Hello all, been quite a long time since I've worked on any 3D Transformers stuff so I've blown off the cobwebs and decided to get back into the swing...

First things first: I liked the movie designs, maybe not so much at first but I came round to them. Well, except Megatron, he still looks like a haphazard array of shredded metal to me...
But I couldn't help wondering how they might have looked if a slightly more G1-esque look while maintaining the realistic level of detail that made the movie bots as convincing as they are.

I decided to take a stab at making Prime using his original Freightliner alt mode. I have the main bulk of the cab modeled, I need to add some details and re-work some place-holder parts.

I wanted to use much less cheating than ILM did with the movie bots. Meaning I didn't want any parts impossibly flying from one end of the vehicle to the other end of the robot. There will be some bending scaling of some sections to make the robot mode look more dynamic and balanced.
The transformation itself won't be overly complex; I'll post a sketch of the intended design tomorrow.

Here's a couple of pics of what I have so far:

Hope you enjoy!:)

Cab mode:



WIP Head study (linked for hugeness.)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v360/g_t...o/HEADSTUDY.jpg

head design is all kinds of win, the truck/bot i'd rather wait and see some more of before passing judgement

I like the head design, but the eyes just seem way too big. It has the effect of making him look child-like.

Otherwise, looking good. Are you going for a different transformation scheme from the usual? I can't really see that rear area making anything more than a really puny pair of legs.

I second the head design being full of win.
However I think the alt mode colors could stand to be tweaked.
The red of the truck is to reflective. It doesn't look like red paint, it looks like red chrome.
I'd also fix the latter\steps that are used to climb in to the cab. IMO it should match the bumper

keep up the good work I look forward to seeing a great bot mode

That head design is pure pixalated sex! And i love the truck mode, if its a hybrid though shouldnt the truck mode have some sort of paint design like some graphics of some kind that look like flames but a more subtle kind than the movie ones? Maybe a dark red ghosted flame effect would look good?

Thanks everyone:)

All the colours are temporary at the moment. The finished version will use a more realistic paint shader with the silver strip along the sides of the truck.

I'm still trying to figure out the leg transformation. I'll try to hide as much mass as I can in the rear frame without distracting from the alt mode. The thighs will incorporate the fuel tanks in a similar way to TWW Prime and the main bulk of the lower legs will be taken from the rear side of the cab similar to The Movie Voyager toy.

Here is a rough sketch of where I'm heading with the design.

Yes please! I'd love to see that design on the big screen! Awesome, I can't wait to see your final product!

Holy jive that bot mode is looking great! Ya know till now i never thought there was a way to make movie Prime look more G1-like whilst keeping the realistic and detailed look set by the movie. People had tried it but it never looked right to me, and IMO movie prime is so perfect anyway i never gave a crap about the truck mode not being a flat nose, but this design is just amazing and i wish they had used it for the film. Its the only g1-based movie prime design that actually looks better than the movie prime we got i think.

Cant wait to see the 3D render!

Just a quick update:



Did a test render of some of the sections arranged into bot mode, mainly so I can work out how the proportions and what not are looking.
Also started work on the shoulder joint details.

*droooooool*

lookin really damned nice.

Gorgeous

ARGH!

Thanks a lot, George! Now I need another movie voyager Prime and a Freightliner cab model in whatever scale that voyager is!


*looks at backlog of kitbash projects*

*siiiiigh*

The only complaint I can raise against this is that the crest in the middle is reallyreally tall, I'm guessing it's an asthetic choice, but it does look a bit odd...

But other than that, BEAUTIFUL.

Hi folks, long delayed update...

The 2 gig of ram I had in my PC was proving insufficient and Max was giving me memory errors and crashing like crazy, but it seems okay now that I've installed another gig of ram.

Arms still need a bit of work but they're getting there....



...and yes, the is where the mud flaps will end up in robot mode:wink:

I'm glad to see that your still working on him.
He keeps looking better and better.

Once you get the model finished do you think your computer could handle rendering a video of him transforming from robot to truck and back?
or would that cause it to die screaming in pain?

I like how uniform the detail complexity on this one is. There's areas of very low detail and areas of thick detail, so it makes him much easier to "read."

holly crap that looks amazing!!!

heh

mudflaps

this still looks amazing man!
cant wait to see more

awesome awesome

Anyone else thinks his chestin the 4th pictures looks like an angry face?

I couldnt notice it till now, lol.

Looks really neat! I'm sure with some more effort we could have gotten the TFs in the movie to look a little more like this. But I guess that's not edgy enough for Bay.

Thats, pretty good. I'd love to see a series that applies the movies style to more G1ish transformers it would be interesting.