So as some of you know, I am helping someone on a project called Earth-Link: Zero, which has a thread here. This is quite the large project, and definitely waaay above the two of us, so naturally, I've been hunting people down via the internet trying to get some to help, and I've managed to get one so far, no two I think, anyways, we would appreciate if someone would be kind enough to do some modeling. Now the first question typically asked is how much will i get paid. And I will enthusiastically respond by saying nothing. If we were going to be making money, and had money to offer, then we would gladly do it, but alas we do not (that and I need my money for post-secondary, huge bill there!!) Anyways, instead of making a generic help us on this project indefinitely thread, I'd figure I'd approach this by doing single requests, so for purposes of this thread, it's a big monsterous alien ship. So, here is the concept design for it:



Now the designer kind of got sick recently and hasn't been well enough to draw up the other views of the ship, but he's better now and will most likely be working on that in the near future. Now if you are interested in aiding us in our enormous quest, please say so. We will be looking for more work to be done, but one step at a time. Oh, and one final note, even though we cannot donate money or anything that costs money, it may be possible to work something out for whoever does decide to help us. What I have no idea, I personally am not a terrific modeler, so it's probably useless to say I'll help with that, but I imagine something can probably be worked out. Anyways, this would be a massive help to this project.

Thank you.

Well the obvious question is - How detailed? Is the ship only ever going to be viewed from a distance (ie the detail can be handled by texture maps) or is the expectation that the camera could be sitting metres aways from any point on the hull (so the detail has to be modelled)?

Cheers

Detailed, This is a filming model and could be used a lot throughout the course of the series. Some things like grunge and little things like that can be textured, but a lot of detail will need to be modeled

Then you might want to carefully consider your situation. A model of that size with the detail you are expecting will be very resource hungry and somwhat difficult to build. You might want to consider a few models - a long view model then wait for your shot lists to work out what part of the mother ship you actually need in detail.

Cheers

Looks like a major work, rather like Tralfaz's Discovery model is.

Cool concept but much is unsaid by those drawings.

well, it's for a series, so to go about it that way may be economic for episode one, but with a ship like this, one that would be a regular, it may end up being easier to just do a detailed model because in the end, you will have built it all again. I don't know, just throwing that out there

yeah, i hope to have the deisgner design the other angles in the next couple of days

okey dokeys, so two detailed angles to add to this fine collection:

Unfortunately, I can't see any of the images from work. They are really clamping down on what we can and can't see.

Anyway, this past weekend, Eric explained to me how to assemble my models in actions. Very cool technique and I am wondering if something like that would benefit you here. For instance, you could start off with a base model of just the hull of the ship. Then you model the different detail levels in different models.

For instance, say you have the side of the hull. You would then have the base model. A low detail model with just the detail parts (e.g. panel detailing only). Then you would have a medium detail model with more panel detail and some smaller details (do not duplicate the low detail parts). Next, you would have a high detail model, again with only high detail parts, not the low and medium detail parts. Finally you could have an uber detail model (all the little finicky parts and details, piping, screws, etc.)

Then, in a an action based on your base hull, assemble all your low detail models. Do the same thing in another action, only using the medium detail models. And repeat the same process for the high and uber detail models. In all, you would end up with four separate actions for low, medium, high and uber details.

Now, in the chor, drop your base model, which is essentiall a blank hull. If your script calls for a long distance shot where a lot of detail is not needed, then you could drop the low detail action onto your model, and voila, you now have a low detail model in your chor. As you require more detail, just keep adding the more detailed actions to your model.

Not sure if this would work for you or not, but it may solve your needs for having different detailed models.

Al

Well, duh! I forgot I had my laptop with me today, and was able to hook up via an unsecured wireless connection to view the images.

Just curious,

1) What is the scale of this ship (e.g. length x width x height)?
2) Are the tentacle like things on the front of the ship, actual tentacles? Do they move freely like tentacles and retract into the ship?
3) What type of timeframe are you looking at for the model?
4) It looks like a smaller ship beside the big ship. Is that part of the bigger model?
5) Is everything being modelled to scale or are you going to handle that in the chors?
6) Do you need the model textured or do you have someone else to handle that part?

Al

well, it should be known that the model would be heading off to a poly program, so i'm looking back in retrospect and seeing that posting designs and help for it in AM may have just been the wrong course of action, but i'll answer some questions anyways, the smaller ship is a top on view of the Spitfire which I already modeled, so that gives a general idea of scale. this ship is huge, spitfire hold about 80 ish people so i guess this ship would hold, well, a lot! the tentacles are mechanical tentacles that sort of move frreely. their main intention is to grab ships and rip them apart, yes they do retract at least some into the ship, as fror being modeled to scale probably not, that woul just kill processing power. and because of its going to a poly program, texturing would not be done in AM as I've learned, AM can't seem to get things right with textures and exporting. and timeframe is it probably won't be needed until early next year

I think you and your friend are gonna need to try and scrape together some sort incentive. Modeling something like that in way you describe is gonna take somebody with a lot of skill A LOT of time to do. Just asking the community if there is someone willing to do it for free, well, it just seems naive.

If this is planned to be a series of shorts produced without any budget, perhaps you would be wiser to make your fist few episodes small, contained stories with a limited number of characters interacting in one or two small sets: something you and your friend can handle with minimal help. Then if they are well received you can get folks jazzed up about the story continuing and have an easier time getting someone to help with something so big.

check out the earth-link zero section. i had forgotten about this thread, it should go in the ELZ section as well (Rodney?)

thanks