Gundam 3D

On one side i give all my effort to make this project as good as it can get, but on the other side, i don't have much time for that.
I work with 2 other colleague on this project, and the main idea behind all of this, is actually a nursery or a play room or whatever you can say it. It's a room where a child used to play with his toy.
Well actually i'm expecting a space for this with lots of space station, space shuttle and something like that, but then again, i am in a group for this project, and i am not the only one that makes decision. We choose the easiest way to finish this project because for the other, the credit is more important.
Developed for : | Hochschule Fulda |
Client : | Hochschule Fulda |
Technologie : | Computer Generated Imagery |
Tools : | Lightwave 3D, Adobe Premiere |

I think my interest on CGI come from Warcraft 2 - Tides of Darkness. At that time, i really want to be one of Blizzard employee and participate on developing the cutscene. Why i choose to studying Multimedia Computer Science, is all about 3D, CGI and something like that.
Now i realize that my major is not only about 3D, but a lot more than that. And i realize too that i'm actually not so good on creating, designing and developing a 3D Animation. As i make the proposal for the project, i already realize that my model will be a though one and i will need to invest times for this one. But i don't care, this is a dream come true, it can't be better than that.
The first month filled with Tutorials, brain storming, creating story board, and collecting/finding materials to be modelled. Well i'm not so good on drawing objects or pinch the object out of my mind, so i buy this plastic toy from ebay to be used my model.

The model is not enough. I need a tools, and reference. For tools our CGI Labor have 2 kind of 3D modeling software:
- Lightwave 3D from Newtek
- Maya from Autodesk
I surfed the internet and hoped that i can find someone that already have a project about developing a Gundam 3D model. And that is how i meet Ivan Sanchez. At that time he is working as an English Teacher in Japan and modeled the Gundam on his free time. He help me a lot in Texturing and Lightning technique.
Well I have the toy, i have the book and others reference. Now it's time to get started. I don't have much time to learn about spline modeling technique, so i do everything with box modeling technique. I started with the body:

The next part will be the waist:



The next part will be the wing:



The last hardest part will be the hands:


To prepare the model for the animation sequence, i need to set up bones for the model. And from that bone, i need to set the limits for every bone movement. In this part i'm struggling with some Lightwave bugs, because the limits doesn't work the way i want. Well this is the Gundam bones.

The next best part is of course the animation. Well i don't have many rooms to improvise, since my gundam will be on a nursery room. Actually it should only stay there and do nothing. But it will be to boring and affect my credit. So i decided to make it flying around the room.
The rendering took about two and a half weeks. Rendered will be around Christmas Holiday on 2005. At that time, i have 2 PCs and one Laptop in my 16qm dorm. 2 Pcs is a 2,2 Ghz AMD Athlon XP with each 1,5 Gb and 1 Gb DDR RAM. The Laptop have 1,6 Gb. Intel Celeron Modile with 1 Gb. Of DDR RAM. The First two day of rendering makes me realize that is not enough. So i borrowed another AMD PC from my dorm-mate who wants to go on a Christmas Holiday.
Lets say i 'm pleased with the result, but not satisfied. Well maybe if i have more time, i will make my own scene until i'm really satisfied. Who knows. But right now you can enjoy the end result.
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