Armored Sentry Turret

purplekami

Hi Polycount!

LATEST: 



Currently working on a sentry to improve my modeling and design skills, and was hoping I could get some feedback. The biggest part I'm unsure of is the shields in terms of silhouette and design, trying to find a good middle ground of protection but also not completely hiding all the forms going on inside.
I'm still doing detail passes on the sentry as a whole, but figured this is a good point to start getting critique.



Thanks in advance!

purplekami

I've made some progress, the main change I'm heavily considering right now is removing the shields even though I like the concept. It's hiding all of the functionality and details, whilst not giving much to look at. Still unsure about a lot of design elements so I'd be happy to hear any feedback and critique.
I'm starting to layer in some details now, but I want to take it farther.

purplekami

More progress, I thought I was going to give up on the shield, but I got some helpful feedback that gave me a more fitting design for cohesion between the turret and shield. I'm almost done with the highpoly, still layering details, but now I also have to pull back some details since there's no place for the eye to rest.

Shrike

Key to a authentic design is thinking about how it should work.
A sentry is basically a hydraulic hinge, 4 guns in this case, and some sensors, a motor, ammo belts and reserve and that in a preferably armored package.

Cut all the stuff that is not needed. Nobody would ever design a shield like that. A shield is a metal plate, it needs no reliefs, cylinders and whatnot, that makes it look random. Look up some real references for guns and hinges. The most futuristic looking things exist in the real world. Make something plausible and give it a sci-fi touch with a modern enclosure, doing random things and calling it sci-fi is not the right way. Form follows function. Less is more. 

purplekami

Shrike said:

Key to a authentic design is thinking about how it should work.
A sentry is basically a hydraulic hinge, 4 guns in this case, and some sensors, a motor, ammo belts and reserve and that in a preferably armored package.

Cut all the stuff that is not needed. Nobody would ever design a shield like that. A shield is a metal plate, it needs no reliefs, cylinders and whatnot, that makes it look random. Look up some real references for guns and hinges. The most futuristic looking things exist in the real world. Make something plausible and give it a sci-fi touch with a modern enclosure, doing random things and calling it sci-fi is not the right way. Form follows function. Less is more. 

You're correct about the design and functions being all over the place, and I agree about cutting all the unneeded parts. I'll revisit a lot of the functions of the sentry, take a step back and keep the fundamentals, then expand from there.

I'm still getting the grasp of designing parts that actually look functional and cohesive with each other, stemming from the fact that I'm still working on my modeling skills and this project kind of devolved into a, "try to reproduce shapes that look interesting and aren't all boxes."

Shrike

Never forget what you want to do. You want to learn 3D modeling, not being a concept artist. I personally probably lost 2 years worth of 3D modeling skill by trying to learn it doing my own concepts. If you do real objects, you see the mistake instantly, you have references and people can help you with it. Doing own designs in 3D modeling will make you just skip every shape that is not convenient at the time and just model what is easy. Learning 3D modeling is all about accurately representing shapes, but you can't replicate and proof check something that you have no reference for. A concept artwork at the very least is not a good thing to learn from but infinitely better than nothing. 

If you really want to do a sentry thing, search for a real hinge, pack some real .50 cal guns or M240B or similar on it and some real sensors based on reference and add a little own touch with the metal casing, you'll learn at 3x the pace. 

purplekami

Here's some more progress, almost done with the high poly, still adding details and wires. Let me know if there's still things that could stand being reworked!

gsokol

I still think it reads a bit too busy for my taste.  I do see some improvements though.  Good design doesn't necessarily mean tons of details all over the place.  A ton of detail doesn't really look busy and complex unless its juxtaposed with some larger, cleaner surfaces.  Definitely keep a lot of the cool insets and paneling and details, just try to fit some clean, simple shapes in there too,.

Shrike

The new hinge would not work, there is no support to carry the thing, it would just roll on the rings as there is nothing to support or adjust the arms and weight

I made a kind of similar thing a long time ago in school, its not a very good design but you see what I mean with the hinge:
https://hostr.co/HhBIfCmmWExa  Without the hydraulics it would just hang through, so you need some hydraulics again. 

purplekami

gsokol said:

I still think it reads a bit too busy for my taste.  I do see some improvements though.  Good design doesn't necessarily mean tons of details all over the place.  A ton of detail doesn't really look busy and complex unless its juxtaposed with some larger, cleaner surfaces.  Definitely keep a lot of the cool insets and paneling and details, just try to fit some clean, simple shapes in there too,.

Shrike said:

The new hinge would not work, there is no support to carry the thing, it would just roll on the rings as there is nothing to support or adjust the arms and weight

I made a kind of similar thing a long time ago in school, its not a very good design but you see what I mean with the hinge:
https://hostr.co/HhBIfCmmWExa  Without the hydraulics it would just hang through, so you need some hydraulics again. 

Thanks for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it. I think adding the hydraulics would give a chance to add an area with less noise whilst also making the sentry functional again, I look forward to adding them.

purplekami

Hey guys thought I'd give an update, I finished unwrapping the sentry and have started baking / texturing, but was wondering if there was anything major I should take care of.

Ged

for a turret thats armoured there seem to be a lot of pipes and wires exposed, it looks like someone has stripped the armour off and revealed the internals to me. Its good modelling though.

purplekami

Ged said:

for a turret thats armoured there seem to be a lot of pipes and wires exposed, it looks like someone has stripped the armour off and revealed the internals to me. Its good modelling though.

Yeah I agree, I could've done a lot better on the design front, but it was a good learning experience. Thank you for the modeling compliment!

I've started texturing, been doing a lot of wear and tear. I'm unsure about the colors I want to use though. I was wondering if I could get feedback on whether the wear and tear is at a good level or should be adjusted, and which color scheme should I stick with and adjust. I'll be adding an accent color through stickers and various other detailing.

PatsuKiki

The biggest issue I see so far is not so much the colour, (personally it's red for me DANGER DANGER), but more so the PBR values. Right now, your turret doesn't look metal at all, even though my brain is telling me 'this is a turret, it's metal of course' but it doesn't look that way. 
It feels very matte and plastic and almost reminds me of those warhammer plastic models like the rhino tank, I think essentially you need a lot more metal values and roughness variation, get that right first and then the base colour will look much better. 
Think about heat build up too, your gun barrels have a powdered aluminum look to them as if they'd just been machined and assembled; if they are really being fired at enemies, maybe they'd have heat wear / discolouration which can add a bit of history to your props.
 As for the edge wear, I think you really need to think about where this turret has come into contact with other elements objects. If this is a ceiling mounted turret, would it really have dinks and scratches in places where nothing other than dust and moisture could touch it? In terms of edge wear, subtlety is best. 

purplekami

@PatsuKiki Hey thanks for the feedback!
The main reason that the PBR values seemed way off was mainly due to bad lighting settings I had when rendering I think. (I had the ground plane clipping through my asset by accident in iRay, oops!) I started exploring through reds, but I started really liking the yellow and got feedback that it was more readable than the red, felt like there was a lot less ongoing noise. Of course I'm always open to more perspectives.

I toned down the edge wear a lot, I haven't done a second pass yet but I agree that it was rather flatly consistent, and having more specific edge-wear will benefit it greatly. I also tuned the gun barrels a lot, thank you for the advice, I'm still learning how guns work.

Thanks again for the feedback, and hopefully I'm on the right track again.

PatsuKiki

Looking muuuuuuch better, pops so much more now and yeah I had a feeling it might have been a lighting thing, sorry my bad, should have mentioned it.
 Maybe bring down the saturation on the heat discolouration a tad and smelt it with a bit of black just at the front barrels, as if soot and dust from smoke had accumulated there.
Now to really sell it, GREASE, that metal yellow is way too clean, there's a lot of moving parts I can see and overtime, oil and grease would seep out, a few oily smudges here and there (subtlety remember) and you'll be golden. Good work man!

purplekami

Think I'm ready to call it finished even though there's still improvements that could be done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUf0fJPzWEc