Lifter droid.
 

You may have seen this elsewhere under a thread called Groover landing...

But rather than bore you with all the progessional details... her is where I am with the 2nd Droid out of a total of 7 that I have to get done before XMAS

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/wide_3.JPG

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/hips_1.jpg

Hips finished below

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/hip_fin_1.jpg

All the arms are rigged and dynamic hoses and hydralics work a treat

More to come.... legs for a starter

wow looks great! any chance without the wire effect?

yeah, sure.....
Ignore the legs, thats just me fleshing out a few ideas using primatives first....


http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/hipsnowire.jpg

wow. I like the model. Lots of detail. They sort of remind me of those robots from the fifth element. Will they be textured?

yep v.nice ..loads of detail, i like it mate, the hip area joining to the body especially well done

Oh yes, they will be textured...... Actually, the Guardians from the 5TH Element were my starting block... so even happier now with your crits.

I have 7 different droids to be built, this is the 2nd one... here is the first... and he will get a revisit after the 7 are complete because he is the main character.... he is in need of a few gadgets and gizmo's... some bevelling here and there and a version where he is new and shiny... as oppossed to 200 years out of commission and a little rusty.

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/grrr.jpg

theres also some walk cycles for this dude...

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/...e_walk_003.mov which will be used as a menu background on my DVD reel..

and finally here is the lifter droids arm articulation.... just to show all of the hydralics workin for ya'll

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/...culation_1.mov

All 7 of droids are gonna be baddass MF's.... and I'll keep you updated as and when their baddassness progress's

wow they look really cool !!

Thanks

Excellent work!!!! :)

well, I am overwhelmed... a great welcome to the forum (mind you, I had heard before hand that you were a pleasent bunch)

hey Craigers... love the mood on the models. kuddos

one thing
how did u do the wire renders? if you wrote a shader, could you upload it, or if you wrote a plug in could u also upload it.

thanx. ciao

keep up the good work.

I bought it from provide3d.com

Nice, isnt it?

Another update for you… probably the last this week, as I have to go to work…. Next update Sunday Evening

Anyways…. I have tried several different approaches… but I am most happy with this one so far. It needs to be complimented with a few more hoses and maybe another sturdy hydraulic to the rear of the leg that will drive the calf area.

Anyway, although designated as a bad ass droid, this one has to still appear slighty dim and lovable… so I don’t wanna go to hard on the hardware… He’s very strong, and adequately armed…. But due to his amazingly slow CPU… he is a little slow on the uptake, and hence quite endearing. I’m hoping this is starting to come through now as he progresses

So here you go…. Been a bit of a slow ish week for me.

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/legsTest_1.jpg

this one is just great...

W0W :eek:

Thanx guys.... more to come next week...

all i can say is that this is amazing!!! i love it

Awesome stuff, I've always liked robots. These look fantastic!! I really like the humaoid looking one, very cool.

tim, your web site seems to be a little broken.....

Thanks for heads up CraigC, I wasn't aware the link was pointing at the wrong site link. It's been fixed now.

i have a question...the dynamics for the hoses...how do you set that up? or can you point me in the direction of something that tells me how, because im looking to do something similar very soon : )

imagine you have 2 cubes, and you want them to be attached by a cable/rope.

Get the two cubes.... and make the curve between them.
I make my curves so I have 3 CV's by each cube then just one lone one in the middle.

Now, select the first 3 CV's by the cube and creat a clucter. Parent that cluster to the cube.

Now do the same to the other end, parenting that new cluster to the nearest cube

Now select the middle cv, and make that into a cluster.

Now, select one of the clusters by a Cube, and point constrain it to the middle lone cluster. The middle clouster should now pop on over to the Cube. No probes. In the outliner, select the other Cube cluster and point constrain that to the middle cluster. It should now pop back into the middle....

In the Chan ed, change the weight values so that the to end clusters have an influence of .5 on the middle one.

Now, create a circle and extrude it alonge the curve.

Make sure it is set to follow path and makes a Nurbs tube.

Select the new tube, and rebuild its surface....you can have a play with the seetings here

Now delete the tubes history with the curve and the circle you extruded from.

Now, go to the deformers menu, and select wire deformer.

Click the tool on the tube, and press enter, then select the curve and press enter again.

Now, make sure it has a average offset value in the chan ed. I use 13 for good luck. No need to worry about the other settings.

Hopefully, if you now move the cubes, you should get a nice action with the cable going on.

If you select the middel cluster, you can adjust its offset in xy, or z... use this to adjust the droop of the cable... these values can be keyed as well... If you wanna be real cool, you can then paint jiggle weights on the hose in the middle section so that when the object stops...you know the rest.

very nice dude, awesome description...you should write some tutorials...thats an awesome model you have there, and thanks a lot for letting me in on the secret : )

ach, too busy to write tutorials at the mo, I have 5 more droids to build. But good luck with the hoses.... drop me a pm when yu have had a bash and we'll swap files and stuff and I'll have a look at what you came up with.

the only thing i havent been able to find is the average offset...is it on the curves outputs? under the wire node?

is this for the tube (so that the tube stays with the curve regardless off position) or the cluster?

my bad, its not offset, its dropoff....

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/dropoff.JPG

if you select the tube, you'll find it

thanks again dude : )

when i adjust the middle cluster to give it some slack...and then move one of the root cubes the mid. cluster snaps back to the original position...id like to avoid that if you know a way

use the offsets. DONT MOVE THE ACTUAL CLUSTER!

Not much done this last couple of weeks cos I got my first CG jobby type thingy-majig.... But I havnt forgotten, so more on the way!

Another update for ya if you have been following this thread….

Well, As I mentioned before, I now have a CG job (my first)… anyway, spent the last two weeks rigging and animating for this new job. They approved the tests yesterday, and there was nothing to do today till the models get to me. As a first gig, Im loving it!

So, there I was today, Maya’d out to be honest… but I just wanted to get on with these legs so that I can think about rigging him in down time… so here is where I am today after three hours rebuilding the legs and getting down to the feet.

The lower section is not rigged as of yet, but I may stay up late to get that done, add a few hoses that connect lower legs to upper thigh and hip (for power)….

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/legs_no_hose_1.jpg

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/legs_no_hose_2.jpg

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/legs_no_hose_3.jpg

…and here is one for scale. AD-AMS (the smaller droid) is actually 6ft tall…. So now you know that Kiro-6 is a bit of a bruiser!

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/kiro_scale_1.jpg

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/kiro_scale_2.jpg

That is ULTRA C()()L!!!

Very very nice!

One more render, then off to bed...

http://www.craigcrane.com/bodypaint/wallpaper_small.jpg

thats some awesome work mate!

Its funny because I always imagine it to be shorter than a human... Of course, it wouldnt make a good lifter droid tho...

how do you make the pistons work when moving the arm? i tried a couple different things.. couldn't get it to work :S