jesshmusic

I'm actually taking a slightly different road on the textures.... I may be getting ahead of myself because I still have some modeling to do. I am doing things more carefully on the modeling than I am used to. Trying to become better, you know. I actually modeled seams between the wing tips and front dome and I will be modeling an interior for those, the heat ray, and the force field leg generators on the bottom. I also plan on modeling the probe that comes out of it and perhaps the hatch. I am having a little trouble smoothing out the hole I made for the probe. I dread having to mess with the bias handles, but I may have to.

That's actually a pretty good idea! I think I'm going to do that. I was already doing it for the heat ray, so it won't be a problem to do it for the rest of the thing.

A minor texture update...

Here is a close up of the Heat Ray. I have not made the eye of it yet.

I had to do some corrections with the overall shape and the smoothness. C&C encouraged.

I took a little artistic license with this model, especially with the textures. I think the original model had a more pointed rear and the green wing tips were smaller than mine. As for the heat ray, I will render a pic tonight of it close up soe you guys can see the texture I applied to it. It is kind of unique, but different than the original. I do see that I need to adjust the "cobra" head of the heat ray a little. Thanks for that link, I was using a different one.

C'mon now, I would have to do my own score! I was thinking of having a couple of these things going down my street. Just to see if i could do it.

Another angle:

Here is a minor update. I have changed the textures on the wing tips and front. I have also worked on the texture for the heat ray glass. I added seams for the wing tips and adjusted the seam for the front. C&C welcome as always. I still have to model the probe and hatch.

Would it be redundant for me to mention that there are a lot of splines? Did you used to use a poly program? Hm? Looks great so far.

Right you are! .... If only I had a garage door....

Here's something I whipped up today to see if I could get it close. It could be better, but I'm happy so far. I have more to do, but C & C is most welcome! NOTE: The images and animations in this post of the thread represent the most recent work. If you want to see how she developed into this continue reading. ->UPDATE (Feb 15, 2005): Here is a new short animation and rendered image. Martian War Machine Probe is Revealed! (Quicktime - Mp4 Codec - 500 KB) NEW RENDER (1024x768):

The lighting on the character in the stills are a little too dark. I notice you are going for a night scene, but the character looks like he is in the background, not the foreground. I think a little ambient light in the scene may solve the problem, but I don't have much experience in lighting night scenes. Modeling looks great! ...one tiny suggestion.... If it is at all possible render your animations as AVIs or Quicktime Movies so everyone can see them....please.

Thanks! And when UPS comes Wed ot Thur with my new Power Mac G5 dual 1.8 mhz MAN machine and my render times double from what I have now I will really put this project in overdrive! I actually have a script for the new version and it actually took a little bit more serious tone. There are also going to be more people than just me as voice talent. I have at least two other people!

Those are pretty nice!

That is interesting. I would like to see that in a Cornell box...still animated. That would take a few days to render, but I bet it would look completely wicked!

Have you checked out Yves's Lighting Tut? This may help you a lot. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10132

Good show! That's a nice looking sword.

Not bad! Can we see a perspective render also? I would add some more detail to the hilt in the textures, but overall it's a nice looking sword.

Oh yeah! Fabulous! Let's see some animations now to see how it looks! No time to waste! (Must keep pixelmech away from Rants and Raves!!!!)

Post up some updates when you do it! I hope my advice doesn't mess him up too bad!

I don't know if this will help, but here is Glix, a robot from my current project. His neck is a seperate piece. His head is what rotates, however, the neck does not move. Keep in mind that his biceps and forearms only rotate on one axis due to their design. I don't know what that joint is called. Perhaps you can find a similar solution. Old-school Sci-Fi artists sometimes just put spheres at the joints.

Cool model! The one thing I would recommend (and I hesitate to do it since you are so far along) would be to not have as many bendable parts. He is almost human. I would think the knees, elbows and necks would be jointed. I guess you wouldn't even have to connect the arms, forearms, etc. If this is the look you are going for, cool! If that is the case ignore everything I have typed except for the first two words!!!

It seems to me also the only real problem is the distant hill to the left. Keep up the good work.

I'm not an expert, but the problem may be the z-buffered shadows. Can you get better results with ray tracing? I also noticed that the interior of the head is lit, but I can't remember how to fix that. Ha! I guess I didn't help too much!