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

Didn't get home until pretty early this morning, after mucho crispy stellas were consumed. Today, I shall be known as "the_big_hangover".
I don't booze it up too often like this, but it's not every day that one transitions from 'early-to-mid-early-middle-age' to 'officially middle aged'. Damn, I'm a presidential term away from 40. Seems like just yesterday I was just a noob gettin' my 3D on for the first time. Funny how time flies when you spend a decade and a half in front of a computer. All you aspiring animators out there, keep at it. It pays off before you know it.

Man, I'm really kickin' myself over how much I got wrong. Revising the front end has revealed that I made some seriously wrong choices in the beginning. However, rebuilding certain areas totally fixes other problems I had, so it feels good to finally get those spots cleared up. I've worked on some other jobs where I had six months just to build and animate a single piece of geometry (like a backpack), so although it sucks to go back to rebuild, I'm still doing fair-to-middlin' on time spent on this. At least I'll be able to get gimmicks in on the panel rebuilds.

Here's the last time you'll see a render with incorrect geometry:


Please note that the front is not circular, but angles forward considerably. It gives the cockpit a sleeker, longer shape.

Because the front glass is no longer completely circular, I had to find a new way to build it, which troubled me considerably...but I figured it out in the end.


Have to take a break from piping (thank god)...but here's the last of the work I did on it.



I took a short break to monkey around with particle systems...short test render! (If it's not up, it's cuz youtube's still compressing the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU6P9D7cpfo

Thats alot of electrical conduit. Looks awesome.

I didn't believe all those conduits were electrical. I just believed they were in the cockpit for a special design. Of course nothing is in the cockpit for no reason.

...

Anyway you did a GREAT job. Add some time again, a little bit, and you will finish. Courage !

GJTBG

The tangled web of piping so prominent in almost all anime is not only a method of filling empty space with detail...it represents complex movement in a static structure. Looking at an oil refinery, or the power distribution conduits in a building gives one the impression that things are in motion, despite the fact that one sees no movement. This contradiction gives rise to an etheric sense of aesthetic that appeals on a subconscious level. Motion exists where there is no motion.

Another aspect of beauty in Satosan's design is that the entire cockpit looks like a smaller head within the Big O's body. It is symbolic not only of the Knight (or samurai) in armor, but also of the brain/body interface. The dominus is a brain in a body, sitting in a larger head that is the brain for an even larger body (the megadeus). The megadeus is the extreme manifestation of the Dominus' consciousness.
This is a very common theme in giant robot anime, stemming from not only Japanese feudal history of the Samurai, but also from Japan's Shinto and Buddhist past...Rinne, or transmigration of the soul...or Samsara in sanskrit.
Jeez, I sound like I've been hittin' the whacky tobacky. Enough with my philosophical ramblifications.

Still fixing screwed up geometry.
here's a few updated pics

Comparison from my mistake to the revised version:


The scans revealed the true design for the casing's outer plate that houses the bubble dome:


Side view of the exterior back plate...something I definitely didn't know about before:


And a full render of the last few days work.


The work continues...

I didn't guess the cockpit was not circular. You have a good view. Of course, with the pictures you have you are helped. Thank you to give us the opportunity to see the exact shape of the cockpit. Bravo !

I have seen every images this forum gives us, but there were no interesting picture which shows that the cockpit is not circular. Yes, there was one in act 12; when Roger is outside the cockpit.

The most funny thing is that there are details that we didn't know at all, like the back of the cockpit. GOOD JOB.

PS : thank you for your historical lesson. Good to be known why we always see giant robot in the Japanese animations.

Very nice, very nice. I really don't know what to say.

quote:

Originally posted by Larry99 Very nice, very nice. I really don't know what to say.

Very nice is enough

There's something about the sloped shape of the cockpit that makes it look better. More interesting etc, that's all I can think to say.

Good job!

Wow... how do I say this. This is the shizneist. Everything about it is beautiful. I hope you're making money doing this sort of stuff--it takes a sh** load of dedication to do something like that. I'll just say you've got the skillz that pay the billz and leave it at that.

I've just finished up two other projects that I've been on so I can get back to this project more fervently.

I decided to get away from the primary base model and branch out into the gimmicks a little. I have to rebuild all the control panels to accomodate the new angles in the front of the cockpit...changing the orientation of the two top monitors reduced the space available for the first control panel, which needs to ascribe a longer arc now. I needed to rebuild it anyway to get the scanner geometry inside it, and to create the mechanism by which it will open up.
Lengthening the arc of the first panel pushes the next one back a little, which then requires that I shorten the two rearmost panels by about 15 degrees. They were a little too big to begin with, so it all works out to spending the rest of the week on control panels. Since I'm already rebuilding them, I'm gonna' fold the gimmicks in now, instead of dealing with it later.

I didn't feel like getting straight to panels yet though, so I dosed up on coffee and cranked out the O thunder stick this morning:

Noice.

Really, this is all awesomely done.

Its amazing.

Crazy I would say.

There is something I don't understand : how and where can that new joystick come from ? It is a long joystick, and ...... it came from the black sphere.

I don't understand how the red and the blue joysticks could rotate on themselves ... You know what I mean ?

Look at the 3:20 minute to understand what I mean

A lot of the gimmicks in the Big O couldn't work...they're tricks of animation. Physically, they could not work the way they are animated. You're going to have to trust me on this...I've studied every aspect of the animation, frame by frame, so I'm sure about it.

The joystick track is too thin to conceal a sphere large enough to house the one that rotates between the red joysticks and the blue ones. Even if the joysticks folded up somehow (like a telescoping antenna), the sphere that is shown is still too large to be inside the joystick track.
Also, there's no circular recession in the joystick track...if you notice how the regular joysticks sink down into the track before they rotate around...there are no 'doors' that open to reveal the recessed nook inside the track. This large circular recession isn't normally there, so how does it open up so the red joystick base can sink down into the track?

They're just tricks. Animation magic. It's a cartoon, after all.

I noticed that a lot of the gimmicks in the second season are unrealistic. There is a scene where the big black dial/button on the second panel back recesses into the panel, and a white dial/button rises up in its place. This panel is the one that flips open to reveal the missile and machine gun control buttons, so the section that flips up is too thin to hold the much thicker black or white buttons/dials.

Consider R2D2 from Star Wars. There's always a door opening up, and a different tool comes out, even out of the same door. They never explain that it's a puppet, and they just make separate puppets with different tools for all of the different scenes. It's not technology, it's magic...an illusion.

Everything is looking quite amazing!

Glad the scans helped you!

Heh, yeah gotta love those various tricks.

Continually am I impressed by your mad rendering skills. The math involved in doing this from scratch must be hellacious, even if you were using a program like Rhinoceros3D.

Still, impressive layout so far, and nice attention to detail. Not many people would completely go back to redesign an obvious part of the structure for accuracy. Kudos.
War.

I just wouldn't be happy with the end product until it was right, and I doubt that I'd get away with blatant inaccuracies. The PCF gang is pretty sharp, so someone would notice. Better to bite the bullet now.

The math involved in 3D modeling isn't hardcore. Just lots of basic arithmetic and basic geometry, occasionally some trig. You'd probably be suprised at how little real math is involved, and how it's mostly just drawing lines and extruding them or rotating them to create a surface. Cutting holes and whatnot doesn't involve any real calculation. I'm not building to tolerance for engineering...just building a cool looking model.
There's a few advanced math terms involved in process, but the software I use is pretty friendly. Algebra or calculus isn't even necessary. I've learned more about math doing 3D than I ever intended to learn, but mostly by accident. I started off only wanting to build flying motorcycles and killer robots. You learn the deeper stuff as you go.

Most of the techniques I've been using are pretty basic, so the same tools should be available in most 3D software. Most of the real difficulty has been with interpreting the designs from limited source materials. Maybe others will get inspired and build some of the other characters or mech.

This is insanity. I love it.

Insanity? Heh heh...


THIS IS PARADIGM!!

Thank you for your explanations Big G. I trust your comments.

Bravo for this goooooood job !

GJTBG


Hum, you are absent for a long moment now; surely finishing a difficult project ! like the whole megadeus, or the griffon .....