Ultramarines Dreadnought (Warhammer 40k fan art)

Loutrattitude

Hey everyone,
I decided to finish an "old" high poly laying around unfinished in my virtual drawers, a Dreadnought, inspired by the Warhammer 40k universe. Huge project for me, never done anything this big before, the goal is also to learn and fully use Substance Painter for this project.

High poly:

References/Moodboard:

Found this one on pinterest and it was a perfect fit for this project.

Current base low poly + first bake:


Immediate next steps are fixing the few baking errors I got, and laying ou the color scheme.
My plan is to create a solid base low poly and iterate on it (add ornaments, details, etc).
Would love to hear feedback.

Cheers

Chronicle

the only thing i notice is that the middle chamber where the body goes is slightly higher on your model.  On the miniature, the middle chamber is dropped down a little bit from the side two on the chassis.  Additionally, the two side bits on the chassis seem slightly taller than on the miniature.  Aside from those two small critiques, i can't see anything of note.  Its looking really awesome so far.  I especially like the dreadnought power fist.

musashidan

Ah, the old 3d palace tutorial. Looking good. Are you going to rig/animate? What kind of vert count did you build to?

Loutrattitude

Chronicle said:

the only thing i notice is that the middle chamber where the body goes is slightly higher on your model.  On the miniature, the middle chamber is dropped down a little bit from the side two on the chassis.  Additionally, the two side bits on the chassis seem slightly taller than on the miniature.  Aside from those two small critiques, i can't see anything of note.  Its looking really awesome so far.  I especially like the dreadnought power fist.

I don't think I will change the proportions now, I think it work as it is, but thanks for the kind words!

musashidan said:

Ah, the old 3d palace tutorial. Looking good. Are you going to rig/animate? What kind of vert count did you build to?

Oh there is a tutorial ? I should check it out before continuing further, see if I can extract some new ideas. I don't think I will rig and animate the model, it's been years since my last rig, and it's not something I want to focus professionally.
Right now the model is just under 50k triangles. Most of the cylinders aren't optimized yet, but I still have to add some details model. My objective is 50k maximum.

Wireframe:


Normal+Baked AO:



I decided to bake my AO in Painter, I really like the smooth maps it can achieve, I think it's better than xNormal (what I previously used), for the most part it's really nice, I just have some white edges sometimes:

I need to iterate on the AO, maybe it's a padding problem.

C86G

The bolts on the lowpoly are actual geometry? Not sure about that.
I´d also make those rounded insets on the normal map stronger/ deeper.

KyleReeceHall

Brilliant work so far, keep it up its looking fantastic! Im working on a marine at the moment  

Zi0

I would add the small bolts with nDo instead of modeling them.

Loutrattitude

Zi0 said:

I would add the small bolts with nDo instead of modeling them.

C86G said:

The bolts on the lowpoly are actual geometry? Not sure about that.
I´d also make those rounded insets on the normal map stronger/ deeper.

True, I like how it break the silhouette when you look at the model mid-distance, but you are right, it is definitely overkill. I will work on both of the solutions and see at the end

KyleReeceHall said:

Brilliant work so far, keep it up its looking fantastic! Im working on a marine at the moment  

Thank you ! Good luck with your marine I hope you're not doing some kind of demonic heretic!


I finished a nice tutorial, Introduction to Substance Painter by Christophe Desse, really useful. He recommended the work of Paweł Łyczkowski. Bought the pack and started to mess with it.

I'm really undecided when it comes to texturing (big file) :

I like 4 and 6 the most, but also 5 for its simplicity, and I think 1 could be great if I work on the masks to break the discoloration (too even right now). Not a fan of 2 and 3, but here it is nonetheless.

What do you think ?

robomaniac

for me - 3 works well, but there not enough edge wearing, looks dirty, but edges are clean
anyway, nice model !

C86G

The trick is to combine the features you like without making it look over-featured ; )

Loutrattitude

C86G said:

The trick is to combine the features you like without making it look over-featured ; )

That's exactly what I was thinking , I like the paint decay effect of the 4, the discoloration of 1 and 6.
I'll try to combine them effectively. Really nice Ork Jet on your ArtStation page by the way, texturing work is top tier.

Stosh

I like the edge wear of 2 and both the dirtiness of 3 and 6. As mentioned by others, the idea isn't to pick one type of wear, it's to blend all types of wear that could effect the surface detail of your model in a way that doesn't make it too busy. It's the subtle changes when layered on top of each other on the model that will come together to create a very nice piece. 

Loutrattitude

Current WIP. Finished the base texturing. Already added some texts, logos and such. Need to break the color variation a bit, and add a lot of new model details to break the parts that are still too flat and blue.