Tronformer

[Tank Program]

Interesting to hear the actual sounds. I feel better for not being completely off in the wrong direction. Well, only a little bit anyway.

Combining is... heh. I'd forgotten about stuff like that. Can't recall really seeing anything that did that since maybe the 3rd grade.

[sinewav]

I didn't animate this one because it is too time consuming and this particular animation would be kind of plain. You can kind of imagine it just by looking at the drawing, very common tank<-->bot transform. I sketched over a pencil drawing using Inkscape then tweaked it in Gimp. This is also Transformers Prime style.

[Word]

I'd add some orange lines/windows/screens so it looks like the inside of the tank is outside:



(hm you can probably just use the stamp tool to copy some structures from that image on the torso)

[sinewav]

I'd add some orange lines/windows/screens so it looks like the inside of the tank is outside:

Why do you want the inside on the outside?

[Word]

thought when you transform a car you see things like the steering wheel or the gear box

[Phytotron]

Beauty.


Depends on the transformation, Word. In this one it doesn't look like the cockpit would be exposed at all. Do we even know where exactly that's located? Is it the domed part of the turret? Well, that's on his arm now.

Although, maybe there could be some little wires and stuff on the inside of the arms and sides of the torso, like there are on the inside of the legs of the lightcycle. And/or something on his chest where the turret popped off. If you wanted more embellishment.

[sinewav]

thought when you transform a car you see things like the steering wheel or the gear box

I'm not Michael Bay. I wanted to stay close to the classic Tron aesthetic -- simple shapes, lack of realism. You know, it's a transforming robot. Have some imagination.

Also, where is your Tronsformer? Why you gotta leave me in the cold like this?

[Phytotron]

thought when you transform a car you see things like the steering wheel or the gear box

I'm not Michael Bay. I wanted to stay close to the classic Tron aesthetic -- simple shapes, lack of realism.

Precisely--and not unlike Tron, for that matter. Actually, some of the G1 Transformers toys were more detailed than the cartoon. And then you have ones like Ironhide and Ratchet, which were nothing like the cartoon. See here.

Actually, the Michael Bay ones don't make sense to me. He wanted them to be more "realistic," but it seems to be they're overly complicated. All these little bits and pieces. I'm no engineer, but if one wanted to design an actual practical transformer, wouldn't it be more simplistic like the G1 Transformers?

[sinewav]

Actually, the Michael Bay ones don't make sense to me. He wanted them to be more "realistic," but it seems to be they're overly complicated. All these little bits and pieces. I'm no engineer, but if one wanted to design an actual practical transformer, wouldn't it be more simplistic like the G1 Transformers?

Right. I don't want to waste any more time in this thread on MB's abominations, but from a design standpoint those bots are just visual noise and about as attractive as a moldy book of expired coupons.

This would have been so much better: Optimus Prime 3D Animation

[Word]

Also, where is your Tronsformer? Why you gotta leave me in the cold like this?

I'm making something when I have a good idea, but I still didn't. I actually made a couple of drawings already but they're not really something I'd want to animate.

[Phytotron]

This would have been so much better: Optimus Prime 3D Animation

That's excellent, and totally makes sense. But, if it's white, it's Ultra Magnus, isn't it?

[Kinda Slow]

Now all we need is for someone to implement this into the game.
Hit the spectator key, and your bike transforms and stands over by the rim wall.

[sinewav]

And as it pertains to the transformation sound effects, they're downright iconic. Here are a couple examples: It's "an 8hz pulse, repeated five times, with each pulse lasting a roughly equal amount of time, whose pitch can be represented by the absolute value of a declining (for robot mode to alt-mode) or increasing (for alt-mode to robot mode) sine wave. In general, the larger the robot, the deeper the pitch of the sound, and the longer the duration of the pulses."

When the above was posted I got the idea in my head to try re-creating it, but just recently found the time. Yesterday I saw some youtube video of a guy making it in Reason (Propellerhead software), but he did all this overly-complicated stuff which surely the original sound designers didn't do. However, some of what he did was similar what I previously imagined, so I immediately opened up Linux Multimedia Studio (LMMS) and tried it with the Triple Oscillator synth. Not the best choice, but good for now until I get the urge to use a better one. I saved the synth preset and zipped it up along with a sound sample attached below (Note: some slight eq'ing needed to be done).

Roughly, it looks like 2 square wave / pulse oscillators, the first frequency modulating the second, with adjustments to offset either the period, or pule-width, or phase, or all, to taste. Add some noise (pink maybe? whatever color works for you). Modulate the amplitude of the entire signal with a square/pulse wave around 4 Hz (depending on how massive your robot is! ) Send the whole thing to a bandpass filter with some distinct resonance (again, to taste). Control the filter with an ADSR envelope, rising or falling (robot to/from vehicle mode).
250
And that's pretty much it. The bandpass filters I used in LMMS's Triple Oscillator leak a lot, so I had to run all that through a lowpass filter and take off everything over 10kHz. A 4 or 8 pole bandpass would be better if you can find one. Here, I'll try to draw the signal path...

Code: Select all

                         NOISE  Amplitude       ADSR
                           |        |         Envelope
                           |     ___|___         |          _______
          ____             |    |       |        |         |       |
         |    |            |    |  LFO  |     Bandpass     | Delay |
OSC 1 -->| FM |--> OSC 2 -------| Pulse |---- Filter w/ -->| Tight |
Pulse    |____|    Pulse        | 4 Hz  |     Resonance    | <20ms |
                     |          |_______|                  |_______|
                  (Period
                  Shifted)

[Ratchet]

I'm not sure if you guys are transforming a tron bike into a robot and adding sound to it, or secretly making a blueprint for nuclear warheads.... This is some intense stuff.

[PokeMaster]

I have to say, that does does sound really cool sine. I don't know anything about the technology behind it, but is there anything you could tell us about it musically, such as the pitches?