Blakbird

"Incredible Technic" Wallpapers

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During the course of my work on Sariel's new book, "Incredible Technic", I made ~150 high resolution renders. I'm pleased to announce that I am making these available to everyone for free at my Bricksafe account. Many of these pictures are 2400x1800 pixels in size and make excellent wallpaper images, or even look great printed. If you are one of the builders who has models in the book or are just a fan of Technic, feel free to grab a copy. I only ask that you please do not remove my watermark from the images and credited me if you post them anywhere. The images for each model are contained within the folder for that model. I've uploaded about half of them so far and should finish tomorrow.

The images fall into three basic categories:

  1. General images with plain white backgrounds and diffuse shadows:
    800x450.jpg
  2. Wireframe images for use inside the jacket of the book:
    800x535.jpg
  3. Cutaway images showing the internal mechanical and electrical components. These are the images that I am most proud of and took the greatest amount of work. Some of the reviewers so far have indicated that they wish they could have had bigger versions of these images to study the internals more closely, and now their wish is granted!
    800x600.jpg

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Thank you BlakBird, that is a 'commendable' initiative. If anything at all, that book might increase the sales' traffic on bricklink ...

Now, is it fair to assume that ALL of those digital models were actually built in real life?

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Thank you BlakBird, that is a 'commendable' initiative. If anything at all, that book might increase the sales' traffic on bricklink ...

Now, is it fair to assume that ALL of those digital models were actually built in real life?

Hmmm, good question. I don't think I have built every one of them, but probably the majority. I've certainly built the 3 used as examples in my first post!

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Thank soooo much will use them all on a rotation. :classic:

Just a question is there a way to down load them all easily ?

Also wanted to know are there instructions for the Jeep Hurricane ? Would really like to build it .

Ps building the land rover and beetle now :)

Edited by darksheep

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That's very cool Blakbird! Lots of great renders. I'm a sucker for the Avatar Helicopter!

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The cutaway images are my favourite ones!!! Blackbird thanks for sharing them with us.....you deserve a medal!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think you could fit any more under his name! But yes he deserves a physical medal

Also, does this mean that there are now instructions for Nathaniel's hurricane?

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Ah, perfect. These would be awesome for the collage I am planning to make for a while now. Next step, getting the color laser printer in the office to work again.

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Are the cut away images just 2 images of the same model, one of the internals overlaid a image of the vehicle?

Effectively, yes. I make two renders with identical camera settings and lighting, then I overlay them and reduce the opacity of the full model to 20%.

Just a question is there a way to down load them all easily ?

No there isn't. I thought about putting them all in one place, but I don't want to remove all incentive to get the book!

Also wanted to know are there instructions for the Jeep Hurricane ? Would really like to build it .

Can you give us more pics/renders of the steered hubs for the jeep hurricane, it could really help my on going project.

Also, does this mean that there are now instructions for Nathaniel's hurricane?

There are no instructions for the Hurricane, and as far as I know Nathanael has no intention of making any. He was concerned that people may not find the model up to his high quality standards because it cannot drive. If you want to build a Hurricane, GuilliuG has a great one with full instructions.

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Thanks I will look into GuilliuG's Hurricane.

I will be getting this book for sure !

I also think any one starting out with Technic again after a while should get his first book , it helped me a lot.

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I don't think you could fit any more under his name! But yes he deserves a physical medal

There's plenty of room! Some long time EB members have 8 or more tags.

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Very good work.

Are you going to make tenders of the Volvo from Marek and the Iveco from Lucio?

Would love them

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Are you going to make tenders of the Volvo from Marek and the Iveco from Lucio?

Would love them

This is off topic since those models are not in the book, but in general I try to make at least a few renders for anyone who asks me to. The prerequisite is that there must be an LDraw file of the MOC.

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I could look at this for hours. In fact I just spent the last 30 minutes going through some of those pictures. Especially the "mechanical" pictures. These could teach me a thing or two about how people did things. I wonder how you create them. First I thought it was just two images superimposed, but a closer look shows it probably isn't quite that simple. I also noticed that the wireframe renderer acts out a bit on transparent parts :P

I could only imagine the work that goes into this. I have made some LDraw files myself, but with nowhere near the detail of these ones, especially including all the flexible parts like wiring, pneumatic hoses, strings. I reckon the braiding machine was a nightmare to digitize.

Anyhow, great work :D

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I'm looking at these exhaust pipes and I'm thinking there is nothing Blakbird can't render (probably including hamsters, but then again, they're shaped just like potatoes with ears).

At this point, we should probably consider Blakbird a national treasure or something and keep him stored in a glass showcase ;)

800x450.jpg

Edited by Sariel

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In place of full instructions ... would LDR/MPD files be ultimately available? Granted ... all of this pending authors' 'blessings'.

Edited by DrJB

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That's a great idea! I've used the official lago wall papers for years but I really like these.

H :thumbup:

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I could only imagine the work that goes into this. I have made some LDraw files myself, but with nowhere near the detail of these ones, especially including all the flexible parts like wiring, pneumatic hoses, strings. I reckon the braiding machine was a nightmare to digitize.

The flexible parts are indeed the most work. In some cases (like Dikkie Klijn's Tow Truck), I literally spent months of effort synthesizing all of them.

640x360.jpg

I'm looking at these exhaust pipes and I'm thinking there is nothing Blakbird can't render (probably including hamsters, but then again, they're shaped just like potatoes with ears).

At this point, we should probably consider Blakbird a national treasure or something and keep him stored in a glass showcase ;)

The problem with hamsters is they won't sit still for the parsing.

I can't take full credit for those pipes since RoscoPC actually modeled them and I just rendered them. However, my proudest exhaust pipes are these:

640x360.jpg

In place of full instructions ... would LDR/MPD files be ultimately available? Granted ... all of this pending authors' 'blessings'.

Not from me. Any decision to release model files would have to come from the original designer. I don't consider myself the "owner" of any of the files so I would not feel comfortable releasing them.

At this point I've completed uploading all the files I created for the book, so everyone feel free to peruse and enjoy. I'm not going to pick a favorite, but I am very proud of this image of Teknomeka. Go surf to the full size version, zoom in to full resolution, then sit back and drool at the awesomesauce. The X-Ray machine was turned up to "barbecue" on this one.

640x1067.jpg

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