F-4K Phantom II
vertex
After my last scene, I've moved on to a new one. This time I'm going for a scene involving the F-4K Phantom II aboard the HMS Ark Royal (R09). Here's a shot of the airraft so far. No textures yet, just plain materials.
I still need to model the tailhook, spoilers, landing gear, cockpit and inner engine, The rest of the detail, like panels and bolts I'll do with normal maps. I may give the aircraft's albedo two UV channels, one for base paint and another for decals that can be swapped in and out so I can create more variants. I'll also create the weapon and fuel loads for under the wings. Once I've done with these, I'll quickly model the carrier's surface, and play with creating an ocean underneath too.
I still need to model the tailhook, spoilers, landing gear, cockpit and inner engine, The rest of the detail, like panels and bolts I'll do with normal maps. I may give the aircraft's albedo two UV channels, one for base paint and another for decals that can be swapped in and out so I can create more variants. I'll also create the weapon and fuel loads for under the wings. Once I've done with these, I'll quickly model the carrier's surface, and play with creating an ocean underneath too.
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Here's the paint job I'm going for:
I'm considering moving text and the ejection warning markers and things to a separate texture on a different UV channel and then mix it in the node editor so I can have high detail on both sides of the mesh without reversal.
I'm also going to unwrap the tailplanes and wings, and that little intake near the nose. That'll be nearly all of the exterior mapped, so I can focus on texturing.
Also tweaked the lighting because just the HDR sky by itself wasn't doing enough. So I've added a sunset-coloured hemi lamp and lined it up with the sky. I think it helps the metal details pop.
EDIT: Tweaked the lighting because I didn't think the blue-grey of the paint was obvious enough. Also made it even more rough. Also realised I forgot to turn off my albedo panel lines layer so now they're only normal-map stuff, makes for a much more subtle effect.
Playing with lighting too, still unsure quite how I'm going to frame it. Just stuck some quick colour grading on here too. I may end up ditching the carrier as this has dragged on a while. Any ideas?
EDIT:
I'm toying with this kind of colouring instead to kinda make it look like an old photograph. Good idea?
Added 4 as yet untextured Skyflash (British AIM-7s, basically) missiles, and a pair of very poorly UV'd fuel pods. I may also add a center fuel pod and inner wing pylons.
So, assuming I'm getting rid of the carrier, I now have a checklist!
To model-
- Pilot Cockpit Instruments (these won't be super detailed, may even go for a flat texture instead of modelling most of it as it's just for show.
- RIO Cockpit Instruments, same as above.
- Engine inner afterburner and nozzle (currently the intakes to the engines are just sealed off, I'm going to add both the intake fans that can be seen from the front and the back of the hjet engine at the back)
- maybe still add landing gear for the sake of completeness.
- add the inner wing pylons with AIM-9s on
- Pilots!
- Possibly add in the leading-edge flaps to the wings, at the minute I've just pretended they don't exist.
To Texture-- The canopy, including frame
- Engine exhaust and inner engine
- Tailhook
- cockpit panels and ejection seats
- Missiles and fuel pods
- Change the front fuselage markings to match that of the starboard side of the aircraft, and not the port side. The port side ones look good, but if I'm trying to be accurate it has to go!
- More details and chips on the wings and underside.
Extras-Cockpit and pilots still to go. Main issue is that I have no experience character sculpting, so I may just whip up a low poly simple character and use that instead of going into detail.