Vintage streamline cars and trucks by 3D modeler Niko Moritz

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

3D modeler Niko Moritz has a portfolio site that’s populated with a series of wonderful streamline cars and trucks (and, well, planes and boats) based on designs and prototypes that weren’t always put into production. There are some real gems here.

Above is his model of a fuel tank truck design that was patented in 1937, but possibly never built. He’s based it on a period White coe truck, also the foundation for the teardrop marvel shown at right. Both are based on designs by Alexis De Sakhnoffsky.

Other highlights include the classic Cord 810, Jaguar XKE and XK120, and the Hupmobile Skylark. Oh.. and there’s some modern gunge, too :).

Twin Turbo Jet Pack from German aerospace companies

Filed under Found on the Web

It’s hard to imagine a situation in which I would not want one of these. It would have been awesome back when I was commuting over 50 miles in Southern California – in those days, I wanted a personal airship – but since this jet pack is meant for parachutists and doesn’t allow you to take off from your driveway, I guess it wouldn’t have been the perfect solution.

Anyway it’s amazing; two small engines power what’s otherwise a glider that allows a parachutist to travel up to 200 kilometers through the air after leaping out of an airplane at 33,000 feet. (An unpowered version promises 50 kilometers of travel, and is quite a bit lighter, to boot).

Since the powered version weighs at least 80 pounds we’re looking at a new upside to having special forces paratroopers invade us, wherever we happen to be – they’ll probably have to leave their awesome jetpacks behind. Woot!

“Big Lug” Robot, textured, with a Turntable Animation

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

Here’s the textured version of my “Big Lug” retro robot, a new character for my world of Retropolis. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s durable, but he’s not what you’d call the brightest bulb on the chain. This is the famous Mark II Big Lug, the most successful industrial robot to come off the assembly line at the Ferriss Moto-Man plant in Retropolis. You can get a Big Lug in just about any color – the default factory finish is shown here.

The picture above links to a 9 megabyte Quicktime “turntable” animation that I’ve used to see how he looks all ’round, as well as the way light plays across him. What remains to be done is to skin him to a skeleton. I’ve mentioned before that skinning makes me want to throw myself out of high windows. Really, I do mean that in the plural; I’d like to throw myself out of as many high windows as possible, by the time I’m done. But thankfully it’s much easier to skin a robot than it is to skin a human character.

“Big Lug” is now just over 211,000 triangular polygons. There’s some waste in curvy but indistinct areas like his armpits – but I’m not sure how much more optimization I’ll be doing in there.

[tags]Retropolis, retro robot, "Big Lug", science fiction, space opera, retro-futurism, 3d, character, turntable animation[/tags]

“Big Lug” Retro Robot, continued

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

Still loads of texturing to go, though I quite like this basic steely thing he’s wearing. I’ve realized that “Ferriss Motomen” sounds like an instant noodle soup, while “Ferriss Moto-Men” is amazingly better. What a difference a hyphen makes.

New Retro Robot Character and – and last! – 64 bits

Filed under Works in Progress

I don’t have a rational reason for modelling a new robot, but I’m doing it anyway. So sue me.

I guess I do have a sort of an excuse, since I want to do some work on the new computer even though I’m not highly motivated to do any of the things I really ought to be working on. So that leaves me with my new Ferriss Motomen “Big Lug” Mark III.

I was having some fun with him until I dropped that head on him, at which point I really started having some fun. Hands, head gizmos and textures to follow.

I think it took me longer to put together this computer than it ever has before: a few case fit-up issues, unfamiliar connectors, and problems with installing some software and devices in a 64 bit OS. Or maybe I’m just getting old and slow. Anyway I’m awfully happy that I can now feed twice the amount of RAM even to 32 bit applications – the first bit of anything worklike I did was to successfully render the preview of a scene I’d been working on, which had bombed out due to insufficient memory before. The memory was there, but no one program could use it all in a 32 bit OS.

And I’m still thinking about that new desk. It could happen.

Desk of the Future that Still Might Be

Filed under Works in Progress

Okay, I pretty much never make anything for myself. But I’m about to build a new computer, and that’s got me thinking about the new desk I still haven’t made even though I’ve been in this house for two and a half years.

The workspace I’ve got is pretty functional but doesn’t fit well in its room. So while I wait for my new components to arrive I’m tinkering with a layout for the room and its potential desk – complete with a retro-futuristic self, since I don’t have a character model that looks any more like me – and, who knows? I might even build it. I’ve optimistically thrown in next year’s new monitor, but I’ve also used a scale model of my current 24″ CRT to make sure that everything fits.

I’ve placed speaker covers on the sides, which use the same perforated sheet steel I’ve used for the desktop (though under glass, there) and I think I’ve more or less puzzled out how I’d handle the pedestals with their veneer. At the rate I’m going I ought to be sitting at this desk within a decade or so. Though probably not in that outfit.

The Indestructible and now Instructable Molly Porkshanks – a step by step tutorial for her Steampunk MP3 player

Filed under Found on the Web

Molly Porkshanks’ portable Ambience Enhancer is the ideal personal accessory for wanderers in the Dieselpunk post-apocalyptic wastes where she (and, no doubt, many of you) spends her time. It’s a terrific modification of an MP3 player that got loads of attention on the web, and it was my own introduction to her amazing work – though unknowingly, I’d already run across her in Libby Buloff’s photo series for the uncannily reincarnated Weird Tales magazine.

She’s now posted a step-by-step tutorial about the Ambience Enhancer at Instructables. This is pretty neat in itself, but if you enjoy her work you should also know that the tutorial is an entry in their Universal Laser Cutter contest. While the contest is judged, the entries that go to the finals are selected by their ratings. So please consider running over there to create an account (if you haven’t already) and give the Ambience Enhancer your vote.

The laser cutter is a very neat (and pricey) device that would make a fine addition to the Porkshanks workshop. Just think of the vicarious thrills that await you if she bags that baby.

Celebrity Robot Replicas by robot restorer Fred Barton

Filed under Found on the Web

In their day, they changed the world. Their goal might have been to rouse the proletariat to an ill-advised revolution, or to bring a message of peace to a world full of frightened and trigger-happy Earthmen; theirs might have been a simpler duty, like protecting Anne Francis or Will Robinson (“Danger!”), or taking care of the very last plants from planet Earth. But whatever role they once played in the unfolding might-have-beens of our favorite movies, the question these days is Where are they now?

Fred Barton knows. They’re over at his place.

Since 1996 Barton has devoted himself to fulfilling his own robotic fantasies. He’s made a name for himself in film prop restoration, specializing in the (mainly robotic) science fiction classics. His workshop has played host to the original Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet, the B9 robot from Lost in Space, and many of the other mechanical creatures that you’ll see on his web site. They’re now available as high quality reproductions that in many cases are better than the original props and costumes were.

And even if he didn’t restore their originals, he was likely off site to do his research and take measurements and casts – as in the case of his reproduction R2D2 and C3PO. Those guys don’t get off the ranch these days.

The centerpiece of this collection just has to be the animated, talking Robbie. He incorporates an iPod to deliver his audio and his various control panels and scanners light up and accompany his actions just as they did in Forbidden Planet. He’s just plain amazing – though I guess for myself I might rather have the “Evil Maria” fembot from Metropolis. She’s…well, more my type, at the risk of being misunderstood.

Barton’s bots cover a lot of animatronic ground from “none”, in the case of Maria, to “gee whillikers!” at the Robbie end of the scale. And they’re not what most of us would call affordable – I mean, Barton’s clients include Paul Allen. But you can take heart in the knowledge that this would be way cooler than a compact car, at about the same price, and you can even lease Robbie for trade shows.

Thanks go to Daniel Mowry for the link.

Samuel Tourneux’ Même les pigeons vont au paradis – A Stereophonic Diving Bell to Heaven

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

Samuel Tourneux’ Même les pigeons vont au paradis is a cautionary tale about an old man who’s sold an unlikely machine that will take him to Heaven, at the usual unreasonable cost. In that respect it’s highly realistic; the ending, though, is possibly less so. Normally the folks who sell you on that deal get the last laugh, of course. Not to mention giving you all sorts of messy and uncomfortable neuroses.

This short film has garnered a whole collection of awards and honors, and for good reason.

Golden Age Comic Book Stories – Krenkel, Frazetta, and Williamson in the Future That Never Was

Filed under Found on the Web

Whillikers! I can’t think when I’ve been so excited to find a web site. This reminds me of my first days on the web, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and every venture online led to mysterious lands where the roads were pebbled with sapphires, and strange beasts roared in the verdant undergrowth that threatened to swallow those long-untrodden, alien paths.

Excuse me.

But this is just so cool.

Golden Age Comic Book Stories is a blog that features art and complete stories by giants like Al Williamson, Roy G. Krenkel, Frank Frazetta, J. Allen St John and a whole host of illustrators and comics artists from the mid twentieth century. The high quality versions of the Frazetta Buck Rogers pictures would have been enough to get me excited – but oh, there’s just so much more. This is work that you see snippets of here and there, but Mr. Door Tree’s excellent blog is a genuine treasure trove.

The space pirates, flying ships, ray guns and adventure that’s wrapped up in this body of work are what floats my personal space boat. Below’s one of my own pictures called “Jeepers Creepers” – the whole time I was working on it, it’s exactly these artists I was thinking of.

Thanks to The Beat for dangling a link to the site in front of me.