Over the course of 2012, we had a total of over 30 people work on Lunatics!
But there was still a lot to do in 2013. We got a huge boost from mechanical modeler Chris Kuhn joining the team this Summer:
Lead Mech Modeler: Chris Kuhn
Chris Kuhn has been a Blender enthusiast since 2009, and a sci-fi nerd since
the age of six. He specializes in high-poly mechanical models and constraint-based
rigging. He is the author of two books and the owner of “Kuhn Industries” on Facebook.
Chris also has an electronics background (with a specialty in RF
systems). He enjoys traveling, working on cars, and building
semi-functional gadgets with spare parts. Chris was drawn to the
Lunatics! project by both the story and characters – the idea of exceptional
people going to space seemed a tad more realistic than what you
typically find at the movies.
Chris currently lives in Germany with his wife Jessie.
Although many of the models for Lunatics! are going to be time-consuming to create,
the ones Chris has been working on are among the very hardest, most complex models,
where his expertise with mechanical modeling and rigging is basically
indispensable.
If you visit Chris’s page on BlendSwap (Kuhnindustries), you can see that he’s
done a lot of science-fictional and real aerospace models. He’s also known for his book
on rigging mechanical models with Blender’s constraints system — which is exactly what he has
been doing for us on Lunatics!
Chris knows the Blender constraints system better than anyone I know of! And his rigs really make the animating easy for us!
Animation demo with Chris Kuhn’s launch pad model
