Critique and feedback

solidshark91493

Hi!
I know some of you have helped me out in the past trying to understand baking and normal maps. But It was recommended to me by another user here to work on my high poly models first. So I finished this up today. Its mostly a concept I just made up. I started off a concept tank here but im not sure who it was by.

I originally wanted to copy it to see if I could make it myself, but I decided to change it and go my own route. I got some inspiration from the T28/T95 US american tank destroyers. Id love feedback as this is a learning experience. 

I did a render for this first one, then used lightshot to screenshot my wireframes because I dont know how to render that well and its taking an hour plus a piece. 









The only thing left I was suggested to add was a muzzle brake. Which I dont have done yet. 

Mr Significant

Hmmmm.

First of all is scale: I do see here that you didnt used any reference. Or you used it in poor way. And you wanted to use T28 just for inspiration, but it came out wrong. If you want to go that way, use concept arts. If not, stick to the reference.

Second is modeling: you have a lot of hard edges, lot of small details, placed on big areas. This is good example: 

http://http//media.moddb.com/images/members/1/326/325978/btr-80-2014_front_final.jpg

As for rendering: Use keyshot. Using other rendering engines without any knowledge and waisting 1 hour for them, its stupid.

Tanks and other hard  surfaces are not my topic, but hope that this few tips will improve your work.

Cheers

CGXel

Hey it looks awesome!, will you work on the materials?, you already have a nice model but it lacks of detail on the material, and that lack of detail makes the model look / feel small, like a tank toy, but its just a suggestion!, well done with the model!

solidshark91493

Thats something Ive never really learned how to do either. Havent gotten that far. The first material was just a mental ray arch and design metal. The second one is rubber just so the lines would show. 
Thanks though

solidshark91493

Mr Significant said:

Hmmmm.

First of all is scale: I do see here that you didnt used any reference. Or you used it in poor way. And you wanted to use T28 just for inspiration, but it came out wrong. If you want to go that way, use concept arts. If not, stick to the reference.

Second is modeling: you have a lot of hard edges, lot of small details, placed on big areas. This is good example: 

http://http//media.moddb.com/images/members/1/326/325978/btr-80-2014_front_final.jpg

As for rendering: Use keyshot. Using other rendering engines without any knowledge and waisting 1 hour for them, its stupid.

Tanks and other hard  surfaces are not my topic, but hope that this few tips will improve your work.

Cheers

I didnt do it to scale really, Its just a concept I threw together. Something different. I based some of the design off the t28/t95 but I wasnt trying to copy them exactly. I do have reference for quite a bit of it, but I didnt try to do anything to scale. I know scale is important but I wasnt really trying to make it lifelike I guess. Its a mix between concept art and real tanks. 

Okay, so whats wrong with hard edges exactly? I dont really know what the term means yet. (Sad for me learning this long I should know what it is).
And I see all the stuff on that armored vehicle, I dont really know what any of it is. I would try to make more stuff to put on it (I forgot to add spare tracks to the mounts I put up top.) but I didnt really know what else to add, so I added a bit of smaller stuff I had seen on other tanks. 

Is keyshot free? I dont think I can afford it right now if its not. But Id gladly give it a go. I rendered this in max with mental ray. I would like to learn lighting and rendering more along with textures and materials to get better at all of it. 

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback. 

solidshark91493

Mr Significant said:

Hmmmm.

First of all is scale: I do see here that you didnt used any reference. Or you used it in poor way. And you wanted to use T28 just for inspiration, but it came out wrong. If you want to go that way, use concept arts. If not, stick to the reference.

Second is modeling: you have a lot of hard edges, lot of small details, placed on big areas. This is good example: 

http://http//media.moddb.com/images/members/1/326/325978/btr-80-2014_front_final.jpg

As for rendering: Use keyshot. Using other rendering engines without any knowledge and waisting 1 hour for them, its stupid.

Tanks and other hard  surfaces are not my topic, but hope that this few tips will improve your work.

Cheers

I didnt do it to scale really, Its just a concept I threw together. Something different. I based some of the design off the t28/t95 but I wasnt trying to copy them exactly. I do have reference for quite a bit of it, but I didnt try to do anything to scale. I know scale is important but I wasnt really trying to make it lifelike I guess. Its a mix between concept art and real tanks. 

Okay, so whats wrong with hard edges exactly? I dont really know what the term means yet. (Sad for me learning this long I should know what it is).
And I see all the stuff on that armored vehicle, I dont really know what any of it is. I would try to make more stuff to put on it (I forgot to add spare tracks to the mounts I put up top.) but I didnt really know what else to add, so I added a bit of smaller stuff I had seen on other tanks. 

Is keyshot free? I dont think I can afford it right now if its not. But Id gladly give it a go. I rendered this in max with mental ray. I would like to learn lighting and rendering more along with textures and materials to get better at all of it. 

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback. 

CGXel

Don't worry, that guy is going a little hard on you, I had a hard time trying to understand what he meant, but English isn't my native language anyways, so that could be the reason.

You see @solidshark91493, scale is important, to name a couple scenarios:

1.- Rendering, you want your model to have real life proportions, along light and camera settings, you will get precise results.
2.- When using it as a collider for a simulation, its really important to have the real life proportions, or you would be simulating a tank toy falling into a puddle of water, rather than a tank falling into a pond.
3.- Even for modeling, if its too small you'll have a hard time zooming in and out.

On your case its not a problem, since I can tell your main goal wasn't rendering or anything else than modeling, as for his comment on "a lot of hard edges" I for one legitimately don't know what does he mean, and his link is broken for me so I can't see the image.

About rendering, I believe Keyshot does cost, I'm not sure, neither do I know if it offers a free trial, but I can tell you something for sure, any render is a good render if you know how to use it, and I must assure you Mental Ray its a good render engine, you could easily look up Mental Ray render galleries, so I would suggest you to look up for free tutorials about it, you will get decent renders in no time, hope I could help!

solidshark91493

CGXel said:

Don't worry, that guy is going a little hard on you, I had a hard time trying to understand what he meant, but English isn't my native language anyways, so that could be the reason.

You see @solidshark91493, scale is important, to name a couple scenarios:

1.- Rendering, you want your model to have real life proportions, along light and camera settings, you will get precise results.
2.- When using it as a collider for a simulation, its really important to have the real life proportions, or you would be simulating a tank toy falling into a puddle of water, rather than a tank falling into a pond.
3.- Even for modeling, if its too small you'll have a hard time zooming in and out.

On your case its not a problem, since I can tell your main goal wasn't rendering or anything else than modeling, as for his comment on "a lot of hard edges" I for one legitimately don't know what does he mean, and his link is broken for me so I can't see the image.

About rendering, I believe Keyshot does cost, I'm not sure, neither do I know if it offers a free trial, but I can tell you something for sure, any render is a good render if you know how to use it, and I must assure you Mental Ray its a good render engine, you could easily look up Mental Ray render galleries, so I would suggest you to look up for free tutorials about it, you will get decent renders in no time, hope I could help!

Thanks! I appreciate it
Exactly, it was just something I wanted to try out. 
Ill check out keyshot. And I will keep scale and proportions in mind when trying to model realisticly. 

Stephanie

It's a good idea to do objects from real life so you have a lot of reference and can nail down the shapes. It's important to know how to sub-d model before moving to baking and other more technical things. Improper geometry can cause your bakes to look wrong, so if you don't get the model looking right first it will cause you to have many other issues. Since tanks are both organic and hard-surfaces getting the shapes to hold is no easy task, it requires a lot of studying and time. Here are some links to help you and anyone else who might want to know more about sub-d modeling:



http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorial/1319-hard-surface-essentials-by-grant-warwick-modeling-max
http://polycount.com/discussion/56014/faq-how-u-model-dem-shapes-subd-mini-tuts-aka-use-the-right-amount-of-geo/p146

They're not all using max but it's the same principles regardless. Goodluck!