[Fan Art] The Big Cockpit...the journey begins

Ah yes, I haven't forgotten the gimmicks!

The gimmicks will come later. For now, I just want to finish the base model. I have researched all the gimmicks and I have a list which I will build maybe one per week after the basic model is finished. I have hogged the forum for over two weeks now, so I want to give everyone a break from my constant posting. Plus, I have another job I have to do.

Some of the gimmicks could not function physically, because the objects overlap existing objects. They have to be 'faked', and I copy and modify existing geometry and hide the modified version until the transformation begins. This is so the transformation geometry doesn't stick out when it's not in use.

The 'gimmick' list off the top of my head is:

Missile launcher panel
Hip Anchor button change (from black to white, with arrows. I have this gimmick half built, but decided to wait until later)
O Thunder joystick change
Plasma stage (with expanding floor and foot buttons, also, a black object slides out of the floor behind and beneath the seat to 'reset' Roger's foot back into the pedal)
Final stage (joystick track needs to split and a secondary joystick track emerge from inside)
animated cables (the plugs that attempt to plug into Roger's back)

If there are any missing from this list, let me know!

quote:

Originally posted by The_Big_G The 'gimmick' list off the top of my head is: Missile launcher panel Hip Anchor button change (from black to white, with arrows. I have this gimmick half built, but decided to wait until later) O Thunder joystick change Plasma stage (with expanding floor and foot buttons, also, a black object slides out of the floor behind and beneath the seat to 'reset' Roger's foot back into the pedal) Final stage (joystick track needs to split and a secondary joystick track emerge from inside) animated cables (the plugs that attempt to plug into Roger's back) If there are any missing from this list, let me know!

Can't find a picture of it, but there's also that scanner device in which Roger put the control bar that was attached to Dorothy in Act2 to trace it back to Beck's van.

quote:

Originally posted by The Stoned Guest Can't find a picture of it, but there's also that scanner device in which Roger put the control bar that was attached to Dorothy in Act2 to trace it back to Beck's van.

Here it is, a small drawer somewhere on Roger's right side.
When closed it doesn't really seem much except a plain panel and some buttons below.

whoa, I didn't remember the scanner, thanks SG! And thanks Revan for the closeup pic.

That scanner is a big question mark. We never see it anywhere else in the series, and we never see how it's revealed...(Do we?)
The symnmetrical cylindrical shape doesn't match any of the existing control panels as they 'normally' are. It could be underneath the dash, but I've never seen an angle that includes it under the usual panels.

I'm guessing that it's inside the foremost panel which flips or rotates open, as the panel is split by two seams. The button roger presses is on a plate that looks like the back of the bottom trapezoidal needle indicator. We also see Roger hitting buttons somewhere in that area immediately after we see the scanner close up.

A problem I can foresee is that the little cylindrical section that slides the scanner shut is a solid section, not telescoping. The width of the panel couldn't accomodate this 'door', and it would stick out of the side of the panel.

Oh, here's some of the work as it's coming along with the piping underneath.

The plumbing continues...

This is going to take me longer than just a few days to wade through. I'll post the next update when I've wrapped up all the piping. Maybe by Wednesday.

So are those cables or what. Im not trying to be smart just wondering. If they are cables then thats alot of wire.

It's piping, like electrical metallic tubing.
Based on the concept sketch I posted earlier in the thread of the bottom of the cockpit, it's a mass of overlapping tubes, by virtue of the angular bends. Details cost money, so the animators probably decided to simplifiy the concept and represented the tubing with a simple circuit pattern in the show.
I tested a few black and white circuit patterns, but they looked really out of place compared to the rest of the model. Geometry just looks so much better than a mapped texture, because it picks up the light and casts a shadow. Using a 2D map on a 3D object looked like I got lazy and didn't want to finish.

Speaking of geometry...it's wednesday...and I'm not finished layin' all the pipes yet. I haven't had as much time to devote to the project as I would like. I've also been wasting some production time testing out some renders, to see what kind of render times I'm looking at per frame.

Here's the progress this week.


I did a quick flythrough render to test motion blur values and render times. It's only 5 seconds, and the geometry is nowhere near finalized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4svR4p0Kebk

Cool video. It's so cool to see all those pipes like that, it's really like looking in the cockpit.
I know I haven't replyed as much as I did in the begining, but I have been keeping track of the updates. Really, I am having so much fun watching all of this come together. I can't do this kind of stuff, so being able to watch it happen is cool.

Keep t up G!

Great ! Good job !

IT'S... IT'S A SERIES OF TUBES!



You pretty much met my expectations, and boy were they high.

o_0 Wow, I just watched the youtube video. It's one thing to see pictures of your great work- but in motion it's on a whole new level of awesomeness! Only short but the renders make it look extremely professional!

That is incredible and the Youtube video just made me appreciate it even more. I almost can't wait to see everything completely done.

Just some quick news on the project

I haven't gone on hiatus from building, but I've had to backtrack considerably on some very inaccurate areas of the geometry that I had spent a lot of time building before. My available time for the project has been curtailed considerably as of late, but I've been putting in as many hours as possible. Progress continues at a reduced rate.

Thanks to R. Smith, who got me some very nice scans of the art book, I've discovered that the entire front end of the outer casing and base collar were wrong, which was giving me considerable difficulty with the geometry of the main monitor, as well as the floor of the interior tub in the front. It's been bothering me as to whether or not to just leave it, but I really need to redo it, since accuracy is the goal and I won't be happy until it's correct. The scans also reveal the shape and placement of the outer top ring which houses the bubble dome, which needs to be redone.

A quick kudo to R. Daniel's sense of proper dimensionality in regards to the gears and cylinders that raise the joystick track...the scans revealed that your intuition on the placement and shape of the gears was indeed correct. However, upon rebuilding the geometry of the back wall and gears, I discovered that their placement and a vertical back wall interfered with the raising of the joystick track, as well as the rotation of the bubble dome. It's a case where the concept looked good in plan, but didn't allow for full movement of the dome or the joystick track. Built to the plans, the dome could not possibly rotate back into the casing as it should unless further cut into smaller slices, which results in two more seams that would be quite visible. The dome would require a secondary translation backward to keep it from sticking out of the back wall of the interior tub, unless the tub geometry keeps the angle I originally built, so I'm sticking with it, although it's inaccurate. The track would only rotate around 65-75 degrees, which left it sticking out at a rather odd forward angle. Even with my corrections, the track doesn't raise to a full 90 degrees. The plans look good, but the concept doesn't allow for convergence/divergence of the cylinders as they rotate, based on their angular placement. In the show and other perspective views, they merely solved this by drawing the cylinders shortened, and at extremely gimballed angles. I wasted quite a few hours learning that sometimes, you gotta' do it the way it works, not the way it was planned.

I'll be spending some time redoing the front end of the outer casing. Perhaps I'm being too anal about these details, but as one of the most frequently used props/sets, it really needs to be correct. I only wanted to spend about three weeks building this, but since we're already past four, I might as well make sure things are done properly.

For any other modelers out there, this should emphasize the need for strong designs and good materials up front, instead of wandering around blindly trying to figure things out as you go. I wasted far too much time guessing, when I could have built them properly from the get-go.

Dude man that's sweet maybe when you get done with that you can do an Evangelion cocokpit

...you all know what I'm working on after the cockpit, of course...

quote:

Originally posted by The_Big_G ...you all know what I'm working on after the cockpit, of course...

Oh wow. If you can make a full-fledged Big O look this good, you are divinely awesome.

The whole thing would be fantastic! It's good to hear you're improving the finer details too, perfectionism can be a good thing! How about some new pictures?

Oh and happy birthday by the way!

Yosh. Happy Birthdays Haephestus.

hey thanks! It's been a pretty good birthday so far...took a two hour nap and drank a few stella artoiseseses. Almost time to go out to birfday dinner! I plan on consuming a large slab of delicious meat.

I was feelin' pretty bummed about having to go back and rebuild so much, but again, you guys are revvin' me up to get back on the horse and keep going.

I'll upload a couple of pics later tonight, if I'm not too toasted!

Holy cow. I am left in awe of your 3-dimensional modeling and mapping skills.

Holy crap, that's amazing, I read through the entire process just now.