Pit Droid Ponderings

[savagecreature]

I got drawn off onto a tangent the other morning and started musing about the details of pit droids. I poked around in the films and did some screen captures to use as reference, but I thought I'd start a thread so other folks could contribute if they know of new or better information that I may miss.


I decided to start with the head. This is one of the images I captured:



Though the image isn't as clear as I'd like (I'm still using DVDs for my captures. Those Blurays are expensive!) it can be seen fairly clearly, I think, the slope of the dome of the head. Also, you can see that the trim piece around the outside of the dome follows the curvature of the dome.
Lastly, though it can't be made out in detail, it can be seen that the stuff on the underside of the head is a bit more complex than what is shown in most non-motion picture sources (books, toys, etc) so I'm going to have to keep searching for a good image of where the head attaches to the neck.



This image lends some idea, but it's too dark to be of much help beyond a general impression. It shows some other things clearly, though, like the ring on the bottom of the eye cylinder that's only on the lower half.




Little bit of contrast manipulation helps, but it's still pretty vague.

[kresty]

I presume those were all CG?

[lynellephi]

I always thought the dome kinda looked like an industrial lampshade. Or my dad's 1960's cereal bowl (which was very large), or an old salad server.
With some of the details showing a bit better it looks like the mechanics can be worked out for the collapsing of the head to the body via a piston system (maybe). I think the neck would have to be collapsible by folding up and down somehow. I'm not sure if it will be able to go straight down. Just some thoughts.

[savagecreature]

I presume those were all CG?

Yes, to the best of my knowledge (including talking to some of the folks who put them in the movies) they were entirely CG.

I always thought the dome kinda looked like an industrial lampshade. Or my dad's 1960's cereal bowl (which was very large), or an old salad server.
With some of the details showing a bit better it looks like the mechanics can be worked out for the collapsing of the head to the body via a piston system (maybe). I think the neck would have to be collapsible by folding up and down somehow. I'm not sure if it will be able to go straight down. Just some thoughts.

The folding of the pit droids is more along these lines:



Though I'm not totally sure the folding was identical for the motion picture ones as it was for the cartoon. There was at least a bit of cheating involved, but I figured I could come up with some mechanical solution to approximate the same result.

[kresty]

I always thought the dome kinda looked like an industrial lampshade.

I agree, its like "I know that shape!" sort of. But not really if I look closer.

[savagecreature]

I was tinkering with the pit droid again this morning and thought I'd post another image. Last time I posted the Clone Wars version of the collapse sequence, today it's the motion picture version.

[Techbot]

Hmm...you might be able to get around the neck fold problem by having the neck on a slide instead of pivot. I've been wanting to do one of these since I saw them

[savagecreature]

This image says it all, really.  As I've been doing more work on my pit droid design I've started to think about how pit droids move.  In this image you can see that not only does the pit droid's head turn side to side, but it also tilts. In every image or reproduction I have ever seen there is only one joint at the top of the neck where it connects to the head, and that joint is only capable of front and back motion (such as nodding).  I suspect they simply cheated the joint on the CG characters in the film to allow for more interesting animation leaving us to figure out how it might properly work in the real world.

[kresty]

I suspect they simply cheated the joint on the CG characters in the film to allow for more interesting animation leaving us to figure out how it might properly work in the real world.

Surely they don't cheat physics in CG !!!

[savagecreature]

In my continued search for high quality pit droid reference I ran across this image on the interweb:



Note how two of the droids have the underside of their domes exposed.  I didn't recall this image from the film, so I went back and carefully re-watched the pod race sequence.

I did find this image (shown here with levels adjusted to improve visibility):



but I was unable to locate that first image that prompted my renewed search.  My next thought was  that it might have been in the special features or deleted scenes, so I carefully re-watched those as well. In particular the Complete Podrace Grid Sequence.


This yielded some interesting images. The first one I ran across was this:





That one is actually one of the best I've ever gotten. You can definitely see that there's a lot going on there where the head attaches to the top of the neck.  So much so that it's difficult to discern. You can, however, plainly see a recessed disk that the neck attaches to which would allow the droid to rotate it's head relative to the position of it's body. That is to say; look to the left or right without moving it's feet.

and lastly I found this one in the extended 2nd lap, showing the underside of the pit droid dome in the lower center-right:



I did not, however, find that first image and I still have no idea where it came from, which confuses me a little as every or nearly every element in the shot is CG, so you wouldn't think there would be a lot of off camera angle shots popping up.

All of these definitely provide more information than I had before, which is always a good thing. I just wish I had them at higher resolution. 

Does anyone here have this film on Blu-ray? If so, can you tell me if images captured from the blu-ray version of the film are any higher quality?

In any case, the research continues!