New Project: District 9 Tessla Riffle - Simply Maya User Community

# 1 30-10-2010 , 03:27 PM

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District 9 Arc Riffle Project

It's been a while since I have had the time to work on a model and I was thinking of doing some kind of futuristic weapon.

I was planning to rent District Nine this weekend and like the look of the arc gun. So I might do that.

The good thing about the arc gun is that Weta sold full size props from the movie of several of the weapons including the arc gun so there is a metric butt ton of reference images on the net.

I have seen some models floating around but I would like to build my own.

I have been downloading lots of images and have been studying the details.

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Last edited by ctbram; 03-12-2010 at 10:42 PM.

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# 2 30-10-2010 , 03:38 PM

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I like the sound of it ctbram.......

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# 3 30-10-2010 , 04:54 PM

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Super cool. I love that movie.

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# 4 30-10-2010 , 08:31 PM

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I found tons of reference photos and decided to start with these.

Note that the drawing has 7 of the electrode do-hickies while the images of the replica has 6. I decided to go with the 7 in the drawing because they look cool and more is more gooder!

Here are some AO renders. I must have done 5 different versions of the bottle connector before settling on this version.

I was just experimenting with stuff and changed up the front part of the thing that looks like a tuning fork is stuck into. It's quite different then the references. I might keep it or I might remodel it.

I really like the kind of mechanical / organic form of the barrel section. One of the reason I wanted to model this gun is to see how I would handle modeling that section. It was an interesting challenge.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 31-10-2010 at 12:10 AM.

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# 5 30-10-2010 , 10:03 PM

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Realy nice detail...............dave

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# 6 30-10-2010 , 10:55 PM

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'metric butt ton'...ha ha.

This looks like its gonna be cool.

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# 7 31-10-2010 , 03:34 AM

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HEy Crash ! good to see you back on teh forum.
Like the work as it is coming along mate, keep the posts coming.

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# 8 31-10-2010 , 04:11 AM

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Hey man that looks f*****g good first up!!! good to see you back in the game young fella.....keep it coming man!

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

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# 9 31-10-2010 , 10:12 PM

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Hard surface modeling in Maya is really HARD!

I do not even want to say how long it took me to create the two bottom pieces and they are only blocked in!

I have not had a lot of experience with other modeling packages but I find Maya to be a real challenge to do anything hard surface that is even remotely complex.

For organics and artsy fartsy crap it's okay but trying to control hard edges and not look CG is a pain!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 10 31-10-2010 , 10:28 PM

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"Hard surface modeling in Maya is really HARD!" - hell no its a snap - but it looks like you have gotten the hang of it - some nice work there

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# 11 31-10-2010 , 10:35 PM

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How did you go about making that part up the top? With the pine cone kind of effect? I like that part alot, is each segment one piece of geometry?

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# 12 31-10-2010 , 11:29 PM

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Here is that part broken down for you. It's all cylinder primitives combined with a bit of tweaking...

The prop flows into the sides but I prefer the look of the tighter edge where the top cone comes in.

I know hard surface modeling, I was a professional surface modeler and Maya is a pain in the ass to make clean hard surfaces! Especially negative space like holes and notches. The geometry gets out of control very fast and the modeling tool set is very limited, in particular, poor axis control, and very finicky, limited, and in some cases just plain missing extrusion , beveling, chamfering, and thickening tools, and very poor accuracy. Fine for artists I guess.

I still prefer the challenge of hard surface modeling to subdividing to 80 gazillion polygons and sculpting.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 31-10-2010 at 11:42 PM.

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# 13 31-10-2010 , 11:56 PM

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Jeez its damn good to have you back!!!! I like the look so far mate...despite your concerns on Maya's foibles.

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# 14 01-11-2010 , 12:05 AM

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So if not Maya for hard surface which One ?
Modo, Max , XSI ?

Yes hardsurface is frustrating in maya... But with Draster Nex and some other plugins it's not that hard after all...

Good job so far... I really should get more into hard surface too. But i'm thinking of switching to another package just for the hardsurface modeling...

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# 15 01-11-2010 , 04:34 AM

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working on the bottom section of the stock...

--- I have a feeling that modo is better for hard surface work. It has a far more extensive modeling tool set, better axis control, better accuracy. That being said I have been tinkering with it and I find the UI combersome (.

I looked into Draster NEX and I refuse to buy it because of their greedy draconian licensing for one thing. I have maya on several machines and I am not going to have to buy humteen licenses to use it. Also, quite frankly I believe all the NEX features should be part of standard Maya! I used to use a few addons but they kept breaking or no longer being supported as new versions of maya came out. So I tend to avoid becoming to dependent on addons.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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