Hey everyone, just thought I'd make a quick post to show you some of the work that's keeping me from drawing on 2draw these days. This was modeled and rendered completely in 3DS Max, and the robot is my own design.

front angle shot
back angle shot
low angle shot

Man, I never thought I'd actually end up doing this kind of stuff. This guy is going to end up being textured with more detail and, more importantly, fully animated. He's going to dance for a music video. Wish me luck, it's going to be a hell of a lot more work.

Take care everyone!

Cool Zack.
The design reminds me of the "Thor" variant in Mechwarrior, though yours is much more pleasing to look at.
Which version of max are you using?

The Thor was certainly a classic, so I'm flattered that you'd think mine looks better. Hopefully with a little tasteful bumpmapping and minimal texture effects it'll end up looking better still. A better pose would probably go a long way too.

I'm using 8, top of the line. I actually started by just downloading the free 30-day trial from the Autodesk site, and then found a way to magically make the trial never end. I've heard the improvements over 7 are pretty minimal though. The coolest thing to me is that they have all of their manual's tutorials for free download on their site, which is amazing since they total well over 1,000 PDF pages altogether.

That's awesome Zack. I like the structure of that bot, you really have an eye for these things. I can't wait to see it all textured and Zackified.

man, I fail at 3d stuff D:>
I only have Metasex0rz to work with anyway.

hawt stuff Zack :0 <3 very nice.
Hope to see more 3d awesomeness from you :3

That is so cool... I'm not sure how it was created, but totally cool, nonetheless. I want to know what music video da "BOT" will be dancing in?

That is some amazing stuff , Zack! Cindy, I think Zack is going to have it dance to "Lookin' for love in all the wrong places" doing a 2step, like in Urban Cowboy

im only compitant with milkshape, and even then i had large amounts of problems. i wish i had more patience for it, then i could actually make a mod or 2. instead i gather hordes if servants and get them to work on it. im just good at getting the people to work, and working well.

Nice stuff. I have a nitpick however. ^.^ Mesa think that the head might look better without that smiley face-ish stuff on it. I'll be doing 3D CGI next year, can't wait. =D

good work zack - shall be interesting to see it move

haha, that's the collest thing ever, reminds me so much of those game designing stages you have to go through =) i want wait to see him dance <3

It seems to me like you tried to make sure all the joints were flexible and such, which you did well, though I think the middle segment would make it vunerable to being shot in half.
But yeah, really cool.
"Zackified"?

Looks like a Lego man.
How long have you been using 3DS Max????

I've been doing 3D stuff for almost 3 years now, but I only know how to do it in AutoCAD, Mechanical desktop & Inventor.
But it's all done to a certain precision, and it's mostly giant hydraulic machines for Assemblies and to find out the weight of parts.
I never got to draw anything other than machine parts.

SO is 3DS Max hard to learn????

GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD <-- short animation clip

Thanks everyone. Derrick: I've been using 3DS Max for little over a month now for one of my classes, and this is my first project in it so far. I don't think it's very hard to learn. It has its oddities and quirks, for sure, but there are tons of tutorials you can check out for free so it's not that bad. Those are quite some expensive programs you work with there man. Isn't one of those like over twenty grand a copy or something?

I like how his shins go into his feet. :D

p.s. bloody awesome.

haha, his shins do sink into his feet.
but damn, good stuff. :3

Reminds me of an old Warhammer, and an atlas. Cool stuff man! :}

HAHAHAHAAHHA fucking hilarious.
when i get a steady payroll, want to render and animate some models for some games? I might start a small games company.

Isn't one of those like over twenty grand a copy or something?

Maybe for a 5 work station 1 year licence agreement for inventor.
A Single work station 1 year licence agreement range from 4 to 8 thousand.

The price range varies greatly depending on use and #of work stations.
They have floating licence agreements for multi work stations on the same network.

And I have a copy of 3DS Max 7 I just never got around to using it.

Nice job. I have been learning lightwave...similar product...for my crafts design class. We dont get to do anything cool like robots...just furniture...ceramics...fibers...etc. I can appreciate the work that went into this. I think lightwave might be cheaper. Student edition is about $285 on academic superstore.com

my most recent (it got a little pixelated in the compression)

Hey Zack, I'm actually getting into animation too. I've been looking at different programs and I think I want XSI Softimage, the one valve used for hl2 (which, if you don't own, you ought to). I wanted MAX at first but it's three grand. XSI is a sixth of that. I'd try a trial of Max like you're doing but I'd rather use valve's app of choice since I want to be using it for their engine anyway.

Oh, did you hear? I'm looking into a game dev BS from full sail. Expensive, though..

call me if you're up for some multiplayer unreal gold co-op w/ alex, owen & rob. DO IT.

Wow, I missed that...very funny animation Zack. :)

LOL. That's well good. Really smooth. Reminds me of www.billybussey.com. How long did it take you to make the robot and then to animate aswell Zack?

Can I ask what the story is with the dancing robot? Cause I remember seeing a dancing transformers thing that went on for like 5 whole minutes, which I guess was an accomplishment. I skipped through it though hoping one of the guys would fight/kill something instead of well... dancing a bunch. That animation though is pretty funny, keep up the good work.

Thanks guys. Method, it's for a class project of mine. We're making a music video about this guy who has a bad day at work and goes home to turn on this killer robot he's been working on only to find that it's short-circuited and just wants to dance instead of going around killing people.

Scott! How's it going man? No kidding, Full Sail? I'm gonna have to call you now. Been a hectic semester. Unreal Gold co-op sounds delicious.