Mar/Apr - Norm - Dilbert
 

OK, my computer will be up in a week, so I'm coming in on this one. I wanted to pick something fairly simple so that I can animate it without my computer dying. So here it is, the future of transformers:

The Segway transformer :attn:

Here's a few more reference pics. I'm in the idea stage right now. The trouble with this choice is that it's a very simple machine, so I'm going to have to get creative with where the transformer comes out from. This'll be a lot of fun. Can't wait to get my workstation constructed. :attn:

I haven't posted my idea yet, cause I still have some sleep-thinking to do about. But one of my original ideas was a segway. This should be cool, really.

since i loved your car in the W.I.P. Iam very sure that you will do well in this competition.

Good Luck...

nice fun idea dilbert :)

looks like it'll be a minibot about human sized?

Yeah, he's probably going to be a little guy. Maybe one of those cannon fodder types that are sent to their death because they're small and insignificant.

I'm thinking that the wheel hubs will be a good source for things "popping" out, but I haven't decided yet where his "character" face is going to come from. He's probably going to be pretty skinny no matter what, maybe like one of those insects that look like a twig?

I think the head/eyes will rotate out of this inverted T-shaped piece, and the wheel fenders are perfect shoulder blades. Also, the hubs lead themselves to a robot foot with 5 toes that could spring out of the wheel.

cool choice for vehicle
should come out nice and judging by ur previous models(porsche, bmw ect) it shold look like it was surposed to be a transformer

I was thinking the exact same thing dilbert. Make the wheels the shoulder.

ha ha, great idea dilberts! This has to be my favourite vehicle so far. Good luck on getting your new computer up and running and on figuring out your robot.

Here's a quick movie of a tentative transformation. The 5-pointed stars coming out of the wheels will be his hands. They'll be connected to retractable arms, kinda like the bad guy in spiderman 2. To get up, he'll push up off his hands and swivel his jet nozzles (the handle bars), and spring up as the jets ignite. He's gonna be a flying robot I think, as I can't see a good spot for legs to come out of.

(It's a Maya PLE playblast as I'm still waiting for my PC to be completed, so this was done on a buddy's PC)

http://www.zippyvideos.com/3071898454327456/test_movie/

For some reason the video is cut short. What you can't see is him pushing off the ground and the jets swinging down. Never mind.

Can anyone suggest the best way to post movie files on this forum?

does the thing even need to have legs? I think it'd actually work pretty well without legs, just make it hover there. Oh - and possibly make the handle stand telescop more? I dunno. Otherwise looking neat.

Whoa, thats coming along nicely. Cant wait to see it done.

For videos maybe try http://www.putfile.com/. You can upload slightly bigger files on there, maybe it wont cut off :/

I like how you totally flip it over.
try and get the full movie up so we can see what happens to those wheels ;)

Here's the studio set-up I'll be using to render out this project.

First off, sorry it's a Maya PLE render. My new PC is still in construction, so I'm stuck with using a buddy's PC for a while.

Anyway, here's a studio render set up that I think works real well. The detergent bottles were just a quick 2 minute model to have something simple to render, so don't focus on the modeling. The studio set-up took some time to tweak. It might surprise some of you to know that this is a Maya software render, with no final gather or global illumination. It's just a bunch of lights and reflection planes placed in the right spots. Also, there's a lot going on with the decay rates etc. I basically have been reading up a lot on lighting, and have picked up many tips from various different tutorials out there on the web. This one little scene has taught me an immense amount about lighting and shadow, and I recommend anyone doing a project like this to really get to know what all the features in Maya actually do. I never really knew up until now just how important lighting is to a scene. I used to think that a realistic render was maybe 80% modeling skills, and 20% lighting/rendering. But now I realize that the model itself is maybe 10% important to the final image.

Comments are welcome, as always.