Hellfire Missile-Week Off School Project

spectre1130

So I'm doing a little project for my portfolio while off school. I decided to do something somewhat straightforward as I've not modeled in about 3 months. This last semester I was learning Adobe Flash and such. Anyhow, I bases the model off a blueprint from The-Blueprints.com , and a few other pics of real or modeled Hellfire missiles. I pretty much am done with the high poly so I did some default lighting clay renders real quick for review. The back side is basically freestyle as most pictures don't show the back end; if they do, real missiles have some kind of dust/debris shield covering the backside propulsion opening from what I've seen.

I want to make this game engine friendly as well, so I'm going to do a low-poly version for Normal baking. I have not delved into the whole baking thing much, so I have a few questions as well from more seasoned vets.

1. When I go low-poly, should I just make a copy of the high-poly and degenerate it?

2. Will the low-poly version need those holes in the thruster, or will the baking simulate that?

3. When I texture, do I texture the uvw's for the high-poly and bake those to the low as well???

Crits and comments welcome on the model so far would be great as well.:)

spectre1130

Okay so I totally reworked some pieces, and worked on the silhouette a bit more. A couple of the top clip pieces got saved with turbo-smooth still applied somehow and they had to be deleted due to not being able to remember if there was a way to un-subdivide them. I slimmed down the whole profile, shortened the entire frame, remodeled the front housing and glass enclosure, and reworked the front fins to be of a lesser profile. I think I'll redo the back fins to look like the back ailerons can actually move-though it looks like some versions of Hellfires might have fixed back fins? Let me know how its looking.

reverendK

the orthographic shots were making my brain hurt.

not much to say right now, though - it'll probably be mostly texture work what makes it look nice.
i do think some more thought and reference gathering will have to go into how the fins are attaching though. - and we need bolts and part lines obviously.

North

its still not much more than a cylinder.

Why dont you make something a little more challenging? the missile is a 1 hour modeling project tops.

spectre1130

Sorry about those ortho shots! I am definitely gonna get the bolts and seem lines done after work tonight. I think I'm going to maybe just keep the fixed fins in the back like the ref above looks.

@North: Since I hadn't modeled in awhile, just getting the UI down and hot-keys etc, took me over an hour. I would love to model the whole tripod thing or some kind of launcher, but for now just was executing a good clean model project to re-acclimate myself to 3ds Max. I want to really work on the texturing/baking/polypainty workflow. I will probably bring this into Mudbox for overall paint job, then PS for the decals and such, then finalizing the materials in Max for the clear front glass and "laser glow" maybe for the designator.

Aga22

you don't really need mudbox for such a simple and straightforward object... a clean uvw layout , save as file and photoshop it... programs like mudbox and zbrush are more suited for more "freehand" and organic objects...that's just my opinion.

what im saying is: dont overcomplicate a process.

spectre1130

Very small update. I added some "seam grooves", and small rivets but I can't seem to get the machine screw holes to attach correctly. I'm trying to just use them as a floating geo that render as actually being sunk into the main body. I remember seeing a tut where someone did that successfully but I'm having no luck. You can still see the body's faces inside the screw housing hole. Any forumite know this technique???

Thanks

North

just bake it onto a plane and alpha it onto the low poly. sort of a waste of time using it as floating geo because in the low rez model its going to be hardly noticeable.

Another thing is that you might want to exaggerate the falloff on the rivets if you want them to bake

spectre1130

@North, I'm sorry to say that even with my school teaching, I don't know what you mean with the baking onto a plane technique. I wish I did. I will redo the rivets, and make them more noticeable though for sure.

@Aga22, I thank you for the feedback, I'll prolly skip the Mudbox thing for now. I just don't really know how to make metal look like metal inPS.

throttlekitty

I agree with north, those rivets are too small to be readable, the geometry is barely visible in that last shot. Sometimes we need to exaggerate some aspects to work well in a game or a smaller display.

But to answer your question, you have enough geo for the rivets for a bend modifier (not sure what the max term for this is) to warp them to match the round shape of the missile body.

spectre1130

Okay, so after many attempts at the normal baking of those machine screws, here is what I've got. I think I need to bevel the sides more for a better bake, but let me know what ya'll think, good or bad please.