M4 Sherman Crab Tank

cageclaypool · Apr 2017

Dethling · Apr 2017

nice work.
The only thing which bothers me so far are the welding seams, they seems to be a little big/wide

cageclaypool · Apr 2017

Thanks for the feedback. I made most of the welds significantly smaller in this pass and decided to see how my treads would look arranged. I didn't go in and perfectly space them, this is just to see how they would kind of look. I'll do that with my low poly after unwrapping and baking
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Welds:
https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/i6/ehxo9tb7d6lc.jpg

cageclaypool · Apr 2017

New pass, cleaning up some pieces, particularly the box on the side and back and some floaters. The treads are gone and wont be back until low poly
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Zi0 · Apr 2017

The cloth piece on the turret looks weird and the way the gun in mounted on the turret. What reference did you use?

cageclaypool · Apr 2017

cageclaypool · Apr 2017

Adjustments to shroud,
tried tucking back the cloth to make it more seamless
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Changed up the sack on the side:
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cageclaypool · Apr 2017

Hard to present this, but there is my low poly exploded
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down to 23,000 polys, It's going to increase once I dupe out the treads and chains, but im trying to keep it below 30,000

Zi0 · May 2017

The cloth on the gun mantlet still looks weird, I would suggest to sculpt it or ditch it and go with the version without the cloth. Dont forget to add all the small bolts and rivets to your high poly! Keep it up

cageclaypool · May 2017

Thanks Zi0,
Unfortunately this piece is due for a class in a week and I need to dedicate the rest of my time to materials. so I wont be able to change up the cloth, unless I choose to revisit this later

My high poly has all the bolts I plan on using for floaters, I'm going to place the silhouette changing ones in my low poly

I've made my UVs: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fm/of6nimbky4ix.jpg
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The overlapped pieces on the left are intentional and are going to use a Weld normal Trim

CybranM · May 2017

What process did you use for the welding lines?
Sorry if youve written it but how did you make the cloth bag, just sculpting?

Looking nice so far but I agree with @Zi0 in regards to the mantlet and lack of smaller details

cageclaypool · May 2017

For the welds. Just Duplicate the objects you want to weld between and perform a Boolean on them. It can be a subtraction or addition, It doesn't matter, because all you need out of it is the intersecting line. Select the line and hit create shape. You can delete the extra mesh now. With the line selected turn on render in viewport and adjust the radius until it is desirable. You can the apply a turbosmooth, 2-3 iterations, then throw on a noise or displace modifier and adjust the levels until it looks bumpy enough. Then throw on one more turbosmooth, The you have a convincing highpoly weld. I have a script that automates the process. I'm sure you can find it or something like it by searching weld script.

The cloth bag I ran a cloth sym on a rectangular piece and manually wrapped it around some simple geo to make it look like there's something inside, and used elasticity to create tension where the ropes would go. Then I took it into zbrush and dynameshed to fill up the unnecessary geometry on the inside. I then exaggerated some of the folds and smoothed out the ones I didn't really like.

I completely agree with the problems regarding the shroud. I'll probably revisit this piece to polish it up a bit, but for now I really just need to move on. I'm hoping that an AO bake will make the strange way the fabric connects less noticeable.

anyway, I Optimised the UVs a bit more, gonna update with bakes and materials over the next week.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/r4/9tw4q020ii6f.jpg

cageclaypool · May 2017

cageclaypool · May 2017

Placing in treads, I'll do the chains later
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CybranM · May 2017

Thanks for the comprehensive answer

cageclaypool · May 2017

NP,
The first thing I've done is optimized the treads, The previous ones had champhered edges and used up about 50k poly, The new ones use 20k

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However, I started Placing the Chains and quickly realized that they are too complex to create anything game-ready
I haven't arranged the chains yet, only placed the ones I need. They take 100k poly, more than anything else in the scene, I'm going to start exploring other options

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cageclaypool · May 2017

New optimization pass on the chains: down to 35 k on the chains from 100
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cageclaypool · May 2017

Final Arrangement of chains:
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Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/07/8gmib4wz14db.png

cageclaypool · May 2017

First texture pass, sill have a lot of editing to do, mud needs cleanup, haven't touched the lights
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Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/2w/loc44ajntegv.png

Albedo: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/e6/91k4bc4v49nx.jpg
Metal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/xf/6kca626xfxiq.jpg
Gloss: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/rj/p7d960m5w7ct.jpg
Normal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fg/y7klb5uvz77f.jpg

cageclaypool · May 2017

More polished material:
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Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/qt/8dzluy7ck4t6.png

I hope you like WW2 era movie and song refrences:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/w1/0lddn8ff2cer.png

Albedo: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/09/z6z5zy1ghkww.jpg
Metal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/7e/4ltfypgkdh18.jpg
Gloss: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/65/2lgqvfzrnjmv.jpg
Normal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/hb/pj2em3b1bwt8.jpg

Buchananball · May 2017

The thing that really comes to mind for me is finding a way either through textures or presentation to really push your colours and material definition. Right now everything is looking rather matt and you could easily punch this up with stronger values & highlights. Also what are you using for renders? If not in engine, lets see it in-engine! All good work though, keep it up!

Zi0 · May 2017

A important part of texturing is defining edges, right now non of your edges seem defined.

Joopson · May 2017

The model looks good. No major complaints. The material, though, looks a little too dull. Could be an issue with lighting/skybox, perhaps. I think adding some paint shine, or bare shiny-ish metal to it could really help. The dullness is holding it back.

On another note, I know this thread has an "image heavy" warning, but it's so image heavy it makes it a little difficult to load and scroll through. Which means many people may not bother, and they may not leave any feedback as a result. Just thought I'd mention it!

Un_Delincuente · May 2017

cageclaypool said:

Im guessing thats your Metalness, AO and Gloss map (in that order) I think your metalness should be way more detailed and not so black, even though its painted, the tank should still have some metalness to help separate it from the grunge.

The AO map i can't even tell what you are using it for by how bright it is. I can see you are using some type Screen Spaced AO cuz you have some occlusion that is not in your map. I would tone it down and consider rebaking the AO to get that detail instead.

As for the gloss, i can only see it working on some of your renders but everything looks so uniformed that it just looks like its wet. There should be more contrast between the rust, painted metal, and mud.Rust being the least glossy, and mud could go either way, depends on what you're going for.

cageclaypool · May 2017

Thanks for the crit, I'll make those changes,
@Un_Delincuente
the second texture is an opacity map for the fabric that I accidentally included, It looked bad, so I'm not using it. I have No AO because of the large amount of shared UV space, Im going to bake one onto my second UV channel however, I'll update when I do that

Her is an update, I haven't addressed anything you guys have mentioned yet, I just redid all of the writing because for some reason my old one got deleted, with no chance of recovery. I took this opportunity to rearrange them into better places. I'll move into adjusting crit right away.

I'll mark my maps this time, lol

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Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/he/d7kw5ygugexx.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/n5/d7ps8ah142cq.png

Normal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/im/knbt8gt2r2k5.jpg
Albedo: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/v2/xtt8951xbaif.jpg
gloss: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/z6/feusqtau88gm.jpg
metal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/k0/e5qx4z7bzc70.jpg

cageclaypool · May 2017

I removed the clutter on my thread, but kept all the image links there, just in case you want to look at my process

I'm pretty new to polycount, I didn't add the "Image heavy" tag to the title. Since I reduced all of the images before I added materials to links, is it chill to remove the tag from the title? Or will a mod get mad at me?

Anyway, made a lot of adjustment to make the color pop, and the edges more distinct. The old photos I was using an overcast HDR, I didn't mind the desaturation, but here it is in a brighter scene.

I don't think increasing the amount of metal will help much, as tank armor isn't very reflective even when it's been damaged or scraped

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Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/uo/a0gx33okbxzr.png

Albedo: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/ze/jztdktqngpd6.jpg
Gloss: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fa/abb09l8l3d65.jpg
Metal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/u8/q9ui3hk3npql.jpg
Normal: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/zs/2izxwpgcddgk.jpg

Deforges · May 2017

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/m-sherman-tank-museum-american-armor-bethpage-new-york-may-bethpage-ny-71992370.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/M4_Sherman_tank_-_Flickr_-_Joost_J._Bakker_IJmuiden.jpg/1200px-M4_Sherman_tank_-_Flickr_-_Joost_J._Bakker_IJmuiden.jpg
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Awesome modeling. The only thing to me that's throwing this off is the shade of green seems off. With that being said, this is the perfect article for you with various color samples further down the page- http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article/olive-drab/4536/

other than that the base layer's roughness seems too matte, it may be a good idea to play around with that. I would also really fade out the chalk text to make it less noticeable.

cageclaypool · May 2017

Wow @Deforges , I really appreciate the swatches. Color matching by eye isn't my expertise
Here is my new version, I corrected the olive darb and added more variation to make it less boring. I made the chalk more worn away as well.
I also baked an AO map onto the 2nd UV channel, and added a muddy ground plane for presentation