towards realism and real world physics and spacing, I'll eventually break it apart and make it stow in for the other modes.

The armpit piece where the arm is attached is you standard plate so stores away nicely in fighter mode like it does for a BANDAI type transformation:

I've always preferred that over the YAMATO style since I believe it is more cannon (sp?). Biggest problem I have with the armpit itself is the clipping it does with that leg piece on the intake in gerwalk mode.

Probably going to have to slide that leg piece around in gerwalk mode to avoid collision, but not sure how else I can address that without compromsing something. I think I could cut some of the pit away to bring it closer to the peg setting, but I like how that part covers up an unsightly gapin batt mode. As it stands I already need to make it so that the height of the shoulder piece on the shoulder peg off the armpit is variable as this varies between the modes. The peg is low on the shoulder piece for battroid mode, and high on the shoulder piece in gerwalk mode to avoid wing collision. Butit looks good at different angles in gerwalk as it is now.

Ah well... I ramble on...

[DatterBoy]

DYRL Spreads for Hikaru:

[Aztek]

That pic is a screengrab form a clip during one of the first 5 or so episodes of macross. It's a split screen of cockpit action and chest "thrusters" that ends up showing the throttle rise up and the ducts spit out blue thrust. It's about a 2 second clip that I played over a few times to see what was going on.

You can just see the aircraft right side chestplate intake in the lower left/center of the pic. That would be the right armpit with covers open.

Twenty or so pages ago I rendered some armsocket detail. My side covers have a pretty complex folding system but they eventually slide up under the chest plate intake, which they are hinged on.

If you look at the lineart for the valk xform sequence you can see that the arm sockets slide forward and aft under the backplate during xforms. In battroid and fighter they are all the way fwd. It seems like they slide aft a hair in gerwalk so that they clear the verniers, on the engine intakes. Re-render your gerwalk pose with the entire socket assy slid back far enough that the joint doesn't clip the verniers. Swing around it and check it out.

This is definately cannon or the tracks wouldn't have been so clearly drawn.

First pic is slid fwd and stowed.

Edited April 24, 2005 by Aztek

[Aztek]

Mid xform and slid aft ...

[Aztek]

Legs extended, arms back fwd.

This is the xform for fighter to battroid. I'd assume if it was fighter to gerwalk the arms would stop their fwd movement somewhere at a midpoint along the track.

Toy mechanics may be the reason we get caught up on the shoulder having the fwd most position all the time. Trying to engineer a plastic robot fit to be handled by a 6 year old probably made this intricacy go out the window.

Edited April 24, 2005 by Aztek

[Aztek]

Check the magazine section's Oct 02 Hobby Japan gerwalk models.

Here's a link to one of the scans. Note the position and detail of where the arm socket is in gerwalk mode. The nice thing about real models is they don't allow you to cheat on the clipping!

[DatterBoy]

Hmmm... looks like I'm going to have to do some more modelling...

I guess it makes sense over all, but given that the legs tend to flush with the underside of the chest and backplate, I don't see how it all can fit under there without some serious insetting that would impact the wings folding in...

Oh well, I guess this is why it's so fun...

:Dat

[Rob]

Athlon T Bird 1.2

Geforce 2 64MB RAM vid

512M DDR RAM

So basically, not a real pump system, but itdoes the job. Looking to move into the P4 arena soon and possibly aPCI Bus vid card. Would be nice.

This render in general was 3000 x 2000 so it took a long time. Was trying to get it to squeeze as mcuh detail out of the render as possible. The one posted here is a reduced copy.

Using Mental Ray with Caustics and GI, Ray Tracing and well.. basically,every feature pumped to the MAX. Wish it had HDRI.

:Dat

hmm yeah the newer gf 6800gt should be transformable to a real quadro fx4000.

i think those are only in pcx not sure though.

btw that gf 2 should be a brease to change it into a pro card.

and allthough the benchmarks are not totaly real when you change it to a quadro you notice a big increase in speed when modeling , at least i did with my old gf4 ti4400.

hmm all that stuff in mental ray im not sure how to use it yet as for now im still learning how to model and dont want to spend to much time (that i dont have) yet on learning how to render.

that time will come

i am thinking on how to do a proper daylighting though as mine stinks

hey thanks those pics will most likely help me out also on how to model the parts together as for now they all hang in the air lol.

[DatterBoy]

I have a few parts that hang in the air. Working on changing that now. Lotsof people with good advice here. You're in theright place.

:Dat

[DatterBoy]

Check the magazine section's Oct 02 Hobby Japan gerwalk models.

Here's a link to one of the scans. Note the position and detail of where the arm socket is in gerwalk mode. The nice thing about real models is they don't allow you to cheat on the clipping!

Checking out the model on the link. It appears to me that the transformation as indicated there fucntions on 2 slide tracks. One to go up and down on the backplate underside and the other to bring the arm mount plate in and out from center to side. Only real problem with that is that given the thickness of the the arm mount plate (armpit), it would hang a bit low in fighter mode. Could be easily fixed in CG For sure, but I have also found that the arm plate mount interferes tremendously with the backplate underside trim. Even the Yamato 1/48 had to cut some away to accomodate.

:Dat

[Aztek]

My workaround for the arms hanging so low, was that the fitting that runs along the track that is connected the shoulder pivot has a swing arm that puts the flat surface of the shoulder almost parallel to the track plane when in stowed mode.

Whew.

Picture the 1/55 and the way it stows. There are two pivots in the arm where it swings open. In stowed and battroid mode they are near even with each other. On mine, from a head on shot, the actual shoulder pivot stows "higher" than the attach pivot to the rail slider thing.

It is still lower than I'd like. From the same head on shot, the shoulder and forearm sections of the arms sit below the level of the lowest part of the head.

I've been busy lately, but I'll post some renders of how mine stow. I haven't textured the underside of my backplate yet, but rather than model the track I was just going to texture in it's appearance, but you'll get the picture.

Like everything on the valk t was a delicate balance between what I? see on screen during DYRL what toys I have and how they function, and the beautiful Hasegawa fighter mode.

Canon, functionaility, and eye candy. That's a hard mix to nail with these bad boys.

[DatterBoy]

I hear ya. Balance. I should have started with a Hasegawa model, I think my fighter would have looked much better.

trying to get a physically possible underside for the arm swings and transformation is hard. I'm hoping at some point, I can turn IK and collision on and everything will still work...

And let's not even talk about the mechanism for the leg transformation from the chestpkate underside... not sure how those pistons fit in that space, though ther is a bit of room in the chest cavity...

And how the hell would you rig and animate that action?

ANIME MAGIC!

:Dat