StarCraft Terran Missile Turret

Ashervisalis

Hey fellow art makers.  Not much to say about this one just yet. Wanted to do a few stylized things (not environment) and decided on this. I'm making the level 3 turret.

Ashervisalis

Why is it that every program's viewport looks better than Maya's? Haha. OK here's some progress.

Ashervisalis

Currently adding bevels for sub-d. I'm not going to be making this into low poly game material, I'm aiming for something more high poly/complicated, to appeal to animation studios around here.

Dethling

Nice start. 
I don't know if you also wanted to match the Blizzard Art style, but if so the edges have to be rounder and you should push the shapes a little bit more. 

Ashervisalis

Hm... OK, I'll make the bevels a bit bigger @Dethling . Thanks!

Ashervisalis

I'm gonna bring this puppy into ZBrush and add some damage. Then to UV mapping and texturing. Not looking forward to UV mapping; gonna be insane. It's really large, I think I might use several texture sets for it. I've downloaded the program PureRef, can't believe I've been getting by on Windows Photos for so long.

icegodofhungary

Have you tried Nightshade UV plugin for Maya? It makes UVing a lot easier. I highly recommend it.

Ashervisalis

@icegodofhungary I have not tried it, but I was looking at it a few months ago. It seems to have a bunch of features Maya doesn't have, but I didn't think I would use any of those features. I'll give it a shot though, see if I like it!

Ashervisalis

Been aaaaaaages. Finally able to get back to my own art. UV mapped and started texturing this bad boy. Working on hand painting the edge highlights in at the moment. In retrospect, I thought I was making everything blocky enough, but I kinda wish I had made certain parts thicker. I'll go in tomorrow and thicken some parts up.

Ashervisalis

A little bit of progress. I obviously need to spend a lot more time on the back, as I've been showing the front a lot of love. I may also remove one of the glowing pipes on the top left gun, because 3 pipes seems like a bit too much atm. Will be needing to paint in some variation soon, not really sure how to do that. I'll ask around and update here.

I've been going in and retroactively making the bevels chunkier, which has improved the overall look quite a bit imo.

Ashervisalis

A little progress. For some reason the AO and height are not showing in the iray renders. Oh well. Been adding dirt and mud. Someone in Slack let me know that using a square(ish) alpha gives a stronger painted effect, so that's what I've been using, and it is working out great!!

Brian "Panda" Choi

I feel the chunk

Ashervisalis

@Brian "Panda" Choi  Thanks!!

I've scoured the web a little bit looking at references for mechs and Starcraft, to figure out how to present in the best way. I'm going to have the turret guarding some vespene geysers in a sort of rocky valley, on an alien planet. I'll have a clear starry sky with maybe a moon in the background. I spent today sculpting some geysers! This is just the baked mesh, I haven't done any texturing yet, aside from throwing on some crappy AO mask so this render doesn't look like a few blobs.

Ashervisalis

Putting together an environment for my render. Still a lot of work to do. Kinda gotta hold back on working on the environment too much, as the turret is meant to be a heavy focal point.

Ashervisalis

A friend of mine told me to lower the purple values in the terrain. Still working on lighting and terrain blending. Unfortunately, the blue of the turret doesn't seem to be meshing with the environment very well, maybe I'll desaturate it? Will see, need to do some actual job-work for a bit!

JamesBrisnehan

I like the new color pallet for the planet, it's more appealing on it's own and helps the turret stand out more, so bonus. One critique though, I don't think the ground texture is working in either version. If it's a temporary place holder texture that's cool, but if not I've got to say, it doesn't really fit the art style of the rocks or the turret, and it has a very "hey, I know that Substance Designer node" kind of look. Maybe a mixture between some regular dirt, a more refined cracked dirt texture, and a flat flagstone type rock texture that matches your sculpted rocks could look nice. Just a suggestion though, whatever you think works best for this landscape.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Ashervisalis

@JamesBrisnehan Thanks for the crit, you're 100% right. I'll see what I can do about that.

Ashervisalis

Spent today sculpting a tiling texture for the rocky ground. Adjusted scene composition. I'll be sculpting a platform for the mech to stand on. Wondering if the colours are currently clashing. I could go for an analogous colour scheme and make the yellow glowing parts red, which would fit nicely I feel. However, I also kinda want to stick close to the original design.

Ashervisalis

Not a huuuuuge change. Adjusted lighting. Adjusted some materials to better suit the environment. Added a little stage and adjusted camera FoV. Added some particles in there.

Ashervisalis

Um, so looks like I have a bunch of changes. All rocks are now the same colour. Toned down lights and embers from the geysers. Added some fog. Made it so the turret's lights are actually affecting the turret. I think there is one area light around the turret which I need to turn up a bunch. I've thickened up the windshield frame, as well as rounded the sharp parts of the windshield. Tomorrow I need to add a gradient to the emissive parts. I also want to desaturate the light coming from the skybox, without desaturating the skybox itself. Any UE4 users able to point me in the right direction? I should be done with setting up some final renders tomorrow!!!

lluc21

Really liking the direction this is going! I would try to add a rim light or something to help it differentiate from the background, especially on the left side as it is a bit difficult to make out the shape of the turret at the moment. The dark parts of the turret have a color very close to the one on the rocks

Ashervisalis

@lluc21 I already got a rim light, but I cranked it up a bit stronger just for you!

Yo guys, I'm calling it!!! Turret now self illuminates. Decided to keep the saturated purple. Check out the ArtStation page for a few more renders. Thanks for everybody who chimed in!!!

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/68nVbr

lluc21

Gotta love those rimlights lol. Good job on the textures!

zhabinskiy

Looks great! Keep up the good work

ThisisVictoriaZ

Awesome! Great job on this!

Ashervisalis

Thanks guys!!

good2da