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Aztek

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Posts posted by Aztek

  1. Dat,

    I don't know if this is what your looking for, but here is a clip from my leg texture. I had black panel lines I drew in Illustrator. I copied them and pasted them as a path in Photoshop, rasterized, embossed, and then inverted the image. Copy that new "inverted embossed panel line" on to your generic white "base coat" and you should get a similar result. My weathering isn't as accurate as I'd like it, so all I did was gaussian blur my panel lines to simulate wear. All my textures are in this resolution, so it makes rendering a bear. After I get all my texs finished and have my details the way I like, I'll resize them down to a processor friendly size.

    post-5-1096337533_thumb.jpg

  2. I made a valk in a 3D prog and fly it around my comp when I get bored. That's as far as I've pursued this discussion. I'm in the Air Force now and if you've seen as many cracked ribs, spars, and bulkheads, stress cracks, corrosion, bird strikes, loose fasteners, delaminated topcoat and 5 minute flap retraction sequences using aux pumps you'd understand why this is so not going to happen anytime soon. Structurally, the metals and fastener techniques are still 1960/70's (minus composites and fibers - stealth) The powerplant isn't my cup of tea, but if you ever saw 50,000 or so pounds of thrust push an F-15 down the runway and were a little bit touched, then fire up DYRL and watch them dance about with god knows what under their hood. At the same time mind you, you have about a 1/4 million rivets and fasteners holding it all together.

    But what if it's cast?

    Casted metal cracks and is susceptible to fatigue. Sh#! happens when you fight zentraedi ...

    What if they use a super high tech welding, bonding technique?

    They crack too, and don't hold up too well when partially ground down from being slammed into a building.

    I dunno, I've seen alot of sheeyaat in aircraft maintenance. But no valks yet. Never been to Tonopah yet though. Always a good time to request special duty ...

  3. Looks sweet Dat,

    From the second angle it looks like the side armor should be taller; to compensate for the "calf" armor. Then again it may just be the perspective. Also, did you notch the armor where the ventral fins jut out against it?

  4. Thanks agent, your valk is pimp the way it is right now if you're going low poly. I like the proportions you are using, it seems your going more anime than straight aviation. Which is a welcome change since most here are following realism. In the end, your proportions may be more true to the story than ours. But I don't think you'll be happy till you crank up the polys and start inserting some detail. My model is not efficient by any means. That pose is about 220k polys. That's minus the gear and cockpit detail which I deleted to speed up render and modeling. Add another 100k for a complete valk.

    Keep your updates coming. Can't wait to see you skin it.

  5. Here's what I got ...

    I know the gun looks a lil weird, but the render caught part of the vernier recess on the cannons booster. The grip is actually seated in the pocket of the hand and I have the finger off the trigger since he's not ready to cap anyone just yet ...

    post-5-1095000959_thumb.jpg

  6. agentex,

    Macross Design Works

    Awesome refs, pimp xform sequences. Not alot of vf-1 color and panel lining though. Do screen caps of DYRL for that. Also get scans of Hase battroid and fighter models for some really great photorealistic detailing.

    Woz,

    Nice pylons, do you have a background in aviation? Some modeled mount studs (going thru those tabs you got there) would be a nice touch.

  7. Kawamori knew his s**t. A weapons delivery container that large is aerodynamically as inefficient as the valk itself. :D And since swept wings in space aren't an issue I can see why they would only use that configuration for special mission purposes (Buldoza sp?) Looking back now, it was a nice touch that even in battroid the wings were still un swept with the UUM-7 pods attached.

  8. I know all the refs show the notches and circles for pivoting weapons stations. They might just be access panels for the harnesses used to connect the pylons to the wing. Or be part ov the pivoting system, if the pivot is actuated in the pylon itself. Also maybe only non pivoting munitions can be stored on these ststions that have the notches fwd of the pivot, and the wings can't sweep until after they are jettisoned.

  9. I used the design works and DYRL? for all the hand refs. The design works was a good view of a single "digit", so I used it for the middle, ring and index finger. I rotated the thumb 90 degrees, dropped a knuckle and fastened it to the opposable joint coming off the side of the valk. The pinkie is semi-opposable, and most references point to that from what I've seen. having the pinkie and thumb "fold" in as the hand retracts into the arm gives at ALOT better proportion when deployed. I made the finger pads, back hand, wrist, and fingers out of a rigid mesh and skinned the joints and pads of the hand. the design works was by far the best "orthographic" ref, with DYRL? a more artistic reference for functionality and movement ranges.

  10. This pic and the other pic shows SK's reliance on actuators for large mechanical movements. I just used these types of refs and adjusted the pivots and swings to make it semi-functional. You and I both know it wouldn't be feasable the way it is right now. That's why I want to engineer some linkage between the shoulder pivot and mount, so the arangement and use of actuators would be more realistic. The knee assymbly is mainly enclosed and shrouded, so it was easier to cheat there mechanically than on the shoulder.

    post-5-1084031581.jpg

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