Titan Coments always welcome

[djohnson]

Definantly a W.I.P. but always good to have another set of eyes take a look. :)
Thanks in advance for any comments.
http://www.noctu.net/warrad.jpg

[Matt]

oh I like that! :)

makes me want to start my ED-209 model I was planning!

[cathuria]

Gorgeous:)
I'm tempted to do one of those myself, one of these days...

The legs & feet are wonderful -- now the rest of the body needs a whole load of unnecessary doohickeys.
I'm looking forward to seeing more...

[djohnson]

Thanks for the comments. Always nice to hear some encouragement. :)

I am going to finnish out the front or the hips area (did the back but forgot the front).

Here is a small update.

http://www.noctu.net/warradtex.jpg

Here is an early test of the foot.

www.noctu.net/testfoot3d.avi (http://www.noctu.net/testfoot3d.avi)

And a full leg test.

http://www.noctu.net/leg.avi 882k Divx 5

I will post more as they get done. Thanks again.

[starbase1]

Great work on the feet - but they do make the rest look a bit over simple. If you can get the same level of detail on the rest, it will be VERY good.

Keep going!

Nick

[hrgiger]

While I agree that the feet look cool, I think it's a bit strange that all the pistons/hydraulics are all exposed like that. This is a war machine right? It seems like a big weakness. I'd hate to think that it just bumping into something could make the leg inoperarble.

Aside from that reality check though, like I said, they look cool.

[pauland]

Originally posted by hrgiger
I'd hate to think that it just bumping into something could make the leg inoperarble.

..err, I would think that bumping into something would make the 'something' inoperable.. ;-)

Paul

[Lude]

Wow that's looking cool.

My only suggestion is that maybe the two middle toes are just slightly to close together. They might hit each other during combat.

Lude.

[djohnson]

Originally posted by hrgiger
While I agree that the feet look cool, I think it's a bit strange that all the pistons/hydraulics are all exposed like that. This is a war machine right?

All the piston/hydraulic stuff is for fine control the main motive force comes from bundled fibre running internal to the leg. If the hydraulics were hit it would have to slow down. That being said there is a huge armour piece that goes over the front of the lower leg providing protection. As well as another covering the 'groin' area. But the hydraulics moving is just to cool to cover right now.
For a sense of scale the height to the top of a toe should be about 2 meters.

To paraphrase Paul, just about anything it bumps up against is going to need a little more than a new paint job. ;)

I completely agree that the inner toes are a little to close. I will take a look at what I will have to do to fix that. I will try and get some updated renders done and posted tonight.

Thanks again for the comments, keep 'em coming.

[Matt]

"I had a guaranteed sale with Titan, spare parts for 25 years, who cares if it worked or not!"
Dick Jones, OCP Vice President

:D

Seriously, this is fantasy, I wouldn't worry about whether it would work in a real life battle, so long as it looks cool!

Nice job on the rigging so far!

My only comment on the second render is the lighting and or texturing, it's too dark, can't see any detail I prefer the first un-textured one in terms of lighting.

[mattclary]

Fantastic! Love the animations!

[djohnson]

Well I decided to try and add some movement to this beast and it turns out I still have a ton to learn about animating :) here are the first couple of attempts.

Walk test 1(103k) (http://www.noctu.net/mta.avi)

Walk test 2 (361k) (http://www.noctu.net/mt2a.avi)

Both are Divx encoded, sorry about the slightly squashed look to them, yet another thing to learn.

[hrgiger]

Yes, there is much room for improvement in the animation but don't feel bad, animation is hard.

My main critique would be that your walk lacks both weight and timing. Funny Matt above mentioned the ED-209 because I would reccomend watching Robocop again and watching how the ED moves. Each step he takes has weight and his body moves accordingly. Don't let the one foot leave the ground until the other has come crashing down.

Don't worry,with a lot of practice, it will come...

[CAClark]

I'm not massively well up on animation, but those are awful.. and I only mean that in terms of being able to see things clearly. I'd recommend having the wee beastie walk on the spot, not trying to track on a close quarters walkby :)

The model is ace, the feet mainly :)

Cheers!

[CAClark]

Ooooh! oooooh! oooooh! Meant to add, picking up on what Mr Giger said about exposed hydraulics, I'd kind of agree, and as such I'd personally look to adding raised armour plating/shields, that would just sit proud off and cover the hydraulics (but not totally, still leave stuff pertially visible)... that way it pleases the practicalists, and the eye candy lovers :)

Cheers!

[djohnson]

I am working on the animation. I am completely shooting in the dark on this as I have never tried to animate a walk cycle before, so thank you for the helpful advise as to giving it a sence of weight. I will try and get that with the next set.

Right now I have the main structures parented to the torso, and am having to do each joint with keyframes. Anyone have any advise on how to spead this up, or any tutorials? I have been looking around and the ones I've found so far haven't seemed to apply.

Thanks again for the advise and helpfull suggestions.
Darren

[softdistortion]

There are some robots with walk cycles in the LW "robots" scenes folder .

[djohnson]

I decided to break it down a little to something more manageable. Here is a couple of single leg keyframed walk cycles.
All are dixv encoded for size, but the high compression hurts visability, the third one is the best IMO.
Thoughts?

Test 1 (53k) (http://www.noctu.net/lm2.avi)

Test 2 (98k) (http://www.noctu.net/lm2a.avi)

Test 3 (101k) (http://www.noctu.net/lm2b.avi)


softdistortion thanks for reminding me, I had totally forgot about that, although after looking at each of them I realised I needed to stop playing with boned and just keyframe it.

[softdistortion]

Glad to help. Looking good....maybe when you get it worked out our mechs can do battle. ;-)

[mattclary]

Try planting the heel and roll forward. Walk across the living room and pay attention to what your foot is doing. These look like you are reaching out with the toe. Also, slow it down a little, this thing is big, it shouldn't be quick.

[djohnson]

Matt:
Thanks for the suggestions here is another version how does this look?

leg test 4 (125k) (http://www.noctu.net/lm2c.avi)

softdistortion:
A battle would be cool. :)

And for anyone that wanted armour on the legs here is how the rough piece looks on it.

leg test w/ armour (104k) (http://www.noctu.net/lm2c2.avi)

[Lude]

Dose the armor have to be solid. maybe u could make it perforated like the exhausts on a big rig. that way we can still see the cool hydraulics.

lude.

[djohnson]

Originally posted by Lude
Dose the armor have to be solid. maybe u could make it perforated like the exhausts on a big rig. that way we can still see the cool hydraulics.

lude.

I think any openings big enought to still let you see them would negate the use of the armour at all. Plus it gives me something to explode off later. ;)

[rexnoctu]

Coming along nicely, any updates?

[mattclary]

Much better!

[djohnson]

Here are a couple with both legs. I think the motion is looking pretty good, even if I do say so myself. And as long as I am patting my own back I love the way the rear toe drags along the ground.

Both legs walking from the front (104k Divx) (http://www.noctu.net/laf.avi)

Both legs walking side (76.5k Divx) (http://www.noctu.net/laf2.avi)

Both legs walking, 360 rotate (674k Divx) (http://www.noctu.net/laf2a.avi)

[DragonChild]

Looking very good so far man!!! This may be a silly question but, how did you get the hydralics to move with the legs? Are you using bones, or did you break it into pieces like most of the robots that come with Lightwave?

[djohnson]

Originally posted by DragonChild
Looking very good so far man!!! This may be a silly question but, how did you get the hydralics to move with the legs? Are you using bones, or did you break it into pieces like most of the robots that come with Lightwave?

Thanks. The hydraulics are all modelled separately in two pieces, a ram and a cylinder. Then after playing with their pivot point and targeting them together, things don't look anything like I want so more playing until I get sick of them and decide good enough.
If you need / want I could probably throw together a quick tutorial later this week.
Bones confuse the heck out of me, someday I hope to learn them, but all they do for me now is make things go into another dimension. :)

[DragonChild]

Originally posted by djohnson
Thanks. The hydraulics are all modelled separately in two pieces, a ram and a cylinder. Then after playing with their pivot point and targeting them together, things don't look anything like I want so more playing until I get sick of them and decide good enough.
If you need / want I could probably throw together a quick tutorial later this week.
Bones confuse the heck out of me, someday I hope to learn them, but all they do for me now is make things go into another dimension. :)

A tutorial would be GREAT!! I am trying to learn all I can in here. I have built a coupld of robots and I tried using bones at first. But it does not make sense because bones deform the mesh, which would not happen with metal arms and legs. I have a video of a robot singer that I am working on, but I don't have anywhere to host it yet.

[t_man13]

Originally posted by mattclary
Try planting the heel and roll forward. Walk across the living room and pay attention to what your foot is doing. These look like you are reaching out with the toe. .

What Matt means here, is that the toe ought to stay on the ground for a little while after the heel lifts up. Get up. Walk around the room. Look at your feet. Do it Sloooowly. Notice how your foot bends where your toe joins it. Your walk animation will look a whole lot more natural if the toe on your mech does the same thing. I'll see if I can find an example someplace to post.

....

Found something.

http://www.starlitestudios.net/goku_rig.htm

Download the walkcycle animation, and notice how the toe bends.