Dark no longer taking model requests

Hey guys, after years of making models for the VP community with only some short breaks separating the spans of work I have decided that I need to switch my focus.  I would like to explore making models for games, specifically Unreal 4 game engine and I have a programmer (online) friend who is interested in exploring it with me.  My friend tells me he will have a lot more free time come June for UE4 for a more in depth project but he also has some time now to start a more minor project.  So I’ve been doing my best to try and make a big impact on the community and try to provide as much support to as many tables as I could while still working on projects of my own.  I’m trying my best to fulfill any obligations I may have made, such as, I did say I would offer support for the ramps on ‘Wipeout” a while back and now recently I’ve been approached on that offer.  It’s at a point now though where I feel like if I don’t make a stand and just officially stop taking on projects then I’ll just keeping having more work pour in faster than I can finish it.

I still would like to work on ‘character-type toys’ but this would have to be made a secondary focus to UE4 and progressing my 3D learning in general.  I told UncleWilly I’d make a few ‘action figures’ for a table he wants to do.  It’s hard for me to detach myself from a community I’ve been so involved in but I feel my learning is stagnating now with working primarily on VP stuff.

Things I plan to wrap up before making this transition:

• Creature from the Black Lagoon  – full 3D table recreation and sketchfab 3D virtual table tour.
• Jurassic Park – full 3d table recreation and sketchfab 3D ”
• Batman (DE): All major 3D elements
• White Water – provide organic model support for flupper (Big foot and mountains)
• Wipeout – mountains/ramps

The team I worked with on Gilligan’s has a table (not saying which one) that is about ready for release but needs some coding done before release and Michael has been super busy so that’s caused some delays there.

I also have another ‘how to’ tutorial for making ramps I’m putting together that shows how to make ramps using the Loft tool in 3ds max fast and easy, where as my first tutorial only really shows how to polygon model them.  So between my tutorials and flupper’s you guys should have a variety of ways to produce some decent ramps.

I also still have a couple of models I need to release like the Freddy head and glove and there’s a few other models that I started that I never got around to finishing that I would like to see completed and made available to you guys at some point.  I started a daredevil Bart model for example,  I also have the bronto crane base mesh started for Flintstones and some other models I’d like to update like my Frankenstein model and the skull from Hook.  So I still plan to do these models, just over a longer period of time.  I’m also supposed to help randr texture and optimise 3D scans of the Monster Bash toys at some point too…..so as you can see even without actually working on any tables or pinball ‘parts’ I can easily have my hands full with just these character toy models.

Having gone through this entire train of thought it made me wonder how many tables I’ve actually worked on with people and because I have saved all my resources over the years with only some minor exceptions I have a decent record of what I’ve done.  So I went through my resource folders and tried to remember what I did for each:

In alphabetical order:

(Odds = odds and ends like table parts etc)

24  – 3D suitcase

ACDC – Hell’s Bell

Bad Cats – ramps + odds and ends, some plastics help.

Baywatch: Life guard house

BBB – ball mouth aliens (still in process of updating)

Big Buck.H: Buck, Ram, Plastic ramp

B.O.P: VP9, plastics/ramps.  VPX:  Helmet, updated plastic covers

Bushido:  Roulette wheel  (For one of the spanish guys, never saw this table released on an ‘english’ forum).

Cactus Jack: Ramps, decals, Animated cacti, bumper cacti, +odds

Creature- wip

Darkknight – action figures (wip)

Fire Power 2: Gates

M.S Frank:  Frankenstein model

Funhouse: Plastic ramps and some plastic covers.

Genesis: Plastic ramps. (ICP’s version)

Gilligan’s Island:  Entire table in 3D

Harley D (v2): Street Light

Hook – Ramps, Skull, Pirate town, LED rope light, odds

Indiana J – Tank mod tank

JPark – entire table in 3D (wip for vpx)

JunkYard – wire and plastic ramps, plastic junk car wall, odds.

Kingpin – Did redraws for the 2 left plastics, ramps, Hotel Lex+ slot machine roller, odds.

Kiss (Stern) – speaker box

L.A.H – Crane, plastic ramp (pm5 flasher lighting)

Lost World:  ramps+decals, Baby Trex as well as some help with ‘snagger’

Mario (mushroom world): Ramps, Vuk cover, plastics, odds.

Maverick:  River Boat

Mustang: ramps

NGG: Ramps, golf cart, flasher boxes, slam ramp, odds.

Pinball Magic:  Updated hand model (re-meshed and textured),  Corkscrew skill shot ramp + skillshot collision physics, Tophat, Chest.

Popeye: Bluto head

Raven: Mechanical ramp+plastic ramp

Robocop: Ed209 toy, ramps

Road Kings: ramps

Roller Games:  Redraws, ramps and some plastics.

Simpsons (STTP Stern): Homer head, ramps, ramp parts, silos, odds.

Simpsons (DE): Silos

Metallica:  Sparky head model and some odds.

Star Wars:  R2D2 model

TAF:  Chair model

Taxi: Ramps, shadows, some plastics, odds.

Tee’d Off – Ramps, golf balls+box, volcano, Gopher wheel, Apron, wire ramps.

TOM – (old) VP9 Trunk

Transformers – Lift ramp

Jolly Park – Bumper cars

Walking Dead – Well Walker, 3x heads, bicycle girl, general optimisations to table’s 3D elements to improve performance.

Whirlwind – Ramps

WWFRR:  undertaker casket

XFiles – Alien Baby, Flukeman, Cabinet texture swaps.

I’m sure there’s a bunch of quick models I made for people that I never documented or never made a resource folder for but that should be the bulk of my contributions.  I’m grateful to have had so many great people to work with and for all the good times.  This isn’t a goodbye, it’s just an announcement of semi-retirement from VP, so don’t despair, I’ll still be around.  The last time I took a small hiatus from VP I came back with new skills and knowledge so who knows, perhaps I’ll find myself in the future focusing once again on VP but with a new set of skills.

On a side note, I could really see my interest in virtual pinball pique once more when we start to see a full dynamic environment with PBR lighting and shaders, but for now I need to explore other outlets for learning and practising 3D work.

 

Dark/Eric

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