Yes, this is definitely inspiring work. I am also interested in hearing how long this took to complete. I can tell you were patient with this and it shows. awesome, is basically all I have to say.
"Yes, this is definitely inspiring work. I am also interested in hearing how long this took to complete. I can tell you were patient with this and it shows. awesome, is basically all I have to say"
Totally Agree with Alex Pointer on this.
It must have taken tons of patience and self motivation to do this beast.Totally Wicked.
Class work all around man! I'm in awe at the level of polish demonstrated in this piece. Everything from the design to the execution is top notch. I can't wait to see more vehicles from you in the future.
BenHenry, cptSwing, Drav, Ryno, Alphavader, Ravenslayer, Selaznog, Wrangler, Bek, Paul Pepera, Godzero, 3dcaspar, divi, shinobix, - Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it! :poly121:
dpaAdam450,brandoom, - I think I stated this earlier but it took roughly 2 months from concept to completion but that doesn't include the time spent creating some texture templates that I worked off of (grime, dirt, chips,etc). I got bogged down in the sculpting once my meshes got too dense so if I had moved more towards a game production friendly route I could have shaved off 5-10 days maybe.
JesseM, Adam - thanks guys! And thanks for the emails! kit
luke - you can be me right now so I can take a vacation. Is that cool?
Wretchedgoat, Enexus, - I've gotten some more requests for "making of" so I'll try to find time for that in between job searching and freelance. Especially since this community has been invaluable for me and I probably owe it a lung or two at the very least.
Xoliul - I tried to track down some earlier versions of my textures to see if I could show you a comparison of photo vs painted but it seems like I merged a lot of those layers to save space. I'll keep digging though. Overall, I actually painted quite a lot in mudbox by hand (especially chipped paint and weathering) but definitely relied on photos for added realism (initially to establish a look then in the end to add final polish). I admit mudbox surprised me with how nice the brushes were after setting everything up. I will try to cover more of this and also show the various texture templates I relied on in the "making of" section.
JordanW - Thanks for your constructive crit. There are some things you brought up I was anticipating more artists on here would be bothered by but maybe they just haven't posted yet or were being too nice. Regardless, I dig your work and respect your pov.
When you say "mushy", does that apply to the final baked lowPoly or to just the hiPoly? I personally feel that a lot of hard surface game work is a bit too perfect and clean, especially for military vehicles like tanks/helis because it doesn't reflect the organic nature, weld marks, human error, etc you find when observing these things up close in real life. Having said all of that, in hindsight I feel like I went too far in certain areas and the canopy frames/beams you mentioned were probably chipped too much in mudbox.
Your comment about the seams and bolts looking too soft is spot on. They were definitely all sculpted in and this had benefits but also drawbacks. On my first few tests I thought I could get away with this after baking down to the gameRes asset and sharpening up the normalmap a bit but the reality is, it's still not as sharp and believable as I'd hoped for. Also, I reached a point with my mbox meshes where I couldn't subdivide any further or the files became too dense. For future vehicles, I would want to use a better method here (maya and ndo2 for example).
Another good call on the color spec. I exaggerated the metallic attributes on purpose and it was more tailored for my maya viewport captures as well as the renders afterwards, especially since I wasn't using any env map/reflections to pull in blue from the sky. To make it more realistic I should have de-saturated most of it and yes, you're right about the real life vehicles being this way.
I'll try to respond to the rest of the comments soon and I apologize for how slow I've been but things have been a little hectic lately. I also want to re-iterate that you don't have to feel pressured to not be critical if there are elements you don't like. While I am proud of this helicopter there are definitely things I want to improve upon and address for future vehicles (or even assets in general). Maybe I can focus more on this in a small post mortem write-up for my site.
Incoming long reply to catch up on all of the comments.
First off, I need to give major props to Marcus Dublin - He helped me numerous times with software and workflow questions. Marcus, you rock and I still owe you one (or 10)! :thumbup:
Jonsnow, HP, lxenonl, Brygelsmack, solar, LukePham101, MrSkullface, Ehsan, Rory, Rockstar6, Isaac64, chrisRadsby, feathers - Thanks, thanks, thanks for all the comments!
polygon, konstruct, cholden - it's very flattering to me that you'd suggest that
Joshflighter - you are going to be sick of it by the 6th visit so be careful
Lonewolf - Around 2 months. I talked about this a little more in a prior post. By the way, I remember your weapon threads and just wanted to give you props for some high quality hard surface work. I'd be surprised if Activision hasn't come after you yet.
AlexP, Ageless - It was a lot of work and took a lot of patience for sure but was a great experience. See above... and thanks!
Nkonstantino - I wish I could as long as they promise to give me a free ride or two (or don't sue me when my design causes every pilot to instantly crash)
Alberto R - Thanks dude! Dig your bio shock scene from awhile back
BelgianBoolean - Just saw your sweet shuttle model. I need to reply to that thread
Yury, Dboy- Thanks! I'll make a note of this when I get back to that section
AlecM - Thanks man. That's cool that you noticed that. Some of my subtle touches get lost due to the busy-ness of the overall texture (which I'm always trying to improve)
Foreverendering - I appreciate it! I just recently spotted your project Junebug character on CGhub. Very cool design and execution on that guy - ps go Gators!
rambooze - you're very welcome and hopefully you aren't limiting the amount of game vehicle art you're looking at. There's a lot of great content out there from other artists to study and learn from.
dpAdam450 - I'll be sure to do that. Currently I'm still looking for full time positions that are hard surface related including environments.
Hi Bee-Bee, sorry to bring your thread back from the dead, but I just had a few questions for you when you have a minute!
-First, I'd like to know a bit more about those Mudbox VDM. I've never used them but did you make stamps out of panels that you just placed around?
-2nd : Really love your textures, the amount of details in those scratches are mind-blowing. Did you use a gloss map at all or was it all achieved by the colored spec?
-3rd : Are you still working on the making of, I'd love to see/hear more about it!
Lonewolf - Around 2 months. I talked about this a little more in a prior post. By the way, I remember your weapon threads and just wanted to give you props for some high quality hard surface work. I'd be surprised if Activision hasn't come after you yet.
Yay.
Great Job! It's...just insane...
I doubt that Russians will build this vehicle, such design more specific for SyFy of Japan in mids 80-90 (look at Zentradi ships). Buuuut, I'm appreciated. =P
p.s.: if any help with titles will be needed I'll be glad to help (i have some useful experience "Выдернуть шнур, выдавить стекло")
Just found this master piece, I can sort of see what you mean when you talk about adding some animalistic resemblance to this design in my eyes I sort of see a shark body. Very awesome design and like the rest look forward to more work and guides/tutorials you choose to put time and effort into.
Very good stuff, Impressive is beyond a correct adjective for me to use, maybe I should try amazingly stunning haha, but again this is a brilliant model and texturing.
I'll admit I didn't like it at first from a conceptual point of view but it's grown on me a great deal.
It's probably because the Hind is such a classic shape that it still works and stands out with modernisation
My only request purely because I'm curious is that it'd be nice to see a render with much less weathering. Perhaps factory fresh with some cool blue/grey (think Flanker in this image http://www.ausairpower.net/VVS/Su-35S-KnAAPO-2P-1S.jpg ) camouflage.
Replies
how long did it take from start to finish?
I think Mi24 is most beautiful helicopter.
You made him better.
Good job. :thumbup:
Totally Agree with Alex Pointer on this.
It must have taken tons of patience and self motivation to do this beast.Totally Wicked.
You could probably pass this off as an actual Russian design and sell it to the US Government.
awesome work, keep posting on here!
You are good at HARD WORK .
Congrats
dpaAdam450,brandoom, - I think I stated this earlier but it took roughly 2 months from concept to completion but that doesn't include the time spent creating some texture templates that I worked off of (grime, dirt, chips,etc). I got bogged down in the sculpting once my meshes got too dense so if I had moved more towards a game production friendly route I could have shaved off 5-10 days maybe.
JesseM, Adam - thanks guys! And thanks for the emails! kit
luke - you can be me right now so I can take a vacation. Is that cool?
Wretchedgoat, Enexus, - I've gotten some more requests for "making of" so I'll try to find time for that in between job searching and freelance. Especially since this community has been invaluable for me and I probably owe it a lung or two at the very least.
Xoliul - I tried to track down some earlier versions of my textures to see if I could show you a comparison of photo vs painted but it seems like I merged a lot of those layers to save space. I'll keep digging though. Overall, I actually painted quite a lot in mudbox by hand (especially chipped paint and weathering) but definitely relied on photos for added realism (initially to establish a look then in the end to add final polish). I admit mudbox surprised me with how nice the brushes were after setting everything up. I will try to cover more of this and also show the various texture templates I relied on in the "making of" section.
JordanW - Thanks for your constructive crit. There are some things you brought up I was anticipating more artists on here would be bothered by but maybe they just haven't posted yet or were being too nice. Regardless, I dig your work and respect your pov.
Your comment about the seams and bolts looking too soft is spot on. They were definitely all sculpted in and this had benefits but also drawbacks. On my first few tests I thought I could get away with this after baking down to the gameRes asset and sharpening up the normalmap a bit but the reality is, it's still not as sharp and believable as I'd hoped for. Also, I reached a point with my mbox meshes where I couldn't subdivide any further or the files became too dense. For future vehicles, I would want to use a better method here (maya and ndo2 for example).
Another good call on the color spec. I exaggerated the metallic attributes on purpose and it was more tailored for my maya viewport captures as well as the renders afterwards, especially since I wasn't using any env map/reflections to pull in blue from the sky. To make it more realistic I should have de-saturated most of it and yes, you're right about the real life vehicles being this way.
I'll try to respond to the rest of the comments soon and I apologize for how slow I've been but things have been a little hectic lately. I also want to re-iterate that you don't have to feel pressured to not be critical if there are elements you don't like. While I am proud of this helicopter there are definitely things I want to improve upon and address for future vehicles (or even assets in general). Maybe I can focus more on this in a small post mortem write-up for my site.
Amazing work, Bee-Bee! Very cool design and great model! I'm looking forward for "making of" especially about texturing!
Very inspiring.
First off, I need to give major props to Marcus Dublin - He helped me numerous times with software and workflow questions. Marcus, you rock and I still owe you one (or 10)! :thumbup:
Jonsnow, HP, lxenonl, Brygelsmack, solar, LukePham101, MrSkullface, Ehsan, Rory, Rockstar6, Isaac64, chrisRadsby, feathers - Thanks, thanks, thanks for all the comments!
polygon, konstruct, cholden - it's very flattering to me that you'd suggest that
Joshflighter - you are going to be sick of it by the 6th visit so be careful
Lonewolf - Around 2 months. I talked about this a little more in a prior post. By the way, I remember your weapon threads and just wanted to give you props for some high quality hard surface work. I'd be surprised if Activision hasn't come after you yet.
AlexP, Ageless - It was a lot of work and took a lot of patience for sure but was a great experience. See above... and thanks!
Nkonstantino - I wish I could as long as they promise to give me a free ride or two (or don't sue me when my design causes every pilot to instantly crash)
Alberto R - Thanks dude! Dig your bio shock scene from awhile back
BelgianBoolean - Just saw your sweet shuttle model. I need to reply to that thread
Yury, Dboy- Thanks! I'll make a note of this when I get back to that section
AlecM - Thanks man. That's cool that you noticed that. Some of my subtle touches get lost due to the busy-ness of the overall texture (which I'm always trying to improve)
Foreverendering - I appreciate it! I just recently spotted your project Junebug character on CGhub. Very cool design and execution on that guy - ps go Gators!
rambooze - you're very welcome and hopefully you aren't limiting the amount of game vehicle art you're looking at. There's a lot of great content out there from other artists to study and learn from.
dpAdam450 - I'll be sure to do that. Currently I'm still looking for full time positions that are hard surface related including environments.
-First, I'd like to know a bit more about those Mudbox VDM. I've never used them but did you make stamps out of panels that you just placed around?
-2nd : Really love your textures, the amount of details in those scratches are mind-blowing. Did you use a gloss map at all or was it all achieved by the colored spec?
-3rd : Are you still working on the making of, I'd love to see/hear more about it!
Thanks in advance!
and make learning video especially for texturing plz !
chapeau, kudos, amazing work here. now go bath in the praise and glory.
amazing job!
oh now i see that post u talked about
thanx man
Great Job! It's...just insane...
I doubt that Russians will build this vehicle, such design more specific for SyFy of Japan in mids 80-90 (look at Zentradi ships). Buuuut, I'm appreciated. =P
p.s.: if any help with titles will be needed I'll be glad to help (i have some useful experience
Did you actually have modeled the rivets on the surface, are they painted or is a mix of both techniques?
Is a beautifull design. Congratulations!
I'll admit I didn't like it at first from a conceptual point of view but it's grown on me a great deal.
It's probably because the Hind is such a classic shape that it still works and stands out with modernisation
My only request purely because I'm curious is that it'd be nice to see a render with much less weathering. Perhaps factory fresh with some cool blue/grey (think Flanker in this image http://www.ausairpower.net/VVS/Su-35S-KnAAPO-2P-1S.jpg ) camouflage.
An inspirational project, thank you for sharing
Dave
Great job, love it