CGTalk - Ak-47 3k polies

senor freebie

05-10-2005, 10:34 PM

After much procrastination and worrying I have finally completed the Ak-47. This is perhaps the project I feared the most while working on PoE. This is the gun that literally changed the world. Since its creation it has helped the under-dog level the playing field with the greatest powers on earth. The Vietnam war and Afghan war coming immediately to mind. Ironically in the latter the Ak-47 was even used against its creators.

Anyway enough of the history lesson. I'm sure you guys all appreciate that stuff anyway. The most challenging part of modelling this wasn't that it is the most significant weapon in real life. It was because it has been done by so many before. In other words ... I expect a high standard of work out of myself and the broader the competition the harder the challenge.

Onto the renders. I killed 2 birds with one stone. First I modelled the Ak-47 Model 1955; a slight update most obvious because of the indents above the magazine. Then I modelled the folding stock variant used for paratroopers and vehicle crews. This is known as the AKMS.

Just in case it is mentioned we are quite aware that this weapon was already in Battlefield Vietnam. It is my belief I was assigned it because the DICE model was not up to PoE standard. I may however be wrong.

Avtomat Kalashnikov 1947 Model 1955:

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/AkM1955.jpg

AKMS:

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/AkMS.jpg

Ghostscape

05-11-2005, 12:14 AM

Wow! That looks really slick. can we get a wireframe?

HellBoy

05-11-2005, 01:51 PM

wow, theres enough details that can make you say wow, but if its for a game, why so much poly? either way its cool

senor freebie

05-11-2005, 01:58 PM

3,000 polies is low for many modern day FPS. I don't know but I suspect that HL-2's weapons are much higher detail.

Por@szek

05-11-2005, 03:18 PM

I think thet there is no need to put more polies in to this weapon. It looks awesome. Give us a wire, and texture it.
Good detailed job :thumbsup:

AoB

05-11-2005, 06:40 PM

WOW.. now thats a kick ass weapon..Good choice of gun aswel. put a sweet texture on that and it will rock..Con grats..:buttrock:

senor freebie

05-12-2005, 12:48 AM

The Ak-47, For when you absolutely, positively need to kill every mother f'er in the room.

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/Akwire.jpg

Ghostscape

05-12-2005, 02:35 AM

is this spline modelled? There is no way that is a polygon wireframe.

GoK

05-12-2005, 11:46 AM

ngons! i suspect.. is polys just some of the wires are hidden pretty much!

Jody

RmachucaA

05-12-2005, 01:46 PM

Maybe he meant the "final" model will be 3k polys, cause thats a lot more for sure.

Tronno

05-12-2005, 04:31 PM

That looks like a perfectly reasonable poly wire. Is the polycount in triangles or quads? Because that looks like a lot of detail for just 3k tris. If it really is that low, then congratulations - that's an amazing mesh you made.

Now go unwrap that thing. :thumbsup:

senor freebie

05-17-2005, 05:16 AM

Tronno is right. This is Tris and this is simply an example of a decently optimised mesh. I could have made it lower and distributed my polies more evenly but as I did this first try (didn't repeat any parts or optimise once finished) I couldn't be bothered. In all this took about 6 hours to model with both versions. Now I will provide an example of my optimisation methods. Note that I don't use anything that will cause the unwrap / texture to be lower resolution the necessary.

Here are some examples of random optimisations I included on the mesh to save poly count. Oh and unwrap is at about 50%. Unwraps take me about 60% of the time required to model a weapon as I try to pump the largest possible about of resolution out of the map. I will post a picture demonstrating this when done.

Here I use drawn out triangles to make the inside of the barrel. This is ok when the barrel isn't visible on first person. Third person views rarely show this much detail unless the gun is against your eyeball.

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/ak/barrel2.JPG

Here I have used a mirrored object and shared its central polies effectively halving poly usage for that point. I also target welded vertices on the 'strap holder' so that they didn't have a vertice for every side on the cylinder.

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/ak/barrel.JPG

This one I was quite proud of. Instead of connecting these faces to every little vertice on the wider part or the magazine I moved and welded the vertices so there was about 2/3's the original poly usage.

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/ak/barrel2.JPG

Here I use mirrored parts again. keep in mind that the stock is an animatable part. Fortunately it just rotated and the poly saving is never revealed to the players eyes.

http://204.11.239.71/Senor_Freebie/ak/stock.JPG

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