Hey all,

Just thought I'd share what I'm working on with you guys.
I've entered the latest NVidia comp that CGSociety are hosting, not so much for the goal of winning, just because as soon as I saw the brief I got an idea.

The idea is to create a form of transport in the style of Syd Mead, for more info see

Accelerate Comp

My entry is basically a three wheeled bike, that when it hits extreme speeds converts to a single wheel.

I was kind of going for a cross between Syd's older work, mixed with his newer, with a dash of the work he did on Gundam, not sure if I've pulled it off but it's not quite finished yet so we'll see.

Here's an AO of it so far, in both modes, and here's a link to the animation of the bike transforming, didn't need to do it as the comp is for a single image only, but just wanted to.

Transforming between modes animation

Attached Thumbnails

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Really cool man! I saw the competition, looks interesting. Well done on the style of it. I think the one wheel pose looks really unbalanced though, you could maybe bring the body more on top of the single wheel?

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Hi Dango77
Nice modelling, I think because there is no sence of speed on the one wheeled bike it does look odd, may be some motion blur?...............dave

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Nice.

I agree it doesn't look balanced, but if you have some cool propulsion system that we don't know about.. then all's well.

The judges list is really impressive, I love Mythbusters!

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Thanks guys,
Yep, I've had that comment about it looking unbalanced on the single wheel, I looked at having the body more over the wheel, maybe try that out again!

And I'll take a look at adding some motion blur for the final image, will probably just do that by hand in PS though. Cheers for the idea Dave.

It does have a good propulsion system at the back, which would keep it up whilst at very high speeds, say 150mph and over, and the little square bits on the side just below the windscreen will be a stabilizing thruster that will rotate and tilt out to keep it level when leaning to the side on bends.
I guess really it wouldn't go into single wheeled mode unless it was going really f*$%ing fast! lol

Lots more detailing to add anyway, so hopefully I'll have some more done to it after the weekend.

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loving the progress!

i bet your wannabes would be eating this stuff up too

i just realized.... the bits connecting the wheels to the body look rather weak. the little pipe things that is. unless there's something else there that i just didn't see

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Thanks Chirone!

Glad you're liking it.

Well, there's nothing that you just didn't see, it's just that the bits attached to the wheels (which actually extend on one side or the other, for steering purposes) are actually super duper strong.

Them's the perks of designing for the future, anything goes materials wise, I'm going with "new tech has been found/invented" etc....lol

Not done much to it over the weekend, decided to build the interior, although it won't be seen in the final image, so just made a little start to that.
Spent any spare time I had playing the new Splinter Cell game! Will get back to it tomorrow.

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Looks good Dango!!!

What about a side sit cockpit (3 wheels still) and when the bike hits full noise the front wheel (slightly bigger) would slide back between the riders??? then you have the overbalance problem licked.

So as it gets faster the hydraulic system automatically pushes the front wheel back, giving it ground clearance and the rear do as they are doing now??

Still looks cool though!!!

cheers bullet

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bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

nice idea.
Thanks for sharing, if wasnt you I wouldn`t knew about the comp.

But it is a veeeeeery difficult theme, about Syd style and all.
Seems people are expecting something that has being made by Syd itself.
Or better saying, if you could make Syd`s say "I like it, I want to copy it", and than you got the idea.

I`m not sure if it going to help, but in 1 of his lecture, he said, the "scenario" how he call his 1 peace of concept design, he said the scenario need to tell the story behind it. with mean, a design has to be able to show some back story, such as "why the design is like that?", if it is landscape "Why those nature? vegetation? or form or shape?".

So since you are quite ahead on you vehicle model, my opnion would be to do also a nice scene that will help tell the story behind you vehicle.

Just a idea, but some highway, with some "semi-flying" cars (those probably could be low poly since it is not your main focus), and have your vehicle with 1 wheel on the ground, and 2 on the air, and say that this vehicle can get more stable handling than others cars BECAUSE of this 1 wheel on the ground that give more friction, making possible to go more faster than others, maybe.

Cheers for your replies and comments Bullet and Stormgetto,

I like the idea of a sidecar Bullet, I had thought of it already and it would make the whole balance side of things alot easier, but I think I'm going to have to stick with it the way it is.

The main reason for that is that if I change it too much now, knowing me I'll get into the second half of the time limit and won't have started texturing it, I have a kind of plan to be starting on the background around the halfway mark.

Which leads me to Stormgetto's comments,

there has been a whole debate on CgTalk about whether the criteria for the comp should be "make it look like Syd did it" or "make your own thing, taking inspiration from Syd".
I'm going to go for a bit of a mixture, the main vehicle is Syd inspired, but done as I thought it up, but I'm going to try making the background a bit more like Syd himself drew it. (Hopefully, who knows how that'll turn out as I'm going to draw it in 2d, not make it in 3d...lol)

The end result will be two renders side by side, each one each mode, and the background a cityscape/highway type job, complete with Logo, slogan, and some other bits of writing. So it's a billboard ad for the bike itself. So hopefully within that, it'll explain the "story" side of it.

Thanks for the comments and crits guys, it's given me more to think about for sure.

Cheers!

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Haven't done much to this over the past few days, been busy with other things.
But during that time I have played about with some shaders to see what would work, here's what I'm leaning towards at the moment, will probably make some more changes though.

Attached Thumbnails

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Dunno dude but one of my mates sites on the monowheel mighe be a bit of influence (or at least a laugh!)


https://redmaxmonowheel.co.uk/

Builds em himself! As well as more mad stuff!!!

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Haha, those are excellent Steve, could get one to go to work on, that'd be a fun journey! (not the barstool one, boss might think I've been drinking all night...lol)

Someone entered the comp with something very similar to that, though his looked suspiciously like a certain characters mode of transport in one of the last Star Wars films that came out.... (general grievous....)

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I will have the barshtoooll ones thanks , hic.....though a glass holder would be nice..

Its looking good Dango, coming along nicely

cheers bullet

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bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

Whoa dango your stuff is ace! Each time u start a new project u seem to get miles better! How about creating a larger pivot point on the front wheel. That should help the balance.

My only other comment is its a little too much like the main pic they are using for the comp. Make it a bit more original and less generic. Hope that doesn't sound too harsh but i think you would have a better shot if you made it more your own than a copy.

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