Dustrunners seeking space fighters

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

This isn’t a promise of fame or riches, and it’s not an invitation to chase a dream that runs faster than you. I just want to put the idea out there so it’s in the back of your brains.

Many moons ago, I started a sci-fi series called “Dustrunners”. It’s based in the year 2036, about asteroid pirates and their lives running from the law. About a year ago, the show was re-acquired and is now an “open source” concept, with all the existing content Creative Commons licensed and free to use and abuse.

One thing that a lot of the new blood has asked about are ships. We have about 8 models from the original series that people are free to play with, but no one really wants to. Everyone wants their character in their story/comic/short to be flying something unique, something cooler than the rest.

So next time you’re mulling what you could whip up in Blender to hone your skills, maybe consider doing a dustrunner ship. There’s no standard for contributing, it’s all free-form. I don’t have any over-reaching authority to approve, authorize or reward great work, but it could be that something you do would catch someone’s eye, and they might ask you if they can use it for their project. And sometimes those projects have budgets.

The Dustrunners motif tends to be WWII-era fighters, upgraded with thrusters, RCS jets and heat shielding, but with the wear and tear of a dusty desert jeep. There’s no FTL travel, no aliens, and weapons in space are banned, so the predominant battle tactic is to gum up RCSes with gluey ice pellets.

To give you an idea of the kinds of ships that we have already, take a look at:
GTR-1066 Marlan
F-422 Sapphire
SLV-03 Goshawk

A good starter for WWII planes is this site

Just thought I’d throw this out there while my kidneys are feeling good. If you have any questions, I’ll do what I can to help you out.

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I like your concept, I will have a go at making a sci-fi ‘dustrunner’ image but from my own imagination, It probably wont resemble your artwork! I notice yours is anime style, which my stuff wont be.

Great storyline and environment, I like the ‘gritty’ feel. Reminds me of some sci-fi I have read by people like Richard Morgan or even the tough world of William Gibson. Hey- probably just my ‘take’ on it.

3

Definitely go in any direction you like. I got information over the last few days that a live-action version of dustrunners is being made soon. I can’t tell if it’s in Finland or LA, but the concept sounds neat… it’s more Gibson than Whedon, which is different, but cool. The thing I love out the open series is that you never really know what brilliant ideas someone will bring to it… so yeah. Have fun!

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Hi ,

I have posted an image in the wip section…

https://blenderartists.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53540

5

Hey Leemur!

I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what DustRunner is…A show? Where did it play? Was it an internet show? What is it now? An RPG or a D and D type thing?

I like the concept!

6

Heyo!

Oh, it’s a long story that’s full of politics and passion and a lot of anguish, but I’ll boil it down to something digestable…

Dustrunners was a show that was made for TV, but the TV producers we showed it to all balked. So we got financing back in 2001 and turned it into a web show, with an ARG kinda wrapping around the concept while we worked on the animation. About a year in, some other TV producers took notice and fast-tracked us to a broadcast deal, on account of our sizeable online fanbase. Aaaand then the head of development at the network got canned, his projects were poxed, and Dustrunners sat on a shelf until about a year ago (or more?), when the rights reverted back to me (and the original crew).

I was told that nobody in the biz would touch the concept now that it was tainted with that kind of history. So I figured the best way to make the most of all that time, energy and money we’d dumped into it, was to just open-source the whole enchilada, and see what other people might do.

So right now it’s kinda complex. I still want to make the original series as I saw it, but that’ll take muchos time and financing, so it’s gotta wait. I know there’s at least one comic being made about the concept, someone else was making an RPG, and I got word recently that there’s a live action series being planned, but I’m not clear on the details.

So yeah. At this stage, Dustrunners is undefined. Anyone can do anything they like with the stuff we’ve already done, or disregard it entirely and start something new. I don’t really mind what happens to the concept, as long as people have some fun :slight_smile: