Pirate Airship

TheTurner

Hey guys!

Long time creeper on this site, but first time ever posting a project! I'm currently working through this airship concept and would really like any feedback. My inspiration for this is Mega Man Legends, both low poly and overall feel.

The part I'm working on currently is the crew. I imagined having a captain with a few little "sailor" dudes [pretty much like the Servbots] walking around/doing random stuff. Here's their progress...





Thanks for taking the time out to read this, talk to you guys soon...

-Turner

TheTurner

Texture update from this morning:

rollin

hi there, welcome here

nice update with the texture. Goes into the right direction. But of course there is a lot you can do.
Btw.. painting these kind of textures tends to be easier if you set your material to fullbright (100% selfilumination) in max. That way you don't mix light from the texture with light from the scene.

One thing though. If you are planing to create the ship the pirate might not fit to that style. But fist post some more so it's easier to crit stuff like that.

TheTurner

Thanks rollin!

I'm working out of Maya, but I knocked up my incandescence and that helped out a TON :thumbup: I would have never thought of that.

I'll attach some of my latest ship photos below to help out with style, kinda forgot that in the initial post :poly122: Currently I'm grouping everything together to start placing base textures and get a feel for the pallet I'll be using.






And lastly a wood texture I painted for the boat...

DWalker

I'd recommend changing the pennant to either a tapered design or a swallow-tail one.


Also, the crow's nest should be lower, or the mast taller. This will also allow you to attach the pennant to the mast rather than the nest.

TheTurner

Awesome! Thanks for the ref images. I was gonna use an alpha to cut the flag out, but would you recommend just modeling it?

downarmy

Hi,nice concept and nice modeling but be careful with those UV.

I say this not to critize your work but to point out a basic flaw that you need to nail down to do awesome piece in the future, in your image the boat hull uv is warp and the top handrail is wrong too we cannot see the wood at the right place.

I would try to learn everything about UV maybe find tutorial about it on eat3d or digital tutor or start here on polycount

http://wiki.polycount.com/TextureCoordinates

Hope it helps keep up the good work!

TheTurner

Hey downarmy,

Thanks for the link! I agree with the texture warping. I noticed it once I started placing my base textures...Now I'm trying to decided whether it's my UV's or if the actual mesh is TOO low poly.

Thoughts?

downarmy

I would say the uv no matter how low poly it is you can apply a "clean uv" to a model. But also watch your edge flow specially near the small windows the quad underneath them look stretched and tangle for no reason, try to keep your quad about the same lenght.

TheTurner

@downarmy: I see what you mean about the quads. I try to keep UV spacing equidistant with world spacing, so I inspected those window quads and I don't see any warping/pulling even with them looking as strange as they are. Going forward I'll be keeping a closer eye on that with any new meshes.


With the time I do have, I'm still messing about with placing textures and trying to get a good balance with color. Here are some of my latest images:






Even though I have the cannon door planks modeled in [only for a silhouetted purpose], with the current texture size, I may adjust the mesh wider so that the planks blend in tad better.

Here's a quick set-up I did with clouds...[I don't have the fastest computer so please have mercy on my render time haha]

Axios

This is getting better but, even though I do like your silhouette, I think it's still too low poly in many areas. I'd say get some more loops in there to round out the forms and minimize the distortion in the UVs. Also getting a consistent texel density for the wood will probably help a lot. Adding the color variation improved the readability of the ship, but it strikes me as odd that the hull would be a lighter color than the deck as opposed to the other way around.

How are you planning on presenting this? As a Maya render or a realtime screenshot? Will you have lighting or do you plan on keeping it fullbright?

TheTurner

@Axios: Thank you for the critique! I was trying to keep this as low poly as possible to help give me a challenge as well as more practice in that area. I think going back and fixing those planks will help with the texture density/continuity as well as doing the same for others. For the deck, I totally agree haha, it's just a place holder for now. The orange wood is the base I created, and then modified for the others. It does look RATHER out of place. I personally like the lighter wood for the hull, so I may try for a treated look for the deck or something.

I suppose I should have put this part in the very beginning haha

The plan is to keep this a rendered still. My inspiration is from this painting by Ken Wong:



I really like the style of his original art using the sharp angles and such, that's what gave me the idea to keep it a low-poly. Other than that it will have no similarities. I will have my own lighting with AO passes and the works. I'll adjust the full bright after the textures have been decided upon.

I apologize for the lengthy reply

TheTurner

--Minor update while I work through today--

I've been playing around with color options and landed on these two...thoughts?

BLUE:


RED:

TheTurner

The rear banner will have some kind of crest on it, but with the pirate's skull painted over top of it...giving the feel that this was a stolen/captured ship.



Finally laid out the UVs for the lifeboat underneath the cabin as well.

AimBiZ

Very nice forms but the thick dark lines between the planks really messes up the readability of them and for a ship they should be longer. Keep the values in mind. Contrast draws the eye so it should be contained to focal points. Your reference is a splendid example of that. Study it closely.