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Max Steel: Netter Digital and Foundation Imaging

At Netter I worked on the show as a modeler, character rigger, animator and TD. At Foundation I was a character modeler and character rigger for the show.Most of the work for the show was done by Foundation. Both seaons of Max Steel were done with Lightwave 5.6 and 5.7

      Max Steel is another super hero type all CGI action series. The show ran for two season with a fast paced (to put it mildly) production schedule. I initally worked on this show at Netter Digital starting in January 2000. At that time Netter was working on both Max Steel and Dan Dare. The modeling team basically did models for both shows. At Foundation there are separate modeled teams for  sets, props and characters. At Netter it was just the modeling team. There were about 10 modelers in total (but sometimes less). At Foundation we had 10 modelers on just the character team. Later I worked on Max Steel as an animator as well.

    

 

Mercenary Pilot Concept Art

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 Merc front view

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 Merc 3/4 view

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 Merc side view

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 Many time model sheets would come showing a 3/4 view of a character. This typically meant that I could make something similar rather then EXACT. That being the case I would typically just model using SubDs. A character such as this might have to be modeled and textured within a day or two. Each has to be approved at several stages before it was used in the show (Can you say pain in the ass? )

 

Telestrator Concept Art

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 Telestrator  Completed

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 The Telestrator was an electrostatic weapon used by one of the baddies. The antenna would rise up and then fire an electric charge. Not only did I model and surface this but rigged it to operate and do weapon effects.

 

Female Movie Goer - Front

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 Female Movie Goer - 3/4

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 Female Movie Goer - Side

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 At Netter, modeling TONS of secondary characters on a tight schedule was one of the big difficulities about Max Steel. Each new episode introduced many new characters and environments that put a huge strain on the modeling team since we also had to model propers and sets. Most of the time characters had to be banged out in less then a day. Sometimes we could get 2 characters done in a day. Both of the Move Goers were an example of this. Keep in mind that was back in LW 5.6 days too.

 

Male Movie Goer - Front

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 Male  Movie Goer - 3/4

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 Male  Movie Goer - Side

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 Secondary characters like these didnt need the complex texturing that main characters needed. The idea was that they would typically be in the background. Sometimes secondary characters were seen close up. This meant that a more detailed texture had to be created for everything that would be seen in the shot.

 

Nuclear Bomb Concept Art

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 Nuclear bomb - 3/4

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 Nuclear bomb - Front

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 Nuclear bomb - Side

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 Typically props were modeled quickly and minimally detailed. This nuclear bomb was one of the exceptions because of many close up shots when an evil doer was setting the controls for a countdown.

 

Animation

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 This was a sequence of animations I hand keyed while at Netter. As usual, I modeled and textured many of the objects in these scenes. I also rigged this so that max could ride the rocket bike (Hey! It wasnt my idea) , pedal and then leap off. Not fun stuff back in LW5.6 days but not hard to figure out. I also did the rocket exhaust with some polys and fractal noise. The lighting was done using the marble texture on a poly.