Jet Bike WIP
polycounter lvl 14
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Most recent update:
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Hey all,
I posted this a little while back in WAYWO, but I figured id make a new thread for it.
So, like the title suggests, I'm making a Jet Bike of sorts.
Here is the initial sketch I made for it:
Progress on the engine so far:
High:
Low after AO/NM bake:
I decided that for this project it would be fun to think about how this bike may be constructed if some slight customization and/or upgrading was a factor. Specifically, if you could upgrade your jet engine to a better/faster model. So I came up with this:
This is the blockout. I figured out the proportions that I would have compared to the biped.
On the left is the bike hull, and what is basically an empty slot for a turbine to be attached. The right shows the engine compared to the body. I decided that the engine should be about 2 meters long and .5 meters diameter to fit nicely into the bike..so any other engines should match this sizing. Also, other bike bodies should/would fit this size as well.
Also, for fun, here is the low poly jet attached to the bike. Ignore the crazy colors:
Going to be sportin' the xoliul shader 2. Not a whole lot going on yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing what results I can get.
I'm wanting to make this a portfolio piece, so I'd definitely like to make this look as good as I possibly can. Looking for critiques/comments/etc!
Most recent update:
============================
Hey all,
I posted this a little while back in WAYWO, but I figured id make a new thread for it.
So, like the title suggests, I'm making a Jet Bike of sorts.
Here is the initial sketch I made for it:
Progress on the engine so far:
High:
Low after AO/NM bake:
I decided that for this project it would be fun to think about how this bike may be constructed if some slight customization and/or upgrading was a factor. Specifically, if you could upgrade your jet engine to a better/faster model. So I came up with this:
This is the blockout. I figured out the proportions that I would have compared to the biped.
On the left is the bike hull, and what is basically an empty slot for a turbine to be attached. The right shows the engine compared to the body. I decided that the engine should be about 2 meters long and .5 meters diameter to fit nicely into the bike..so any other engines should match this sizing. Also, other bike bodies should/would fit this size as well.
Also, for fun, here is the low poly jet attached to the bike. Ignore the crazy colors:
Going to be sportin' the xoliul shader 2. Not a whole lot going on yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing what results I can get.
I'm wanting to make this a portfolio piece, so I'd definitely like to make this look as good as I possibly can. Looking for critiques/comments/etc!
Replies
The bike's design, even though it's a blockout, looks a bit oldschool to me, like those 90's racebikes (Yamaha Genesis engined bikes for example), due to the fatter rear tail, high upstanding front windshield, rounder shapes... Don't know if that's what you're going for? It could be a deliberate choice really, but I'd go ALL the way then, with am outrageous 80s/90s color scheme that no sane manufacturer dares to sell anymore these days.
Like this:
Would be pretty original maybe to go for that, different from the sleek, angular, simple colored bikes these days. Keep in mind key design factors like fatter, rounder shapes, crazy colors. Maybe even double round headlights like the older FZR's:
Anyway, maybe I've given you an idea, if not just make sure to study enough reference so you understand the body design a bit. I'd watch out with the twin rear tails and the "landing sled", seems a bit tacked on ? The little extra fins at the bottom are pretty sweet though, I'd do exactly the same thing
Edit: And get A frame in there! You need a sturdy frame to attach an such enormous engine to. The big, shiny aluminium U shaped frames are a key element to the design:
The HP is super awesome and the bake turned out great!
Xoliul - Thanks!
I wasn't really sure what direction I would take the bike. Your right though, with my blockout it seems like I'm already leaning towards more old school style bikes. When I get to working on the bike, I think it will be interesting for me to try to maintain an old school shape and feel, with a little bit of extra futuristic flare.
Definitely going to sport a crazy color scheme in my beauty shots for this. Also, going along with the customization theme, I'm planning on potentially using masks for some of the colors. In the long run, I think itd be cool to drop this into an engine and be able to pick your own colors. A coworker of mine has been talking about making a shader to support this, so that might be fun.
I dig the images you posted, and I might go for the double headlights thing, too.
Landing sled does seem tacked on. I might try to make it more interesting and fit the bike better, but if I can't come up with something that looks good, I may just remove it. Also, good point on having a frame. I will make sure that I do this.
I'm torn on the rear tail fins. I originally didn't have them, but from looking at the rear angle of the bike..it just didn't feel balanced with the bottom fins..I didn't like the "triangle" shape it made. Here is a comparison with and without:
ErichWK - Me too!
I'm a huge Jet Moto fan. I took a lot of inspiration from the Jet Moto mini comp entries...lot of really cool work there.
I'll post an update soon. I'm playing around with the spec map at the moment. I'm planning on doing a rough spec pass before touching the diffuse. I'm often guilty of desaturating the diffuse texture and throwing into the spec slot without any thought, so I'm taking my time here and experimenting a bit to gain some more familiarity and understanding of specular maps.
Here's a little turnaround too:
Which process did you use to bake? Xnormal? Or just Max's equilivant of Transfer Maps? I guess you modelled high to low? And had to create a low yourself rather than using a poly reduce?
i can see the wires for the low on a couple of the shots he included, but a bigger, cleaner shot of them would be awesome.
I wanted to make this hover bike for a game, but never finished it.
I like your design a lot better!! Hope it's ok I show it to you my design, though!
What do you think?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11214337/HoverRacer/progress04.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11214337/HoverRacer/ship_complete.jpg
I baked everything with render to texture in Max. Yup, did the high poly first. I created the low largely by manually reducing edges in the high. A lot of the extra geo came from using turbosmooth, so when I removed the modifier, there was a lot less geo to deal with. Also, for a lot of the recesses I used floaters, so I could just delete those and move on.
SaferDan/illybang:
Yeah, the wireframe shots I put up previously are kinda hard to read. Heres one that has some closer up views:
Here is what it looks like with a standard grey material on it:
Dr Stench:
You are right, there are sections of geo/texture that ends up hidden. I was aware of this when I started working on it. With the customization theme in mind, I figured that the engine would likely be seen on its own, even in an engine selection screen or something. Also, if the engine is attached to a different body type in the future, there is the potential that the area covered might be visible.
dogzer:
Looks cool. Got a lot of neat shapes going on there. I think you should finish it!!
Also, I threw the engine into Unity to see how it would look. (Environment is not mine...its from Unity's vehicle physics tutorial project)
Going to call the jet done unless you guys got some suggestions...gonna start the bike tomorrow, starting with the frame.
Looking forward to the rest of the bike
I should probably take another look at the spec for this. I'll take another pass at the jet later on with fresh eyes. I'll also have to play with a gloss map and get some reflections going too.
For now, I started on the bike itself. I took Xoliul's advice and wrapped a frame around the engine first. Mostly just blocking in shapes for now, to see how everything will fit together:
I'm trying to keep some of the form similar to a mid 90's crotch rocket, but the back end is looking a little sleeker/newer. I'm not fighting that too much, I like how its going...I'll see what happens when I refine and add more detail to it.
Also, in response to Dr Stench I played with the fairings a little bit and slid the jet back just a tad so more of the detail from the middle section is visible.
There seems to be some symmetry problems in the front and on the tank itself, but I think you know about that.
Love the headlight design!
Yup, still using symmetry and haven't attached the 2 sides together yet.
Thanks! I played around with a few different headlight ideas. Originally tried to do the double circle design that Xoliul suggested..but it just didn't look right.
Anyways....just a small update here, just getting closer to finishing up the high poly body.
Got most of the major body parts done. Gotta figure out what I'm going to do with the skid plate..or if I'm keeping it at all. Started working on the handlebars/cockpit area. I plan on getting fairly detailed here...so if there was theoretically a first person view...it would look really solid.
Also, I gave joevansickle's browser based asset viewer a go. So you can rotate around and pick out all my little mistakes
joevansickle has a thread up for the asset viewer here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90819
I kinda set the light to be a little too red, so forgive me for that..and there is no spec on it currently, just diffuse and normal map.
Ok, I talk too much...MOAR ARTS!
Edit: Had to change image url, was linked to my portfolio and I changed the image.
I suggest to insulate the turbine in the areas where it'll be the closest to the pilot/driver.
Additionally, while shoving a paper bag over the rule-of-cool's head, your jet bike is an aerodynamic disaster waiting to happen. the turbine needs an aerodynamic cowl not disimilar to that of a mig 19 or previous versions.
having said all that, i'm going to bring back the rule-of-cool out of its corner and say that what you have is very cool.
What colour(s) will the rest of the bike have?
I mean, sure, crazy colours, but what colours exactly, do you know yet?
edit: i took a look at your 3D model with that asset viewer..
It's awesome, however you could maybe break the symmetry a bit, like, change the extinguisher from one side and make it a NOS bottle or something like that.
Like this:
Hope that helped
I got a little busy after getting laid off from work and then doing an art test/interviews which I found out today aren't going to pan out.
So..back to the portfolio I go!
re.wind - Haha, definitely sticking with the rule of cool here. I like having the jet open...although it would be impossible to ride. We can just pretend there is some invisible energy barrier that is protecting the legs from the heat...that or nanobots.
MiAlx - Thanks! Not too sure on what colors I will use yet....I'll probably do some thumbs when the bike is finished to figure out the paint job..but I am leaning towards greens and purples.
I agree with the symmetry. If you look close enough you'll see that the text is actually backwards lol.. My unwrap is super tight now, so maybe I can fit in a spot for a plane that I can place on top to change the sign...I'll see what I can do in a bit.
Gonna just get back to modeling again first. I did the art test in Maya, so I gotta get used to Max again.
So..not a huge update..but since my last one I did a little more work on the handlebars/dash area..its not much..but I can't make a new post without moar arts.
ok..as usual...crits and comments would be awesome!
Wear and Stickers are a good idea, definitely. I was originally working with another artist and technical artist and we were going to try to do some cool stuff with customization in Unity...like swappable engines, player chosen color palette, and dynamic wear and tear as a race went on. Unfortunately we never really stuck with it...and the layoff forced us to move on....since we didn't really have time to do things for fun at that point.
So at this point, I'm more focused just on getting a finished portfolio piece than doing a cool joint effort...so a lot of the things that I left up in the air, such as color and damage and whatnot are probably going to be added now.
Now I have the gas cap, the top rear wings, the skidplate, and a few other things to finish up, then I can move on to the low poly.
I played with the skid plate/springboard, and I just couldn't come up with something I liked, so I decided to remove it. I really liked the idea of having some steel piece to protect the bottom of the bike, but it just didn't work out.
I added some little thruster dealios on the bottom to give vertical thrust to the bike. I'm gonna add some stuff up underneath the gas tank area and under the engine....just some stuff to make the inside less plain.
If you guys have any suggestions for the skid plate or the back stabilizer wings...or anything, let me know. I struggled with those bits all day yesterday and I could use some other eyes/opinions on it.
Good call. It does look disconnected. I tried adding some tubing that connects to the jet. I might do some electrical wiring as well.
I'm thinking that maybe the verticle thrusters operate independently from the jet, but they leech off the air intake and electricity from the engine.
Can't wait to see it finished
When you are done... we are going to need some nice presentation shots. Because we have all these beautiful chunks of polys but no presentations to match. *shakes fist*
:P Keep up the beautiful work man.
Joshflighter: Thanks! Yeah, the seat doesn't look comfy. I went ahead and fixed this.
Arac: Thanks!
jeremiah_bigley: Thanks dude.
I finished up the remaining little bits for the high poly. I took it into zbrush just to do a little bit on the seat and I took a few beauty shots while I was at it.
I'm thinking I'm done with the high poly, unless you guys have some critiques that suggest otherwise. I guess I'll move on to the low poly!
in other words, good job ! :P
What bike is it? Your own design?
OT: What bike do you ride irl?
Always interested in how others do it
SasoChicken: Haha sure! Althought I'm not done yet
Vailias: Thanks! I really liked the jet moto challenge. Unfortunately I wasn't a member on the boards yet...I will still too intimidated by the motley polycount crew.
garriola83: Thanks man. I still think you should make a guy to ride my bike
CandyStripes05: Thanks dude.
kodde: Thanks. The bike is a mix of a bunch of different bikes and my own design. I think I took the most cues from a slightly older gsxr (fairings and dash) and kawasaki ninja (headlamps), and a few other random models. I just kinda changed things around a little bit to fit the bike (like having the fairings be a little more open to expose the jet for all to see
Sadly, in real life I don't own a bike, nor have I ever rode one to be honest. Whenever I bring up the idea of getting one, my gf shoots me down because shes convinced that I would probably kill myself. This kinda presented a bit of a challenge actually..since I wanted the bike to make sense...for parts to be where they are supposed to be and look like they function the way they should...so I did a bunch of research throughout the process.
In Zbrush, I used the "SilverFoilBright" matcap material, and changed the color to be a very slight yellow/green. I didn't save the exact color but R:124 G:127 B:113 looks to be very close.
Then I just used Best Preview Render and exported out the different passes: Image, Depth, Shadow, AO, and Mask. I took those into photoshop and put them all together. I multiplied the Shadow and AO maps the the image with varying levels of opacity, and used the depth image to get a slight DOF affect with a lense blur. The result looks almost exactly like what you see in the Zbrush viewport after doing a Best Preview Render.
Good that you changed the seat, looks so much better