MMZ_TimeLord

Okay, got the scale of everything tweaked and my assembly action almost done. Here is a render of the assembly action as it is now. (Yes, I know I only have one main cable and no stringers.) The South Tower will have the skirt split out to a separate object so I can add it just to the South Tower and not the North Tower. I also have to make a custom section of roadway for the towers so as to link up the sidewalks that go around the towers. More to do, but the nice thing is that now the total model patches of the pieces should come in under 50,000 patches, while the actual rendered model will be 400,000+ patches visible. Then it's on to texturing the parts so that it has more of a real world feel. CAUTION!: These renders are 4096 pixels wide!

I like the flow of the story... should be excellent from your past work. Keep us posted!

I tried an AO render exactly like I did the pocket watch for Greg "gschumsky", but it came out all weird... I'll try it again tonight. I may have to let it render over night though... the last render I posted took an hour to render (LOTS of patches I guess)

Dan, Thanks for the comments. The handrails are actually 3-D. They are just very thin angle iron type. I may thincken them up or simply give all the splines a 10% bias to give a small curve to them. If you look at the lower handrails on the left, you can see there is a small flat edge on the front of the horizontal rails. They are a true thin 'L' shapes so there are six CPs making up the cross-section of each one. Just like real angle-iron.

I won't need this level of detail on the medium or low detail versions, but on the high detail version, I will. Not done with the towers as a whole yet by a long shot. Lots more detail to add. (Catwalks, conduit, safety nets, etc.) Also, I'm going to see what I can do with texturing the rivet detials too... Another update, I got the turnbuckles in this evening after dinner. Two more items and the tower tops are done (minus texturing). The thing I'm trying to stay away from here is proceedural textures of any kind as the patch count alone is going to be a CPU killer. Caution: another 1080i image...

Ken, Done, should look good now.

I'll have to make the corrections on the way home Ken, but I'll do that...

Okay, so handrails are more porportional now, second light marker is added and the steps. Now just to add the turnbuckles, cable bases and maintenance hatch and I'll call the tower top done. Then it's onto superstructure, roadway, tower spotlights and main cable details. After that, final assembly... WHEEE!!! Caution: HD 1080i picture

Here's mine... Render and zipped file. Rename your original 'Default Chor.cho' file to something like 'Default Chor Old.cho'. Then place the Default Chor.cho from my zip file in your Hash Inc\V13.0 folder. I can create this for V12, but I am making this for the new Extra CD and V13 should be a done deal by then. EDIT: 8:30pm 02/16/2006, I updated the zip file... per Ken's suggestions, you can now drop a 7' character in the chor and it will be perfect. defaultchor_timelord.zip

Yeah, my bad that's a V13 Alpha 8 project.

Okay, I did a quick test. I believe that the scale of your character vs the scale of my ponytail is different. That will explain the differences in collision radius. Take a look at the project and see if this is what you were looking for... PonyTailTest.zip

Actually I have NO blueprints at all. The document you pointed me to is actually a blueprint for a wooden golden gate bridge puzzle that is 60 inches long. A couple of the tower facts will come in handy.

Welcome to the forums! The dynamic chain in her ponytail is actually reacting properly as far as how a dynamic chain would react. Think of a rope, if you hit the bottom of the rope, the rope will make a wave all the way up it's length. The main thing I can see is you have an extremely small collision radius. With that in mind, you may have to increase the density of your mesh in her ponytail and make the bones in the chain smaller. I'm experimenting with dynamic constraints myself. I'll see if I can recreate a simple ponytail mesh and cape surface and try what you are doing with your settings. I'll let you know the results.

David, Actually I have about 6 different pictures of the top of the tower from various angles, perspectives and distances, so it was pretty clear that the finned cable support structure was WAY too tall as well as the handrail. Last little thing that bugs me is that all the angle iron in the shot is too wide so I may thin it up to match the main reference shot. Now I've got a few more light fixtures, steps, access hatch, cable clamps outside the finned support and a few other details and I'll call the top done. Then I'll move back to the walkway around the towers and add more details there. Then I'll start building the main cable sections with the mounts for the roadway support cables. Dahr, Not counting them, just trying to recreate them properly.

Looks good... kinda confused about the ending... what's on the sign? Good work!

Okay, after seeing the reference photo side-by-side with my render, I realized that some of it was WAY out of proportion... so, after much toil... I have a new progress picture for everyone. More handrails, properly scaled handrails, and one of the tower's marker lights. Enjoy...

Ah... it must be another fighter of that era that had the Rolls Royce V12.... I think it was an american plane... Thanks for clearing that up... and thanks for the model!

Did the 190 have a radial engine? I thought it was a V-block type (V12)?

Whew! Here's another WIP picture of the top of the south tower. There's a TON of detail on just the top of these towers... Take a look at the reference photo for proof. The original TIF image of that reference photo is 4 times that size! Excellent for seeing the small stuff.

Colin, I've been watching this thread since you started it... I am still amazed at your modeling ability. I hope to be able to model humanoid type characters with as few splines as you do and still get the muscle tone and definition that you do... just... WOW! The hair on the legs looks great! (Probably a bit more dense, but that would be my preference.) Take care... can't wait to see him roar!

Thanks for all the comments folks. Dahr, I'm actually basing the general dimensions on a dxf I found on the net (VERY basic structure). But all the details are being done off of archive photos from university websites (UC Berkeley, etc.) and any other photos I have scrounged up from the net. And yes Ken, I'll get back on the TWO project. I've was seriously distracted last week with the death of my wife's father. (Italian family on her side, so we were all very close. They live about 25 miles away.) I intend on using simple detail decals for displacing the rivets. And yes, I was contemplating action objects to control the actual patch count in the choreography. i.e. - adding low action to the model would give you simple handrails, light posts and superstructure (girders). Medium action would make these slightly more detailed and of course high action would put full details in. Again, I'll need to play with the action objects some to understand how that works. Anyone know a short tutorial that explains it? I can't seem to find it. Anyhoo... I'm working on the top of the towers today. I should be able to post a few more updates soon.

Well, here is the 'in progress' renders of a section of the roadway deck and of the south tower. Lots of detail to add to the top of the south tower and more for under the road deck. Also there are many MANY other lights that are designed to illuminate the towers at night, so I'll be adding those as well. This model will have the lights added. I will probably need some help with that as I'm not quite sure how Yves did his skylights with only one light and the action added it numerous times to the skydome. I'd like to do the same thing here, where all the regular street lights are copies of one 'type' of light and the spot (klieg) lights for the tower illumination will be another one, etc. That way the end users won't be bogged down with hundreds of lights to adjust if they are not happy with them. They can just tweak the few 'parent' lights to taste. Anyone that can help me with the lights, please chime in. Lastly, I will be including a lower patch version as this high res version will probably go over 50,000 patches. Enjoy... comments and critiques are welcome.

I had started to model this some time ago and let it go to the back burner... but you can have all the reference images I have.

Actually this isn't necessary. If it's a tilable image, you can apply it so it stretches and then in the properties just increase the number of times it tiles...to 10. Ken, The problem I've always run into is that cylindrical mapping tries to wrap the image around the object once. I was unaware you could specify a number of repeats to wrap around the object. Can you please elaborate?

It's gonna crash!!! There's no pilot!!! You may want to look for this thread for a way to make the rotor look more like it's spinning. Really good start, congrats on getting A:M and welcome!