Soviet KV-1 Heavy Tank WIP

cmtanko

This is a model I did couple of months ago, now continuing with this model.. Before I start texturing up, I still need to make a high poly detailed model and low poly for projection.
This is what I have done till now,....




what you guys think ?

jordan.kocon

Could you please post some reference?

cmtanko

These are some of the references from web that I took..
http://www.kitsandbitsmodels.co.uk/images/kv1.jpg
http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/1100428/15791570/0/1286520570/1_16_Russian_KV-1_s_Ehkranami_Airsoft_RC_Battle_Tank_w_Sound_Smoking_Effect.jpg
http://www.hobbyco.com.au/images/stock/t56028.jpg

jordan.kocon

Well I think you have a good start. BUT... First off I think your wheels needs to be a lot more rounded, like 20 sided minimum, not 10 or what you have. Secondly I think your tank is narrower and longer than the reference, which is shorter and fatter, and thus beefier looking. Lastly I think you should make the tank treads sag like in the reference, it's much more interesting than tight, flat treads.

cmtanko

Thanks jordan.kocon , keeping those things on mind, made few tweaks... here it goes..

cmtanko

I think I am almost done with the high poly model. will soon work on the low poly model.
Here it goes, C&C please...

garriola83

one thing i noticed is that you used the same 6 wheels for the upper 3. that is not the case in your references. and this is also found in most tanks. the chassis could be a little wider. the machine gun turret at the front is much bigger than what you have in your model. good luck

DudeinCA

very cool model. will follow this one.

jordan.kocon

Personally I think it looks way better already with those changes! There isn't really much I can see that is glaringly wrong. Just remember to keep those edges loose so they back down better. Keep going though man, it's looking great

cmtanko

@garriola83: lol yeah, the top 3 wheels shld be different .. I was getting lazy last night, so thought of finishing it off that way .. well, I'll change it now, but for the chassis and the top part, I think its fine.. Maybe the reason is I look many references and all those ref were abit different in themselves... Anyways will be moving to low poly and start texturing...

@DudeinCA and jordan.kocon: thanks man ,, oh oh, btw, @Jordan , what does "keep those edges loose so they back down better" mean ???

jordan.kocon

This is your high poly right? Are you planning on making a low poly and 'baking' textures from your high poly? If so you need to keep the edges and your high poly wider and softer so they bake down better. If you don't know what this means let me know and I will point you to some tutorials.

cmtanko

Yeah, I am planning to bake it to the low poly...I recently learned the baking and texturing process, so not very confident yet... if you have some better tutorials source, that would be really great....

cmtanko

Took me abt 5 hrs to make low poly version of the tank :S.. Since the low poly is not intended for a game, or atleast I dont have any limit for the poly count. I have made it to 36K Tris.. Not sure if thats too bad for games.
Here it goes....

jordan.kocon

I'm not sure what the appropriate tri count for a tank is, so hopefully someone more qualified than me can speak, but I would say no more than 20k for a current game. That's just a guess.

As for texturing, here is the best tutorial I have seen, and it is pretty relevant to what you're doing.

http://www.3dmotive.com/training/photoshop/hard-surface-vehicle-texturing/?follow=true

As for baking, here are some videos. I am amusing you're using Maya? Most of these videos are max but should be more than helpful.

http://www.3dmotive.com/training/3ds-max/baking-tips-and-tricks/?follow=true
http://www.3dmotive.com/training/3ds-max/asset-workflow-series-the-briefcase-part-1/?follow=true

jordan.kocon

Also, of course those are all paid ones, but the polycount wiki, http://wiki.polycount.com/ , has buckets of free info

cmtanko

Thanks jordan for the infos. I have seen most of the tuts on the wiki and some of the tuts of 3D motive.. that is helping till now..
btw, true I am Maya user ..
I'll further try to optimize the mesh and later tonight will be doing the UV layout.. Lets see how it will end up.

cmtanko

These 2 days haven't been good for me, I was thinking of starting the texturing in this weekend, but here I am stucked in this baking.. Just going to and fro from low poly fix, UV fix and baking.. still not a good result... too tired,..
plz share yours ideas on how to fix those ..

SPYFF

Nice model concept and bake, but i see some missing smoothing groups in lowpoly-baked model.

cmtanko

finally, FINALLYYYYY after lots and lots of iterations, I somehow manage to get quite satisfactory bake.. I had to redo my lowpoly, UV and also move to 3DMax for baking, as the result from MAYA or xNormal dint gave good result... Thought , it was quite irritating , but this week had been better for learning the baking process aloottt better... I will still be using MAYA , but MAX just for rendering ..

will post some of the images later tonight, maybe after office time. see ya

megalmn2000

I don't think it's the fault of Maya / xNormal. You should assign the good smoothing group to the mesh in order to have a proper baking. The result of the bake in Max will be the same, as long as you don't assign the right smoothing groups. This should help.
http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap?action=show&redirect=Normal+Map

cmtanko

Thank you megalmn2000, thats a great collection of tutorials on Baking.. I have read some of them, and will surely check rest of them.

Here are some of the bake shot I ended up with (rendered in Marmoset Toolbag), looks okay but still not happy. esp. on the wheel, something went wrong :S .I'll still be working to make it better.





what you guys think ?

KartoonHead

The latest bake looks great. There are a few edges showing up as a little too hard, the vertical ones along the side of the turret and the lid of the storage box-thing on the side, for example. But they're hardly a big issue. Looking forward to seeing this textured, I've been playing World of Tanks recently with all the free gold that PC Gamer UK has been giving away, so I've gone ahead and added a tank to my to-do list.

cmtanko

progress going pretty slow , yet here is my final bake.. Will be doing texturing soon now.

cmtanko

I'll be going for this kind of look...
http://artisaverb.info/WG/KV_Render.jpg
this one looks cool

megalmn2000

Looks much better! The black gradient on the meshes are results of assigning 1 smoothing group everywhere. If you want a sharper look at some place, just click on the auto-smooth and most of them will end up good. But for more curved surface, assigning a smoothing group 1 is the best way to do that. Anyway, if you want them looks better, you can make another bake if you want. I'm pretty sure Alec Moody explain it better than me :
http://www.3dmotive.com/training/3ds-max/baking-tips-and-tricks/?follow=true

Timbo

looks cool, i think the rims on the wheels look a little thin but other than that its bang on.

cmtanko

megalmn2000 ,
that was useful again, I tried with 2 smoothing group, and the result was better... so , I am going for another bake again.. that shld help make it better.....
@Timbo: thanks man, for thickness, I am happy with it, except for the the wheel doesnt looks perfectly round.

Leodido

great stuff man
Would look great in Red Orchestra 2 *wink*

cmtanko

hehe surely it would Leodido ,

cmtanko

had been busy learning and doing the game level design.. Got few spare time to complete my old tank work off,.. here is the latest textured version... what you think ?

garriola83

looks really good but remember that you dont need to bake every single piece there is. you can get away with smoothing groups, especially is theyre not going to be seen so close up or large enough to be noticed. good luck man

cmtanko

thanks man... I never understood the smoothing group thing, maybe because, its not present in Maya or something .. anyway, just tried to make it good by hook or by crook... LOL.., I was trying to fix the specular map,I am happy with diffuse map, but the specular dont seem to be good for some reason, white but not shinny....

cmtanko

here is my latest , so called final texture ... I am happy with the latest one ... what you think guys ??,

cmtanko

After 10 months, when I saw this model... I dint like it hehe, so redid the baking and texturing once again... What you think about the new one ?

harricool

solid improvement.......but i can see little uv stretch near the turret which wouldnt take much time to fix....great job

cmtanko

You got me , Fixed that issues...
Here is the final final... C & C still welcomed, which might be helpful for next time. For Now I'll call it Done.

sipher3325

Great job. I just went through this entire thread for the first time and I could see your improvement throughout the entire thing.

cmtanko

Yeah, I know... with every project I do, I feel getting more better