LM71 Stalker Gunship - WIP

[Xoliul]

No problem, I just love to provide some assistance in a cool vehicle like this coming together, so keep us posted! Btw you say you were trained, what did you follow for a course ?

edit: checked your website, a university course I see. Interesting you were also an avionics technician, I can imagine that background could definitely provide you the ability to make designs like these more believable.
How come you use Max now instead of Maya, as your other work on the website?

[Kaburan]

Yes, i'm trying to get proficient at both Max and Maya together. I'm still discovering my strengths and weaknesses and trying to work on both sides of the spectrum.

I'm trying to get better and have better work to replace the ones currently on my site

And thanks Xol again, for the PSD's i've used some of those labels.

[Kaburan]

showNOmercy
Added some wear on the forward thruster areas to simulate debris scratches during flight.

sampson
I worked on some more panels and refined them to give them more shape and function using an F14 Tomcat paneling as reference.

Xoliul
Thanks for the tips and allowing me to use some of your labels. Those will definitely come in handy. I rendered to a grey background (so simple but I never even seen that "8" control panel").

Xol, I also love how you do your scratches. Could you give me some pointers? They look awesome on your models.

By the way Doylle's max viewport shader rocks. Helped me update my textures on the fly. So I lightened up the overall diffuse, added scratches, more stripe designs, as well as the spec, and normal map. This definitely popped out the model a bit more.

Im having a quick problem though. I was trying to do a nice render using vray, it came out great but it doesnt render out the alpha's. Does anyone know the solution to this? Otherwise once I get that and any final comments, i'll be ready to wrap this up and submit it into Final Works.

[Xoliul]

Hey man, good progress you're making.
Some things I see:
First of all, the normal maps are very noisey and busy: the wear pattersn are equally strong as the panel-lines on your normal map, making it look like stone or something in some areas. You probably have used crazybump or the nvidia filter to do a normalmap in one pass from your entire diffuse (maybe more, can't really tell), which is something you really should avoid. When I do normalmaps without baking, I always create those details like panellines, grilles and hinges first, making sure they really pop out obviously. Then, I will separately create areas that look indented where the paint was chipped away. Only after all this is done, I will generate the normalmap from the noisey patterns, and overlay it very, very lightly (like 10%opacity or less). So for your normalmap: boost up the details & lines, tone down the noise and damage.
For your diffuse you also have the problem that damage and wear is taking over too much, losing the material definition. Doylle's written a great article about this however, should be out in the next few days.
Specmap is on the right track, though it seems very dark in the AO'ed areas. Might also want to make the regular painted area's brighter so they have more specular, and increase the contrast on those so the spec looks more interesting.

And on rendering: Vray is definitely my absolute favorite rendering engine, but I hardly ever use it for game-props with normals and spec. Doylle for example presents his stuff with scanline renderer only. So to get your renders to look really good, look into a multi-light setup with colored backlight, set your Anti-Aliasing engine to something sharp and crisp, like Catmull-Rom (neverrrr Box or Area, yuck). Some Photoshop post-processing like an unsharp mask filter and a bloom will also look great.

[vladino]

I can just second what Xoliul said. The diffuse map looks quite good on a sheet but getting decreased on the model by the normal map.

I would also add more contrast and saturation to your diffuse map so the color stands out more.

And definitely use some sharper filter to render

Really nice concept tho!

[Kaburan]

Originally Posted by Xoliul

Hey man, good progress you're making.
Some things I see:
First of all, the normal maps are very noisey and busy: the wear pattersn are equally strong as the panel-lines on your normal map, making it look like stone or something in some areas. You probably have used crazybump or the nvidia filter to do a normalmap in one pass from your entire diffuse (maybe more, can't really tell), which is something you really should avoid. When I do normalmaps without baking, I always create those details like panellines, grilles and hinges first, making sure they really pop out obviously. Then, I will separately create areas that look indented where the paint was chipped away. Only after all this is done, I will generate the normalmap from the noisey patterns, and overlay it very, very lightly (like 10%opacity or less). So for your normalmap: boost up the details & lines, tone down the noise and damage.
For your diffuse you also have the problem that damage and wear is taking over too much, losing the material definition. Doylle's written a great article about this however, should be out in the next few days.
Specmap is on the right track, though it seems very dark in the AO'ed areas. Might also want to make the regular painted area's brighter so they have more specular, and increase the contrast on those so the spec looks more interesting.

And on rendering: Vray is definitely my absolute favorite rendering engine, but I hardly ever use it for game-props with normals and spec. Doylle for example presents his stuff with scanline renderer only. So to get your renders to look really good, look into a multi-light setup with colored backlight, set your Anti-Aliasing engine to something sharp and crisp, like Catmull-Rom (neverrrr Box or Area, yuck). Some Photoshop post-processing like an unsharp mask filter and a bloom will also look great.

Yes, thanks for the C&C on my textures. I agree with you on the normal map, I actually used the nvidial filter on my dirt and scratch layers, messed with the settings for different outcomes but I really like your method of working on them on separate levels. (really not experienced with normal maps but learning!) Thanks for the advice!

[Kaburan]

Originally Posted by vladino

I can just second what Xoliul said. The diffuse map looks quite good on a sheet but getting decreased on the model by the normal map.

I would also add more contrast and saturation to your diffuse map so the color stands out more.

And definitely use some sharper filter to render

Really nice concept tho!

Good idea on the contrast and saturation. I asked another friend and he agrees with you.

[Kaburan]

Heres to both of your guys' ideas. Definitely helped a lot.

1) Toned down the dirt layers
2) Created normal map with focus on gunship panels and less gritty effect (stone effect)
3) Increased saturation of pinstripes for more color pop.
4) Rendered with Catmull-Rom

Overall I think this looks much cleaner. Thanks a lot guys.

[swag]

Looking much better!

It might just be me, but some parts of the texture look a little blurry (like on the front Engine turbine). Did you try to sharpen your texture at all? Also, the small gun under the cockpit doesn't look like it has a hole in it (for a laser beam). Could just be something you missed on the texture, you should try to darken or wear-out that area a bit.

[Kaburan]

Aye I have, and thanks a lot, the final renders are in the Finished works. It's been wrapped up, a lot has been learned and I will continue to apply to next model. Thanks everyone!