June Challenge - Zander - Normal
 

Howdy,

Sorry for entering so late. I wasn't sure if I'd have time to compete in this challenge (and I still don't...) Anyway, I just sort of started to model something and it evolved so I thought I'd post it anyway. :)

My concept is a planetary rover and research base, like something that you might send to Mars or the Moon for research. I envision that this thing would be huge. 50 people would be able to live and work inside it.

My inspiration is an ant...

Anyway, here is my progress so far.

Here's a leg. I'm going for a very mechanical look:

Another view of the leg from a different angle:

More leg. I added the joint at the top, so the whole leg could pivot up down and side to side:

Here's my rough start on the main body of the vehicle. The body is segmented. I re-used the joint from the leg and blew it up (I just liked how it looked.)

I duplicated the legs. Here's a wireframe of the whole thing put together. There's still a lot of work to do on the body. I'm not sure which end is the front, guess I'll figure it out later:

Here's the whole thing a little more refined. The end facing the camera is the front:

Time for some rough renders! There's still a lot of details to be added. It kind of looks like a lizard or something. Plus, there's a lot of "Space 1999" in there (if anyone remembers that show.)

1 of 4 renders:

Here's a different angle. I need to add some more hydrolics connecting the legs to the body:

2 of 4 renders:

Another view:

3 of 4 renders:

Closeup view of the foot:

4 of 4 renders:

It's looking good!
With wires and all it'll look better! :D

BTW, many times people enter these challenges and don't have time to finnish them. You should enter anyway, that way you can also get ideas and critics from the users here.

Absolutely beaut. I agree with Kvaalen - this is going to look superb with hoses, wires, etc...


And yes - I do remember Space 1999 - Those cardboard sets, the shoddy acting, the dodgy storylines, but - oh - the Eagle spacecraft - still one of the nicest designs I've seen....

WOW! Nice 'Ant' :D

No chance for me this time in this month's challenge.

Gl and HF :)

I didn't have time to do as much as I'd hoped. I would really have like to do some UV maps and put it in some kind of environment. Oh, well...

Thanks for the comments Mark and DybiosH.

FINAL RENDER :)
 

Duh... here's the file:

Here are some alternate views:

Are you going to animate it, nice concept, great model.

Dae.

Hi dae,

I would like to animate it, but I'm not sure how I'd technically want to do it.

I'd have to figure out how to make the hydrolics work (any tutorials out there?) And, I guess I would split everything out into layers and set all the pivot points. I'm not sure if bones would work well for something like this.

Any tips?

I have never tried to animate a machine of this type, I do know that _

Inside LightWave 7 by_
Dan Ablan

goes over mechanical movement and how to set it up.

Dae

that looks awesome dude :thumbsup:

Hey, thanks!