The outside is pretty much finished now. There are refinements I want to make to the exhaust at the back, like adding some scalloped grooves like what I’ve seen on some fighter planes. I want to concentrate on the interior of the cockpit now. This will be seen by a camera from the front and behind. It won’t be too sophisticated, because things like panels of lights and digital displays would be done in After Effects, not 3ds Max. In Max, I just need to do the geometry, and the lights and other displays would be put in later in post production.

What’s new? Well I added doors. Igor can just fly in and out, but I have to develop a stair system for the biped fellow to use to get in and out. The doors are rigged and can be easily opened and closed in animations.

Some windows were added, I wasn’t sure if they should be there or not, but my wife feels that they help break up the plain silver of the fuselage. I’ll leave them for now.

I added chrome rims to the headlights, though in the images below they are just reflecting a grey environment.

I reshaped the exhaust, but I only spent less than 5 minutes on this, and it will change, but just a little bit. As I said before, I’ll try to add some scalloped grooves.

Here is what I have (click the images to see the larger sizes):

Below: Same as above, but the left door is open.

Below: Front view showing chrome headlight rims.

I think this should be called a space car. It is a car, that can go into the air, and even space. It also happens to have the ability to do time travel. I’m not sure what this craft is called.

I had to bulk up the front so there was room for the wheels when they fold up. Even though it is in the future, it doesn’t have the ability to rotate the wheels as they fold up so that they take up less space. I don’t mind the extra bulk, it makes it look a bit more cartoony and gives it a funny character.

I still need to make a hatch so people (things) can get in and out, and make a proper exhaust.

Here are some progress pictures:

The wheels are rigged to go up and down:

This is a spaceship/car combo that I am making for Igor and Mr Nameless robot guy. It is a work in progress, I still have to make wheels and other details yet. The wheels will come down from the cylinders under the wing. There could be changes to the scale of the body and some other parts yet too.

Here is what I have so far after just a couple of days (click the images to see a larger size)

I have made a new character to be a kind of friend of Igor. It’s a robot, which so far has no name (any suggestions?) and will star with Igor in future animations. It’s a challenge to come up with a unique robot, there are thousands of robots out there in Google Images and beyond.

It’s not completely finished, I may add some things. The display panel on his chest has a retro look to it, and I’m sure the display will change to something modern. I haven’t yet decided to think of a design for the display, I just quickly put what you see in the pictures as a display. The main idea for the display was for it to somehow show visually when the character speaks, since the character has no mouth.

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LittleB and I were playing with the Unreal Development Kit this weekend. Well, more so LittleB, but I did come up with a small level. My focus was more on learning how to get 3d models from 3ds Max in to the UDK3 game engine. It’s fairly straight forward, I put a simple sign in the game with the Mad Violinist picture on it. You can shoot it, which I’m sure will bring pleasure to many! I hardly ever play computer games, but seeing a 3ds Max object I made go into a game engine was a big thrill!

I’ll back up a bit and explain what this is about, for people who aren’t with me. Many of the top video games on the market have been created using a game engine called Unreal Development Kit. This engine is software for creating game level environments, characters and weapons etc. This game engine is free to download, and anyone can learn how to create games with it. If you want to sell a game, then you have to pay $99 to Epic Games, and after you have earned $5000 revenue from it, you must pay 25% of your total revenue after that. Not profit! Revenue! Which means after advertising costs and other marketing expenses, you earn very little. Hey, you can at least know you can keep $4901! ($5000-$99) Making games and not selling them costs $0.

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I was asked in a 3ds Max forum how I made the roof of my Model T Ford, and could I perhaps even show some screen shots. Well I have done that. This won’t be of interest to most people, but for anyone who is searching for this kind of info, or wants to know a little more about how things are modeled in 3ds Max, this post shows how I did it. Some of the terms I use might only be understood by 3ds Max users.

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Here it is! Click the images below for larger sizes:

And here are images from all around.

My computer can’t do any more than this. The slightest move of the scene sometimes is enough to cause 3ds Max to crash. There’s a little more that should be done, like on my steam train, but that will have to wait until I get a more powerful computer.

Nearly there now. The only things left to make are the air valves for the tyres, the rear light and the roof. If Max still functions after that (with my RAM limitations), I’d like to add texture to the floor mat (to make it look more realistic) and add the small screws that screw down the brass plates on the floor of the front seat. I’d like to be able to add texture to the rubber part of the horn. It would be great to add extruded text on the tyres too (tyre brand), to give them a bit more detail, so they don’t look so smooth.

You can see from the images below that I have added more to the interior of the car. Click on each image to see the larger size image:

Today I made the leather black, and I also added the foot pedals and handbrake. I made a mat for the front floor, and still need to do one for the floor of the backseat. It’s been a battle, with Max crashing every minute. It’s pretty severe now, but it’s not too bad if I am just modeling new parts. It usually crashes when I am either wanting to add a material, or trying to orbit around the model, zooming in and out. Every time it crashes, it takes about 2 minutes to open Max again and load my project. A lot of time is wasted waiting around. Sometimes I get the program opens and it crashes just seconds later because I start doing either of the things I just mentioned. I need more RAM, but my two attempts at upgrading my RAM resulted in receiving dud RAM. After my 2nd refund, I gave up.

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I have added the horn and done a few minor tweaks to the body of the car and the seat. I still need to make more tweaks to the seat, but it’s mostly done as best as it will be done. Tomorrow I’ll experiment with making the seat leather black.

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