German WWII Plane

Clark Coots

Hello, I'm making a German WWII plane, the Messershmidt BF 109.

vvvroooommm...

Low poly still WIP but once mirrored it will be around 12,000 tris. I can't decide for texturing if I should mirror UVs or not. There are some parts of the model I'm not sure if I should optimize more. For instance the canopy can just be one solid mesh and the frame baked instead of geo. Also the wheel rims I'm thinking of having just a flat plane instead of modeling the spokes. Not sure! Any input is helpful thanks for looking!

HIGH POLY:



LOW POLY WIP:

CyberGameArts

OMG!!! My favorite plane!!!
Nerdom aside... Overall it looks pretty solid so far. The only minor thing I have is that the cockpit looks a bit odd to me- the bars looks a bit weak, thicken them up maybe. It also feels very "connected to the plane", almost like its all one big mesh.

They bars looks very bulky and heavy which makes sense regarding the conditions and stress put on the cockpit during flight.
Anwyays, besides my little nitpicking, it looks pretty good so far and I cant wait for the texturing

VESIUS

Really nice, good job.. The bake is going to be amazing.

Clark Coots

Hey CyberGameArts, thsnks for your comments, my cockpit design is different than the reference you provided. I did notice majority of my reference was the design you've shown, however My blueprints were a different style so I went with that. Let me know what you think given the reference I was using for the cockpit (see below). Hope I can do your favorite plane justice!

Thanks VESIUS!


I'm considering modeling a basic interior... I'd rather not but it will look better... dunno if i can get away with just reflective glass so you can't see the interior

Progress on the low poly and UVs



and my cockpit reference

DWalker

It really depends on the maximum size and viewing angle of the final image. At one extreme, you can use an opaque, partially reflective canopy, while at the other extreme would be a fully-detailed pilot and cockpit. In-between, you can steal a page from r/c aircraft design and model the head, arms, and torso of the pilot in a rough blocked-out cockpit shell, or even just the head, shoulders, and head rest.

Clark Coots

ended up modeling a simple interior, I had space in my UV sheet for the geometry anyway so why not.

fiddling around with baking, and tweaking/testing the panel bevels. This is at 2048x2048 and I think it'll hold up. next gotta explode my geo and do my baking cage in xnormal

bake test:

Clark Coots

Xnormal normal map bake in Marmoset. no occlusion yet, thats next on the list, then some NDO2 love with rivets and such.

Clark Coots

back at this guy, texturing WIP, still lots to do

DWalker

The two main problems with mirroring textures on aircraft are caused by insignia and camouflage. Any text will appear incorrectly on one side; this is most apparent along the fuselage & vertical stabilizer. Camouflage was never mirrored on a real aircraft; this problem is most apparent on the wings & horizontal stabilizer, though even on the fuselage it can be apparent. Some aircraft, such as the example below, had entirely different text on each wing, although this was most common on aircraft in the 20s & 30s.
Note that it isn't an all-or-nothing deal - you can selectively mirror some parts, while keeping others unique. For a solid-color aircraft such as an IJN A6M 'Zero', you could mirror almost everything with only the vertical stabilizer and possibly the fuselage unique. For your model, only the bottom of the wings and horizontal stabilizer should be mirrored. I assume you're going for something almost exactly like this:


And, yes, I've mirrored things on my own designs, only to have to re-do everything when I added a second paint scheme. Now I generally set everything up for unique surfaces, aside from some small items (e,g, guns, landing gear, wheels).

Clark Coots

thanks DWalker. You're absolutely right about the mirroring. It's something I debated a while ago when I was laying out UVs. I foresaw the problems of any logos/text being backwards when mirrored. And my solution was to not use text. I am kind of wishing I had laid out the top of the wings uniquely. My thought process was I'm really only going to show one side with my final presentation, I am being more efficient with my UV space by mirroring, and finally I felt I could find a good balance with the paint job to where it can be mirrored and still look good.

hmm you're really tempting my to go back and re-UV and bake!!

Clark Coots

Bah couldn't bring myself to reUV and bake today, just proceeded with texturing. still WIP but wanted to get something in Marmoset for now.