Graf 3DCG in Maya - Burgess plans?

[bbrigham]

Hey all,
I'm new to the group as of today. Thought I'd chime in to mention that I made a Graf Zeppelin ship in Alias Maya, as well as a mock-up of the dining room/lounge in its early red velvet wallpaper version. It's all done, and I've run several renders. All modeling and texturing, everything, was done by myself, using historical references and blueprints.
If there are any venues for peddling it to recoup the time I've spent creating it, I'd love to hear it. And if anyone is interested to see some still images from the sequences, I'd be happy to send them along as email attachments.
Has anyone come across any comprehensive blueprints for any of the later Burgess designs? I was interested in making one of these next, and already have the Shock & Smith 'Goodyear Airships' book, but was looking for more to go by before I start. Any suggestions?

Thanks, BB

[Charles Adams]

Welcome aboard! We'd love to see renders of your model. Please post! :) You can use the attachments feature to attach JPG files. Just look for the "manage attachments" option at the bottom of the window you when reply or post a new topic.

Burgess designs? Sorry, not familiar with those. Can you elaborate? As to a market for the 3D model, not sure there, either. If anyone is working on a book they might be interested in using it as an illustration. You'd need to contact some publishers to see if they would be interested. . .

[bbrigham]

Hello Mr. Adams, hello all,

Well, okay, hope this works. Attached are three shots of the Graf from my sequences. Mind you, these are from hi-rez freeze frames, and in the interest of fitting them as attachments I've kicked down the resolution/size quite a bit. (all three total <1 meg) I have also made animated sequences of each. (along with other sequences for which I do not have hi-rez examples)
Both of the outside shots are also available as adjusted sepiatone shots. One might ask why the hell I'd want sepiatone versions after going though all the hassle of doing the color research. Good question, and I don't have an answer except that after staring at the color versions for months, the sepiatone shots look better to the eye. I do not know why, some kind of 'faux authentique' effect I think.
History buffs are going to rightly blow a few whistles, among them: tricolor fins did not exist when generator pod had been installed later aft of the gondola, same for portside propellor generator, and likely same for red velvet wallpaper. I simply created ALL the assets, leaving the decision to add or hide them later as pertinent to the era. The idea was to peddle this to a documentary company, so I wanted to keep my options open. Also, turns out there was not a step in the middle of the gondola cabin hallway, though one blueprint suggested there should have been. My bad.
(Never heard of the Burgess design airships? Goodness!) The story of American giant rigids may have ended with the Macon, but people at Goodyear were still hoping. A guy named Burgess designed several commercial passenger airship versions based essentially on the Arnstein Akron/Macon basic design, but modified here and there. Goodyear expected to move into passenger designs after the Macon anyway. The ideas never got off the drawing board, unfortunately, but they were beautiful. Some tantalizing plans and artist renditions exist. (a fireplace? why not?) If I do another one of these Maya projects, a Burgess design is gonna be it. Problem is, unlike the Graf, I have no original to work with, so there would be an unacceptable level of creative embellishment.
Enjoy.

BB

[Charles Adams]

That is a beaut! It should be most useful to anyone doing a documentary. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be too many new productions on airships. A few good ones have already been made, mostly using vintage footage.

There is one company I know of that is currently making airship videos (Atlantis Productions):

http://www.AirshipHistory.com/

You might want to check with them.

Nice work! :D

:cheers:

[bbrigham]

Hello Mr. Adams, hello all,

Ah yes, Atlantis Productions. I swept through their video collection as an LTA Society member, cutting through the list of titles with my credit card like a machete though the Amazon. Loved the Graf video (despite complicating my life with discrepancies between my model and reality) as well as the Rigid Airship Construction video. But I think it's time for a modern edition, yes?
Atlantis tends to keep to archival footage, and not dabble in CG eye candy. I was thinking in terms of the History Channel or Zeppelin Museum or something. But alas, no response from either.

Attached is a sepia version of the Graf Gondola shot.

Thanks very much for the feedback,
BB

[Digger]

Hi, beautiful work you have there. I think you might be interested in a site that offers 3d resources, I think the signup is free, and you can charge for your work http://www.turbosquid.com/
Also, if you want to do 2d renders, and offer them as prints that anyone interested can order in a variety of formatshttp://www.deviantart.com/
Both of these sites are well known in the artist community, so if someone is looking for airships, they will likely go there first (I did).
I'm a member of DeviantArt, and to sign up for the print service is only 30 US dollars, for a lifetime membership.
By the way, I'm an amateur filmmaker, and am slowly working on a script that will require some cgi zeppelins so I'm definately going to keep in touch with you, your work looks absolutely fantastic. :cheers:

[bbrigham]

Hi Digger,

Great! Thanks for the links, and keep me apprised of the status of the project. It sounds like something perfect for me. (I'm a recovering amateur filmmaker actually, so any technical specs on the film would be well understood and helpful)

BB

[CanisD]

The June 2000 issue of "Gasbag" from http://www.airshipworld.com/ (http://www.airshipworld.com) has several plans of GZ's Macon-derived ship, including a floor plan of the passenger compartment. As for what it might have actually looked like, perhaps I suppose one could borrow inspiration from Hindenburg, or various ocean liners of the era. I've seen paintings of the interiors of the planned post-war GZ ships in the Zeppelin Museum's book on never-built airships, but I'm not sure how much they would resemble what was planned in the 1930's.

[bbrigham]

Hi CanisD, thanks for the reply,
Good info. Wasn't "gasbag" a great magazine? It's criminal that it stopped publication. June 2000? Very good, I'll inquire about it. Thanks very much.
The Hindenburg's interior was reflective of the German Buahaus movement from the Weimar era, while the ideas floating around, as it were, (are puns like this illegal on this site?) for the American ships seem to be moving on from the Art Deco movement; not quite Modernist but getting there The artist renditions appear quite brighter, and with a de-emphasis on wood and heavier emphasis on modern materials and glass. What those materials could be is anybody's guess, I suppose. This ought to make my job easier but it doesn't, because I want to make this look convincing.
You're absolutely right about the ocean liners. That's probably their closest relative, so one might expect the interiors to be similar. The airship interior equivalent of the Normandie likely would've been less fancy-schmancy due to weight considerations, though similar in style.

BB

[Gil Russell]

Brigham,

What originally motivated you to do the work other than just to see what it would look like. Nice work although the texture map on the gondola needs a little work. Cotton fabric with aluminumized dope may prove difficult in a close up. Have you done any animation strings yet? It appears that the stills have been pulled together in PS. I've been messing around with After Effects which is another bag all together. Squids a good place to see if there's interest although I don't think airship models are high on the must have list. Now if you can come up with a story line and make it stick to a graphic style novel with animation squirts it might prove to be interesting...,

-Gil Russell

[Mike463]

This may be a long shot, but a friend of mine was recently contacted by The History Channel for an interview on the Snark missile (he was in the documentary for about 30 seconds, appeared on National Geographic channel).
With the 70th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster forthcoming, some of the more knowledgeable members of the forum may wish to contact them. It would be awesome to implement bbrigham's work into such a documentary.

Yours, Mike

[bbrigham]

Hey Mike463, how's it going,
(hey Gil, sorry I hadn't replied before-didn't get the ping from Yahoo)

re: History Channel: yeah, no word back from them yet. I probably got lost in the woodwork. BTW: for any Hindenburg fans out there: I've heard tell of other footage (than the famous newsreel stuff) from another angle. It's not as dramatic, but is apparently uninterrupted. I may hear more on this by January.
re: inspiration: I needed an assignment for the Maya CG class, and was reading Botting's book at the time. I found the concept of the lounge to be so hilariously cool in a Jules Verne kind of way that I had to create it in CG. When I learned that there were no undoctored color reproductions, I was all the more inspired. After that, I needed exterior shots to edit with.
re: gondola texture: yeah, you're right. The close-up shots I found of the gondola show it as pretty chewed up; dings, tears, glued patches, like an old biplane after a few crashes too many. In photographs the doped canvas looks wildly different depending on era, humidity, and the weather it happens to be visually reflecting. But you're right, it still doesn't look convincing. I admit that complex shader networks in Maya is not my forte', and could have done a better job on that.
re: reference material; found a great book on ocean liners from that era, and it's packed with reference material. So I think I'm good on that now. (just need some time)
...oh, and an errata: I was wrong: the Burgess designs were later versions (some military) derived from the earlier concepts derived from the Arnstein era. Though neither designs were built, they were nonetheless from distinctly different 'promotional campaigns', as it were. My Sorry folks, had to clear that up.

Have attached a new shot I composited together. Enjoy.
(I hope it attached)

BB

[Paul Adams]

Hello BB, all

I'm facinated by the fact that there could possibly be more Hindenburg crash footage. Please do keep us up to date?

Recently, there was an auction on Ebay for home movie footage that reportedly contained private footage of the crash. The film looked to be in poor shape and I could not afford the $3000! Anyone happen to know who purcahsed the footage?

Paul

[bbrigham]

Hey Paul Adams,

Fascinating. I wonder if that's the footage in question.
(are we drifting OT? Should we move to another thread?)
It's also interesting to realise how the media worked even then. The Morrison "oh, the humanity" footage is etched in our minds as the quintessential coverage of that event. Now we may be aware that Morrison (a radio man) had nothing to do with newsreel filming, and that there's missing footage from the newsreel, (cameramen were getting coffee, apparently) and may academically understand that clipping the audio was consequently necessary in order to sync it up. But the cutting of that audio was a decision someone made. Some critical seconds of history were cut out. R. Van Treuren devotes a chapter to this whole issue in his book.
Wouldn't it be interesting (if morbidly so) to hear the whole audio, and sunc up with some new footage showing the little "mushroom flame" on the dorsal section that all the witnesses had described?
Another revelation: the roaring flame audio you hear in the background was not from the disaster itself, but from a previous recording of some huge city fire. It was added in for dramatic effect. (!)
Will apprise as I learn more.

BB

[Mike463]

There is some footage taken from inside the Hindenburg from the Doehner family-

"A Miraculous Find: The Final Reel

Along with our eye witnesses' amazingly detailed memory, we were able to include another international first: When the Doehner family boarded the Hindenburg, his father took his 8mm camera with him. Miraculously, his film survived the crash almost undamaged - an amazing discovery and a genuine historic treasure.

This never-before-seen, original footage of the trip features side-by-side with professionally re-enacted scenes. The new sequences recreate the lavish atmosphere on board and help understand the shock when, out of the blue, the luxurious dream turned into the worst nightmare imaginable. They follow the Doehner family before and during the trip and are inspired by the re-discovered Doehner reel as well as authentic press photographs of the Hindenburg's last journey."

http://www.vidicom-tv.com/tohiburg.htm

According to the website, the footage has been shown on Discovery International.

I can relate to the Hindenburg disaster. I was at Ramstein during the 1988 airshow disaster. Stood on the spot Saturday watching the Frecce Tricolori practice, the solo pilot crashed there the very next day. Not a pleasant experience.

Yours, Mike

[bbrigham]

Hey all,

Just wanted to apprise everyone that I finally got my website up and running. So if anyone wants to see (albeit smaller) 320x240 Quicktime movie versions of the stills I posted, they can be found under the "Graf Zeppelin" category. Just press any of the six buttons set in a horizontal row to launch them. (3 interior, 3 exterior)

www.brighamanimator.com

...and any general feedback on the site would also be greatly appreciated. I'm still in beta mode, tweaking here and there.

Thanks,
BB

[Paul Adams]

Hi BB,

I finally had the oportunity to look at your site and have to say it is very impressed!

Very much like the layout of the site, it's style and, of course, the content.

The Graf Zeppelin movies are really excellent - well done!!

Paul

[bbrigham]

Hi Paul,

Thanks very much for the kind words. I hope you saw the improved 640x420-pixel Quicktimes instead of the dinky little 320x240 versions. I found I had some extra file space so over the past day I've been uploading better versions, and think I got all the Graf sequences as of earlier today.

[saultenian]

I absolutely love your Graf Zeppelin model. The texture maps are terrific. What program was the model created in? Would you be interested in selling me a copy of the model? I currently use 3dsmax v8. Any information would be greatly appreciated. All the best,

Christopher Harvey
London

[bbrigham]

Thanks very much, Chris.
There were actually three models made for resoluion purposes; one of the whole ship, one emphasizing the gondola exterior, and one of the interior lounge. All the models were created in Alias Maya v6, with the texture maps in Photoshop. I've got four main textures for the outer skin: color, (beauty) reflectivity, specularity and shadow, an overall 'wash', and then gobs more textures for specific things like the gondola, engine pods, clouds, chairs, wallpaper and tables.
I'm not optimistic that you'd be able to open it in 3DSMax, however. But if you can, and have the patience for Mental Ray like I don't, you might get better lighting results than I did. Lighting is everything with this project.
Sell? Sure, I guess so. That is, if you can open it in Max of course. Send me your email address and we can deal with the minutiae. Mine is bjaminb@yahoo.com
(.....and why hasn't anyone on the other side of the pond modeled the R-100 yet? Hmm?) :)
Here's a teaser image attached. This was one of the midsection color (beauty) textures, from 1 of 6 panels for the main body, less the fins. Image has been compressed a bit for uploading.

[Frankyboy5]

On inacurracy: D-LZ127 is one panel too low! It should be at the same level as GRAF ZEPPELIN and should be in black!

[bbrigham]

Hello Frankyboy5,
Thanks very much for the feedback. It seemed accurate in relation to the engine pods on my model, but I'll have to doublecheck and will get back to you.
As for the lettering color, many gallons of ink have been spilled over this argument. I'm not suff. old enough to personally remember the color, but all archival references and personal recollections point to the consensus that all the Graf's lettering was basically 'deep crimson' except the tail. All who clearly remember apparently agree.
What experience I DO have in B&W film stock (20 yrs) suggests that reddish colors of the spectrum tend to bias toward black, while bluish colors (to which the silver-iodide trends to oversensitivity) will appear lighter-gray than they perhaps would to the naked eye. I was always told as a rule to shoot 2/3rds stopped down in bright daylight (relative to incident meters) to compensate for this bias. But of course, that only made reds even 'blacker.'
But this is not an argument I have the energy to tag exclamation points onto. I yield to the historical, wide-majority consensus. Nonetheless, will doublecheck the panels issue just the same.
Many thanks, bbrigham.

[bbrigham]

Hello Frankyboy5,
You are correct on the 'D-LZ127' text issue; my text is one panel too low for the midsection. (nose section confirmed as okay) Good eye! I have made the necessary corrections.
Many thanks, bbrigham