Final Major Project

This is my final major project
i'd already decided what I wanted to do was to create a fully rigged T-800 with an Annie Geometry over the top of the T-800 Geometry that would be blasted away to reveal the T-800 underneath

This is my third and final year and after a fairly successful 2nd year Final Major Project I've decided to throw everything I have at this next project.

After been a massive fan of the Terminator and Robocop I've decided that I'd like to combine the two for an all out fight sequence. I want it all to be 100% of my own work every thing from building and modeling rigging and animating.

I'd like to start with a fully fleshed terminator which will be broken down to a fully visible T-800 Endo skeleton and will result in the two characters ripping each other limb from limb.

There is a tremendous amount to consider. I need reference material as I work best when I have something I can physically hold and look at so I have obtained the models.

I have to learn how to rig a biped, muscle structure, character animation to name a few. I really have my work cut out for me but if I persevere I know I can do a credible job!

I like this as it is something solid that I can hold, look around, see how the light catches it and what goes in what goes out etc.
NECA have just release a 18inch T-800 Terminator figure holding a lot of the detail and movement so I bought myself one!

The most important thing to get right is the head and face I've seen many T-800 models in my research and theres only a hand full of good ones. I want to be one of the hand full of good ones and am concentrating on trying to get that menacing look the T-800 has rather than the cheesy grins some of the models seem to have.

Here are a few renders of the build so far:

I've thought about doing teaser trailer for my project and so far I've come up with:



I've found a very good creator of the T-800 from someone that calls himself dazzawalla. They are some of the best I've found so far and the models can be downloaded at a price which may be a worth while investment on completion of this project.

Examples below:

I'm a little further along now but it's so hard just trying to give the terminator that mean sadistic look rather than look like he's grinning!

I've refined a few more bits of him and done part of the neck. Here is a colour version:

Just a few more to show his development:

Just a little bit further along now without too much hassle:









I've just spent the best part of 6 hours just building 4 fingers of the hand and it's a lot more tedious than it looks!
Here's what 6 hours looks like so far just the thumb and then cleaning up:

Finished the thumb tonight!



I've leaned how to make a working piston and just did a quick video to show the two pistons either side of the neck working.

I've made quite a bit of headway now finishing most of the Endo Skeletons basic shape all he needs doing now is some refining and tweaking here and there to try to get him to look almost screen perfect!

I've not really done much on this project recently due to starting back at college and having to concentrate on my other briefs but since this will be for my final major then alot more will be happening with it after Christmas!

What I have done was just a little play with how best to rig the T-800. The animation is very sketchy and shouldn't be judged on the animation itself just what moves and that the pistons will work with the rig.

I've signed up to a terminator forum to hopefully help me with some bits of detail I may miss and to give me some constructive criticism:

It's been bugging me for a while how to rig the various cables so that the move where i want them to without colliding
after looking up and doing these 3 tutorials non of which are really any good to me









but after doing a Character Rig Tutorial I discovered that you could manipulate the vertex
using clusters you can convert A geometry namely in this case the Cable to a wire tool
Tutorial below


then using Set driven keys and using the cluster handles you can control where the cable moves like in the example below




I decided that the T-800 arm is going to be among one of the hardest things to rig up
I've been giving lots of thought as to how to rig the components to work together so i've had a go at it and created a small animation of roughly how I want things to work


I began Subdividing the head and here's what I have so far (clay view for better detail)



I've been giving some thought to how I'd like to Present this as a final projects as well as the final image sequence i did consider doing a hologram with the Arnie mesh progressing into the T-800 mesh
something simpler to


But what may be a better idea is to
use a relatively new concept called 3d printing that takes your 3D Maya .obj file and creates an actual model of it

like in the example below

Looks like ive been dropped in it a little and this is no longer allowed to be used for my FMP so will have to be put on hold until I Graduate in June
hopfully this can be resumed asap