Spirit - Steampunk Flightcraft

Nosslak

Hey Polycount! It's been some time since I posted anything new here, but I'm back with a new project. This time I'm making a steampunk flightcraft designed by Andrew Kim that looks a little something like this:


I've come pretty far with the highpoly and I'll try to finish that up either today or tomorrow. Here's how it looks at the moment:


I've still got some things left to fix as you can see, namely these:
- Detail the cylindrical engines some more and attach them
- Make a proper windscreen as the current one is just a horrible placeholder
- Make some engine parts for usage under the grid at the front (above the circular air intake)
- Model out the cockpit further
- Detail the underside
- Add smaller details like bolts and such

I've set a deadline of 10 days after the project start (which was last Friday the 16th) so I am aiming to finish it by Saturday.

Also I was thinking about how I should make the exposed pieces of the engine at the front for the lowpoly later. I'm a bit torn between alpha mapping and just modelling it all out (skipping the smaller grid). What would you guys do?

Anyways, critique and comments are very much appreciated!

skylebones

Great progress! It's looking really good and close to the concept. Can't wait to see more.

neverwander

So I'm guessing you're not doing a perfect recreation of the concept art? Cause the side louvers(?) in yours don't match up with the concept. In the concept, they all go up and terminate above the wing. And the back seems to be one large slope, rather than the three slopes you have it broken into. Just wanted to make sure you were doing it consciously. I know I sometimes get tunnel-vision when working on a project and screw up stuff without realizing it :P

Other than that my biggest critique is that the front of the cock-pit looks too low. But that I think is because the wings are too high. You definitely have a cool model, but it's proportions are a fair bit off the concept. The details you worked in are great though

Nosslak

skylebones wrote: »

Great progress! It's looking really good and close to the concept. Can't wait to see more.

Thanks!

neverwander wrote: »

So I'm guessing you're not doing a perfect recreation of the concept art? Cause the side louvers(?) in yours don't match up with the concept. In the concept, they all go up and terminate above the wing. And the back seems to be one large slope, rather than the three slopes you have it broken into. Just wanted to make sure you were doing it consciously. I know I sometimes get tunnel-vision when working on a project and screw up stuff without realizing it :P

I did it consciously as I tried to make the louvers to match up first but I couldn't really make it work so I just made them go through the wing instead. I needed the louvers to end up somewhere when they didn't terminate at the wing so I just extended them through to the back as that is what it looks like they do in the concept anyway, just at a lower angle.

Other than that my biggest critique is that the front of the cock-pit looks too low. But that I think is because the wings are too high. You definitely have a cool model, but it's proportions are a fair bit off the concept. The details you worked in are great though

You're right the cockpit is a bit low, but that is pretty much how it looks like on the concept. Lowering the wings is a good idea however so I'll try that. I'll also have to re-model the bottom a little but that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the critique!

Nosslak

Todays update:

I adjusted some of the proportions as suggested. Still need to make an engine block and add some additional details, but it's getting there.

I'll try to finish up the highpoly tomorrow as well as start on the lowpoly.

Nosslak

Here's some more progress:

I think I'll have to re-do the engines a bit as they don't match the rest of the ship in my opinion. I'm not entriely satisfied with the material definition for the painted metal yet so I'll have to re-visit that as well. I also haven't made any alpha maps yet but it's all coming.

I'm also having a weird problem with Photoshop where it suddenly can't render my layer groups any longer. I've encounterad the problem twice today when I just worked without doing anything particularly extra-ordinary. I am working in 4096*4096 so the textures are higher-res than usual for me, but I have 16gb RAM so it shouldn't be a problem (besides I am just using ~50% of it ATM). As it is right now my whole diffuse group/folder is unaccessible (earlier the spec was too, so I had to recreate it). I also can't save my file without turning off all layers because Photoshop couldn't build a preview because of a program error. Have anyone encountered this problem before?

I have tried messing around with the scratch discs, updating video drivers, restarting the computer and will now try re-installing Photoshop. Do anyone have any other advice?