Sherman Tank

ghaztehschmexeh

So I started this a while back, and got bored of it as I ended up learning a bunch of rigging and scripting stuff to get the tracks placed perfectly. I decided to come back and finish it properly and so I'm going to post my progress here.

Let me know what you think!

High poly:

ghaztehschmexeh

I've done the low poly suspension system, it's really high poly though (due to the amount of mechanical parts). I'm going to say it's for a next gen tank simulator as an excuse (for those who would appreciate the detail)

EDIT: Only just noticed a whole bunch of pointless loops on two of the wheels, going to remove those asap

waedoe

hey for those spoked drive wheel at the front you could use an alpha map and a normal and also alot of those smaller wheels could have less faces?

ghaztehschmexeh

waedoe wrote: »

hey for those spoked drive wheel at the front you could use an alpha map and a normal and also alot of those smaller wheels could have less faces?

Yeah I derped with the smaller wheels, I removed a bunch already. And I've never really used an alpha map before, how could I make it look 3D?

E_Hollaway

That render makes it look like a plastic army toy, and I mean that in a good way. That render came out awesome dude! I like the model so far, the back of the turret looks a little soft to me, like it was blocked in with zbrush, I would sharpen up the edges a little bit back there. Other than that, really solid work!

HAL

That highpoly looks nice, you got that look of the casted turret pretty spot on.

ZombieWells

I would go ahead and post up your reference as well. The tank looks cool, but yes it does look like a toy, and no that's not good. If your going to add color to the render, add it in a real way. I would like to see the rubber as rubber, the star decals/labels, the outer tread locks a rusty brown, etc. Separation of materials is key when showing off your work. It provides break up and interest in the piece.

ghaztehschmexeh

Thanks guys! To be honest, I would render it with a grey material on a black background. This is how I used to render my highpoly models (with vray) but since then I have moved to used a mental ray material. However, changing my render in this scene simply freezes my 3DS max

I guess it looks like a toy because of the colour and the high spec. The high specular was simply to highlight edges etc. To be honest I'm not that concerned with separating any materials at this point, I will worry about that when I'm texturing. Sometime in the future I will sort out a grey mat render but it's not my primary focus at the moment.

Oh and ZombieWells I love your tanks. I don't suppose you'd mind sharing your weld mark alpha would you?

Here are some of my references. Note that I changed the front differential cover as I wanted to do this one (and the diff covers from other models are interchangeable).

Oh and I hope the references show that the casted turrets ARE pretty soft

ghaztehschmexeh

Maps baked for the low poly suspension. Only took 5 hours to render @_@

imb3nt

This is looking really awesome. Keep up the good work!

ghaztehschmexeh

Main body low poly done and maps baked. Note the AO map is an exploded bake, will need to correct this later.

ghaztehschmexeh

Low poly done and maps baked Poly count is way too high, but I'll just bear this in mind in the future and continue on and finish this.

Clos323

this is coming along so nicely. great job.

ftorek

sweet!!

i really like the damage detail on the turret's body - it really looks like it's a chunk of heavy metal bashed quite a bit - that said - i think it looks weird that you have that damage on the turret - but not on the body which looks almost pristine, straight-from-factory-line-like

really like all the hinges and main hatch on the turret

keep up the good work man

cheers
f.

Xoliul

The turret is actually that soft IRL because it has been sand-casted. They don't beat this stuff into shape.
Sand-casting means the mould is made out of hardened sand (mixed with some binding agent). The mould is discardable afterwards. It allows for casting very complex things that would be impossible with a recyclable mould (concavity issues).
Back in those days they probably didn't bother with going super-precise and smooth on these turrets. As long as it's fast to produce, strong, and the parts fit it was probably fine.
Read this if you want to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_casting

Anyway, just brought it up because a lot of people seem to just suppose it's damage or forging marks.

ftorek

Xoliul - doh!! - if i'd look at refs i'd probably catch that - but it's always good to learn new things (even if it about tanks and forging methods

cheers
f.

CougarJo

Very nice bake Can't wait for the textures!

ghaztehschmexeh

Xoliul wrote: »

The turret is actually that soft IRL because it has been sand-casted. They don't beat this stuff into shape.
Sand-casting means the mould is made out of hardened sand (mixed with some binding agent). The mould is discardable afterwards. It allows for casting very complex things that would be impossible with a recyclable mould (concavity issues).
Back in those days they probably didn't bother with going super-precise and smooth on these turrets. As long as it's fast to produce, strong, and the parts fit it was probably fine.
Read this if you want to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_casting

Anyway, just brought it up because a lot of people seem to just suppose it's damage or forging marks.

I knew that it was moulded but I didn't know about the sand moulding process - very interesting!

Thanks for your kind words everyone

Snefer

looking really solid sofar : ) What is the tricount/texturespecs then? ^^

mospheric

Can't wait to see what you do with the texturing! Great execution in the bake

ghaztehschmexeh

Man dDo is powerful. But I feel like I would be cheating using this. So I'll probably just do it by hand for learning's sake. Below is like 20 seconds in dDo.

ghaztehschmexeh

Snefer wrote: »

looking really solid sofar : ) What is the tricount/texturespecs then? ^^

I am literally ashamed of my tricount because when I started the high poly I just considered it subd practise, I put a lot of detail into the suspension and I felt like I had to continue it on to the low poly. There are a lot of repeating parts

The bake here is 4096x2048, thinking of just going for the full 8192x4096 because why not (other than it will take a stupid amount of time to bake - thinking of installing an xnormal node on my brother's computer when he isn't looking :P) The tracks are a separate 1K texture. I assume it's easiest to have them seperate, I wasn't sure if it was possible to tile them in the same way otherwise.

Shrike

Looks nice, but 10MB images are ridiculous to post somewhere
Dont save as PNG, that will already cut it in half, and dosnt need to be so big
also you can crop

ghaztehschmexeh

Shrike wrote: »

Looks nice, but 10MB images are ridiculous to post somewhere
Dont save as PNG, that will already cut it in half, and dosnt need to be so big
also you can crop

I don't know what you are talking about, all of my images (besides references) are just screen grabs using puush. And the references are just posted as I found them from websites.

EDIT: Actually you are right, first two images are big. Changed.

Bonkahe

Holy crap, that is looking stellar, can we see some texture flats for the normals, and wireframe? looking great though, can't wait to see it finished.

mystichobo

ghaztehschmexeh wrote: »

I am literally ashamed of my tricount

That's not an answer!

I'm guessing most of it is in your suspension, there's a lot of cylindrical objects you can cut back on there (assuming it's the same as the wires earlier on in this thread) without losing nay details at all.

ghaztehschmexeh

I am super butthurt, I managed to corrupt my PSD file out of my own stupidity. Oh well I guess, I wasn't really happy with how it was going anyway. I've no idea how to texture it. All of my references are just museum tanks which are just painted one colour ALL over, no variation across the entire surface.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to approach it?



Oh and here are my normal flats and wires. Yes, I am a bad person. Yes, half the map is for the suspension (was originally going to have them as a separate sheet). Yes, I have way too many polys. Yes, my UVs are terribly inefficient. I am a bad person and I will improve on my next model

VelvetElvis

Generally the Sherman was painted all OD (olive drab) green and was pretty bland.

Some reference for various camo styles: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sherman%20tank%20camo&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=rQpCUfmJBqi_ygHVzIBo&biw=1440&bih=836&sei=sApCUZryA-OiyAGJo4CAAg

ghaztehschmexeh

VelvetElvis wrote: »

Generally the Sherman was painted all OD (olive drab) green and was pretty bland.

Some reference for various camo styles: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sherman%20tank%20camo&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=rQpCUfmJBqi_ygHVzIBo&biw=1440&bih=836&sei=sApCUZryA-OiyAGJo4CAAg

Camo might make it a bit more interesting

ghaztehschmexeh

I'm just going to write a few notes down here so when I can face starting my texture again I remember the thoughts I'm having. I know it's not the same tank but I'm looking at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/M4_Sherman_tank_at_the_Imperial_War_Museum.jpg

The main body is pretty bland, but I will try to make this more interesting with camo as mentioned by VelvetElvis. The specular is pretty high but it's not very glossy. The paint itself is quite flat but there is quite a lot of noise/bumpyness in the specular. I'm not sure what kind of photo source I could use to make this.

I'm tempted to go for the 8Kx4K map again. I stopped doing it because after 18 hours of rendering my AO wasn't done. Might try lowering the settings. In hindsight it was pretty dumb to dedicate half my UV to the suspension

Further detail can be added with a variety of decals and some subtle grunge. I am reluctant to add damage as it's not really a machine that will look right with wear and tear outside of battle damage in my opinion.

What do you guys think?

ghaztehschmexeh

Texture progress. I am a noob at texturing...

PhoenixWolf

sooooo goood dat bake

DanConroy

Nice bake mate, have you looked at small tank dioramas for some texture ref? They can be abit over the top, but I tend to use them if I want to break away from the norm.

ghaztehschmexeh

DanConroy wrote: »

Nice bake mate, have you looked at small tank dioramas for some texture ref? They can be abit over the top, but I tend to use them if I want to break away from the norm.

Awesome tip, thanks :thumbup:

bluekangaroo

yep its a tank alright

ghaztehschmexeh

EricV wrote: »

yep its a tank alright

You were expecting something else?

After looking at some dioramas as Dan suggested, I've decided to go for a dusty/worn effect. Something along the lines of:



Here's what I have so far, would love comments and feedback on the direction I am heading. I really am a texturing noob so I appreciate help!

DanConroy

That was one I found after posting here :P Good start to the texture, it might be worth playing around with the saturation of the new dust etc.

Also if you want to break up the green of the tank itself, look at adding some lighter patches where the sun has maybe taken some of the colour out. (not sure if that would happen in RL but what the hell :P).

ghaztehschmexeh

Slow progress...

DanConroy

Nice update mate, it'll be interesting to see how these new edits react with a spec/gloss map on the go.