Rifts Spider-Skull walker

[::Darkstone::]

Originally Posted by star_creations

Max 7

hmmm... I don't know too much about rigging in Max. My suggestion would just be to google "Max 7 IK Rig Tutorial" and you'll most likely get a ton of links. My own rigging skills are fairly rudimentary (took me forever and a day just to figure out how to rig a simple piston). This rig is actually the first I've done that I'm not relying on a premade bone rig that I use for almost all my other work.

Rigging sucks...

[::Darkstone::]

Alrighty, got the rigged legs in place and trying out a base texture (may or may not keep it).

[Meph]

Looking good to me, I especially like the eyes/windows. The weathering could use a bit more clever placement though, y'know more around the edges and other parts that are likely to be chipped and scratched. Now it seems a bit too random.

[efritsch]

I love your Rifts stuff. Makes me want to break out the RPGs and dice. I think the weathering should be less random for sure but everything else looks awesome.

[Zhor2395]

mmm Rifts. a incoming character nicked a suit of deadboy armor. should point them here to see what the CS stuff looks like in 3D excellent work btw

[gthompsn]

My two favorites from RIFTS were the SkullSpider and SAMAS armour. I really enjoy what you have done with both.

[DaveWh]

Originally Posted by ::Darkstone::

My own rigging skills are fairly rudimentary (took me forever and a day just to figure out how to rig a simple piston).

Hey, I read this and wrote a quick tutorial. Tell me what you think.

Rigging Hydraulic Pistons in Lightwave

[::Darkstone::]

Meph - as it currently stands the mapping is all temp. Right now what's on there is a simple tileable grunge map. I'll be doing custom grunge and scratch maps, tho I really need to decide what the base texture is (Right now it's a generic metal texture map that I have)

efritsch - Thanks!

Zhor2395 - Thanks! You could also direct 'em to the Rifter Zero. It's a pdf put out by Palladium (costs $3) and I did about 90% of the illos, all 3d...(hehe...couldn't stop myself from doing the shameless plug )

gthompsn - Thanks! Glad you like 'em

DaveWh - I think it's a great tut, easy to understand and follow! That actually was the first method that I ever used for pistons, and it works great when you're dealing with a ball and socket joint. The issue I had with using targets was simply that despite the axis limit panel, the damn things never took into account which axis were to be used and which weren't. If I was creating a piston which had only one axis of movement due to the connector, using a Target method just had a hard time keeping the connector from spinning on it's axis and penetrating the point of connection. I wound up using a simple IK method, just adding a null on the end of each of the piston pieces and setting the nulls to use IK goals, then using both the axis channel limitations (In the case of the SSW's legs, the pistons only use the Bank Channel) and I've generated bank limit's on the leg pieces themselves to simulate the effect of the piston length limiting their compression and expansion. In some cases, such as with an arm I had to do which involved ball and socket connectors and required movement on all 3 axis, I use a blended method, usually involving having the smaller, "Male" piston segment to use targeting and the "Female" segment to use IK. In the end, tho, it's all in what you need, and your tutorial definitely does a good job of giving people, especially those scratching their heads without a starting point, a solid base to use and to grow from. So I say unto you: Good Job!!!

[Zhor2395]

mesa forgot'em rifter Zero. now that i've got a group again, i have to catch up on my Riftsness

[::Darkstone::]

Here's a quick update, custom grunge and paint chip maps applied to the front of the skull thus far, the rest are generic. The dirt itself is an accessibility shader using a custom grunge map to control where the dirt will show up.