MazingaZ in 3d

The most famous Japanese robot!

Update

30/04/04 Completed to 94%

Paragraph:

The robot

Click this picture for a larger version

Name: Mazinger Z
Year: 1972, Go Nagai/Dynamic Planning Inc./Toei Animation
Director: Yugo Serikawa, Tomoharu Katsumata, Nobuo Onuki, Bonjin Nagaki
Animation: Yoshiyuki Hane, Susumu Takahisa e Keisuke Fujikawa
Music: Shunsuke Kikuchi, Chumei Watanabe
Pilot: Koji Kabuto
Activation: The robot turns on when the Pilder joins to the head.
Driving system: Koji use a cloche to drive the robot. Some weapons are probably activated using voice.

Material: Koushiryouku . All the alloy is painted except: neck, crown, mouth and joints.
Weapons: Breast fire, Rust hurricane, Koushiryouku beam, Missile Punch o Great missile, Rocket punch, Drill missiles, Iron cutter, Southern cross knives, Kyoka Rocket Punch.
Vehicle: Hover Pilder or Jet Pilder. MazingaZ use a jet to fly, it's name is Jet Scrander
Friends: Boss drives Boss robot, Sayaka drives Aphrodite A o Diane Ace, Shiro is Koji's brother.
Enemy: (Dr Hell no Chika Teikoku, Kikaijuu, Youkikaijuu) Dr Hell 's Underground Empire,
Machine Beasts, Ghost Machine Beasts.
Notes: MazingaZ is the father of all the other Japanese robots. My Mazinga is the one that appears in the last episodes of the Great Mazinger series. The differences between mine and the classic Mazinga are: the back of the head is blue and the Jet Pilder substitute the Hover Pilder.

Technical notes

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Dimensions: points 49188 polygons 48287
The head has: points 7736 polygons 5131
Techniques: The body and the legs are modeled using the classic method of lathing and extruding faces. The head was modeled vertex by vertex because it's too complex to build using primitives. Using UV mapping I added all the textures and details. Ideas for the panels and writings come from modern military airplanes.
What lacks: Jet Pilder (at this moment it is too simple and it lacks of details) and jet Scrandler.
My biggest problems: The biggest problem was put pivot points in the right places. If pivot points are not correct when you move an arm the shoulder overlap the breast and so on. Modeling the head was quite difficult because it seems simple but in reality is very complex.

Animations

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MazingerZ walks (15/11/03)
I found a beautiful tutorial about making a walk cycle in Lw. I used this tutorial on Mazinger to see if I was able to use it.
This is an "avi" file. You need the Divx codec to see it. You can download it at Divx.com

Gallery

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	MazingerZ High resolution (30/04/04) A little present for you! A huge picture of MazingerZ of 15752980 pixels. If you print it at 100dpi you will get a little poster of this beautiful robot 4075 centimeters large. I'm sorry that I cannot make it bigger but MazingerZ textures start blurring if enlarged more than this. I hope you like it.
	A different lights setup (18/05/03) While I was setting up the light for the other renders of this pageI found this light scheme. It was very interesting, more dramatic and intense. So I wanted to show it to you.
	Skydome This is a very simple pictures to study the global illumination feature of Lightwave3d.
	Battle in the city Another test scene from my first animation. As you can see MazingaZ is walking in the street. The offices are empty. People run away when they saw the robots in the street.
	The defeat This is a test scene, not finished yet. A lot of details are missing. I'm working on my fisrt animation and this is a scene from this animation. I hope you like it also if itis only a test.
	Global illumination In this picture I used Lightwave radiosity to give more realism to my robot. This is not a simple render. It is composed by two different render with different radiosity settings. The robot has been rendered with medium quality radiosity instead the background has been rendered at maximum quality (tolerance 0). Doing this way I can optimize render times and now I have a background I can use with other renders in photoshop.
	Breast fire. 1024*768 Note:A very simple image done in Lightwave and modified in photoshop. Nothing special to say
	MazingaZ pool Note: Under this pool there is the Mazinga's hangar . In the frame you can see the original pool as it appear in the anime.
	MazingaZ Flash Years ago I found this image in internet. Mauro ventola, webmaster di Mazinga-world, was the author of this image in black and white done in Macromedia Flash. But the original image was mine! He simply redraw it in flash. So I ask him to put my name as co-author in the picture and He did it.
	MazingaZ's pool. New version. Some time ago I tried to improve the old pool render (see above). I wanted also to exercise myself with the programm Piranesi and obtain a pictorial image of the same scene. Here in the upper left the new render, down the image created in Piranesi with trees and people and on the right the pool as it appears in the original carton.