Eric2575 Posted April 9, 2008 Posted April 9, 2008 Started with an experiment on making a tank tread... Quote
Admin Rodney Posted April 9, 2008 Admin Posted April 9, 2008 Nice Eric! How much of it is splines/images? (Can we get a wireframe view?) Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 9, 2008 Author Posted April 9, 2008 Thanks Rodney. There is just one temporary decal on the treads, nothing else. 7120 patches so far, mostly in the treads, wheels, and bolts. Quote
nimblepix Posted April 9, 2008 Posted April 9, 2008 Man, I hate drooling on my keyboard when I look at stuff like this. Nice job Eric. Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 9, 2008 Author Posted April 9, 2008 Hey Nimble: That may be the nicest thing anyone has said about one of my projects Thanks. Quote
Admin Rodney Posted April 9, 2008 Admin Posted April 9, 2008 Thanks Eric. Very nice wireframe too. (I like the style of it) 7120 patches seems quite economical for that level of detail. Quote
agep Posted April 9, 2008 Posted April 9, 2008 Great work so far! I actually planned to make a tank before I changed my mind and did the Liebherr Quote
itsjustme Posted April 9, 2008 Posted April 9, 2008 Very nice so far, Eric! The patch count sounds very economical as well. Quote
Tralfaz Posted April 9, 2008 Posted April 9, 2008 Looking good Eric. Funny how an experiment can lead into a full project.... Really nice use of splines. Al Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 9, 2008 Author Posted April 9, 2008 Thanks for all the positive comments, I really appreciate it. I've got just this small update for now and then you won't see anything until after the weekend cause I'm leaving town till then. I do intend to spen a lot more time fully detailing this tank and blowing the spline count on that. Full texturing will follow. Stay tuned p.s. The opening in the cannon barrel is all splines and was a real pain to do - that's why only such a small progression. Quote
Pesto Posted April 9, 2008 Posted April 9, 2008 Reallt great stuff. What kind of lighting did you use? Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 10, 2008 Author Posted April 10, 2008 Lighting is AO with one key light casting shadows. See Al's description on the lighting setup in his post: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=31838&hl= Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 16, 2008 Author Posted April 16, 2008 A bit more detail added. I really admire people who can speed model. Quote
Fuchur Posted April 16, 2008 Posted April 16, 2008 Looks very nice... The only critique: The muzzle is too rounded, compared to the rest. It looks catoony. (Try to manipulate the bias-handlers). Other than that: Very nice details and very realistic modelling *Fuchur* Quote
Jeetman Posted April 16, 2008 Posted April 16, 2008 WOW Eric! That looks excellent. Can't wait to see it textured. Great job!!! I envy you, Al, Ian and anyone with exceptional modeling skills. George Quote
dre4mer Posted April 16, 2008 Posted April 16, 2008 Niiiice detail additions!!! Beautiful modeling! -Ethan Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted April 16, 2008 Hash Fellow Posted April 16, 2008 That's looking fine! What is the function of that long cord that runs back and forth along the side? Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 16, 2008 Author Posted April 16, 2008 Thanks for the comments, they are always appreciated. Robcat, that chord is a steel braided cable used for pulling other vehicles out of any muck they might get into. The tank will have another bigger cable on the top plate for pulling itself out of trouble. Here is another update. As you can see, everything is splines. I know I could have used cookie cut decals for the grilles, but I wanted to see the depth only modeling can provide. Quote
agep Posted April 17, 2008 Posted April 17, 2008 Really great progress! How are you planning to texture this metalmonster? Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 17, 2008 Author Posted April 17, 2008 Well, I'm almost done with the details. Gotta go out of town again this weekend, so prolly no updates till after I get back. I do have this one though. Stian - planning? What's "planning?" This is all off the cuff. But, if you have some advice on texturing, I'm listening Well, I thought I'd start with a base color attribute and decal the rest. Seriously, if you'd share how you did that terriffic texturing job on your Cat, we'd all learn something. Quote
Xtaz Posted April 17, 2008 Posted April 17, 2008 GREAT ....I said GREAT model Eric !!!! impressive work in details... Quote
agep Posted April 18, 2008 Posted April 18, 2008 Well, I thought I'd start with a base color attribute and decal the rest.Thats pretty much how I did it too Though, since the paint material is reflective I had to add a reflective map on the dirt, and bump map Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 18, 2008 Author Posted April 18, 2008 Thanks for the encouraging comments guys! I just ran into a little problem that has been discussed on the forum before - putting a value into the reflectivity attribute will give you all or nothing. Putting in only 5% will give me 100% reflectivity with no way to tone it down. Does anyone remember what the fix is for that? Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 18, 2008 Author Posted April 18, 2008 As a matter of fact, I did have soft R turned on at that time and have since turned them off. Tell me more about the issue noober. Here is my latest update before heading out of town for the weekend. I will dirty it up when I get back. I'm also not sure about the barbed wire - saw it on a reference pic and it looked pretty wicked, just not sure about how it looks on my model. Well, its a WIP after all. Quote
JohnArtbox Posted April 19, 2008 Posted April 19, 2008 This is becoming pretty spectacular Eric....are you planning on giving Stian a run for his money? Quote
Admin Rodney Posted April 20, 2008 Admin Posted April 20, 2008 Your work is impressive as is but looking back at your initial post confirms it. You've really put a lot of work into this. Great attention to detail. (I'm 50/50 on the barbed wire... sorry... no help there from me!) Quote
noober Posted April 20, 2008 Posted April 20, 2008 As a matter of fact, I did have soft R turned on at that time and have since turned them off. Tell me more about the issue noober. I have had probs before with reflections. The culprit for me was 2 things. Soft reflections were causing patches next to each other be different color. The other thing i found was objects that had no reflection needed to be set, reflectivity to 0%. This was causing things that had no reflections set render like a mirror. Hope this helps. Quote
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted April 20, 2008 Hash Fellow Posted April 20, 2008 Are there bevels on the corners of the major shapes? They look a bit severe. Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 20, 2008 Author Posted April 20, 2008 John, if anything, I'm grateful for Stian to keep encouraging me and everyone else with his fantastic work. Rodney, the barbed wire may look better once I dirty up the tank. It may go in the end, but for now, I'm gonna try and work with it. Noober, thanks for your input on the reflection issues. I haven't tried reflections with soft turned off, but will do so once I get back home. Robcat, you guessed right, no bevels on the major shapes. I did that on purpose in the beginning because I really did not expect this WIP to evolve as it has, and now I may have to go back and bevel them - not a big deal since the major shapes are pretty simple geometry. Once I get done with the texturing, I want the tank to look like it went through hell and back. Quote
williamgaylord Posted April 22, 2008 Posted April 22, 2008 Wow! Nice work! Started with an experiment on making a tank tread... Have you tried rigging a tank tread for animation yet? I've not tried rigging a tank tread, but I wonder if attaching bones to a Path Constraint is the most straightforward approach. You could even animate the shape of the path to animate the track suspension as it follows the terrain. I'm sure somebody on this forum has done this sort of thing. Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 22, 2008 Author Posted April 22, 2008 I haven't tried rigging the tracks yet, but imagine it would involve a bone for every link? 93 links per side...Well, you gave me food for thought. I haven't had a lot of time lately to spend on texturing, but I do have this update. This is just the basic color and some cammuflage. Still got a lot of dirtying up to do. Stian rigged the tracks for his little robot a couple of years back. I'll do a search and see if I can get some insights from that. Stian, if you read this, did you use a bone for each link? Quote
agep Posted April 22, 2008 Posted April 22, 2008 Stian rigged the tracks for his little robot a couple of years back. I'll do a search and see if I can get some insights from that. Stian, if you read this, did you use a bone for each link?Here is a link to the thread from the guy that made and rigged a bikechain which I used for the belts on the robot Bike chain Quote
Tralfaz Posted April 22, 2008 Posted April 22, 2008 Good grief Eric. It's been a while since I looked in on this project, and it absolutely amazing! Al. Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 23, 2008 Author Posted April 23, 2008 Thanks Al. Here is one more render. I need to leave town again, so I don't have a lot of time to grunge it up right now. Quote
nino banano Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 it`s a great model Eric, I like it so much...very detailed...congrats... Quote
jason1025 Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 Very nice work, some of the best I have seen. I just recently learned of to render my models with that realisitc Ambient Occlusion look. After someone gave me some simple settings it was easy. My question to you is, how did you combine Ambient Occlusion with lights? When I try that things always start to blow out to white. Can you help point me in the right direction? or pass on your specific setting for the render above? Or maybe pass along the steps plus the project with the chor minus your awsome model but with a primitive or something? You can see the model I am working on , on the cover page of my site. Thanks Best regards Jason@hdjibguy.com www.hdjibguy.com Quote
Jeetman Posted April 23, 2008 Posted April 23, 2008 MAN!! That is looking awesome!!! The detail is fantastic! Exceptional work Eric!!! George Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 23, 2008 Author Posted April 23, 2008 I guess I must be getting a little better at modeling since you guys seem to like this tank, or maybe it's just because this is a big machine that can go boom? Just kidding. I really do appreciate everyone stopping by and keeping my enthusiasm up with this project, thank you. Jason, I'll post my lighting settings later on tonight. Right now I am out the door for another trip to LA. It's pretty straight forward, but there are a couple of pointers I can give you. You guys must be getting tired of updates by now, but I did put a little more rust and impact spots on the tank. Still not done, but getting really close. I'll be out of town for about 2 weeks without AM, so this will be the last update until then. When I come back, I will finish the tank and post a 360 flyaround. Quote
Eric2575 Posted April 24, 2008 Author Posted April 24, 2008 Jason: Ok, I'm in Los Angeles and have a few minutes to spare. I am writing this on my friend's computer, so no AM to check anything with. My AO settings are pretty straight forward. I chose AO in the chor settings with 100% illumination and 100% AO. The only light that is left on is the key light but it's turned down to about 30%. Enable shadows on the keylight with 100% shade and two passes. Now when you put any model in this chor setup, it will look washed out in the shaded mode, to the point of where you may have a hard time seeing any detail, but as soon as you render, it will look fine. It will be easier to position the model if you enable shaded wireframe view. Test the setup with a quick render. I am certainly no expert on this, but I noticed that AO will not give a lot of specular hi-lights, so I turned up specularity pretty high on my model to get it to look right. It's actually still too low, but it's not finished yet. I hope that helps. Start a new post and let us see the results of you AO renders. Quote
jason1025 Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Hi Eric I live in LA. How long are you visiting for? we could get together for lunch, I would like to pick your brain about AM. Thanks for the reply Jason@hdjibguy.com Quote
bentothemax Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 I think that the barbed wire would look really good ... but right now it only looks like normal wire. I think a good solution to get it to look more jagged (don't know how it was made back then) but perhaps making the razors a low patch then using sweeper to duplicate them along the wire. They could even be simple 2 patch models if you made them not have any thickness, and I think that would make the wire look much better Other than that .... Great model! It looks really good. I am looking forward to seeing it finished ( or rather destroyed ) when you are done dirtying it up. Ben Quote
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