Advance Wars Cruiser

ashleighmills

Hey everyone! I started a new project where I'm making the Cruiser from Advance Wars. I needed more hard-surface work and I thought this would be a fun challenge. It's also one of my favorite games .

Here are the sprites I'm basing it on:


And here is my progress: I'm going to have a low(er) poly version with a sculpt.


I was wondering if I should use these anchor chains. They're more accurate to real ships but don't look as much like the game. However once I do the high poly they'll probably match the ship better:

TrampledUnderFoot

If you do the actual chain links, I would make them much chunkier to fit the rest of the style. Right now they are very dainty looking.

Cool project! Look forward to seeing more.

ashleighmills

@TrampledUnderFoot - thanks! I did make them a little chunkier

Here's the base for my sculpt. I did control edges today. There are a couple parts I don't like but it's not bad for now. Now I'm going to add some wear--not too much though! Should be interesting.

Muzzoid

Why are you sculpting it O_O?

ashleighmills

I was thinking I'd go this direction with the sculpt:
Oliver Milas - http://cargocollective.com/Spatz/Beachtank


It still has that round, fun feel but with more detail. My idea was to be a step above the game's detail. I'm open to suggestions though!

Prtofdacrowd

That is fantastic, I love the feel of it. I think you could do an awesome job, just fly under the radar.... You know how much Nintendo like their cease and desists...

GrimFiction

If you put a cell shader on it, this will look even better! awesome!

Aran Anderson

Oh I like the design, possibly smooth the edged of the radar to match everything else?

Callesw

wooot. Advance wars on one of my favorite games. This is gonna be awesome.
I like what you're doing with the highpoly.

bigphun

What i find difficult about this concept/model is trying to reconcile the finer details with the overall chunky aesthetic.

You've done a terrific job with the basic shapes, but a lot of the finer details are just that, too fine and they detract away from the toy like style of Advanced Wars.

I would take some artistic liberties like like making those windows bigger and taller on the bridge and making the anchor hole much lower profile.

ashleighmills

I'm back! I started the sculpt in Mudbox and was getting really frustrated with it, so I decided it was time to learn Zbrush. It was definitely a little weird to get used to--I still hit the wrong buttons for navigation sometimes--but I really, really like it.

Here's my progress so far. I've been trying to add detail and some wear, but stick to large chunky details. I'd love some feedback! This project is trickier than I initially thought :P.

Sculpt WIP:


deck texture WIP:

David Wakelin

It's a nice deck texture

May i ask, did you simply make a plane subtool; texture that then repeatedly place it on the deck?

Kinda new to this kinda stuff too; so would like some workflow tips

ashleighmills

I unwrapped the deck separately so I could use a tiling texture. Here's what the deck UVs look like:



Hope that helps!

Ged

looks nice so far, maybe try get another shader on it, its a bit wierd in the zbrush red.

lishaleston

J0NNYquid

If you're trying to go in the same vein as the Milas model, I'd try softening it up a bit more even? Either way this is awesome, and I'll be watching with interest.

ashleighmills

Thanks for the feedback! Here's more sculpt progress. I THINK I'm done, unless I get some more feedback in here . I'm getting to the point where I really want to paint it.

ashleighmills

Baked the normal map and ambient occlusion... now on to the diffuse! I'd love some feedback on the textures so far.


wood deck:

Mr Smo

wow that kicks ass, nice work!

maximumsproductions

You're doing it justice! I can't count the countless hours in middle school playing this with 3 friends all day on a small tv. And after the gaming marathon your head just pulses with short snips of each theme randomly!

JordanN

One crit: Why is this part a totally darker colour from the rest of the ship?

Apart from that, it's looking good.

pixelb

Adorable! Simply as a presentation thing, I think the shadows should be a cooler color, as in the sprite.

swag

Pretty cute. Looking forward to more updates.

pixelpatron

This just makes the lack of a 3ds version all the more painful, thank you.

E_Hollaway

This is awesome, there needs to be more pieces like this on polycount, seriously love work like this! I would make the wood a bit darker if this were mine, seems a little too hot currently.

ashleighmills

You guys are awesome. So I worked on the lighting to get those shadows cooler, tried out handplane which is amazing (http://www.handplane3d.com/), darkened the wood a little, and painted the diffuse some more. I'm keeping that darker color on top of the gun for now--it just seemed like too much of that same green before. Hopefully I can wrap this up in the next couple days!

@pixelpatron - I know! The new Fire Emblem game is really good if you're looking for some turn-based strategy.

Progress:

DWalker

I wonder if the objects on top of the turret are life rafts - the shape does seem about right, but the placement is a bit... unusual.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Haha, at this scale, this is like a Battallion Wars asset if Nintendo did HD back in the day.

Christian Nordgren

Awweeeesooome! Made me inspired to do some spirtes->3d stuff!

oobersli

I think you have the wood tiled too much. also, its seems pretty uniform. Maybe change up where the seams are for a few of them. Oh and you have the ends of each plank lighter than the middle. Right now it goes light/dark/light/dark and really makes the tiling super obvious and annoying looking. You have a nice painterly style, just tone it down.

oobersli

oh and the thing on top of the gun up front, i always assumed they took inspiration from a phalanx cannon and just modified it to be cute.

Phalanx Wiki

ashleighmills

@oobersli - I toned the wood down a lot and it looks much better. It was pretty distracting before. Thanks for the suggestion! Also, I am pretty sure the cylinder is the radar that guides the gun like that wiki page says.

Here's the final render! (unless I get any more good suggestions in here )


redone deck:

tonysladky

I think your edge wear could use a little more polish. There's some really, really bright spots that keep drawing my eye to rather minor details.

The bright spot on the front turret actually doesn't bother me like the rest, I think because it feels like a highlight while the rest are in shadow.

The wood's also bugging me a bit, but I'm having trouble articulating what's wrong with it. It's not very noticeable from the main image on the left, but in the two on the right, the way the dark spots repeat, it's like… a stretched out checkerboard, if that makes sense. It feels noisy from those views, I guess.

Awesome work though. I went back and played Advanced Wars again just a couple months ago, and that game got brutal at times. I loved it even when I was playing the same battle over and over again to not make the one tiny little mistake that loses the whole damn fight…

ashleighmills

@tonysladky - Thanks for the feedback! I worked on the textures a little more and took new renders for a nicer layout:

SHEPEIRO

nice.. i think the tiled deck spoils it though... you have a nice weight and baked in lighting in the rest and it spoils the solidity

also you need to make the waves... as a seperate as it provides a nice complimentary colour that will help with the amount of green

also widows could do with a touch omore depth to them fake reflection/or fake subtle idea of an interior

EDIT - also you should avoid going too desaturated in your highlights as when they get lit you get a weird polarised effect.

ftorek

Looks cool - on thing though: I think tiling on the deck texture (diffuse) is a tad bit too visible - bar that - sweet

Selaznog

Aw yeah this is hot. 2 things bug me though:
-the cylindrical shape on top of the front cannon. I know you're trying to follow the design of the original, but I find it's just odd looking. It's also blocking one of the missles.
-the wood looks fine, but an ao-bake would do wonders on it. Right now it just crashes into everything, but an ao-bake would smooth that transition.

divi

shepeiro makes a good point in that the lack of different colors makes this piece less than it could be. adding some blue to the windows to fake environment reflections might help a bit and since you already took the liberty of adding that logo to the side maybe some color for there instead of white could break up the green as well.
since you already brought the color of the thingie on top of the auto canon closer to the rest of the ship you might as well make it the same so it doesn't look like you didn't "finish" painting there as it currently does.
maybe try some vertex colors for where the deck meets the rest of the ship geo to make it connect more to the rest and stand out less.

all those things aside - it turned out way more awesome than i woould've imagined when i first looked into the thread. would love to see more of those!

ASH50

hi, amazing work , you inspired me , but how you did the texture after baking the normal  
please step by step. 

ASH50

me blender + Zbrush