pixelmech

Very nice, excellent work! Put's my robots to shame ! Why don't you enter this into the Mini Movie Contest? It is eligible Tom

Ok, I see. Now, from there - how would you go about closing off the front to make it either a window or a flat panel? Just pull splines across and connect the dots, so to speak?

Ok, here's my big problem with mechanical stuff. Take the gauge window. I make a nice rounded corner square. Then I extrude it, scale it down, extrude it and scale it down to get my bevel. The problem is, the circled CPs seem to not be in the right place when I do it that way. Sometimes I try to manually line them up, but then sometimes I get other problems. I can't seem to get a real smooth look like I see people get. This makes me think I am going about it all wrong. And the problem is, in a model like this you end up doing stuff like that a LOT. I can't help but think I'm using the wrong technique. P.S. Thank you Mike! Not to have a false humility or anything, but I just feel I'm lacking some specific skills especially in the mechanical mode, and I have high aspirations I guess!

Here's a couple more... let me know what you think based on those. You can see on the marine one the light I'm wanting to get.

I was hoping you'd chime in Rodger! Yes, those areas you point out are wrong. I'm not sure exactly how to fix them, but sounds like you're saying play with the bias, I'll try that. I've definitely left out some detail that would be in there if I were going for ultra realism. Here's a reference photo... Notice I've omitted the chrome around the window.

Mmmm candy... here's an update. I'll probably just use a decal for the gauges so a little test for that. I have a bulb light inside the logo light up top at 100% with the housing set at 85% transparency, but it's not really shining through at all, not sure why.

Thanks guys, interesting you mention Emilio - I watched him do that but wasn't entirely getting it. I should watch it again. I do feel like I have too many splines. I always have a problem with edges and bevels, making them look right. I tried the Zevel plugin but it doesn't work for me. Whole gas station! ha! Actually maybe at some point. I have ideas for a set for it for something in the future. I wanted the items to be simple since they will primarily be background or props, but I'm going the opposite direction it seems!

Hello, Here's an old gas pump I have been working on. Mechanical modeling drives me NUTS, mainly because I stink at it. C&C welcome.

Thanks, man you guys are making wish I had finished it now!

Check your e-mail And I'm only a saint in the Biblical sense as noted by the Apostle Paul Cheers Tom

Not a problem Rodney, glad to. It's not exactly a completely finished model, but if you don't mind I don't mind. Shall I zip it up and send it to you?

That's a good point about the boxes, actually. The lights here are Kleig lights and I had similar problems. Each slat on the boxes is a decal, so to weather the boxes would have meant changing all the decals which I was not up for at the time (nor was it really needed at the time). But it makes sense.

Thanks guys. Not supposed to be photorealistic at all. It was only going to give some depth to some game screens. The i-beams up top are not even textured at all. The I beam texture is aged iron from the materials forum. It probably could use some tweaking. Again, boxes are from the hash CD. Maybe someday I'll go back in and add some of those touches though - good suggestions.

Thanks - but I should have mentioned the boxes are not mine! They are free content on the Hash CD. Everything else is mine though. I took some writing off the sides of the boxes (fragile and so forth) so they would be plain.

Here's a warehouse I began working on that was going to be used for a background in a 3d game. Turned out they decided to go a different direction so I didn't take it much further. But I rendered it out. I bought Emilio's Sweeper plugin, and I used it here to make the walkway, railings, zig zag beam on ceiling and iron beams. It worked really well, very pleased with that! Funny thing, whenever I tried rendering this with multipass I got horrible renders. Turning it off, it came out much much better. Not sure if this has to do with volumetrics on the lights or what. C&C welcome. Tom

Risk, you can set your output to be a Targa file (TGA) format. From there you can open that file in an image editing application like PhotoShop, or any of the freeware/shareware equivalents and then export that as a jpg. I think one of the free ones is GIMP http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ HTH Tom

Real nice Zar! I enjoyed those original books a lot, and the draconians are one of my favorite villians. My only suggestion is to remember that these are dark, underworld creatures so they are going to want to have a nasty, lizardly (word? LOL) guys. His default expression should be a egotistical sneer for example. His default stance should be aggresive, even menacing! Granted, you are still modeling him so - just things to think about. And a lot of that can be accomplished with texturing too. Looking forward to seeing more! Tom

Looks great Simon - hey - give me a Rocket on that landing pad! That's what I wanna see. There's a lot going on in the composition but there is no real focal point. A ship there would give you that and balance the pic nicely IMHO. Tom

Looking great Jake - really nice. I agree with Doug - the feet on the suit of armor really threw me off. I was thinking how sweet it was modeled then I saw the feet I think even if you just flatten them on the bottom you will be fine. You obviously spent a fair amount of time working on that, and it *looks* like you just threw the feet on (whether or not that is true). Great scene though and love the guy sitting in the chair - comfy! Tom

Much better! Now it looks like light coming through the window, possibly late afternoon due to the angle and darkness in the corner. My guess is that the color of the light is white? Since the sun appears to be low, you could add some orange coloring to the light, which cast some nice coloring in the room and really make it look like late afternoon. Alternatively, if it's supposed to be earlier in the day, you could move the light up a bit and keep it whiter. Or you can disregard my comments altogether and do what you want! Great room. Tom

That's looking great! I love the furniture man! Is the light supposed to be coming from a window off screen in the left hand side of the set? (lower left) It *almost* looks like it's light cast into a box from the top, but I also think I see a faint outline of what could be a window on the floor and bed wall...

Nice start Ken! AWESOME movie I want to see him move around!

It's definitely ok - please do enter some of your work if you can!

Andy that is really excellent, and there's no reason why you couldn't enter that into the mini movie contest Tom

Hey, those are great characters Flog! Really unique! And you've done some awesome modeling there - really impressive. Can't wait to see them move... In fact you have 25 days to whip something up for the mini movie contest! Look forward to seeing more. Tom