Vic Viper - Gradius II
polycounter lvl 12
Hey Polycount,
Been pushing some personal work to further push my modeling abilities and been diving into some practice with mechanical sub-d and hard surfaces following some very inspirational work here on the boards. The zbrush weld technique is one of my favorite, so i've left some planes over areas I may possibly do a general weld on (although this particular asset doesn't leave very much room for that, as much of the chassis is very smooth like an F22 Raptor)
I've always wanted to recreate the Vic Viper from the Gradius series, as it's definitely one of my favorite games on SNES so I decided to take a stab at it. I will be bringing this down to a low poly and creating textures for it.
Following are high poly shots, with a combination of sub_d and use of spline method (Thanks to Ben Boltons wonderful spline tutorial . Still some floaties and chassis forms I need to adjust.
Thanks for taking a look guys.
Been pushing some personal work to further push my modeling abilities and been diving into some practice with mechanical sub-d and hard surfaces following some very inspirational work here on the boards. The zbrush weld technique is one of my favorite, so i've left some planes over areas I may possibly do a general weld on (although this particular asset doesn't leave very much room for that, as much of the chassis is very smooth like an F22 Raptor)
I've always wanted to recreate the Vic Viper from the Gradius series, as it's definitely one of my favorite games on SNES so I decided to take a stab at it. I will be bringing this down to a low poly and creating textures for it.
Following are high poly shots, with a combination of sub_d and use of spline method (Thanks to Ben Boltons wonderful spline tutorial . Still some floaties and chassis forms I need to adjust.
Thanks for taking a look guys.
Replies
Have to admit I was very excited even seeing the words Vic Viper again after all these years, and it's nice that the model doesn't disappoint.
Can't wait to see where this goes.
I'm a huge fan of Xoliuls 3ds Max Shader, which might work really well here especially with his fresnel reflection stuff. I might just set up the shader and pop out some presentations in max for now.
Recreating the launch hangar bay (from the Gradius Mission Starts) might be really cool too, so that may possibly be in the works for the future.
[ame]
[ame]
I will be bringing this down to a low poly and texturing. I had thought about placement of bolts, however much of the Vic Viper is actually a welded hull with flush riveting. It's very much a smooth surface, similar to the F22 Raptor so i'll be doing a cavity pass for those details along the main supporting trim.
Thanks for the feedback
This is a stand-alone model for hi to low poly modeling practice and textures.
Btw, you think about doing an interior? I'm sure having a see through canopy with a semi-detailed cockpit will bring much more life to your vehicle than a solid-looking canopy.
And heh, you actually made me continue work yesterday on a 'lil spaceship I'm creating on the side. Thanks for the inspiration!
Hey Laurens, yes i've fleshed out an interior but haven't done any cockpit detail work yet. I'm still thinking about the balance of detail since one of the only specialized concepts of the cockpit is highly intricatewhile the general forms are rather simple. I'll probably keep it simple since the canopy is pretty opaque.
I want to check out that space ship you're working on!
And yeah i'll show some WIP when i get far enough (far enough to be sure i'll finish it)
It looks like a Vic Viper too (that's what they call those twin pronged spaceships apparently).
A bit more inspiration for the interior: the intro video for Gradius II on the PC Engine (TurboGrafx.) It shows a scene of the cockpit computers booting, a few detail shots of the weapon systems and a launch from the hangar.
[ame]
Quick update here, started fleshing out the cockpit. I'm not going to put an incredible amount of detail at this time since the ship will be visible from the outside (different story if I was building for flight sim, i'd assign cockpit completely new materials and texture sheet including gears, weapons, missiles and the S/A Option. A heck of a lot more time would be spent on just the interior detailing seperately. For now, this should suffice.
Here are some more screenies.
Don't mind its current opacity, it's lowered for visibility.
I really need to get out more.
Looks awesome, man. I think the amount of cockpit detail is just right - any more would be a waste, considering your plans, but it's definitely enough to give it a functional feel. Looking forward to seeing that bake.
Trust me, so do I lol.
I had some issues with Xols shader, couldn't use cubemaps as it wouldn't read them for some reason. Threw it in Marmoset for now.
Anyhow heres some screenies.
Tri Count: 8,206
Wireframe
Textures Here
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/kaburan/Preview_Dif.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/kaburan/Preview_Nor.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v739/kaburan/Preview_Spec.jpg
Man this thing looks great will. I really enjoy the subtle grunge, as apposed to really caking it on, same goes with the scratches. Something I'm guilty of doing just as well is putting too many scrapes and stuff.
You've inspired me to try and do something a little more minimalistic with the grunge on my next proj.
Since you went with a more subtle plating like the F22 Raptor I think you need to breakup the color of each of the plates a bit more to make this pop a little more and not look so flat. If you look at the Raptor you can even see it there that a lot of the plates that make up the hull of the ship drastically differ in color giving it a great look IMHO. I feel that lightening/darkening the plates on your ship would really help break up some of the monotonous look of the all that white. You dont have to have as much contrast as the Raptor but some I think could help out a lot.
Also since the ship looks overall pretty dirty I would add some more dirt streaks to the front of the two wings and the nose point of the cockpit. Since it looks like the ship hasnt been washed in a bit I would expect those areas to be a streaked a little more with dirt as it is the area that hits the air first when cursing through the sky.
Keep up the good work