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DYRL VF-1 WIP


danbickell

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Welcome back Dan!

Great news on the work front. Just grabbed the S head from Shapeways. Looking forward to receiving it.

Greg

Thanks Greg!

I just saw the notice from Shapeways, and was wondering if it was somebody from the forums. That will be the latest version, with some minor fixes and extra little eye clamshell pieces. I haven't even got a print of it yet, so I'm excited to see how it turn out!

-Dan

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Thanks Greg!

I just saw the notice from Shapeways, and was wondering if it was somebody from the forums. That will be the latest version, with some minor fixes and extra little eye clamshell pieces. I haven't even got a print of it yet, so I'm excited to see how it turn out!

-Dan

I'll make sure I post pics, then.

Bring on the A head - please!

Greg

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I wish!!!!

I was just thinking about it at the office yesterday, because we got a 3d printer at the office and were talking about our 3d printing experiences. Getting the Hasegawa 1/48 Strike was motivational as well, but I haven't even gotten around to scanning the instruction sheet plans yet.

Alas, work is leaving me with zero time, but I can dream...

I did some work prepping and updating a version of the A head for 3d printing at some point, when I had some free time, but didn't get all that far.

I'm up to my ears in modeling super-detailed aircraft and military equipment for work. Some of it is pretty exciting stuff for people who geek out on this stuff, but I don't get to share. Budget and time constraints don't let me go as crazy as I'd like to on the work stuff, but I'm still getting a lot of practice and gaining practical knowledge that the VF-1 should certainly benefit from. I've been spending a lot of time with engineering CAD models for my subjects, which provide a lot of inspiration for mechanical details. Makes me daydream about the existence of such models within the Macross universe, and what those would be like... mmm... Valkyrie CAD models, complete with all structural airframe components and systems...

If I win the lottery, I'm totally going to make a reasonable facsimile of that happen while enjoying my retirement. Promise.

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It's good to hear you're doing well Dan. Best of luck to you and I'll be looking forward to an update whenever you get around to it.

Edited by Benson13
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  • 8 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Yep, the details in some of the ships in StarCitizen is unbelievable... like the CGI from a movie or something.

The Next great Starship contest show some pretty skilled teams as well, team shimapan and 4horsemen work where incredible...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yep, the details in some of the ships in StarCitizen is unbelievable... like the CGI from a movie or something.

The Next great Starship contest show some pretty skilled teams as well, team shimapan and 4horsemen work where incredible...

True, but the minimum system specs are for high end machines to get those renders to animate...

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 weeks later...

By the dawn's early light...

s_head_print_quarter_front.jpg

What a difference a day makes!

s_head_print_5view.jpg

Derek certainly did her justice, and even managed to cook up some nice ways to add in the clear parts. You'll never guess what the visor was made from.

We learned a lot from this experiment. I will definitely push the topology resolution higher for round parts in the future, and I know how well the small details work with FUD (quite a bit better than I expected). I wouldn't be afraid to do more sanding to deal with print lines the next time around either. CA works great with the material as well, and the hot water + detergent + ultrasonic cleaner worked great.

In the end, I'm pretty impressed at how it turned out, especially for a first attempt at something like this. Work every penny, and all the effort. Can't wait to see what can be done next using what I've learned from this.

Jeezz.. impressive... I am impressed....

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  • 7 months later...
1 hour ago, Mommar said:

I know he was out if work for awhile.  Not sure if he found more and got super busy or if things got bad.  Hopefully he's doing well,  I know what it's like scrounging for work right now.

Definitely; with the economy right now, "scrounging for work" can be worse than trying to find a photo-etched detail part in a shag rug!

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  • 2 years later...
On 7/12/2012 at 3:16 AM, danbickell said:

Thanks for the opinions. I'm still leaning toward V1, but I might experiment with a V3 somewhere in the middle.

I made some good progress working out the LERX leg transformation mechanisms, but I've been side-tracked for the last few days experimenting with preparing the S head for a first attempt at 3D printing. Of the few areas of the model that weren't already water-tight, the eye detail area was the biggest offender. It took a good 16 hours to boolean every little detail together and clean up the geometry (could just boolean it together and not bother with the clean up, but I'm pretty OCD about clean geo). The eye detail piece is a 65k poly model, by itself.

I experimented with uploading a 1/24 scale version of just the S head guns to Shapeways. The first version (solid) came out to $32 each in the frosted ultra detail material. So, I made a hollow version, and got the price down to $15 each.

Learning from that, I made hollowed out versions of the rest of the S head parts, and made a 2-piece neck (neck rings can't be slipped over a 1 piece neck). Almost everything STL checked with zero errors on the first try, but nobody's perfect!

Here's what it currently looks like, all apart and laid out:

printable_s_head1.jpg

Next I need to figure out how best to lay it all out, and whether to connect parts with sprues or not.

There's a few potential problem areas I forsee:

Scale - I want to try 1/24, but it is pushing it. The only material with minimum wall thickness and detail size that looks like it might work at this scale is the frosted ulltra detail. Even then, the smallest of details would be smaller than the 0.1mm limitation. The thinnest walls look like they might be the gun barrels (they are hollow, and go all the way back), but at the thinnest point it should still be at least 0.5mm, and the FUD minimum wall thickness is 0.3mm.

The clear pieces will probably have to be left out for now. The visor is 8mm thick at 1/1 scale, and there is no room for it to get thicker without re-modelling and moving details around (there are lips for the visor to sandwich into). 1/24 scale put that at 0.33mm thick. That's barely within the minimum for FUD (which doesn't look clear enough anyway), and the transparent detail material needs to be 1mm thick. The smaller lenses are much thinner, so no way to do those in such a small scale.

I'm guessing the whole thing would be well over $100 in FUD in 1/24 scale. The guns alone would be $30. 1/12 scale would be nice, and would probably get around any detail size and potential wall thickness issues, but I assume that would be getting pretty expensive for a test.

Any tips or tricks for how to lay out parts and/or connect them before I do a trial upload would be appreciated!

Hi. Do you plan to sell the STL files at some point?
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  • 6 months later...

Also the arms clips together, but it's awesome nevertheless. great job!

Edit: even the games don't try to make the transformation the right way... (Because is not easy) They just had different 3D models for every mode (Fighter, Gerwalk and Battroid) and animations between them... so they just swaps models after the end of every transformation sequence for the illusion that is a seamless and perfecrt transformation.

 

Edited by Gerli
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4 hours ago, Knight26 said:

Dude, why not make your own thread?  Your work is nice enough.  That being said, your cockpit armor pops up out of nowhere.

yes, will keep making adjustments, good thing i still haven't mirrored this thing so everything is easily fixable...

and thanks for the idea, will make my own thread, tks for the heads up...

 

cheers!

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1 hour ago, Gerli said:

Also the arms clips together, but it's awesome nevertheless. great job!

Edit: even the games don't try to make the transformation the right way... (Because is not easy) They just had different 3D models for every mode (Fighter, Gerwalk and Battroid) and animations between them... so they just swaps models after the end of every transformation sequence for the illusion that is a seamless and perfecrt transformation.

 

thanks for the kind words, will work on the arms a bit more, 

 

cheers!  hope this site keep going!

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On 2/19/2020 at 1:39 PM, Gerli said:

Also the arms clips together, but it's awesome nevertheless. great job!

Edit: even the games don't try to make the transformation the right way... (Because is not easy) They just had different 3D models for every mode (Fighter, Gerwalk and Battroid) and animations between them... so they just swaps models after the end of every transformation sequence for the illusion that is a seamless and perfecrt transformation.

 

thaanks, i know what you mean, rigging this sucker is no picnic, if you look at the video attached, i had to cheat a little to make it work for now, a fully viable rig for all three modes is one tough gig...

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