Epoch from Chrono Trigger

Celes

So i decided to do some hard surface. Need to take a break from characters. I was thinking what cool vehicle to make and epoch comes to mind. Im going to try and slap textures onto car paint shaders and render out with global illumination.
So far Im almost done with the model. No texture yet (right now just basic blinn shaders n what not). Critiques on the model's welcome, before I UV it and start texturing. :-)

tbaugher

the back end of your wing tips seem to be shading a little weird. the underside also has some weird lumpiness going on.

16bit

The wings need work, and the vents behind the cockpit pop up at an angle like it's a car hood.

Celes

thanks for the crits! fixed wings, re-did the bottom. as for the trunk, it can be opened or closed i guess. Will do the inside tomorrow.

chrisradsby

There are still some things that are off, like the fin on the top should be sharper and a tad longer, same goes for the ends of the wings. Other than that, really nice work looking forward to seeing more!

3D-209

I think the main issue for me is that the overall shapes lack some of the angles that make the drawing look sleeker. Here's a quick paintover of what I mean.



The drawing posted is pretty skewed in perspective, but the wings should still have a nice backward angle when viewed from the top. The front could be a bit flatter until it starts curving off to meet the wings.

Also, the paneling on the body could use some sharper lines. Don't be afraid to play with hard and soft edges. Right now everything feels like it's modeled a bit too soft. You want some crisper lines to pull your eye around without making everything the same detail frequency, if that makes sense.

It's a cool start though! I hope some of that helps

16bit

The front parts of the wing are really curved, while the back part of the wings are straighter and then go into a curve

tbaugher

looking at 16bit's picture the front underside vents are separate shapes with alittle negative space between them. yours are flowing together to form one massive shape

Celes

Thanks for critiques everyone.
Wing-shape fixed, did more with the center thrust, made seating... still have to work on the driver's area.

3D-209

Nice! Wings look much better. I still think based on the reference that the front end should be flattened out a bit. It should help the make the body shape a little more interesting.

Nostradamus

Looks awesome!
The black "pillows" on the wings are much wider and rounder in the ref, also it seems to me the wings need to be 1. slimmer at the base and 2. "rounderer" at the end tip.

16bit

The wings are still off, plus the machine itself is kinda stubby looking, maybe you should stretch it a bit?

Celes

I noticed in the 2 ref pictures posted (the drawn cartoon and the in-game snes) aren't exactly the same so I kind of pick and choose. but definetely will round up the wing tips.
16bit, can you please specify what you mean stretch it? like scale the whole thing in X direction?

3DRyan

Out of curiosity, is this something that's going into an engine, or just a maya/max render? If it's for an engine, some normal mapping magic needs to happen. :poly124:

Celes

I only planned for it to be a maya render for now. I might throw in normal mapping and put it in an engine in the future. :-)

Celes

So... I'm going to start UVing it in a day or so. any suggestions of whether I should UV it in halfs or UV the whole thing? I guess depends on whether Im putting normal maps on it eh? half UVs have funny effects on normals... Either way I'm going to have everything on one texture map so it'll be game-friendly even though i will be throwing a few different maya mental ray shaders on it.

tbaugher

hmm i would suggest having the side thrusters and wings share the same uv space. Then unwrap the rest of it unique.

16bit

I have never had any problems with models with normals that share the same uv space. But I keep hearing everyone else saying they do.

oobersli

its a shame that youre not going to do this proper and build a high poly to bake from. Right now you're 80% to what it should really look like and not sure how your going to get some of the shapes in your normal map by painting.

Not sure what version your going off.. the concept or the actual game sprite? Personally the sprite has some more interesting shapes like in the wings. And if thats the case you have an incorrect amount of panels. Both the sprite and concept show the cockpit with a sharper more beveled piece. With that the front part isn't just a simple extrusion like you have. Its rounded and has a small hole in front of it?

So is this just for fun or a portfolio piece? I feel like if you just want to model and slap some textures on it then it would get ripped apart as a portfolio piece.

I took about 10 minutes to make the wing really quick as an example to show you the normals you could pull from it instead of having to paint it *which will probably be a pain*

bhong

Wing definitely feel like they should be sleeker. The ones you currently have still feel too square to me.

Does anyone one else feel like the back end needs to be narrower? Or am I just seeing things in a sleep deprived state.

I like how its looking so far though, keep it up.

Celes

Thanks for crits everyone!
I stretched out and slimmed down the tail like bhong suggested.
Seems like everybody favor the snes in-game version rather than the drawn cartoon concept... so I redid the wings and took some of oobersli's suggestion.
tbaugher, the uv suggestion sounds good.
I've also tried beveling some parts so they don't look so harsh, such as the vent on the top front body and the vents on the sides.
So after modeling a bit... i decided to take a lil break and do some test renders with lighting and shaders.
I think the vents still look ghetto and weird. and the front body is not exactly as smooth as i like. hmm... anybody got any suggestions? Thanks.

TrevorJ

What 3d package are you using? Either way, most likely some more anti aliasing will help, or if you lower your anti aliasing contrast.

oobersli

looks better. I think you should leave the vents to be in the texture. Also I totally didn't notice your wireframe earlier and i gotta say you really should optimize more. You have tons of polys/points that don't serve any purpose. Things like the vents, bolts, paneling i would just let the normal map do its job.