Vintage vacuum cleaner

JonathanF

OK! so I am back after 3 weeks of learning zbrush(not mastered it of course)... but took a little break from the prop modeling to learn as much as i could. will be returning to the prop modeling with a great challenge at hand. This vacuum cleaner offer some great hard surface organic modeling that will be a challenge I do believe. I'll be posting up some progress tomorrow or so. But here are some ref images I'm going off of to show what I have to deal with.

Alberto Rdrgz

thats a cool looking vacuum

jocose

Looks like a cool project. Make sure and post wires as you go along.

JonathanF

yup! I'm all about showing wires! :icon60:

phillip.bailey

ooooooh! good idea

Tehrasha

I have one of those. Still works.

Emperors Teeth

My Mother still uses a Kirby... it's a beast! it really could suck blood from a stone!

JonathanF

OK! sorry for the lack of updates and progess on this piece. This has been the devil! I call this satans vacuum now. it was more of my fault though as I was modeling off two different model types and didn't realize how big of a difference each really where.. So that slowed me down a LOT! and made me drag my feet on this one cause you know when you model something and spend a good amount of time on it and forget to save and your software crashes on you?... its kinda like that. I had to start over on some major pieces! But all in all! I'm pretty happy with this piece!

bounchfx

oh man you can't just do that to us lol. going from concept to the HP done! haha, I wanted to see WIP! though your result looks great so far - plan to LP and texture ?

Mistry10

looking great so far man !
keep it up !!!

JonathanF

bounchfx - haha, sorry bud.... yeah been a crazy week for me and just didn't take the time to post my progress. . And yes, this week is low poly and texture.

mistry10 - thanks man!

JonathanF

but yeah, this bag is from zbrush and is a good two levels lower than the really high version that I will be baking from. That one has the seems along the sides and what not. I didn't want to bring that in and kill my render time. :P

Zipfinator

That is one shiny vacuum cleaner! Looks great though.

glenatron

Big props on getting it so close to the reference, especially the bag. And you can feel that the bags got a little weight to it, the way its posed.

Any undercarriage shots?

raul

looks cool! tho, it seems like you didnt take the time to put in the details on the bag. Little wrinkles n stuff like in the reference. Also, if you are taking your zbrush mesh, i think it owuld make more sense to decimated since you will be baking the stuff later on. no?

JonathanF

thanks glenatron! yup, here is the bottom.

Raul - thanks man, yeah I'm going to give the bag more love today actually. Decimation a good idea... thank you.

JonathanF

Ok! so here is my lowpoly vacuum standing at 3900 tri's. I think i can still bring it down some in a couple of parts, I'll be doing some crap tests next now.

JonathanF

ok, so my friend pointed out that i need to do the zig zag for my wheels rather than the collapse to center.. saves 8 tris per wheel!!!

phillip.bailey

CrunCH! I bet you could take it to 2900! Crunch in places you can't see or won't see, and collapse any that do not contribute the an outer silhouette. Fun looking prop so far!
-Phil

JonathanF

PSH!!! of course you would say that phillip. lol. but yeah, I'll see what i can do. Thanks.

ENODMI

Ha, this is so awesome, it's a vacuum and it's amazing. Looking really good, can't wait to see it textured

JonathanF

Enodmi - Thanks man! yeah, I think this is the first vacuum on poly count that has been done...

Here is my bake at 3635 Tris. I brought it down almost an extra 300 tris just for you Phillip. When I did some crap tests, I had some bad waves on the back piece were the motor would be in... then of course the 4 wheels are pretty pricey as well. Anyways! off to texturing next.

raul

nice!!

JonathanF

also going to fix the wheels... they look jacked up from a distance as the normal map pattern is very tight... but from a distance it looks all weird and wavy looking. looks great up close though! So I think ill just make the circle pattern that goes around a lot thicker so it can be seen from a distance without that effect.

MoP

This model was so interesting and novel that I included it in this week's re-cap!

NOW YOU HAVE TO FINISH IT! AHAHAHA!

JonathanF

dustinbrown - thanks man! really love your work on your site!

MoP - sweet! thank you! And I do plan on finishing... kinda have to actually...

MattLichy

Lookin really cool man. I like that you've done something completely out of the ordinary. Can't wait to see it textured/lit.

JonathanF

ok! here is a texture pass. the spec is kinda tricky.. never done a shiny metal before like this. The FPV is just for fun... wouldn't really be used for that... unless its some kind of cleaning game!...

JonathanF

guess i should post this ref so yall dont have to go back a page... and now i just realized how freakishly bloody red my rubber trimming is...

Razgriz

Fantastic modeling work, but I feel that the silhouette on this prop is it's biggest weakness. I think it has less to do with the hard surface work, and just the fact that the vacuum bag ends up confusing the asset a bit. I would suggest taking it into zbrush and giving it a bit more volume, and moving a tad back from the body of the vacuum, because at the moment, it just seems too busy. It may just be me, though, and there might not be a proper way to do with while sticking as close to the reference as you would like.

Good stuff, though!

ENODMI

Looks good to me, maybe oxidize up that red some, right now it looks too saturated for its age.

raul

lol. fpv! ha! nice one! I think before you start adding more stuff to the texture. U should work on defining the edges with hilights and midtones. Everything just reads like washes right now. Dunno if that meakes sense.

Looking awesome tho!!

Racer445

JonathanF wrote: »

the spec is kinda tricky.. never done a shiny metal before like this.

for shiny metals usually a darker diffuse and brighter spec works a LOT better than a brighter diffuse and bright spec.

get some unique detail into the spec! your refs have some cool details in the texture that could be applied to the spec only, and would help your texture really come alive when in motion.

JonathanF

Razgriz - thanks man! really appreciate the comment! I see what you mean, but I am kinda at a point where I don't have time to be modeling and tweaking right now. This is due tonight and I need to just stay focused on the texture work. Thanks though!

ENODMI - thank you! yeah I actually did that after I made this post and realized how bloody red I made the rubber trimming.

Rual - Thanks bud! I will get on it!

Racer445 - Thanks dude! I will take your word for it! I love your hard surface models work and how awesome your textures come out! Thank you!

JonathanF

OK! update! I decided to use the Hlsl shader for Maya. Its kinda like the three point shader for max i guess you could say.. only thing I dont like about this shader though... the transparency doesn't work so well if the object with an alpha on it is to close to another object, it doesn't seem to show it working....? so if anyone has experience with the hlsl shaders for maya, i would be very grateful! I'll be posting the diffuse, spec and normal maps tomorrow...

shinobix

That vacuum turned out stellar man!! Great job on your normals!!

PhilipK

shinobix wrote: »

That vacuum turned out stellar man!! Great job on your normals!!

Agreed, sweet to see this turned out so good. And I agree with Racer, darkening the diffuse in general on high specular metal surfaces and adding some unique dark and bright parts in the spec will really help it, especially when using cubemap reflections.

ChrisFraser

Wow, I can't believe how low you got it. Awesome work!