[WIP] Verutum anti-armor rifle

KyleJensen

Hey folks. I'm a student and I'm working to improve my high ---> low poly workflow.

I'm currently working from Keith Thompson's anti armor rifle concept. His website can be found here.

Reference:



High Poly:





Crits + comments are greatly appreciated.

gilesruscoe

Hiya,
Looks like a pretty interesting concept to work from, however, in the artwork it looks a little beaten up, maybe do a pass over in zbrush to scratch it up a little bit, or are you going to generate normals from flats and overlay them with the normals from your HP? Either way looks like a pretty solid start.

Norron

Man, I love Keith Thompson's concepts and have been wanting to do one of his pieces for ages.

Will be watching with interest.

Stromberg90

You got a good start here, i just have some things to point out.

Here is some color coding.

Make the shapes rounder, looks to sharp now

Is it just me, or does this look like a cock?


Keep on going, love to see where this goes

KyleJensen

Thanks for the crits, guys:

@gilesruscoe: I think for this prop I'm going to overlay normals from a filter if anything. Although running it through Zbrush wouldn't be a bad idea either. I'll think about it.

@Stromberg90: No problem. I'll just soften up the control edges in those areas.

I'll continue to post updates of my progress.

letronrael

this is a really cool concept, your modeling look great so far !! good job

by the way, where did you get that concept art ?

KyleJensen

Update:

I've softened the areas pointed out by Stromberg90.






More crits + comments are appreciated

@letronrael:

Thanks, man.:) The concept was done by Keith Thompson. Here's his site.

Farfarer

The barrel opening should be substantially bigger than it is.

There's a whole sabot construction around each javelin which would get ejected and discarded with each shot (and from the looks of it, each javelin & sabot housing is front-loaded into the muzzle - so it'd need to be able to fit the whole lot in).

KyleJensen

Thanks for the crit, Talon. I'll get right to it.

Monolith

Awesome work, both the concept itself and likeness of your model to the reference.

After taking a closer look into it I started to wonder how this rifle is actually supposed to work.

With the principle of SABOTs the Shell would require at least 3 Parts:
The Penetrator ( to which the explosive is attached to on the bottom one shown on the reference )
The Sabot ( surrounding the Penetrator and displayed on next to the 2nd Penetrator from the bottom when detached )
The Shell Casing ( housing the propellant as shown here totally missing on the reference )

You could say it's using caseless amunition but then the holes on the to of the gun will be a problem as the exhaust will not only exit from the front and back ( hence recoilless ) but also to the top rammin the marksman into the ground.

I guess the Artist should have added a "Single Shot" somewhere but not because of the characteristics of the Rifle itself but rather because of the dead marksman buried 2 feet deep in the mud after each shot.

Snader

Aside from the user dieing, the weapon doesn't seem effective either. Attaching a wad of cloth and a gas canister can't be good for aerodynamics and armor penetration.

Odd design, this. =/

ComfyCushion

I don't think that cut-away is part of the actual design, I think it's just showing some internal parts.

KyleJensen

Update!

I've added a wider opening and indicated the sabot attachment.





More crits + comments are appreciated.

@ComfyCushion: Thanks for the crit. The scratches along the edges tell me otherwise. However, if I'm wrong, then it should be an easy fix.

KyleJensen

Update:

I've made the low poly model. I'm currently working on UVs. I'm willing to make changes to the mesh at any time, so crits + comments are welcome.

KyleJensen

Update:

Got my AO baked as a UV test. Gonna be baking normals in just a bit.

KyleJensen

Update:

I've baked the normal map and applied to low poly.



I've baked it at 2048 x 1024, but my browser or photo host is resizing it to 1024 x 512.



Crits/comments are appreciated.

ErichWK

Your cloth is coming out really weak..and the edge of your metal is looking soft and blobby. What do you use to bake your normals?

You know, for any edge on the metal that is 50 degrees or higher, you may want to keep it hard on the low poly when you bake it out. It gives it a nice sharp metal normal look.

KyleJensen

Update:

I've got some WIP textures going and I've thrown the model into UDK.





Crits/comments are welcomed.

@ErichWK: Thanks for the crit. I'm using 3DsMax to bake normals and I've strengthened the normals for the cloth part since you pointed it out. About the hard edges issues, what part(s) of the model are you referring to?

roosterMAP

ur texture is too noisy and looks more like rock rather than metal. I suggest looking up racer445's tuts for help.

KyleJensen

Thanks for the crit, roosterMAP. I'll work on that. I just looked up Racer445 and his site is under construction at this time.

slipgatecentral

ComfyCushion wrote: »

I don't think that cut-away is part of the actual design, I think it's just showing some internal parts.

thought exactly the same, it's like classic illustrations of military tech with partially opened interiors

Jessica Dinh

I think maybe your colors are looking a little dark compared to the concept, but other than that this is looking awesome!! Keep it up ^_^ for great justice!

gauss

I don't think ComfyCushion has it right, Keith Thompson does an awful lot of designs and orthos for direct use of modeling, he'd know better than to incorporate a cutaway on a concept. A look through the rest of his weapons gallery (most contracted for games) features no such cutaway views.

Anyway sorry I didn't see this earlier but I think that the model suffers from a lack of dimensionality especially on the lower portion, with the grips. You have accurately captured the basics but Thompson's forms, both in his gear stuff or his robots and his figures, always have a certain spindly, delicate flourish to them. It's a little late for remodeling and rebaking but keep that in mind for next time, about capturing the form language better. On the forward grip area for instance, there looks like quite a bit more varied forms, thicknesses and widths there, intricate bits and bobs, where you have mostly extruded the proper outline and then called it good. The cylinder forms fare much better, and the shoulder rest looks pretty good. The texture I think you just need to spend a little more time banging on... Thompson's stuff always has this delicately antiqued color thing going on which is a lot harder to pull off in most game environments, so I wouldn't be averse to being more creative in interpreting color values. Looking good though, keep up the good work.