mechaninac

Yamato Macross releases are definitely slowing down in regularity, but they are hardly drying up...at least this year. Check out this thread CLICKIE

Hot damn! I'm so getting this release. This baby and a GBP armor will make my small collection complete.

The only way this may turn out anywhere near decent is if, instead of placing the film's time frame in our present or near future, they make the film contemporary with the Aliens franchise or even further into the future. That way there would be a slight possibility of using mankind's knowledge of both the Predators and Xenomorphs existence as a relevant part of a "real" plot, as well as the hope that we could see the Colonial Marines in action again. However, given the dismal AVP movie, and the fact that this next installment will be it's sequel, I highly doubt we will get anything but PG-13 popcorn schlock.

I'm glad I haven't seen AVP yet. I'll probably wait until it makes it to broadcast TV before I waste my time, and money, on it...and the same will hold true for AVP2 unless most of the reviews warrant my attention.

PS: "Aliens 5" from Scott and Cameron would be like a dream come true; but, as long as the franchises are in the hands of bean counters and no-talent hacks, that will never happen.

Two words: Too many.

All the 3D models are based on the "1/48" Arii kits with any extra details inspired by box art or my own imagination...mostly box art. There is a definite dearth of good pictorial information on Orguss mecha...best place I found is the Orguss Shrine , but the plastic kits, and toys, are a very good starting point.

I don't really have any concrete plans for these models other than the satisfaction of making them, but I suppose that I can eventually convert them from their native Pro/E to a mesh format like 3DS or LWO for animation ( the Nikick will be fully transformable and far more articulated than the physical model) or just fancy rendering.

If the modeling bug proves overwhelming, and you end up making any Orguss related meshes, please don't hesitate to post them in this thread; that's why I created it...not just for my own stuff, but for anyone who wishes to contribute to do so.

PS.: Toy vs. Kit observations:

1. All 1/48 kits I have (Ishkick, Ishforn, Nikick, Driffand Dal, M-Lovers, and Bronco II) with the exception of the M-Lovers are closer to 1/60 in scale judging by the crew figures.

2. The 1/60 toys (again except for the M-Lovers) are closer to 1/72 scale according to the figures.

3. The 1/40 kits of the Orgroids are also off considering the size of the pilots.

4. The toy interpretation of the Ishkick and Ishforn are more Anime accurate than the kits.

Thanks Rod, though compared to the Battle Pods that you and Dat are making, the boxy shape of the NICKICK is child's play.

Anyway, here another WIP image:

Incredible work, do the Drifand Dal next.

Wheres the Orgaroid or Jotunes?

I'm currently concentrating on the Terram Mecha. The Eman stuff will be saved for future inspiration.

Here's some small progress on the NIKICK:

HMMM...enemy mecha.

I love what I'm seeing. Both of you guys are extremely talented.

Thanks for the positive remarks everyone; they are greatly appreciated.

Here's something I just recently started...the NICKICK:

Now for the ISHFORN GERWALK. Not even as close to completion as the "command type":

Here is the "command type" ISHKICK GERWALK...a bit further from completion than the "normal type":

Here are a couple renders of some Terram mecha from Super Dimension Century Orguss that I modeled over one year ago. They are not finished, but pretty damned close.

First off the ubiquitous "normal type" ISHKICK GERWALK

All models created and rendered with Pro Engineer.

CG Regult...ambitious. I'll be looking forward to seeing it.

Rod, that model of yours just keeps getting better and better. The "flames" look more like bright out gassing than rocket exhaust, but still look way cool. As for the hand, your modeling looks fine; the finger/palm proportions look good, but IMO, the DYRL? manipulator design is among the fugliest ever...the offset pinky is just plain odd. This is, of course, not your fault...it's just the nature of the beast.

I've done a bit more work on my Tomahawk: The waist, arms, feet components are pretty much finished; the chassis parts are getting there. The legs...nothing done on that score yet; those will be next. Well here is a picture:

Jeez - how do those posties manage it?

They are all graduates of the "Gorilla Thugs" package handling school.

In order to ship something that delicate, and have it survive unscathed, through the deplorable manhandling of just about any parcel service it may be necessary to carve a "form fitting" foam cradle that almost completely cushions the figure to keep it from shifting. This foam sarcophagus should then be placed inside a snug box and this should be then string tied to the center of a larger box to keep it from traveling to the extremities and packing peanuts or crumpled newspapers placed around it for shock absorption. And don't forget to insure it just in case.

Think of it as shipping nitroglycerin.

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback based on such a poor render.

Dat, Rod: in due time. Real work is picking up again and beginning to intrude in my play time . As the model stands, its about 45 - 50% complete, so there is still a lot of modeling and fiddling to do.

Edit: I need a website with good reference images of all the destroids with internal details, external storages, missiles and cockpit images. I've tried googling it but have come up snake eyes; if anyone can help it'd be greatly appreciated.

[Gold leader's voice over the comm. link] Stay on Topic...stay on Topic. [Gold leader's voice off]

Nah! Go ahead and carry on...it's entertaining.

Dat, Rod...absolutely stunning. Like Knight said: Roy vs. Hikaru death match would be really nice .

Now for my paltry contribution...I know it only has one leg, and the render isn't all that good, but WTH:

PRO/E is great. Other modules that I use, besides the standard and sheetmetal, is Pro Cable (makes routing cables, wires, anything stringy a snap). The only problem with PRO is the same thing that makes it so great; the fact that it is parametric. Importing image planes to model from is something I haven't been able to get it to do (not to mention powerful render or animation tools). That's why I'm learning Maya. Let me tell you, though, to get my parametric left brain to accept non parametric "artistic license" from my right brain has been a challenge

Sheetmetal and Pro Cable are built into the Foundation Package IIRC, aren't they? I haven't had many opportunities to use sheetmetal, and I've never had to use "cable". I work mostly (99.5% of the time) with complex organic and often ergonomic designs that are a monumental pain to define parametrically.

As for parking your logic driven mind to step into the world of free form modeling...I feel your pain.

I'll PM you with a tip for importing an image into Pro/E

Wow, that just keeps getting better and better. The only slight nitpick I have is an odd surface glitch you seem to have on the leg FP (see the attached image); otherwise, this is just about one of the best VF-1 FP CG interpretations I've ever seen.

Bravo!

mechaninac - I use solid Edge & Rhino , I think Pro-e & Rhino would be great .

I use Rhino to turn solids in to surfaces and visa versa or into polygons very effective and you can export 30 different file formats

The company's department where I work utilizes AutoCAD for 2D layouts, minor drafting, and record keeping; and Pro/E for all 3D engineering work. Another department also uses Solid Works to accommodate vendors employing that modeler. Our Design department just got a copy of Rhino, but it's too early to see how well it'll work for us since nobody is knowledgeable enough in it to properly use it to anywhere near it's full potential.

Pro/E is my "bread and butter"; it's a very comprehensive (first or second widely available parametric solid/surface modeler) engineering software that will go from surfaces to solids and back again and/or in combination...it also includes sheet metal functionality like many other high-end CAD programs; but it only exports a few widely usable cross-platform formats (IGES, STEP, VRML, OBJ, STL, etc. in 3D and DXF, DWG, etc, in 2D)

Yikes!  Didn't realize they started this week!   Will they be rerunning episodes or airing them online anytime soon???

Saturday they'll show all five episodes back to back at 8:00 pm EST. Check local listings to be sure though.

Chris

Thanks for the heads-up on the compiled re-airing.

Just caught the second episode of "Clone Wars" (7:00PM ET), and thus far it's pretty good. The airing format has been revised to 15 minutes installments instead of the previous 5 min. segments; this is an immense improvement as it allows the story to flow much more smoothly. And now, the cartoon has elements linking it to the upcoming movie.

IMO, this is proving to be an excellent preamble to "Revenge of the Sith"

mechaninac, do you have the animation module for your version of PRO (we use Wildfire 1 & 2)? While it's not the best, you might be able to coax it into animating your models.

Tarz, I do have wildfire 2.0, but have not yet migrated to it...it's very counter intuitive to anyone who is/was used to the older interface. For the creation of my destroid I'm currently using ver. 2001, as it's the one I'm most comfortable using (the gradient blue background is a dead giveaway).

I didn't realize Wildfire came with a mechanica-like animation module built into it. I currently have the foundation package with advanced surfacing and assembly modules on both the 2001 and Wildfire and wasn't aware of any other goodies included with those setups by PTC. I may try my model in Wildfire just to see what happens; heck, I'm going to switch to it eventually anyway.

For animating this thing, if I decide to do so, I'll export it to Wavefront and clean it up in Lightwave (Solid and Surface modelers always triangulate files in very weird ways). But I have other intentions for my model(s).

ooh nice, pro-e, so if you have access to a cad/cam setup you can actually make that puppy.

There is a method to my madness...

You CAD people make amazing stuff... not like my 3D stuff that has collision going on all over the place.

It helps when the program you're using has a "global interfearance" detection function.