Chopper Al

Good heavans man!! You're insane! Insane, I say!!! As always Stian, mind blowing and numbing all at the same time. So much to look at and take in. Al

Back before I was Chopper Al and was known as Tralfaz, I did a quick tutorial showing how I did the same type of AO and blueprint style renders. The link is shown below. Al http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=275288

Good luck Mark with your endeavor. If you don't take the risk now, you may be asking yourself later in life, 'What if?' Don't end up like me where I have lost a lot of the drive to do new things, and sit in a 6 x 6 cubicle counting the years until retirement (BTW, it's about 11.5 years now). Al

Outstanding work once again Stian. Your meshes always amaze me with their simplicity, yet able to depict such detail. Al

Proves my point... Al (at least I think I am Al)

Sorry about that Eric. Al

Hi Mark, The wrinkles that I noticed are circled in red. As far as I knew, the saucer section was called the primary hull, and the lower section with the shuttle bay was called the secondary hull. I could be wrong though. From what I read when I was a kid, the Enterprise was built in parts, those parts lifted into orbit, than assembled. Pretty much like the International Space Station. From what I've been able to figure out, the Enterprise in the new movie is build on Earth, then lifted into orbit. Again, I could be totally wrong on that too. The mind starts losing and confusing facts as one gets older.... Anyway, it is really a great looking model. Al

Looking really good Eric. Although, is there a bit of wrinkling in the secondary hull near the starboard nacelle support? I just this minute figured out why the TOS Enterprise looks so differently than the new movie Enterprise. It all has to do with Picard going back to stop the Borg in First Contact. He inadvertently affected the time line, which has rippled through to this new design. Yes, that must be it. I can sleep easier now and may even enjoy the movie when it comes out. Al

Great job on the Enterprise Eric. As for the Enterprise in the new movie, not really impressed with it, inside or out. The original Enterprise was classy and elegant. In my opinion, this new Enterprise doesn't even come close to the old one. But that's just me. Al

Agreed. And watch the barbells bounce and flex as they are dropped, and then the ring vibrate... hee hee hee

Great work Jaff! I liked the little details you added, like flexing the fingers around the bar as your character works to get the best grip he can. Looking forward to more. Al

Quick question... Is it possible to delete a control point from a spline so that the curve of the spline is maintained? Something like when you shift click to add a CP to a spline and the CPs before and after the new CP automatically adjust their bias to maintain the curve. For instance, I have the following spline... But when I delete a CP, it distorts the spline, which is what I don't want to happen. Thanks... Al

Particle Illusion from Wondertouch has some great transporter effects. They have the full blown 3.0 version as well as a PE low cost version. I got my PE version for free from a magazine a few years ago, and it works really, really well. The SE version is only $99 USD. The software is not a modelling tool, and works with already rendered frames or video. From their website... Hope this helps... Al

Hee hee hee hee..... very good Nancy. Actually, the Chopper Al name came from the fact that last year, I had all my teeth replaced with brand new spanking crowns. It was a long and involved process taking over 7 years to determine what the problem was and figuring out how much longer the new teeth needed to be. In the end, my teeth were lengthened to open my mouth an extra 7.5mm (had very tiny teeth). First time my wife saw me with my new teeth, she commented on the new 'choppers', and Chopper Al was born. Even though the scooter in my avatar is not a chopper, it is my main spring, summer, fall ride. I call it my "Hardly-A-Davidson'. Al

Quick update: Finished most of the major modelling on the Enterprise (although I just noticed I still have the grid patterns on the inside of the nacelle supports to do). Al

Thanks Spleen. D'oh!! I have downloaded the windows demo and will play around with that and compare it to Comic Book Creator 2. If I like Comic Life better, I will eBay the Comic Book Creator software. Thanks Mark. I just finished doing the Enterprise in a polygon modelling package just before coming back to A:M, so it is still fresh in my head. Al

Thanks for the great info GizmoMkI and Largento. A lot of the model has been mostly lathing splines. If I hadn't found out about using the 4, 5 and 6 keys while sliding CPs along splines, I don't think I would have been able to successfully model the back of the secondary hull and nacelle ends. The trickiest part was selecting the CP so that it would slide along the spline in the direction I wanted it to. There was a post on the forum here that explains what the different keys were for. I saw something by Rusty about it. Mark, didn't you do one of your comic book tutorials on it? Looked for it, but couldn't find it. BTW Mark, I bought Comic Book Creator 2.0, mainly because of your comic book tutorials. Played around with it a bit, but when I created a PDF, it has a 'created with comic book creator' message on the bottom of each page. I didn't notice that on yours. Is there some setting to remove the message, or did you have to manually remove it later from the PDF? Update: Have most of the main shapes modelled. Still have a lot of detailing to do on the model, like inter-coolers, impulse engines, lots of windows (these may have to be textured instead of modelled). Al

Hey folks. As a way to help re-learn A:M, I decided to model the U.S.S. Enterprise from the original Star Trek series. There are so many things that I forgot how to do over the past few months, that there is a lot of trial and error going on here. Slowly coming back though... Al This one of the sheets of blueprints that I am working from. And here is the modelling so far.

Hi William, Sorry you are having problems with the photo bucket images. I sent you an e-mail from my Photo Bucket account sharing the album. Hopefuly this will work a bit better. Also, fixed the links to the Photo Bucket images. They are (or should be) now viewable from this web page. Thanks... Al

Hi William, I have the following models in A:M if you are interested: 1) 2004 Honda Rebel 250 A:M Gallery Image 2) Lamborghini Gallardo A:M Gallery Image 3) Star Wars AT-AT A:M Gallery Image 4) Jupiter 2 from Lost In Space (1960 TV Series version) Jupiter 2 Jupiter 2 different view Cockpit View Also have the following models from a different modelling package: 1) Enterprise from Star Trek (TOS) 3/4 Front View 3/4 Lower View 3/4 Rear View 2) Discovery 1 from 2001 - A Space Odyssey 3/4 Front View 3/4 Rear View 3) Aries Lunar Lander from 2001 - A Space Odyssey Beauty Shot Wire Frame 4) Space 1999 Eagle Beauty Shot Command Module Close-up Wire Frame 5) Doctor Who Dalek Beauty Shot Wire Frame Let me know if you are interested in any of them. All the models have all of the detail modelled into them. Didn't really use any bump or displacement maps on them. My old A:M name used to be Tralfaz, but have just recently come back as Chopper Al (which is why the A:M gallery may show Tralfaz for my name, and why Chopper Al doesn't have many posts yet!) Thanks... Al <edit> Fixed links to Photo Bucket images </edit>

Thanks Rodney and robcat. I started popping in a couple of weeks ago, and did notice I was still in the Hash Fellows group. That is how I found out the TWO was completed and on YouTube. It turned out pretty good and sent Martin an e-mail about it. As I mentioned, I was playing around with a couple of other modelling programs, but they just didn't hold a candle to A:M. Life is still pretty hectic with work and family life, but I want to become familiar with A:M again. Still have a couple of movie ideas I want to do when some time frees up. Thanks again... Al

Hey folks. I've been away for a bit, and have come back to the forums. My other name was Tralfaz, but am now going by Chopper Al. Played around a bit (when I could find some free time) with some other modelling packages, but I was always comparing them to A:M. So, A:M is the only way to go! Only problem, is I forgot how to do things in A:M, so will be starting back at ground zero and re-doing the tutorials again to get me back up and running. Missed you folks, and it is good to be back... Al