LM71 Stalker Gunship - WIP

[Kaburan]

For which Engine - UT3
Current Polycount - 3,870
Max Polycount - 4,000
Texture Size - 1024 by 1024

Hello Folks,
I'm new here and would like to extend my thanks in advance for support and crits. I've been working on a vehicle and have started working on my textures for it. Heres a quick run down.

The Gunship is a VTOL (Vertical Take off & Landing) concept and model with my inspiration from BF2142 and the C&C games. This vehicle is a single pilot gunship that is equipped with a primary automatic weapon and a large (somehow phallic which i've just realized) cannon for heavy weapon support.

The Thrusters on the side will rotate based on the amount of thrust input by the pilot.

Here is a concept painting of my gunship which is dubbed "Stalker".



The following image is the model i've built and it has undergone some changes (primarily the nose mounted gun which has now been built into the fuselage.)



So far so good, water tight and STL checks all systems nominal. I decided to go ahead with the unwrap and texturing. (I'll post the sheets soon)

I did a quick (diffuse color and alpha maps) render to see the direction of the gunship and would like some ideas from other artist as to how I can improve the textures of the ship.



After my first pass, I see how the nose is lacking detail, and overall design needs some more evaluation. I pulled up some resources ie F14 Tomcat, other fighter planes and helicopters. I added a general pinstripe to add to the look, but i'm not sure about the nose still. I may have to try a few ideas.



So this is where I stand thus far. I'm going to need to develop ideas to enhance the overall look of the gunship. I may need to rough out different ideas for the pinstripe and give the gunship some fundamental variety. As well as continuing the detail work especially the thrusters since its lacking.

Attached is the Texture Map

Once again thanks for checking out my project, and look forward to any crits.

[swag]

Everything looks fantastic to me, can't really see or think of any crits.

Do you have any specular or normal maps yet? I'd like to see those. Also, the last image is a little dark, it you lit it up it would be much easier to make out the texture.

[Kaburan]

I agree, i'll lighten up the diffuse a tad with contrast. I don't have spec or normals on there yet, i've just been working on the Diffuse, Glow and Alpha, running cycles until i've been happy with it.

[Xoliul]

Lovely project dude, very nice design you have going there.
Throw those typical military jet placards all over it, you know "no step", "caution: hot exhaust", "tie down" and the likes.
You know what i'll just upload you mine, found most of them online anyway.

Also, try making better renders. No black background (dark grey is always a a winner), put a keylight in it to light the front, and place a colored light behind it (blue or red or something) to make it pop with a lit rim effect. Spec and normals will also really make this shine (definitely grab Doylle's Max viewport shader if you're gonna start working with those)

[sampson]

i recommend doing some panneling on the ship with rectangles/similar shapes and using highlights on the edges. But its up to you. start refining your textures till you get em right.
this should also look killer once a specular goes on it.

[vladino]

This is very promising start! I like it a lot!

Looking forward to seeing how this turn out. As other pointed out add much more details and try rendering on lighter background so we can see the model better

[Kaburan]

Originally Posted by Xoliul

No black background (dark grey is always a a winner), put a keylight in it to light the front, and place a colored light behind it (blue or red or something) to make it pop with a lit rim effect. Spec and normals will also really make this shine (definitely grab Doylle's Max viewport shader if you're gonna start working with those)

Definitely thumbs up for the crits, I agree and take good note if it. I have a couple questions. How do you render with a grey background? Do you just use planes with a blinn slapped on?

Also, im not sure what Doylle's Max viewport shader is, could you forward me some info? Thanks again in advance. Wait Wait nm, found it. Search works wonders, thanks again!
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/ap...rt-shader.html

[showNOmercy]

Great concept and progress, I agree that the critiques made thus far seem right on the button. One thing I'd add to the diffuse would be some more wear marks on the front rim of the engines intake area.

If you want a gray background while rendering you could add a plane or press "8" and change the color there. It all depends on what effect you're aiming for. The beauty of Doylle's Max viewport shader is that you need not bother with background color's cause all you need to do is do a print screen (screen grab) and your view port background color will be used as his shader is a real-time view port shader.

Look forward to seeing this progress.

[Xoliul]

Originally Posted by Kaburan

Definitely thumbs up for the crits, I agree and take good note if it. I have a couple questions. How do you render with a grey background? Do you just use planes with a blinn slapped on?

Also, im not sure what Doylle's Max viewport shader is, could you forward me some info? Thanks again in advance. Wait Wait nm, found it. Search works wonders, thanks again!
http://www.game-artist.net/forums/ap...rt-shader.html

ShowNoMercy has a good point, you don't really have to render anymore if you use that shader, I find it's more difficult to get the same cool ingame-type look with a regular scanline render than to just use the shader and do viewport grabs (tip: Tools->Grab Viewport, no need for PrintScreen then).

But a setting grey background is elementary: Rendering>Environment, or hit 8 on your keyboard. There you set the background color by clicking the black rectangle to get a color-picker.

[Kaburan]

Outstanding, thanks a lot guys. I've been trained for the fundamentals, but it's ultimately these cool tricks that assist in providing good presentation and real time rendering. I'll have an update soon.