ST41 Falchion Interceptor Plane: Substance Designer / 3Dmax Vehicle
high dynamic range
Hey Polycount:
I really like Crimson Skies. One of the few games I played in secondary school that really sparked my interest in aviation in games. Easy to pick up arcade controls, but still felt solid. Though, mutiplayer strategy in that game never quite elucidated itself to me.
I'm going to learn modelling in 3Dsmax and try my best to remove Photoshop from the texturing pipeline in this project. Hopefully I can do everything in only Substance Designer.
Open and seeking critiques and feedback from all ya'll, especially industrial design-minded artists. Could definitely use help in that department since this isn't my forte.
==Current WIP==
I think I'm close to peaking out with the amount of engine details I want to do.
I should move on to the smaller details. This has to be done soon.
I really like Crimson Skies. One of the few games I played in secondary school that really sparked my interest in aviation in games. Easy to pick up arcade controls, but still felt solid. Though, mutiplayer strategy in that game never quite elucidated itself to me.
I'm going to learn modelling in 3Dsmax and try my best to remove Photoshop from the texturing pipeline in this project. Hopefully I can do everything in only Substance Designer.
Open and seeking critiques and feedback from all ya'll, especially industrial design-minded artists. Could definitely use help in that department since this isn't my forte.
==Current WIP==
I think I'm close to peaking out with the amount of engine details I want to do.
I should move on to the smaller details. This has to be done soon.
Replies
Concepting out a Diesel Punk - WW2 Era Fighter Plane. Planning to get this modeled through 3dsmax and see how far I can get with just using Substance Designer with this.
I am cobbling together ideas taken from Crimsons Skies' Devastator plane and general diesel punk concepts.
Practicing laying down values with soft brushes. Shortened the nose length to give the plane an overall better balance. Added in the top wing set.
I look forward to your progress, crimson skies is a strong part of my childhood.
For example, look at any of Alan Van Ryzin's vehicles:
http://polygoo.com/vehicles/
Every texture element is in some way working with the model to reinforce form and add interest. Sometimes that means following an edge or panel direction, other times that can mean breaking up a big space by providing some variation.
Substance is a great tool for certain jobs but this is not its strongest use. The large scale texture information is also something the semi automated tools like quixel fall short on. Another way to think of it, contrast not localized to the form creates noise. Contrast worked into the specific forms of the model reinforce or accentuate form.
Designer for creating procedural materials
Painter for texturing assets
Photoshop for photo manipulation (creating brushes, decals etc)
Of course you can texture assets purely in designer, but to me it feels kind of clunky. That's personal opinion though. I don't think using it restricts you compared to photoshop, you can do most things in it that you can do in photoshop (minus painting, but that's what painter is for). I would really recommend painter though, it feels a lot more natural than anything I've tried so far.
Refined shapes and added smaller details around the plane.
Not sure what other bit I can add to this, or how to make the engine look mechanically awesome. I just feel like I'm adding some flaps and cylinders willy nilly.
If anyone else has critiques, I'd love to hear em
I agree. It is unreal to only use designer for the job as it is completely procedural with very limited manual input. You can get the base material and many realistic wearing, aging effect, sure. But it doesn't allow you to have subsequent details. Like you can add in many details using painter with stencil easily, where it can be hardly done or time consuming to do in 3D, or procedural.
It's not essential to have something that you can manually paint or manipulate images with, but it helps save a lot of time. If only substance painter can mirror stencils correctly, I will suggest you to go with it.
It's(not) better to do a symmetrical model, get the symmetrical details and textures baked, then do a second bake for the UV non-overlapping version of the model. It is time consuming, but it's one way to guarantee you get a fully unwrapped model with exact symmetrical detail and the ability to have different decals on each side of it. Otherwise you would have to use game engine to place decal objects on the model, or have a different UV set for non-mirroring decals or texts.
I do agree I will probably need to push this into specific painting through Substance Painter and Photoshop.
Spent more time at medium-level details and cutting into the bigger shapes to create more interesting internal elements like cooling jackets, etc.
Would love to hear ya'lls critiques on additional design additions I can make, or substractions.
Added another inset internal detail to the front fuselage.
Added a magazine-fed missile launcher to the left, akin to the in-game version of the Crimson Skies' Devastator.
I feel compelled to add more greebles, but I'm scratching my head about whether the level of detail that exists now is noisy enough, or if the engine could stand to have more bits and pieces here.
Would love to hear ya'lls critiques on this.
Nice work!
exagerrating the top vent above the cockpit would probably help the proportions, it was bigger in the sketch too
the plane looked more sleek and dynamic in the sketch, maybe making the body and especially the engine around 15% thinner / less radius and reducing the bottom extension would retain that again , it currently has a bit of a "fat" look and the engine sticks out a lot atm. In the sketch only those cylinders stood out which looked nice, but currently about everything on the engine sticks out, making it essentially one very big cylinder that gives visual imbalance. The modeling looks good but its the proportions that make and break such subjects
It's harsh, but I agree with most of your points.
Proportion is very important. Very important.
Salute to Scott Robertson:
[ame]
Finished busywork on the wheel wells as well.
Would this ship be better off if the engine's were relatively this greebleless? Almost an assertion in keeping it as minimal and clean as possible.
I'm going to investigate design thumbnails tonight with some paintovers.
I think it really look fine now. The amount of detail is balanced, if not super balanced. Like it.
What do you guys think of the greeble changes on the engine block?
Anyone have any ideas of what else I could add or do to make it feel a tad more complex and cool?
I should move on to the smaller details. This has to be done soon.