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View Full Version : Buck Rogers Starfighter


Fabio
April 30th, 2003, 08:37 PM
This is a return to my youth a bit - this ship has always been a firm favourate of mine - it looks mean and vicious and damned fast!

IMHO It should have made an appearance in the film that it was originally concepted for - Star Wars..


Here's as far as I have got after about 2 hours tonight - in between work and other stuff.

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759699_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759699.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759716_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759716.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759735_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759735.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759753_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759753.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759768_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/04/30-759768.jpg)

Orwell
April 30th, 2003, 08:42 PM
Yes, Yes!!! I always thought this was a way cool fighter. And of course I know you'll do her justice.

Thomas P
April 30th, 2003, 09:06 PM
One of my all time favorite ships!

AslanC
April 30th, 2003, 11:31 PM
I am so very very very very very very very happy you are making this one :)

But wasn't it originally designed for season 2 of BSg, but never was?

Titon
May 1st, 2003, 05:47 AM
Yep, considered for Galactica before redesign to the viper

I like them both.

Awesome work Fabs, as usual.

:)

p.s. Cargile
May 1st, 2003, 09:07 AM
Drools . . .
And fonds memories of Erin Gray surface.

Fabio
May 1st, 2003, 11:09 AM
Did a bit more tonight - decided to go for the more blocky look of the horizontal outer wing as was common in the show - Going to animate them rear aerilons too ;):
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-811943_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-811943.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-811961_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-811961.jpg)

Also finished off the preliminary Blurbs shape for the lower wing - freezing to come next and then stencilled details after optimisation :)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-812009_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-812009.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-812021_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-812021.jpg)

click all thumbnails for larger versions

Fabio
May 1st, 2003, 10:07 PM
Here's the latest on it:

Finished the lower wings and started work on the middle fuselage section - there won't be any more now till next week - client work to finish first :)

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851443_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851443.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851467_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851467.jpg)

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851496_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851496.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851518_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/01-851518.jpg)

skyhawk223
May 2nd, 2003, 05:52 AM
Oh yeah, now we're talkin'. Looking great so far.

Fabio
May 2nd, 2003, 10:18 AM
Someone asked for a wireframe - so here's what the wires look like right now. There's quite a lot of Polygons to come off that figure when I get round to cleaning these sections of the mesh up when it's completely finished.. :)

click on the thumbs for larger images...
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895279.jpg

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895315_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895315.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895344_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895344.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895375_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895375.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895405_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/02-895405.jpg)

Kakaze
May 2nd, 2003, 01:54 PM
Great job Fabs!


You know, I never cared much for the fighters. They're definately a cool look, but I don't know... One ship I've always loved from Buck Rogers though, is the ship they used in the second season. The Searcher or something? It just had such a cool look to it.

Plus, that's when they introduced Crichton, and I have an affinity for hoity toity, sarcastic robots.

Starship
May 3rd, 2003, 09:33 PM
Very well done Fabio !
Any chance that you model these ships too:

http://members.fortunecity.com/wendhausen/BRStarshipsv3/profile/buckrogers/searcher.htm
http://members.fortunecity.com/wendhausen/BRStarshipsv3/profile/buckrogers/thunderfighter.htm :D ;)

Kakaze
May 3rd, 2003, 09:54 PM
That's it! The searcher!

Such a bonny ship...

Fabio
May 7th, 2003, 01:07 AM
Finished my client work last night and was itching to get back to work on this ;)

Here's another 4 hours work - one of the more difficult things to do was suss out from the reference how the rear and underside "meshed" together - but I got it in the end - (thinks he maybe should have bought a model kit of this ship for better reference! ;))

here's the latest

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294317_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294317.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294337_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294337.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294366_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294366.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294392_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/07-294392.jpg)

wizardofflight
May 7th, 2003, 10:31 AM
Looks like you nailed it. Fantastic work, she is the best I seen done so far. I can’t wait to see the finished version.

I do have the 2D CAD files available if you would like them.

Have a great day.

Alan
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/wizardofflight/

Fabio
May 7th, 2003, 10:36 AM
Those are the blueprints I am using WOL :)

Starship
May 7th, 2003, 01:07 PM
Fabio,
Any chance that you model these ships too:

http://members.fortunecity.com/wendhausen/BRStarshipsv3/profile/buckrogers/searcher.htm
http://members.fortunecity.com/wendhausen/BRStarshipsv3/profile/buckrogers/thunderfighter.htm :D :D ;)

Fabio
May 8th, 2003, 07:19 PM
Coming along nicely now :)

Just the cockpit inners to sort out - some minor tweaking all over the body (detailing) and then onto the texturing.

as usual click the thumbs for bigger images :)

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445915_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445915.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445941_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445941.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445962_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445962.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445982_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-445982.jpg)

Fabio
May 8th, 2003, 07:43 PM
Here's some wires :)

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447591_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447591.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447623_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447623.jpg)

http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447659_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447659.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447694_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/05/08-447694.jpg)

as usual click the thumbs for larger images :)

p.s. Cargile
May 8th, 2003, 10:03 PM
Excellent. biddy biddy biddy.

Not to chastise your work, but why is it that modelmakers sought a need to limit fighter pilot visibilty with these wide framed cockpits? Too much reliability on technology?

Fabio
May 9th, 2003, 03:20 AM
I've often wondered that too Paul :) My theory on it is that iot's probably a trade off on construction strength and visibility. Coupled to the fact that in space combat these ships are porobably going at such ludicrous speeds that target aquisition would probably be an entirely screen holographic cockpit based affair and they would only need an approximation of where they were for postioning and approach :)

thomas7g
May 12th, 2003, 01:02 PM
actually I asked someone about that. Its a left over from bluescreening days. Cockpits like that show up better on film. And they are easier to matte I bet too. :D

I would also bet it has to due with the number of artist who have flown combat missions ;)

p.s. Cargile
May 12th, 2003, 10:28 PM
Wow. Both make sense.

On the other hand, both the X-wing and the Viper had smaller cockpit frames. But I can understand how an all glass canopy wouldn't show up against the background in a scene. Such is the trade off.

I've loved this fighter. Thanks for modeling it.

meshula
May 20th, 2003, 11:05 PM
Looking great!
I'm curious about the design history. I never heard that it was considered for SW and BsG. What's the story?

Lucas
May 21st, 2003, 05:26 AM
looking really cool!

from what I understand, at that time, John Dykstra was the chief modeller for starwars and he was the one principally responsible for the models in starwars, Battlestar Gallactica and Buck Rogers. which is why all 3 mediums share a quality in modelling and detailing that is similar at least....
models that were rejected by George Lucas were kept by the model makers and then sold to other productions.

cardinalbiggles
May 21st, 2003, 07:39 AM
Originally posted by thomas7g
actually I asked someone about that. Its a left over from bluescreening days. Cockpits like that show up better on film. And they are easier to matte I bet too. :D
Originally posted by p.s. Cargile
Wow. Both make sense.

On the other hand, both the X-wing and the Viper had smaller cockpit frames. But I can understand how an all glass canopy wouldn't show up against the background in a scene. Such is the trade off.
If you watch the little documentary before The Empire Strikes Back: Special Edition, they go into this issue a bit. Apparently thin cockpit frames were not a problem with fighters like the X-wing and Viper, because they operated in space, and what you'd see through the windows would be black, so matte lines wouldn't be as obvious.

The special effects people on ESB ran into problems with the thin frames while doing the Battle of Hoth, since you'd be seeing white snowscapes through the windows of the snowspeeder, and then the matte lines would look really horrible. So they played with the opacity of the cockpit which helped diminish the matte lines. The before and after comparison shots from when they digitally cleaned up the matte lines are really neat; I'd never actually noticed it before. :)

thomas7g
May 21st, 2003, 05:20 PM
I dunno... it seems like it would still be a problem. The old way to do spacehips in film, ala star wars, was to do the bluescreen background shoot, then use acid to remove the blue parts of the film. The acid was a very inexact process. Too much and you would eat away all your scene, too little and you wouldn't get a good clear area.

Now the edges of the viper cockpit would be fairly easy to do in space, since you can grow the matte to be larger. The extra black matte would be invisible against the black space background as you indictated.

But to do a bubble cockpit requires the edge of the cockpit glass to show up on film, which is hard since it is glass. And also you have to be able to make a good matte of it.Which requires exact acid corrossion across a large footage length of film. I don't think it was possible back then. Your cockpit glass would tend to appear nonexistant in space. Which looks funny. And in atmosphere you would get that corroded matte that you often see in bad chromakeying.

:D

Elowan
June 1st, 2003, 06:02 AM
? I thought they used traveling mattes.

Andy M
June 1st, 2003, 08:48 AM
Wow, nice work,

Andy

EBOLII
June 1st, 2003, 02:53 PM
okay........were be the updated images or completed mesh beauty shots?!

Fabio
June 1st, 2003, 03:25 PM
meesa still working on it - but it's been a bit infrequent of late - too much real world stuff going on! :D

will get bak to it soon - mostly working on a concept for the interior at the moment :)

Fabio
June 3rd, 2003, 04:21 PM
welp - finally managed to get some time to have a go at this mesh again tonight for a few hours - I've started work on the interior of the cockpit now - there's nothing really to go with here reference wise - so I'm sort of making it up as I go along at the moment :)

I'm in the rear bay at the moment about 40% finished in that area :)

as usual click on the thumbnails for large rimages in fresh browser windows:
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681450_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681450.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681470_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681470.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681498_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681498.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681526_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681526.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681549_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681549.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681570_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681570.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681591_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681591.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681610_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681610.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681634_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681634.jpg) http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681654_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681654.jpg)
http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681674_tn.jpg (http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/wip/2003/06/03-681674.jpg)

Lucas
June 4th, 2003, 06:14 AM
Oh....My....UUUUuuuunnnnnnnnggggggg,


I think I just loaded my huggies!
That is really AWESOME....uh..the mesh, not my loaded huggies. :)

wizardofflight
June 4th, 2003, 02:04 PM
Hello

I have some screen caps of the forward cockpit, but it would only degrade the quality of your work to use them. Fantastic job!! I look forward to see the rest.

Alan

P.S. your welcome to them if you want them.