Airtug - yes it's McQue-esque

PLing

I too was inspired by Ian McQue's awe-inspiring concept work and with my current contract ending I need something to fill my quite outdated portfolio. I'm on a really tight schedule here and I never thought I could work this fast.

Crits are always welcome since there's probably a million things I'm doing wrong! It's also my first big high-to-low poly model so any hints on the baking would be awesome.



I'll try to update the thread daily.

PLing

Added bits and bobs and I think I'm gonna have to call this stage done. Time is running out.

Any tips on the low poly baking? Would I explode the mesh to separate sections, make the lowpolies and then put it back together? What about AO baking, separate or all together?

jordan.kocon

You should post the concept. I don't have any crits on the model, I think it looks awesome, I really like the style/proportions. The details are all nice and beefy and look like they should transfer well. As for baking, the way I approach it, which is probably the longer, more time consuming way, is I bake each piece individually. I'm still a noob to baking, so I like going piece by piece so I can trouble shoot as I go and have a lot of control. Then for AO, I usually merge together all the non-instanced pieces, and bake the AO, then bake each duplicated piece uniquely out in space so it doesn't recieve any strange shadow's from its duplicates.

PLing

There's no real concept, just a mash-up of elements inspired mostly by Ian's lightship concept;
http://www.leet.cc/lightship_landscape.jpg

Yeah I might go with baking separate pieces like you described, doing it when stuff is close to eachother sounds like something is bound to go wrong. :P

PLing

Hey it's not dead! Who knew!

It took a few days of work but here it is. I wanted to do something else with the fins but didn't have enough time. Comments, crits and tips are welcome!

Rav3

Looks fine! But you need to improve render and materials, extra details will be also nice (anchor for example).You can think about environment too. Keep it up! :thumbup:

PLing

Yeah the environment was the UDK default afternoon, not very inspiring I know.

Any particular material catching your eye? Maybe the deck structures are a bit too dull and not shiny enough.

ericdigital

I think when I first seen the high poly for this it seemed like the construction was made from all kinds of different metals/colors kind of like what ever they could find. Now it kind of just looks like the same metal sheet that has random cuts in it. Even though the concept is made of all the same material it has tons of rust/oxidation/left over paint that is giving it blues and reds and green that bring a lot of interest to the surface.

It also could just be the lighting but the metal overall just looks kind of glossy and doesn't really pop. I dunno just something to think about!

PLing

I must have forgotten that colourful look in the process, I'll try to patch it up a bit.