Navigator Finals

Will be going away next week with new awesome work commitments so decided to tie this guy up before I go, then move onto some architectural pieces over the next couple of months ( been talking about it for ages to people and they seem very intrigued by what I have planned, so more Concrete x Tadao Ando x Tron spaces to be made. ), done some more different takes on grades/scenes etc.
Many thanks again to Ben Mauro for the inspiration on the inside working of his head, which in itself has inspired more ideas for the future, and calls also go out to all the peeps who created such an inspiring world full of stunning artwork for Halo 4, one of the USNC helmet designs inspired me to do this!
Oh ye, in other news, I now work for myself, Crytek were kind enough to approach me and ask me to work on a fantastic project they are putting together and give me the opportunity to start to establish myself on my own two feet, scary but I'm hoping it will lead to other things and life adventures in the future, I can't wait to get going with a lot of my close friends and colleagues again ( all be it from home ).Hope you like the Finals, 1080p links below each image.

High Res here

 High Res here

 High Res here

 ECU/Brain workings:

 High Res here

 High Res here

 High Res here

Thanks

Eye / Vision Prototype

TT Navsystems are the choice of vision and tracking hardware when configuring Navigators.
Lightweight, easy to configure and highly advance sensors can send thousands of images per second to the pilots ECU, unlocking what is known now as 'FlyVis' ( inherited from how flies actually see. ), essentially being able to adept to constant velocity changes, anticipating counter measures required for craft manoeuvrability especially in tight situations.
Cockpits are no longer a wash of dials and output displays, once the early eye prototypes were accepted weight was cut from everywhere legally possible in each craft, complimenting their already sleek / no fat designs.

Navigators, cont....

This week with the little time I've had, I've mainly focused on getting the facial parts of the head in place with shaders and so on.
New eyeball models were put together with slight changes to proportions of the iris etc to a level I felt looks slightly better than earlier versions I'd done. I've gone through in excess of 5 lighting rig set-ups to check shaders work correctly in both light and dark situations, they were fairly close but didn't pop as much in daylight, so a happy medium has been found, so they can also work well in less contrasty environments as seen here.
Put this render and post together today, was kinda happy with the look so thought I'd share. Some subtle overlays, dust on lens etc....
More ( hopefully finished bust ) next week...

Terminator.

2011 was a tough year for me, a large unfortunate event happened in my personal life suffering the loss of someone no one will ever replace. My work is my escape, and wanted to try something challenging, something to take my mind away from real life, I generally don't do characters or organic stuff, but wanted something that would push me in all areas, I'm naturally a huge terminator fan, the design of the endoskeleton is so iconic and would throw a lot of challenges my way, throwing me out of my comfort zone.

After these renders I generally needed a break and wanted to do something different, I have an idea of what I'd like to do ( something completely out of context with him ). I received a lot of comments regarding 'where is the rest of him Nath? ). Well he is here, every piston and part rigged mainly for posing purposes, having made him, there are some serious design flaws for general everyday movement :S, but hey, who cares,
FORM OVER FUNCTION RIGHT? Max view port lovelies..

ED 209

Robocop has to be one of my favourite movies of all time, I remember being what, like 10-11 when my friend sneaked this out of his dads room and we secretly watched it in the early hours due to the gore / age restrictions at the time. Not only did this movie educate me into the world of a corrupt future where police and men of power generally live on cocaine and prostitutes, it introduced me to what has to be one of the greatest Mechs cinema had seen up until that time.

Modelled at a time where our company was moving over from Maya to Max, I decided to get my teeth into this to get to grips with Max again having used Maya for four years.

Couldn't resist playing around in photoshop and generally having a stab at getting an old photo look out of one of the photos as so much of the reference I had were black and white photos of the model being made in real life.